Thanks so much to Harry Vogel for the interview! I wrote about the German band Friends Ahoj some time ago. Happily Andy from The Bartlebees saw my post and directed me to Harry. Then Harry was the best as he answer all my questions in record time, a few days! And even better, answers with lots of detail and you can also tell his passion for music (and soccer!). Enjoy!
++ Hi Harry! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Still making music?
I’ve been playing in bands ever since 1981, in local punk bands at the beginning and then in 6Ts-oriented bands; right now I’ve got a band called “Smart Patrol” which plays 1978-inspired Powerpop. Check out our website: www.smartpatrol.de (the guy in the middle with the sunglasses is me!)
++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen at home while growing up?
I’ve wanted to play the guitar ever since I was a little boy, but due to my family’s economic situation I just couldn’t afford instrumental lessons or the instrument, so I started saving money when I was 15, bought a guitar and taught myself how to play.
I got into Punk in 1977 when I was like 13, my favourite bands being the Sex Pistols and the Jam; influenced by Punk I completely rejected the music of all the “big” MOR rock groups and this hasn’t really changed since then, but of course I broadened my horizon and developed a keen interest in any music that was unusual, new, provoking etc. .. .all the stuff that was called “New Wave” over here in Europe around 1979/1980, bands like Joy Division, Spizz Energi, Gang of Four, Specials or US bands like Devo (still one of my favourite bands today) or the B-52s and lots of more or less unknown German bands of that genre …
I also very much enjoyed those 1981/1982 bands playing what we called “hedonistic pop”, such as ABC, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Human League and the likes but somehow around 1982/83 I grew more and more and disillusioned by most contemporary bands. Having bought into the “independent” ideology of early Punk I just hated to see how bands that I appreciated change their style just to make more money …
So at one point in 1983 I started to look around for music that was fresh and new and could not be commercially exploited … and found in those thousands of 1960s bands that never made it … so compilations like “Chocolate Soup for Diabetics” or “Pebbles” or the Kent Soul compilations became my new gospel so to say … I immersed myself in the rapidly growing European Mod scene and never left it – I’m still active these days as a DJ, musician and organiser of a regular all-nighter here in Munich
++ Had you been in other bands before Friends Ahoj? What about the rest of the members? If so, how did all of these bands sound like? Are there any recordings?
Of course, I started my first band in 1981 – we called ourselves “Doppelschock” (yes .. that translates as “Double shock” and we simply covered the Ramones and added German lyrics .. .then in 1982 I joined another Punk band called “Tollwut” (= rabies) and in 1983 I started one of Munich’s first Neo-mod bands called “Swinging London” (https://www.discogs.com/de/artist/1614732-Swinging-London) – we played kind of a mixture between US Garage Punk and British beat and the people on the German Mod scene liked that a lot, so although we couldn’t play that well we were invited to pay all around the country
Another newly formed Munich Mod Band was called “Merricks” (https://www.discogs.com/de/artist/20233-Merricks), and Bernd Hartwich and Günther Gottschling were founding members -we played some gigs together, found out that we shared the same ideas in many respects (not only music wise, but also when it came to soccer: we fervently hate Bayern München and love Munich’s “underdog” soccer club 1860 München, which has been on the losing side ever since the early 1970s).
What I liked about Bernd and Günther was their open-mindedness and enormous creativity; while I was trying to meticulously copy the 1960s sound they were using the 1960s as a kind of foundation on which they started to build something new …
++ Where were you from originally?
Bernd and me were born in Munich and have been living there ever since! Günther and Carl are from Geretsried (near Wolfratshausen)
++ How was Wolfratshausen at the time of Friends Ahoj? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
Wolfratshausen is and always was a nice, little, cosy, but also very sleepy provincial town – no record stores, pubs, venues etc. that are worth mentioning…
But that’s not a problem, because it’s only a 20-minute ride on the speed train to central Munich anyway!
++ When and how did the band start? How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process?
Well, as I already mentioned we’d known each other for some years already and played soccer together every now and then.
In the summer of 1988 the Merricks and Swinging London played a gig in a larger venue (there must have been about 600 people there) and before the gig Günther and Bernd suggested we’d do an encore together … so we agreed on playing “There’s a cloud over Liverpool” by one of our favourite bands (The Times form the UK) and a silly version of a silly ice-cream commercial that had gone viral back then!
We had a great time and a lot of fun doing this improvised bit and what I liked was this crazy mixture of something we really, really loved (The Times) and something as trivial as an ice-cream commercial!
Well, a few weeks later Bernd told me (in the beer garden that we used to go after playing soccer) that there’d be a band competition in Wolfratshausen (where Günther (and his mate Carl) lived, and that they had this idea to form a band just for this occasion and play something really weird and unusual, just to make fun of the whole concept of a band competition and asked if I wanted to join.
I liked the idea a lot and after a few beers we had a concept and a name for the whole thing:
Friends Ahoj (cause we were friends, “Ahoj” is Czech for “hi”) and our idea was to play 6Ts style surf music … I as the lead guitarist was ordered to play on my 12-string Rickenbacker, though – not really the best idea if you want to play surf … but that’s what the whole thing was about, anyway.
So we rehearsed a few times and then went to Wolfratshausen. The venue was packed, there must have been nearly a thousand people there, and apart from us all the other bands were of the usual kind: there was this leather-clad Hardrock band, the long-haired Hippies improvising for hours being high on whatever they were high on, the College Kids Funk band, the 5th generation Punk band and of course the Jazzers – all of them (apart from the Punks, of course) far better musicians than we were, so we thought “What the heck – we’ve got the better show”
So we decided to do mock the standard Hardrock-band show (all the stereotypical poses, every solo on your knees with the head bent backwards etc.) while playing surf-music (on a 12-string guitar)
Oh, and our encores were the ice-cream commercial and a kind of blues-version of Monty Python’s “Always look on the bright side of life”
The kids in the audience just loved it and we ended up as number 2 in the contest (the kids voted for us as nr. 1, but the jury consisting of music teachers opted for the Jazzers instead – and they had the decisive vote)
Evers since that day we had a lot of fans in Wolfratshausen and people in Munich heard about us and asked us to play in Munich to, and so we did … in 1989/90 I guess we must have been among Munich’s 10 favourite “Indie”-Bands or so …
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
Swinging London and the Merricks shared the same rehearsal room, so that’s where Friends Ahoj rehearsed, too.
I like rehearsals very much because it was all about creativity with no limits – we’d reject no idea, no matter how weird or impossible it sounded. We’d simply throw ideas together and see what happened. In the beginning Günther would come along with songs and we’d simply join in and see where it would carry us.
And by and by I started writing songs, too, because I found it sort of “liberating” no to think “does it sounds 1960s enough”?
Bernd would instill ideas such as “How about writing a song about Kurt Vonnegut?” – that’s how “Kilgore Trout” came about, and Carl, who was not only a great drummer but also a fantastic pianist would suggest “Hey about me playing the break in ¾ time and you tick to 4/4 time” … after 25 seconds be all broke down laughing as it sounded so weird!
++ You mostly wrote songs in English right? Why? And where there any German songs?
Back then we didn’t really think about that … we just did it … the Merricks had already started singing in German, I had been singing German in my first two bands … I just felt right that away and we never sang any song in German as far as I can remember
++ What’s the story behind the band’s name? And why sometimes it was written Friends Ahoi and other times Friends Ahoj? What’s the preferred way?
OK, I’ve already explained the name and we never thought about how to spell it correctly; I guess in Czech the correct spelling is “ahoj”, but in German you haven’t got words ending in “i”, so some people possibly just used a German spelling habit on the word … we didn’t care much about things like these!
++ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?
Phew … that’s tough … The Beach Boys, The Fantastic Baggys, Jim Jiminee, They might be Giants, The Housemartins, The Freshies … it wasn’t about bands, more about using different styles and putting it all together – so back in 1989/90 that must have been anything from Soul via Wimp-Pop to Neo Rock (e.g. we occasionally covered the Godfathers’ “Love is dead” …
++ As far as I know you only released one 7″ in 1993 on the Ice-Cube Toneporter label. Who were behind this label? How did you end up working with them? And how was your relationship with the label?
I honestly can’t tell you as Bernd was the one who was in contact with those guys – they heard our tape, liked it and offered to release a 45, and that’s what we did
No other label was interested in us anyway, or maybe we just didn’t care and take those things seriously enough – after all we all considered Friends Ahoj to be not our No. 1 band: the others had the Merricks (and they were going from strength to strength in the early 1990s) and I played with Swinging London and (starting in 1988) “The Heartbeats” (https://www.discogs.com/artist/1056159-The-Heartbeats-4) … also a household name on the German Neo-Sixties scene …
++ Where were these two songs recorded? Was this your first time at a recording studio? Or were you already familiar with them?
We recorded the songs in Bernd’s studio, not a studio as such, but it had everything we needed, some mics, mixing desk, 8-Track (or was it already hard-disk recording? I can’t remember)
We all had been in recording studios before with our other bands, but being in Bernd’s studio was much more relaxing … no pressure, no financial constraints etc.! AND Bernd was a great producer: very patient, calm, easy-going …
++ Who produced the record? And were there any other songs recorded during that session?
At that time we only recorded the two songs for the 45s, and those were the only studio recordings that all of the members of the band contributed to – and Bernd produced it, of course!
++ Tell me about the art of the 7″. Who made it? And how come there were different colors for the sleeve, yellow, white and blue? Were there more colors?
I guess some friends of Bernd’s must have provided the drawing, but the writing and the layout were obviously done on my computer … the colours – that was a label decision that we liked but I can’t say if there were more colours – I don’t think so, as that would have been a bit too expensive, I guess!
++ I read that some copies of this 7″ came with German candy. Is that so? What sort of candy?
Yeah the guys from the label came up with this great idea of throwing in some packs of “Ahoj” fizzy powder … stuff we’d known from our childhood in the early 1970s … you could eat it like that and it would kind of foam in your mouth or you could stir it into a glass of water and it would give you the worst lemonade you can imagine!
It’s still sold today: https://www.ahoj-brause.de/
++ Why were there no more releases by the band? Was there any interest from any labels?
Hmm, well … in 1993 there was a bigger label interested in releasing an LP, but then Bernd and the others somehow felt that it would not be that good for their No. 1 band “Merricks” if a “side-project” (and that’s what Friends Ahoj was for all of us) used up more and more time, so they decided to cut down on Friends Ahoj
That was ok by me anyway, as I’d just started working as a High School/College teacher of English and history and that was pretty time-consuming too … and after all I was in three bands, too!
So we decided to reduce Friends Ahoj to a project that would produce some songs occasionally and release them on compilations
++ You did appear on a few compilations like “Frischer Morgentau”, “Die Schönste Platte Der Welt”, “Wagweiser Durch’s Eiswürfelland”, “Ein Spätsommercocktail”, “Limited Europopsongs” and “Munich Goes Pop”. Am I missing any other ones? And do you remember how did you end up on them?
All sorts of minor labels asked us for contributions and we would gladly agree, as long as it all would not turn into a full-time commitment again.
We used rehearsal room recordings for the first compilations (“Step by step” and “Dark rooms”) and recorded “Man who sold Manhattan” and “We might be giants” in Bernd’s studio sometime in late 1993 and 1994 – back then Carl was no longer involved, he’d already joined Munich’s most famous and successful Indie-Band “FSK” (who to the present day still occasionally rehearse in our rehearsal room).
“My woody’s called Woody” and “Drink to me” came from the same tape of rehearsal room recordings as “Step by step” and “Dark rooms” … those must have been recorded in 1990/91 …
++ What about demo tapes? Are there more recordings by the band? Unreleased tracks?
The only Demo we ever made was this tape with ca. 12 songs, about half of which ended up on the compilations – I still have the tape but never bothered to digitalize it … might have to do that sometime soon.
The songs were Step by step/Mushroom seller/My woody’s called Woody/Life has just begin/The vanishing girl/Drink to me/Surf Ahoj/Kilgore Trout/Have you seen that girl/Where have all the beach girls gone/Dark rooms/From my sweetheart to the bottle/Love comes slow/Grandstand girls/Have you seen that girl (7″ version)/Larissa
++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “Grandstand Girls”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?
We went to all the home matches of our favourite soccer team 1860 München and became quite notorious as we were so different from the ordinary soccer fan: we were about 20 people, most of us with a more or less academic background (so the fans around us called us “The academics” (not really – there is a rather condescending Bavarian slang word they used – and we liked that).
We really enjoyed deconstructing stereotypical fan chants (just like Friends Ahoj did with musical stereotypes) and did that all the time while in the stadium. Actually the last time I met Bernd in the stadium last December it took us about 3 minutes to start doing that very same thing again!
The other thing in which we were different was that some girls came along with us and they were just as fanatic as we boys were – and so as to pay our respect to the girls (back in the late 80s it was rather unusual for girls to attend football matches)I wrote “Grandstand girls” – they were really special .. I still meet some of them around the stadium when there is a match today!
++ If you were to choose your favorite Friends Ahoj song, which one would that be and why?
Very hard to say, of course I love them all … of all the songs that Günther wrote I guess it’s “Step by step” (which ends with me babbling some phrases I had pinched from Monty Pythons) and from my side I’d say it’s “My woody’s called Woody” … you know … if you were a surfer in in LA in the 1960s and had Woody, what would you call it? Of course, “Woody” is the best name for a woody! Of the more “serious” songs I’d say it’s “The man who sold Manhattan for a dime”
++ What about gigs? Did you play many?
Possibly 15-20 gigs in 5 years, don’t forget: it was just a side-project!
++ And what were the best gigs you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?
Well, the first one became a legend in itself as we did not only take the piss of ourselves, but also of the Hardrock band and the mayor of Wolfratshausen, who attended the band contest and was called “Rockhart”, which we immediately turned into “Hardrock” and so dedicated every other song to “Mayor Hardrock”
The first gig in Munich ever was great, too (like all the others, actually), we possibly spent more time on stage telling jokes or starting and stopping songs, throwing in weird breaks (I think we played the “Guns of Brixton” intro as a break in every song that night)
Oh yes, and there was a brilliant gig in a village close to Wolfratshausen. When the people asked for more and more songs after we’d played all the encores, we decided to play the whole set again, but all the songs would be Ska versions … we’d never tried that before, but it worked!
++ And were there any bad ones?
Not as Friends Ahoj proper – but I remember that in 1994 we were asked to play at a New Year’s Eve party – Günther, Bernd and me … and Bernd didn’t show up, Günther was always kind of quiet and shy and I was in a rather gloomy mood that night … I shouldn’t have gone on stage that night, it was depressing, as it was so obvious that Friends Ahoj only worked with all the four of us on stage!
++ When and why did Friends Ahoj stop making music? Were you involved in any other bands afterwards?
As I already mentioned it was just a side-project, we all had other bands and for me starting the job as a teacher was a game-changer, so to say, as I could no longer spend most of my time playing music.
Then in the mid-90s the Merricks became very successful with their LPs “The sound of Munich” and “Escape from plane Munich”, I got more and more involved in the international Mod scene as a DJ, organiser of parties, allnighters etc. – not to mention the other bands I played in …
So we never really stopped Friends Ahoj, we just did no longer work on that project … every now and then Bernd and I would discuss the option of maybe reviving Friends Ahoj again, but we actually never really saw a point in that
I stopped Swinging London in 1997 and the Heartbeats disbanded in 2000 after a cool gig at the Purple Weekend in Leon/Spain). I started playing some music with old friends from the 1980s Punk and Mod scene which eventually turned into my current band “Smart Patrol” (LP “Overage Underachievers” on Screaming Apple Records)
++ What about the rest of the band, had they been in other bands afterwards?
Carl still plays with FSK – a highly gifted and appreciated musician.
Günther left Munich for the countryside, started a family, gave up music and is living a quiet life away from Munich – I haven’t seen him for maybe 15 years.
The Merricks ceased to exist at around 2003 or so, and Bernd soon formed an excellent new band called “Der Englische Garten” (named after Munich’s biggest park) – in my eyes one of the best contemporary German bands (http://www.der-englische-garten.de/)
++ Has there been any Friends Ahoj reunion?
No. never, and sadly now it’s impossible
++ Did you get much attention from the radio?
They simply ignored us
++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?
They did not care, and neither did we
++ What about from fanzines?
Yes, all those fanzines specializing on weird pop music around the world have kept on contacting us ever since the early 1990s
++ Looking back in retrospective, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?
The very first gig, no doubt!
++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?
Soccer, skiing, DJing, dancing at parties to shit-rare original R&B or Latin 45s
++ Never been to Munich so I’ll take the opportunity to ask a local for any recommendations you’d have? Like sights one shouldn’t miss? Food and drinks one should try?
Whatever you do, do not miss going to a beer garden, try the different types of Bavarian food they offer and drink a lot of the beer!
Spend an evening in Friends Ahoj’s former meeting point, the “Baader Cafe”
Go any buy records at Optimal (Kolosseumstr. 6) – they also released some of the “Merricks” and “Der Englische Garten” records!
Get completely drunk at “Schwarzer Hahn”(Ohlmüllerstr. 8)
All these places are within walking distance from tube station “Fraunhofer Straße”!
++ Anything else you’d like to add?
The last time I met Bernd was on January 10 when I played with “Smart Patrol” at a fundraiser for an 1860 fan club that is committed to fighting fascism in the soccer stadium. Only two minutes before the gig I learned that Bernd was suffering from an incurable disease, but he was there in the front row enjoying the gig and I was standing there trying to give it all, as I understood that attending the concert was Bernd’s way of saying goodbye to me.
That night we sang two songs in German, just for fun, and after the gig Bernd told me that we should really sing all the songs in German … then he had to leave. Sadly, he died on March 11 and leaves a big gaping hole in Munich subculture. We lost a great musician, DJ, producer, soccer player and fan … and a good friend.
Addendum May 12, 2020:
I visited Bernd’s widow today and she reminded me of possibly the weirdest Friends Ahoj gig ever, so weird that I’d completely forgotten about it!
We were to open for a singer/songwriter called Rodney Allen (of the Blue
Aeroplanes) in a club in Munich in 1992, but Bernd got sick so we couldn’t play as the full line-up. Instead Günther and I decided to play as a two-piece and we didn’t play the whole set on our normal instruments, but on
children’s toy instruments!
The story of the gig is also how his future wife did NOT meet him for the first time (as he was sick), but heard about him for the first time: She went to see Rodney Allen, hadn’t heard anything about us, but was completely puzzled as everybody in the audience talked about us not playing and how terrible it was that Bernd was sick – and she thought “Who is this Bernd Hartwich guy that everybody is talking about? Doesn’t anyone want to see Rodney Allen?”
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Listen
Friends Ahoj – Grandstand Girls
