Michael Tangermann on Vocals Bernd Basmer on Guitars Michael Müller on Guitars and Keyboards Martin Reichhart on Bass Jan-Marco Becker on Keyboards Thomas Mayer on Drums How would you classify your music? Hehe, that's the hardest question right in front. Well, indeed it is not easy for us to say what kind of music we do. I mean, our music is heavy, it shows a lot of different musical styles and it reflects a lot of feelings in the songs and a lot of stuff the we went through. And these things don't only show in the lyrics but also in the music. Do you all have day jobs and if so what do you do? Yes we all have day jobs because we can't afford to live from our music yet. Me for example, I work as a programmer in a computer center of a hospital. Michael Tangermann is a landscape gardener for the city of Pirmasens (where he lives), Michael Müller is a physical therapist, Thomas Mayer is a civil engineer, Martin Reichhart is studying economies and Jan-Marco Becker is studying English and geography. How did the band get together? The band got together in 1992. The 2 Michael's remain from the former band Superior (the band exists already since 88) and all the others joined the band one after the other. But since 92 our lineup hasn't changed anymore. I was the last member to join the band. What are your musical backgrounds? We all were educated on our instruments or on classical instruments. Michael Müller for example already went to a conservatory at the age of 6 or so and started to learn piano. Later he switched to guitar then. That makes it possible nowadays, that we can use 2 keyboards where this is needed in live shows. Also Michael Tangermann was trained by a classical singer to use his voice. Every member of the band has his background there. What kind of music do you like to listen to when your not playing? That's very different for the different members. Maybe that's why our music is so diverse. Jan for example nowadays listens a lot to Latin music or Jazz while I for example am more the rock and metal guy in the band. I like some other music too though (for example Sting or some classical music). We all are very open for a lot of kinds of different music, but the music has to be on a high standard or it has to be at least interesting and well played. What do you do to relax? I enjoy for example reading phantasy and thriller books. I like Ken Follet quite much. His book "The piles of earth" is just outstanding. But also his other books are really good. I also like the German author Wolfgang Hohlbein who writes great phantasy books. I have a lot of his books. Unfortunately I don't have much time these days to read a lot. Another thing I like very much is to play computer games. I like action games and adventures very much. What is the most satisfying thing about being in a band? Well, in our band, the most satisfying thing is to be able to create your own music and to play it live for some people who want to listen to it. In our band every member can add his own influences and a song only makes it to be on a CD if everybody gave his ok to the song. So everybody can give his input to the songs and that is very important for us because that makes it possible that everybody can be satisfied with the music. Of course it is the greatest thing, if there are indeed some people who enjoy our music when we play live. What words would best describe you (as an individual)? Well, that's a very hard question and I can only speak for myself here. I think that I am a very honest person. I like to tell the truth even though sometimes the truth is not what people really want to hear. I am also a quite quiet person until something is really bothering me. I also know how to explode, you can ask the others. What things did you do differently on "Younique" compared to "Behind"? Lyrically, on Younique we reflected more the things that happened into ourselves during the past few months and years. On Behind we had a look at things that happened around us. So on Younique the lyrics are more personal. Musically, we show more of the different music styles we are open to on Younique. We were already open towards different things during the recordings for Behind but maybe we were not open enough towards ourselves at that point of time to really reflect all that stuff into our own songs. Still we like the songs on Behind very much also. But Younique shows more what kind of music we like. Did "Younique" live up to your expectations? Yes. 100%. We did on this record exactly what we wanted to do. As we also produced it ourselves, we had the possibility to create the exact sound that we wanted and that's something that makes us really happy. Do you have your own studio? No. We have recorded both albums at the Roko Soundstudio near Frankfurt/Germany and we worked together with Roko very well. We told him what we wanted to have and he just knew technically what to do to make it sound like we told him. Really a great guy. If you had the chance to jam with any band, who would that be? Hmm, Dream Theater, Faith no More, Sting, there are a lot. What's the best thing that has ever happened to you? There were 2 great things in my life that I will remember forever. One was the birth of my daughter Laura and the other was our first tour in France where we were really successful. It still gives me chills if I remember these things. What's the worst thing that has ever happened to you? Hmm, Hard question. There were a few bad things in my life but I don't to remember them so I hope you forgive me if I don't tell them now here. I personally think that the bad things have to be forgotten. I live for the good things in life. Who writes the songs? The ideas come from Michael Müller, Jan-Marco Becker and me. We record our ideas with a 4-track recorder and give a tape with the new stuff to every member of the band. Then we come together again and arrange the new stuff all together. Where do you get your inspiration from? Our inspiration comes from very different things that happen inside or around us. As our lyrics are quite personal we reflect a lot of things that happen in our life's in our songs. If we are angry about something, there will be a very heavy song. If we are in love, there will be a lovesong. Depends on the times we go through. Who thought of the band's name and how did you choose it? When the members of the band came together, they already had done some projects and bands before this band and they just wanted to do something better than they had done before. Something superior. So there was the name. Which are you personal favourite songs and why? There is no favorite Superior song for me. I love them all. And I think I can say that this is the same with every member of the band. Do you play many gigs and if so where? We play some gigs over here in Germany and also a lot of them in France where we have a lot of fans. We already did a tour after the release of the Behind album in Germany together with Virgin Steele and Angra and we were also touring with Vanden Plas in France. We hope to be able to do a European tour soon to promote Younique. We're currently negotiating with some bands. What is you view of the music scene in Germany. If you switch on the radio here in Germany, you will hear some rap, techno, or just pop music. Recently the Rock and Metal scene has grown bigger again though, which is good for us of course. There are lots of fans of heavy music over here but the radio stations just tend to ignore them which is really a pity. But like I said... the scene is growing bigger and maybe there will be some more airplay for heavy bands in the future. I hope so. What band/s would you say has had the most influence on you? Well, there are a lot of bands that influence us. There are bands like Faith no more, Dream Theater, Sting, Latin music, early Metallica influenced us very much, Clawfinger, a big variety of musical styles. But maybe our biggest influence is film music. Maybe you know the feeling, if you sit in cinema watching a thrilling movie and the music really makes you feel what the pictures show you. That's what we want to do also. We want the listener to feel, what we want to express with our music. That's our biggest aim. What are your plans for the future? Touring, touring, touring. We hope to be able to play a lot and to make some more good albums. We just want to go one step further with every album. That is our aim. Any last words or remarks? Well, maybe I can add here the theme what Younique is all about. What we want to express with our lyrics on Younique is that everybody should make himself free from things that are told from other persons and from things that influence our life's in a negative way. In easy words: Live your own life and don't just live how other people or organizations want you to live. That's what life is all about in our opinion. There are so many organizations and people like churches, politics or just the neighbours who want to tell us how we should lead our lives. But we all can think for ourselves so maybe it is better to listen to yourself than to things that other people say. Be yourself, be younique. Bernd Basmer Guitar - Superior E-mail: Younique@gmx.net or: basmer@med-rz.uni-sb.de Superior Website : http://www.fine.de/superior |