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Down The Years // |
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The Year 1982
Walter November,
Breiti, Campi, Kuddel, Andi 1982 was a black year for this country; some events are impossible to forget, such as the pathetic 1-0 defeat of the national team by Austria in the World Cup, the so-called "Wende" ("Change") in the chancellorship and the arrival of the Toten Hosen's star in the music business firmament. Nobody could possibly have guessed way back in 1982 that for the latter, this was to be the ticket to the world of wrecked hotel rooms and broken hearts. The debut single "Wir sind bereit" ("We're ready") and "Reisefieber" ("Travelbug") were recorded in an afternoon in "Rudas Studio" in Duesseldorf, " the only place where we didn't have to pay up front and where our word still counted for something". The up-and-coming musicians had devoted themselves beforehand to the study of classic by the likes of Gary Glitter, Slade, Chelsea, Peter and the Test Tube Babies and Motorhead. Lots of study trips to London were a great help too. Thanks to Trini's brilliant business plan "let's charge more, so it will be cheaper", the Hosen were able to shower their friends for years to come with this little gem of a single. Campino remembers: "None of us could play. Andi's bass only had two strings and the drum kit didn't even have any toms!" That autumn the six young intrepid lads embarked on their first German tour. This took the Hosen to some unlikely destinations, such as Gelsenkirchen, Berlin and Kirkel. The fact that the audience was looking at the "successful survivors, more or less, of the first generation German punk movement" was documented in the band's first publicity blurb. At that time the Toten Hosen comprised Trini Trimpop (ex KFC) on drums, Andi (former ZK roady ) on bass, Kuddel (ex ZK), Breiti and Walter (ex Aram und die Schaffner) on guitar and Campino (ex ZK) on vocals. The band a.k.a. the follow-up to ZK, wanted to play for small groups of people for a low cover charge and, as the band-info succinctly put it, "what they really want isn't entirely clear, otherwise they wouldn't be "Tote(n) Hosen" ("deadbeats")." Of course, as you would expect, everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong: Malfunctioning microphones, busted PAs and speakers, no payment, nowhere to sleep - in other words: pure chaos and the Hosen slap bang in the middle of it all. Despite all of this, the line-up as it was had a great time, as did most of their audiences, occasionally actually even during the concerts. |
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