| Influences |
Since the beginning of their now 20-year career, OOMPH! have remained an innovative driving force on the German rock scene. Their EBM-style debut in 1992 received kudos worldwide and the single “Ich Bin Du” (‘I Am You’) shot into the Top Ten of the Independent Charts.
Not content to rest on their laurels despite such early success, Dero (vocals, drums), Crap (guitar, keyboards) and Flux (guitar, sampling) have constantly been in search of new musical horizons, and they quickly began experimenting with hard riffs as one of the very first bands to mix electronic grooves with distorted guitars. Their innovative sound, described by America’s Billboard Magazine as “Sepultura meets DAF”, wins the band not only critical acclaim, but also a wealth of new fans in both the rock/metal scene and the dance/goth camp. They also influence numerous other groups – not least of which Rammstein. In the years that follow, OOMPH! continue to develop their sound and make the leap to major label Virgin. Hits such as “Das weiße Licht” (‘The White Light’), “Fieber” (‘Fever’, a duet with Nina Hagen) and “Niemand” (‘No One’) consistently broaden the German trio’s fanbase and chart success.
With their switch to GUN Records and the Platinum single “Augen Auf” (‘Open Your Eyes’) from the Platinum album “Wahrheit oder Pflicht” (‘Truth Or Dare’), 2004 signals the year in which they make their large-scale mainstream breakthrough, crossing over far beyond the barriers of any particular scene borders. OOMPH! are in heavy radio rotation day and night, make numerous TV appearances, receive the highly coveted radio audience voting prize Eins Live Krone and are quite simply everywhere you look. The follow-up single “Brennende Liebe” (‘Burning Desire’), a spine tingling duet featuring Dero and Sonja Kraushofer from Austrian goth icons L..âme Immortelle, continues this success with a Top Ten chart position.
Their next album, “GlaubeLiebeTod” (‘FaithLoveDeath’), continues their triumphant march and enters the Top Five of the German album charts. The single “Gott ist ein Popstar” (‘God Is A Pop Star’), with its critical take on religion and the media unleashes a tidal wave of controversy resulting in the band being banned by TV broadcaster RTL from the 2006 Echo Prize show, Germany’s answer to the Grammys. The absurdity of this farce takes on a surreal touch as OOMPH! are nominated in the following year for the Echo top album prize with the very same album, including the allegedly offensive single! But the censors are powerless against the band’s massive fanbase, which remains steadfastly loyal to band through thick and thin.
2007 sees OOMPH! participate and take home the top prize with another duet featuring female singer Marta Jandová from German chart-toppers Die Happy in the highly-rated “Bundesvision Songcontest” sponsored by major TV broadcaster Pro7. This consistent media presence brings the band to the attention of other media segments, resulting in Dero, Crap and Flux providing the synchronization voices for the action-adventure game “Memento Mori”. The computer game is a rousing success, as is their almost simultaneously released album “Monster”, spearheaded by the unforgettable single “Labyrinth”, both of which land effortlessly in the Top Ten. Their subsequent headline tour is a triumphant march through venues sold-out virtually everywhere they go.
After 2009 saw the 20th anniversary of OOMPH! the band didn’t even think of taking it easy but was looking ahead towards the new decade. So what to do when you already reached the top on the ladder of success? Well, just start all over again – but elsewhere!
It is a matter of fact that the so called “Neue Deutsche Härte” invented by OOMPH! in the early ‘90s is a hugh seller also outside German speaking countries, considering the buzz Rammstein are experiencing – a band highly inspired by the Wolfsburg based trio.
What could be more natural than taking a bunch of your last top chart hits and record them in English? Hence they invited the duet-singing partners once again into their studio.
So OOMPH are set to surprise fans all over the world with an English speaking "Best Of" album entitled “Truth Or Dare” due February 26th (as for Germany, Switzerland and Austria) and March 1st (applying to other territories; US to release by April 26th). 16 songs, some of them from the latest release “Monster”, will compete for the international public’s attention. Nevertheless this ain’t something completely new for the Germany based three-piece, as they already did perform English songs in the past. For “Truth Or Dare”, they closely worked together with a befriended native speaker and took great care of sticking to the original themes of the songs without any compromises regarding pronunciation and metric, Dero, Crap and Flux explain. Their lyrics, which often like to point a finger at deplorable social ills, are - without a doubt - thematically working for all industrial nations in the world.
In the follow up of this unexpected and clever move, OOMPH! are looking forward to a busy year 2010 as when it draws to a close hopefully the 11th album will be raring to go. This fits of course to OOMPH!’s all time motto: stagnation means creative death. Yet luckily standstill never was one of their strong points…
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