Every band claims to be something special - one can only say: 'That would be nice'. But in the case of TANZWUT there is no doubt. The guys from Berlin are a real exception. Which other band can claim to have the Devil (=Teufel) in its own row? He is lead singer, comedian, charmer and sometimes provoker. At the same time Teufel is actually a guy like you and me. One time he is in a good mood and another time he is in a bad mood, he likes funny jokes, hates braggers and 'stupidheads', loves wine, women and (especially) singing. He can only shake his head about satanism. He has better things to do, after all, he is a member of TANZWUT.
The men from the 'Prenzlauer Berg' chose their name carefully, it comes from the medieval times. The plague raged in Europe between 1350 and '52. The minstrels took the news of the up-coming catastrophe from town to town. In view of the up-coming armageddon, they advised people to fall into the intoxication of dancing. Thousands of people followed the request, sold everything they had and enjoyed themselves. "70 % of them were women. That must have been heavenly conditions," supposed Castus who is responsible for the bagpipe playing for the men from the capital.
Back to the present where the view of people in dance intoxication is rather common than exception for the conspired seven. They saw a lot of things from stages: hyperventilating teen girls, rockers who roll in mud and heated fan masses who let bully security guys fly up through the air. Not rarely, there were delighted female supporters who threw underwear. By the way, the collected trophies can be visited. They hang above the door to their rehearsal room. "For us as musicians, this type of ecstasy is very important," tells us bass guitar player Wim.
Finally, there is a new album after 3 years. It has the double meaning title "Ihr wolltet Spass" ("You wanted fun") and stands in the sign of artistic freedom. For the first two albums "Tanzwut" (1999) and "Im Labyrinth der Sinne" (2000), the musicians combined the genre Electro, Rock and Medieval. The motto for the current record is: Everything is ok! "There were no tabus," Wim confirms, "we did what we wanted to do. The only thing that was important for us was that all seven of us had to say that the songs were awesome." This way, TANZWUT succeeded in writing noisy rock songs like the opener "Wieder da" ("Back again"). To this song you can imagine excited fans dancing and screaming. "Gnade" ("Mercy") is a fast song in which the bagpipes and the guitar have an exciting duel. "Vagorum" combines 'Beethovens Fifth', 'Vagantenbeichte' from the 'Carmina Burana' and lyrics from Hildegard von Bingen with noisy trash metal.
The new members also contributed to the fresh and colorful sound of the septett. The six string now plays Patrick, a good young player who had a classical guitar education. Norri is the drummer and also a great musician who played drums for Depressive Age, KDA and DanceOrDie. Besides the "new ones", Koll.A. and Castus play the bagpipes, Wim plucks at the bass guitar, Tec is responsible for the keyboards and Teufel - we already told you about him - has the microphone in his hands.
Already once, TANZWUT had "renewed" a classic as they mixed a bagpipes version of Beethovens "Freude schoener Goetterfunken" with Mephisto quotations from Goethes "Faust". This song is still the highlight of their show with which they made a lot of friends at home and in other European countries.
They were on the boards which meant the world to them over 200 times just for "Labyrinth der Sinne" ("Maze of the senses"). The faire minstrels are addicted to the streets.
Besides TANZWUT, all seven of them also make music with the band Corvus Corax. Here the bagpipes and percussion instruments dominate while their songs base on historic notes and old languages.
Teufel mainly sings in his mother tongue with TANZWUT because you can still communicate the best in our area with it. Also his jokes are best in German. In the song "Zaubern" ("Do magic tricks"), he looks at the condition of human beings and nature in 2003 and sings: "Maybe I'm too shy/ but I wouldn't have gone that far". The title song is dedicated to our fit-for-fun-society with a big portion of sarcasm: "You wanted fun/ You should have it/Don't you remember my name". You can tell that Teufel loves to laugh, even about himself. But there is one thing you should never forget: The charming guy with horns is also always a guy who likes to provoke...
album released April, 7th 2003
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