A little wander through my life….

I was born on 16/11/74 in Zeven (somewhere near Bremen), finally fetching up in Munich and Puchheim (out in the sticks in Western Germany) in 1987 after moving around quite a bit with my parents (Rotenburg Wümme, Stadthagen, Nienstädt).
After we arrived, I did a couple of years at secondary school, and spent my free time crawling about through the undergrowth as a happy Boy Scout and generally doing what Boy Scouts do. Apart from the obligatory piano lessons, I didn’t really have much to do with music. All that classical stuff didn’t do a lot for me, and I soon gave up the piano lessons (they weren’t cheap, either), and that was the end of my brilliant music career!
It all really began at the tender age of 15, when I got a great CASIO keyboard from my parents for Christmas. It was so cool, and it even played drum sounds. NOW you’re talking. It was really neat, and a lot better than a proper piano.
I actually started to practise again, and wrote my first few little tunes and lyrics. Soon I had only one thing on my mind – I wanted to be in a band and play the keyboard. And what kind of music?
You guessed it: punk rock – what else?!

So at the age of 16 I started up the world-famous band called Nachtschicht with 4 of my mates. Our line-up changed a bit (our singer left and we couldn’t find anyone else), and I took the job on “temporarily” myself after a couple of months, and things just stayed like that. In the 2 years we were together, we did an amazing 10 concerts in the local youth clubs and schools, and we were technical geniuses by then too, of course (not)! Well, you have to learn to walk before you can run….. But the biggest thing was my fundamental decision to write and sing in German (well, I did have great role models like Tote Hosen etc).

And then the inevitable came: the split! After a “long” collaboration (2 years, to be exact), we just didn’t get on any more. It was a tough blow for me (grins), but I managed to get over it somehow.
And one good thing did come out of it!
I met the young Grammar School boy Martin Christoph Duckstein, who was playing electric guitar in a similarly successful band at the time. The chemistry was great from the start, so we decided to form a new band, and that’s how Weto came about.
No punk rock this time, but German rock instead. I really was serious about singing, so I took up classical singing lessons, and managed to stick with it for an amazingly long time (for me). That was also the point (I’d finished school) when I decided to work in music (rock star would have been my number 1 job). At that time, I still wanted to study singing and piano at the local Music Academy… but nothing came of it. Meantime, our band had got quite a name for itself in the local area, and over the next few years we did manage to become a halfway decent amateur band.

Then fate stepped in once more for Ducky and me, in the shape of Anna Kränzlein. It so happened that Anna was having piano lessons with Ducky’s Mum, and she really changed our thinking: how would it be if we arranged a few tunes to the violin? It worked out great, and Anna went on to appear as a special guest at some of our concerts.
And so the years went by…..
I changed my job and started management training, then gave it up, had various digs, got my first car (an Opel Kadett C – well, you do have to spoil yourself sometimes), and swapped my beloved CASIO keyboard for some decent kit at last: a Roland.
Thus armed, the band is still going strong today – 14 years and 3 albums later!!!

There then followed a period in my life when I didn’t feel I was stretching myself musically. I played in a few projects and cover bands and did some guest spots here and there, but that was it. One of the projects involved re-enacting some folk stuff at a concert – just a bit of fun! It sounded comical. Doing covers all the time is dumb, so we did a couple of our own things, and that gave it just the right oomph.
And then that concert… Wow!!! We went into orbit…!
And the rest, of course, is history: Schandmaul was born, and that’s where the long, busy and unbelievably brilliant journey began! If you want to know all about our experiences along the way, you’d best read the band biography…..
Let’s see how it goes
Here’s a little about what I do in any free time I have:
When I have no rehearsals, pre-production, studio sessions or concerts to do, I mess about with my hobbies. I’m an ardent chess player, for example (which is no indication of how good I actually am), and I have also fallen prey to a hopeless desire to play darts. I also enjoy cycling, but I have to admit that I’m a fair weather person! If the weather’s terrible or it’s really cold, I soon loose the urge for physical exercise. I spend cosy nights in reading or listening to plays, which have been a big thing in my life since early childhood. And as for Die Drei ??? (a well-known series of children’s books in Germany) I’ve built up a collection of well over 500 stories from different genres. You’d be right to assume from my love of listening to stuff that my TV works really well (not!), especially when I want to watch a good DVD.
I’d rather not write about my favourite books, music or films – things change all the time…

Bye for now,
Thomas
You can write to me at Thomas[at]rain-age.de