My Story - Part 2: My First Band(s)

Soon after, I formed a band with my brother Daniel and one of my best friends, Ziggy. We called ourselves The Apples.

We didn’t have a bass player, but we didn’t care — we were rocking.

We started with covers, ranging from Punk Rock to Indie & Crunch and Heavy Metal. Then we began writing our own tunes. One of our songs ended up giving us a new name: Abartig. A few months later, we asked a friend in a bar if he wanted to play bass. Rene Perpeet joined.

Looking back, that time was magic. Every gig, every rehearsal — it was pure joy. Finding a place to practice was very difficult. I remember this rehearsal room which was a metal shed with a leaky roof. One winter, we arrived for a rehearsal and there was snow all over the drums.

In 1995, we recorded our first Punk Rock cassette (yes, cassette!) with five of our songs. A year later, we played a sold-out battle of the bands.

We didn’t win — in fact, we came in dead last. But we brought the house down. The judges may have made up their minds early, but the crowd was on our side.

In 1997, our sound evolved again. We became Endless Sleep, leaning into a gothic melodic metal style. I started writing more on piano and guitar, and we brought in a keyboardist — my girlfriend at the time. She only played one gig with us, but the music kept evolving.

The original core — Daniel, Ziggy and me — remained. We needed new bandmates, and eventually reformed as Blue Spirit, with a whole new style and lineup.

When I was 17, my father died by suicide. Ziggy and I wrote a musical drama called A Voyage Through My History to honour his life. We performed it across our region, complete with stage, light & video show. Two years later, we recorded it as an album.

Blue Spirit carried on for over five years. We wrote. We toured. We poured everything into it.

But when I finished school, there was no money for music university. So in 1999, I started working in a bank and going to business college at the same time. For four long years, I did what I had to — not what I wanted to. Still, that experience gave me solid business skills I’d later use in managing bands, studios, and tours.

By 2003, I had saved enough to try again. I quit the bank and moved to Cologne to prepare for music college auditions.

I didn’t get in on the first try, but I kept going. I started my own company with my brother and worked as an audio engineer and event manager. All the while, I continued with Blue Spirit.

...to be continued...