X-Marks The Pedwalk

More than music
From the very first beginning we wanted to have a concept around our musical ideas. We both worked at a hospital for psychic diseases and so we decided to make the human psyche the basic theme of the scarecrow-lyrics - especially the negative and dark sides of human psyche. Also esoteric and spiritual ideas were integrated in our songs. In some interviews you can read that we both studied psychology - we never did even we were interested in for a long time.
The deal
We produced our first demo-tape (including samples from the movie evil dead) and sent it to 3 record companies. After only a few days 2 of the companies wanted to make a deal with us. We got one special call I always remember when I think about - it was Talla2XLC... We were invited to come to Frankfurt and to sign a contract at the famous Technodrome International Label.
From Scarecrow to ZOTH OMMOG
In 1988 our first single "black door" was released. It was a success in Germany and also in Benelux. But the time of Scarecrow was running out, because Talla decided to found a new label and he wanted us to come with him. So we had to change our bandname. We took our new name out of a horror-story by fritz leiber (we found this story in a stephen king book - called danse macabre) - X-MARKS THE PEDWALK. We also decided to give us pseudonyms and so my new name was SEVREN NI-ARB (backwards for brain nerves) and my friend Jörg took the name REGAN ERACS (Regan was taken from the movie the exorcist and eracs is backwards for scare).The new label and our musical home for a long time was of course the famous ZOTH OMMOG label of Talla2XLC.
First steps
After releasing the xmtp-debut-single ARBITRARY EXECUTION we had our first club-hit with our second single DANGER (also released as CD DISEASE CONTROL including a special bonus-track) and supported by the one and only xmtp-video. After DANGER we produced and released the all time smash-hit of xmtp ABATTOIR (12" and 5" CD) followed by our first full length album FREAKS and our first xmtp-tour (concerts in germany and one concert in Budapest/hungary). As a special release to support the tour we released the 12"/5" CD CENOTAPH. This was the end of a first important part of xmtp....
A new future
X-Marks the pedwalk became an important part of the electronic music scene around the world, but Regan and me had different opinions and plans how xmtp should go on. So I decided to go my own way and I wanted to concentrate only on music - as my profession. I wanted to feel free and independent in producing my music. I ended my studies at the university of Münster, founded the famous T.G.I.F.-Studios (shortcut for Thank God It´s Friday) and Regan left the band.
New member
At this time my brother Thorsten built up a band called DELUGA, first demo-productions should happen at T.G.I.F. Another member and lead-vocalist of DELUGA was my early girl-friend Stefanie (you know her as ESTEFANIA). Thorsten and me had a lot of fun working together on ideas and concepts and so I decided that Thorsten is the second member of xmtp. His pseudonym is RAIVE YARX (Raive is a simple name that came up in our mind and Yarx is backwards for X-Ray.). Fruits
Our first cooperation was the single THE TRAP taken from the album HUMAN DESOLATION - our most successfull album all the time. Another tour and a another single PARANOID ILLUSIONS came up. With our third album THE KILLING HAD BEGUN, and another tour through Germany, zoth ommog released a first Best-Of-Compilation called AIRBACKTRAX - including the legendary ABATTOIR Razormaid-Mix.
New ways
With our single FACER 1995 we changed our music style very radically. We combined Techno-Dance and Crossover-Industrial with EBM-elements. First it was a hard cut for our fans and the electro scene (a lot of people had no good words for us) but later you found this style all over the scene. FACER was a Club-Hit (Position 4 in the german alternative charts). After FACER our fourth album MESHWORK was released - same reaction by fans in Germany but a very successfull album outside europe.
In this period of xmtp we had a great success in the states, but we never got the time to tour the states even we know that our fans waited and asked four a tour ever. Beside xmtp I ever had a lot of side-projects and during this period I laso started to invest in commercial music productions - without any big success. My motivation to invest more time and energy in music became less and less.
The end...
...of my music carreer so far was the xmtp-album DRAWBACK, my personal favourite xmtp-album. We invested all power and energy we left, but because of a bad promotion, a missing tour... there was no bigger success than the releases before. Even I expanded the T.G.I.F.-Studios my plans for a new way and a new profession became more important. My very last produvtion at T.G.I.F. was the PAX-Album "high speed digital spirit processing".
I changed my profession and ended my music career in 1997/1998. There were a lot of reasons: one is that the "magic of music" was gone. The complete electronic-music-scene wasn´t longer "my home" after a long period of music-productions (people, music, companys...) On the other hand there was my family - I wanted to concentrate more on this side.