I was born and raised in the divided city of Berlin/Germany.
Since the first days of my childhood i was heavily influenced by my fathers passion: music!
Dad was a pro after the war, played 10 instruments and was totally into Glen Miller and his Big Band music, Mom liked the easy-listening stuff but i was more into Rock 'n' Roll caused by my older brothers and sister.
And at my 9th birthday it happened: my first guitar! - tadaaaaa!
Not too good, not too bad, a small acoustic thing fell right into my hands... whow!
Life was never like before after that! Starting out to play some chords, being happy to intonate some songs and was totally away, for years!
Melodies and chords were patterns, everything was fine.
At age 15 i worked for and bought myself an electric guitar and an amp. It has to be a Stratcopy (Hendrix looked soo cool!) from Pearl and the amp was a solid state Ross (does anybody remember that company?).
Around age 16 another thing happened:
stage 2 - a friend showed me the a minor pentatonic scale and power chords!
Suddenly i was able to immitate parts of Led Zep, Deep Purple, UFO, Rory Gallagher, Queen and all that stuff. But the sound... ouch! I had to have a Distortion Pedal!
That was it!
I was heavily infected!
I started to play eight hours each day, buy records and taped anything i can't afford to buy.
ABBA to Zappa, Purple via Genesis to Yes, Gary Moore to Michael Schenker...
Began to play along the records and had a very good time back then.
Again my father gave me another direction (maybe it was the rosen level of noise pollution at home..): 'Boy, find some people to make music together! Try to make it onto stage. Thats the proving ground for a musician!'
Oh yeah! Nice idea! But what to play?
I loved (and still do!!) the songs from TOTO, Journey or Styx for my melodic sense but the sheer power of Van Halen or AC/DC gave me the pure rock 'n' roll feeling of what it's all about: girls, party and having a good time!
In between these poles i found the finesse of canadian bands such as Rush or Saga!
So what to do? All at once!
Very fast i came to the conclusion: talking about it is one thing, make it happen with a band another! I had to learn more!
.... roadies hate me ;-)
I played in a few bands, met a lot of interesting musicians and tried to improve my abilities. For some time i was very self-satisfied with my guitar playing and then:
November 1984 i held the guitar player magazine in my hands and there was a 'soundsheet' in it: 'Steve Vai - the attitude song' with transcription!
What a slap in the face!
That guy is from outer space! No doubt!
Next Year: Alcatrazz - Disturbing the peace! Nomen est omen...
The guitar player? Guess who.. Steve Vai again!
Needless to say: I wanted to be able to play that stuff! That record turned so much on my recordplayer that you can see through it! Due to the facts of limitations i had to find my way to play it and that helped me out to find myself!
..
After laying down the wish to be a 'Steve Vai-Clone' the whole thing became more relaxed! There is so much good music on this planet and i am happy to be a musician!
the Quasimodo-Humpback-Overneck-Position!!!
I've played in the band Steam with very nice people in it, who liked the idea of being a versatile band with self defined borders.
What a luxury!
Recently i joined the Berlin Band "Papperlapop" for ONE Gig (the only one in Europe) and some studioworks! I'm looking forward to it, 'cause these guys 'n girls are tremendous musicians!!!
