THE STORY BEGINS...
Alphaville took their name from the 1965 movie written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard (the group's favorite director) starring Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina. The screenplay's original title was "Tarzan versus IBM", but this was changed during production. In the movie Alphaville is the name of a futuristic city - & Alphaville obviously IS Paris, which symbolizes the fact that the word Alphaville stands for the most fascinating aspect of the reality.
1977-1982
Christmas 1981: very first official appearance of the founding members Marian Gold and Bernhard Lloyd with the 7-headed Nelson Community, a collective of artists, from which a little later Alphaville will arise.
Marian Gold: "The idea for the Nelson project had been developed in Berlin around 1977 between Ariana, Michael Lehnhoff and me. Nelson was planned as a community of artists who would work in all kinds of directions (painting, literature, photography, music etc). <...> Later on, by the end of 1979, part of Nelson was a band of non-musicians, consisting out of Michael, Ariana, me and some associated superbly dilletant instrumentalists: I (jobless) was supposed to play the bass at that time, Michael (jobless as well) sang and played keys, Ariana (jobless again) was the drummer, also a saxophone, played by Guenther the abdriver and a guitar (Stephanie, student of social economics) were involved. That band never had a name and I wonder if it ever deserved one (lets call it Band With No Name/BWNN).
In 1980 I met Bernhard in Berlin for the first time. He was kinda impressed by Nelson and the idea behind it and he as well as us (meanwhile I had taken Michael's place for the vocals) had produced a couple of demo tapes. It didn't take too long till we decided to put our forces together and create a new musical project, that then later was called Chinchilla Green. Cinichilla consisted out of Ariana, Michael, Bernhard, Fried Tanner (bass) and me. After the move from Berlin to Muenster in early 1981 we started to work on our first public appearance, which took place at the end of the same year at the Forum of Enger, a disco, where Bernhard worked as a DJ. <...> We played only our own compositions and one of them was "Big In Japan". Chinchilla broke up when Michael and Ariana left the band to form their own projects (Melody Nelson and Girl Next Door). Meanwhile Bernhard had started working with Frank and they asked me if I would have interest to attend the sessions as a singer and composer. The result was a
creative explosion which led to more than 20 new songs and another concert
at the end 1982 (again the Forum)".
Chinchilla Green later reformed (but without Marian). Singer Patti Galore released a solo album entitled "Phoenix" in early 1994. They released two albums, "A Taste Of Times To Come..." (1990), and "Gravity" (1991), and at least three singles, including "Save Me", "I Wonder Why" and "You Don't Know What Love is". The group has later splitted up.
1982/83
With the new band name "Forever Young" and with the new line-up Gold/Lloyd/Mertens a second concert takes place (the last for the next ten years).
Marian Gold: "The name of the band was Forever Young and it was then when the song of the same name was played to an audience for the
first time ever. In 1983 I hitchhiked back to Berlin to present a demo tape to several record-companies and publishers. <...> ...The rest is history".
During this time, the band members were holding down various different jobs, and waiting for success to strike, which it soon did: WEA signed Alphaville in late 1983, and "Big in Japan" was released in early 1984. The immediate success of the single allowed the group to work full-time on their first album "Forever Young", which was released later that year.
In one early interview, Marian Gold was asked how he felt whenever he heard "Big in Japan" on the radio. Marian replied that he'd been working in a kitchen when the song hit number one on the charts, so "Big in Japan" always reminds him of peeling potatoes.
1984
The debut-single "Big In Japan" is published (Marc Simon is credited as one of the writers of "Big in Japan" on the single and the Warner music sheet, though not on the album), followed by "Sounds Like A Melody" and "Forever Young". In October the album of the same name is released.
December:
Frank Mertens leaves the band. The guitarist and keyboard player Ricky Echolette, whom Marian had known from when he was a member of the band Chinchilla Green, takes his place. Alphaville writes the soundtrack of the film "Der Bulle Und Das Maedchen" and takes part at the charity project "Band Fuer Afrika" with the song "Nackt im Wind" (Naked in the Wind) in December. Participants were: Alphaville, BAP, Ina Deter, Extrabreit, Geier Sturzflug, Herbert Groenemeyer, Gitte Haenning, Hans Hartz, Hein Rudolf Kunze, George Kranz, Klaus Lage, Udo Lindenberg, Wolf Maahn, Peter Maffay, Ulla Meinecke, Marius Mueller-Westernhagen, Muenchener Freiheit, Nena, Rheingold, Rodgau Monotones, Spider Murphy Gang, Spliff, Trio, Juliane Werding. In February 1985 the song reached number 3 in the German Billboard Charts.
1986
"Dance With Me" is the pre-release of the second album "Afternoons In Utopia", produced by Peter Walsh (Scott Walker / Simple Minds) and Steve Thompson (a-ha, Bowie). The CD includes a live-performing-concept, which however never will be realised, because the band decides against live-concerts in order to concentrate for the time being on studio-activities. In June Alphaville publishes "Afternoons" together with the single "Universal Daddy", in December the single "Jerusalem" is released. At the same time the Alphaville-music-project "Soundtraxx For Imaginary Movies" gets started which triggers off the coming co-operation with Klaus Schulze.
1989
The third album - "The Breathtaking Blue" - is released. In order to avoid the aesthetics of common videoclips the idea is born to connect the music with a shortcut-film. Nine producers, among them Godrey Reggio ("Koyaanisqatsi"), make a film of the pieces of the album under the program-title "Songlines". The contribution of Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein wins the Oscar award in Hollywood under the name 'Balance'. The CD release of 'The Breathtaking Blue' is the first enhanced CD+graphics, the forerunner of the DVD. The producer of the album was Klaus Schulze. According to legend, Schulze arrived at Alphaville's Lunapark for a couple of hours and ended up staying for a year and a half. He has released several solo albums, and some in collaboration with Andreas Grosser, most notably "Babel" (1989), the cover of which features Pieter Bruegel's painting of the Tower of Babel (which also appears as the background to the cover of The Breathtaking Blue).
1992
The best-of album "First Harvest" is released. The CD inlay includes the lyrics for the album, with a comment from Alphaville following many of the songs. In the band-owned Lunapark-studio the pre-works for the new, self-produced album "Prostitute" get started. Marian Gold publishes his first solo-album "So Long Celeste".
Marian Gold: "After an all-night drinking bout, I went to the studio and wrote a song based on a vague idea and recorded it live. I took the tape home with me and there it disappeared. A further attempt to write a song with the same title failed, and so I was left with the only thing that had survived from this composition and have titled the album such. It only later occurred to me, that So long Celeste, when referring to the fate of the song, sounds like an oracle. <...> I had very concrete ideas about how the songs should sound in the end. And it was a real coincidence, that I met Kid & Jon. I discovered a kind of spiritual affinity between the two of them and myself, something which doesn't happen very often to me with people I haven't known for a long time - they put my ideas into practice. The result of what came out of this could be described as a rhythm'n'blues artifact which has been translated into the language of machines."
At the same time the recordings of "Prostitute" get more and more extensive and time-consuming, so that the release date finally is deferred by more than one and a half years.
1993
Due to an invitation the band decides spontaneously, after 10 years stage-abstinence, to give a concert in Beirut. But before, there was AV appearance at the Rocktops open-air festival, Finland (at 26th of June).
1994
Release of the single "Fools", followed by the long-expected fifth album "Prostitute". The CD is a kaleidoscope-like extract of a huge quantity of songmaterial, which arose in the course of the over two years of production work.
In a similar vein to "Middle of the Riddle", which was partially inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice books and The Hunting of the Snark, "All in the Golden Afternoon" is taken almost verbatim from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. "Ivory Tower" appears to be a song written specially for Alphaville fans: it contains several references to previous songs, and it is the tenth song on the album, which was released on (roughly) the tenth anniversary of the group's first album.
The lyrics are handwritten on the CD inlay. In places the handwriting is rather crude (deliberately), and some letters seem to have been either done in a different hand, or heavily emphasised. Putting these letters together forms words or sentences.
1996
Ricky Echolette leaves Alphaville. The Alphaville-tourband is constituted in London. There also the recordings for "Salvation" with the producer Andy Richards (Art Of Noise / OMD) take place. Alphaville successfully launches their official website at http://www.alphaville.de which now is their official means of communication to their fans.
1997
As a first herald of this co-operation the first single "Wishful Thinking" is released. In September the album "Salvation" is released. By the time it was released, Ricky Echolette had officially left the group, though he is credited as having co-written several songs. After this release the contract between the band and their record-company WEA terminates.
The album was repackaged for the US release (2 year later), with three additional tracks, and different credits.
1998
The band continued touring in Germany and Eastern-Europe, they also play gigs in Russia and Peru while they prepare the release of a new album: their Anthology named "Dreamscapes" - a set of eight CDs covering the complete history from the late Seventies to the late Nineties, including live recordings and former unreleased songs and mixes. All of the songs featured on "Dreamscapes" are in a format which has never been released before. And there's something special about "Dreamscapes": Alphaville produces both the music and the artwork themselves.
This does definitely not mean the end of Alphaville - they already prepare a complete new album.
1999
'Dreamscapes' sells incredibly good and Alphaville take the challenge: the song 'Flame' is released in the USA, like 'Dreamscapes' it is distributed by Alphaville, without a major record company. The single features a remixed version of 'Flame', as well as an unplugged version of 'Forever Young' and a live recording of 'Big In Japan'.
The first edition of Dreamscapes is sold out within three months. Alphaville are on the road again - with a new show, a breathtaking light show supports the now nearly perfect band.
June: Alphaville perform a gig at the 'Kieler Woche' in Kiel, Germany for an enthusiastic audience of more than 10.000 people.
The album 'Salvation' is released in the USA with a complete new artwork and three bonus tracks.
In July Alphaville play two big concerts in Salt Lake City, USA. Both concerts are sold out within two weeks, even before promotion started. By the end of July Alphaville play in Portugal for an audience of 17.000 people.
2000
The US edition of Alphaville's album 'Salvation' is sold nationwide in America by Metropolis Records.
The band still performs live shows all over the world and is also working on a new studio album which is planned to be released in 2002. Meanwhile Alphaville released their first official live album 'Stark Naked And Absolutely Live' - with this album they were #1 of the German Alternative Charts for three weeks.
They also do their biggest concert so far: in Szchechin/Poland they play in front of an audience of 300.000 people.
Dreamscapes continues: besides regular releases Alphaville start to publish a new exclusive song on their website every month. Later on, these web songs will be available in high quality on CD.
2001
Bernhard Lloyd releases his solo project 'Atlantic Popes' - a virtual project with a specially shaped web site (atlanticpopes.de).
Marian Gold works - while writing songs for the new Alphaville album - together with Klaus Schulze, Effjott Kr╖Нger (Ideal) and two other titans of electronic music on the allstar project 'Sputnik Roadhouse' for the German tv movie "Klassentreffen", broadcasted by SAT1. Sputnik Roadhouse continue at sputnikroadhouse.de.
Alphaville's first DVD is on it's way: fans from America made it possible to capture the 1999 live shows from Salt Lake City professionally filmed on this future medium.
www.alphaville.info is relaunched and completely redone on August 28, 2001.
While in October the Dreamscapes#9 project is successfully finished the remix album "Forever Pop" is released. It features remixes of many Alphaville classics created by De Phazz, Paul Van Dyk, Mark Plati, F.A.F., Jos╖ш Alvarez Brill, Eiffel65 and others.
2002
In April Alphaville starts the 'Miracle Healing' Tour which lead them not only to Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Austria but also through the entire Federal Republic of Germany. after performing at several summer festivals the band is busy working on the new album CrazyShow. This upcoming album announces another change regarding the band's line-up, because it will be the very first Alphaville album in which Bernhard Lloyd hasn't been involved. In December Marian Gold tours with 'Nokia Night Of The Proms' through Germany.
2003
Since February 14th CrazyShow is distributed. Designed in a special format and limited this 4-cd box set can be ordered at alphaville's website Moonbase and A Different Drum.
On March 18th Bernhard Lloyd announces officially that he is no longer a member of Alphaville. The nucleus of the band now consists of Marian Gold, keyboard player Rainer Bloss, who has co-composed Alphaville's music since the beginning of the 90's and Briton Martin Lister, who has been the musical director of Alphaville's tour-band and who contributed 2 tracks (Still Falls The Rain, Ways) to CrazyShow.
New songs of the album CrazyShow are presented at the "Eurorock" festival in Belgium at April 5th for the first time since the release of the new album.
Shortly after this event the recordings for the opera 'L'invenzione Degli Angeli/The Invention Of Angels' written by Klaus Schulze and Hermann Schneider, begin. The libretto of this opera is written in Italian language. Marian embodies the role of the Envoy.
November 9th: the pre-production of the new album start. Moreover, the preparations for the upcoming year are cooking hot: the band will celebrate its 20th anniversary!
2004
In April/May Marian Gold spends some time in London working with Martin Lister on some new Alphaville songs for the upcoming album. In May he turns 50 and there is even more reason to party: The major headline of this year is undoubtedly the 20th Anniversary which is celebrated on the 29th of August at the Tipi Tent in the Tiergarten, Berlin. The band, friends and fans from all over the world gather to take part in this event. For the first time in the band's history, Alphaville performs with a string quartet. Due to the success of this cooperation, the Berlin Salonorchester Quartet accompanies Alphaville at further concerts on the Anniversary Tour which starts just some weeks later. This tour takes the band to Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Germany and, alongside the popular tunes, new unreleased songs from the upcoming album are presented for the first time.
After the end of the tour Marian Gold, Martin Lister and Rainer Bloss start to work on a musical play based on Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" which will be presented on stage sometime in 2006 in Wuerzburg, Germany. Concurrently, Alphaville continues to focus its attention on the upcoming album, which is planned to be released in Autumn 2005. The Alphaville Webshop is launched in November. Besides these activities, there are a couple of further projects already in progress such as "Dreamscapes Revisited", a new Alphaville DVD and possibly a book on Alphaville.
2005
January - September: Writing-sessions for the upcoming Alphaville album take place in Berlin and London. July: The Alphaville Encyclopedia "Cosmic Meadows" celebrates its 10th birthday. Actually, it has turned into one of the most detailed Alphaville archives in the world wide web over the years. In August, the latest Update of the computer fantasy-game "Dark Age Of Camelot" is presented at the Games Convention in Leipzig. It features "Fuer Dich", a duet sung by Marian Gold and Kai Hawaii, who also composed the song. November: Alphaville perform in Moscow and St. Petersburg in front of 17.000 fans respectively. Long-awaited, "Dreamscapes Revisited" is released in December at several download-platforms. The Alphaville Anthology "Dreamscapes" has been sold out for more than 5 years and thus finally available again.
