Spring 2004. One faithful day, schoolmates David Ulbricht and Carl Schmidt decided to take over the world. As they didn’t succeed in the first attempt, they formed a band in the meantime. Rehearsing, to the displeasure of some other students, took place in school.
Very quickly, the Two-People-Combo understood the importance of (firstly) a drummer and (secondly) a proper name. An answer to the first problem was found with Jakob Remde, a solution for the other question though still had to be found.
As first practice room the band invaded the one of Nitrolyt, which was located opposite a Russian men’s house… („Heavy Metal, okay?!â€).
April 16th 2004 is a date worth remembering: the first rehearsal with Jakob took place. There were some experiments concerning the name of the band, although rumours in the underground spoke about a bigger, better, greater name with qualities never heard of: Shredder. But still a whole year was to come and go until the band had the first gig with this name.
In May, Jan playing rhythm guitar joined. Some covers were played, for example “Sin City†by AC/DC and “Song 2†by Blur. The first gig ever took place on summer. Bad equipment and a terrible sound defined the performance – the audience though was frenetic. In autumn, Shredder moved to a new room for band-practice: Jakobs cellar.
Thereafter the band’s development was stuck. The next gig (in winter) was performed without Jan. Thus it became clear that it probably would be better for both, Jan and band, to go different ways. From that time on, a new spirit was in the members. New songs were being written and the name Shredder finally became established. In summer 2005 the band could be awed in flesh and bone once again.
Having survived the tortures of graduation it was about time to take on another problem: the vocals. Up to then bass-player Carl transitionally (from the beginning) had taken that part.
A great number of attempts to find a fitting singer failed. But in autumn 2005, Karl Heyer proved to be a good choice as vocalist. Shortly after a Demo-CD was recorded.
A few weeks later the official website was launched – finally Shredder had a place to call their own in the widths of the web. A lot of gigs followed in and around Leipzig with increasing frequency.
In the closer future probably an album will be recorded – so there’s a lot to look forward to.
