Apophis - Biography
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2005-
Biography
In spring 1989 five teenagers of the cider-city in the county Ostalb, Dewangen, formed the band "Raise Hell". In the beginning we devoted ourselves to fast, simple-played Thrash Metal, orientating ourselves by bands like Destruction, Slayer and early Metallica. While we keep our first show wrapped in silence, our second show on 13th May 1990 produced some interest on behalf of the local newspapers, as we were the first fast and thrashy metal band in Aalen and we played at the opening of a vernissage "Jugend vor der Jahrtausendwende" (Youth before the turn of the millennium). The Aalener Volkszeitung wrote: "A nice brave contrast, that can only happen to you at the Welland Gallery." It was different with the Schwäbische Post, (another newspaper) who called us "punk musicians", who "boomed some hellish racket towards the audience's ears". Anyway, we showed those ties and pearl necklaces what's what.
Caused by a change of bass-players (our chronic problem) a change in our musical style took place (partly by a shift in listening priorities). From now on we have devoted ourselves to what everybody calls Old-School-Death Metal today. The line-up Kristian Hahn (vocals), Roger Kirchner (lead guitar), Jörg Bartelt (lead guitar) und Erik Stegmaier (drums) remained constant over the next ten years, merely the bassists were "subject to change". We changed them more often than they did so with their strings ;o)). At the same time we changed the name into Apophis. All of this happened in autumn/winter of 1990.
In the rehearsal room of Despise, a band we're friends with, we recorded our first and only demo tape "Missed Abortion" under supervision of Evil Uwe and Schumi in August 1991. We recorded it live and didn't even take the time to correct mistakes at the end of the session. The special feature about this tape was that the buyer had to colour the cover himself.
By and by we refined our style while we set great store by guitar solos rather atypical for Death Metal. The overall sound became more progressive. That autumn we intensified playing gigs. We played a newcomer-festival where we were awarded the prizes "best effectiveness on the audience" and "best arrangement".
In December 1992 we recorded our first Mini-CD "Gateway to the Underworld" in "Tonstudio Gress" in Göppingen. That CD was distributed by Nuclear Blast and SPV and was sold some 2000 times without any publicity. (Prog-Metalheads, and only those, regard this CD as our best).
From 1993 to 1996 we kept on playing shows (among others with Pungent Stench, Crematory, Sacrosanct, Fleshcrawl and an Open-Air against hate and violence in January!) and we gathered experiences with labels, managers and those, who don't deserve such designations. We developed our music further and in 1994/1995 it became more catchy.
From August to December 1995 Erik went to a college in Los Angeles, Ca. During that time Dirk Schwarze (Dawn of Dreams) helped out. After Erik had returned to Germany we recorded our second CD "Down in the Valley" at MM Productions in Aalen in May 1996. After the recording sessions rumours were spreading out again. This time we found ourselves confronted with a story, which told of us being very dissatisfied with the owner of the studio during the sessions. Therefore we beat him up and threw him out of his own studio without further ado. That's nonsense of course!
We would have made him eat his own shoes, too! (Just kidding!)
On this recording we set some trademarks, which coins our music up to the latest compositions, determined the way for our musical future as it were. We maintained our claim to melody and varied playing, but never at the expense of brutality/heaviness (we always showed them what's what ;o)).
Due to those bad experiences with labels we founded our own recording label "Contraption Records". Caused by an unfavourable timing as far as the release of this CD is concerned (Black Metal was striving for its heyday), we sold less CDs although we received good and very good reviews. Nor could our distributors Last Episode and IRS change this fact.
In September 1997 we recorded a Promo-CD, which earned us a contract with German Death Metal-label Morbid Records. We signed it in spring 1998 and went to Hlohovec (Slovak Republic) to record our third CD "Heliopolis" in June 1998. It was released in Europe in November 1998 and in the USA in spring 1999 by Pavement. We received very good reviews worldwide. However, most of the guys did not like our artwork, which is very atypical of this kind of music. Some reviewers called it "caustically candy-coloured".
The powerful sound on HELIOPOLIS underlined the uniqueness and the quality of our music. We have always made heavy demands on ourselves to play catchy songs on an elevated level. Due to the multi-layered arrangements the songs remain interesting, even after the umpteenth listening.
We played a lot of shows and in 1999/2000 we had to suffer the first big change of musicians. Kristian, Jörg and our bassist of that time left APOPHIS and were replaced by Peter (guitar and vocals) and Gert (bass). The most important shows of that phase were the Summer Breeze in 2000 and the Germany tour with Sinister and Disinfect. Meanwhile we cancelled the contract with Morbid Records by mutual agreement.
After we had hatched out new songs in 2000/2001, we went into the Exponent studio once again in August 2001 to "lay" our fourth CD. Peter's and Gert's participation in the band caused our music to become more thrashy. Following the recording sessions there arose a bad mood within the band. For that reason Gert and Peter left the band in July 2002 again. Thus the band and the CD was put on ice for some time.
In August/September 2002 Roger started looking for new musicians to revive APOPHIS. For Erik it was soon clear, that he would take the durmmer's place again, thus keeping the team Roger/Erik alive.
Our new line-up reads as follows: Roger (guitar, founding member), Erik (drums, founding member), Patrick (bass, ex-Dark Reality), and Anton (guitar). Andre who recorded the vocals on the upcoming promo CD (see below) left the band in April this year.
Again we went to Hlohovec where we recorded a promotional CD in August 2003.
The sound on that CD is even clearer and more compact than on the previous CDs, some songs have been re-arranged. The songs are a great deal more aggressive than those on Heliopolis:
The fundamental bass supports the guitars and the powerful, partly groovy drumming. The vocals are various and brutal. The guitar solos impress by feeling and musicality in our typically melodic way.
Altogether this results in a style, which may be called unique and which is interesting not only for Death Metal Fans. It is impossible to assign APOPHIS to only one musical direction, because the band continually opens up new musical dimensions.
In lyrical respect APOPHIS deal with topics beyond categorization; reduced to a common denominator it may be "mystical, philosophical, dark". The lyrics contain questions on human existence and many kinds of death. APOPHIS create some kind of unity between lyrics and their music by expressing the lyrics through musical intensity.
---
Source: http://www.apophis-music.de
Caused by a change of bass-players (our chronic problem) a change in our musical style took place (partly by a shift in listening priorities). From now on we have devoted ourselves to what everybody calls Old-School-Death Metal today. The line-up Kristian Hahn (vocals), Roger Kirchner (lead guitar), Jörg Bartelt (lead guitar) und Erik Stegmaier (drums) remained constant over the next ten years, merely the bassists were "subject to change". We changed them more often than they did so with their strings ;o)). At the same time we changed the name into Apophis. All of this happened in autumn/winter of 1990.
In the rehearsal room of Despise, a band we're friends with, we recorded our first and only demo tape "Missed Abortion" under supervision of Evil Uwe and Schumi in August 1991. We recorded it live and didn't even take the time to correct mistakes at the end of the session. The special feature about this tape was that the buyer had to colour the cover himself.
By and by we refined our style while we set great store by guitar solos rather atypical for Death Metal. The overall sound became more progressive. That autumn we intensified playing gigs. We played a newcomer-festival where we were awarded the prizes "best effectiveness on the audience" and "best arrangement".
In December 1992 we recorded our first Mini-CD "Gateway to the Underworld" in "Tonstudio Gress" in Göppingen. That CD was distributed by Nuclear Blast and SPV and was sold some 2000 times without any publicity. (Prog-Metalheads, and only those, regard this CD as our best).
From 1993 to 1996 we kept on playing shows (among others with Pungent Stench, Crematory, Sacrosanct, Fleshcrawl and an Open-Air against hate and violence in January!) and we gathered experiences with labels, managers and those, who don't deserve such designations. We developed our music further and in 1994/1995 it became more catchy.
From August to December 1995 Erik went to a college in Los Angeles, Ca. During that time Dirk Schwarze (Dawn of Dreams) helped out. After Erik had returned to Germany we recorded our second CD "Down in the Valley" at MM Productions in Aalen in May 1996. After the recording sessions rumours were spreading out again. This time we found ourselves confronted with a story, which told of us being very dissatisfied with the owner of the studio during the sessions. Therefore we beat him up and threw him out of his own studio without further ado. That's nonsense of course!
We would have made him eat his own shoes, too! (Just kidding!)
On this recording we set some trademarks, which coins our music up to the latest compositions, determined the way for our musical future as it were. We maintained our claim to melody and varied playing, but never at the expense of brutality/heaviness (we always showed them what's what ;o)).
Due to those bad experiences with labels we founded our own recording label "Contraption Records". Caused by an unfavourable timing as far as the release of this CD is concerned (Black Metal was striving for its heyday), we sold less CDs although we received good and very good reviews. Nor could our distributors Last Episode and IRS change this fact.
In September 1997 we recorded a Promo-CD, which earned us a contract with German Death Metal-label Morbid Records. We signed it in spring 1998 and went to Hlohovec (Slovak Republic) to record our third CD "Heliopolis" in June 1998. It was released in Europe in November 1998 and in the USA in spring 1999 by Pavement. We received very good reviews worldwide. However, most of the guys did not like our artwork, which is very atypical of this kind of music. Some reviewers called it "caustically candy-coloured".
The powerful sound on HELIOPOLIS underlined the uniqueness and the quality of our music. We have always made heavy demands on ourselves to play catchy songs on an elevated level. Due to the multi-layered arrangements the songs remain interesting, even after the umpteenth listening.
We played a lot of shows and in 1999/2000 we had to suffer the first big change of musicians. Kristian, Jörg and our bassist of that time left APOPHIS and were replaced by Peter (guitar and vocals) and Gert (bass). The most important shows of that phase were the Summer Breeze in 2000 and the Germany tour with Sinister and Disinfect. Meanwhile we cancelled the contract with Morbid Records by mutual agreement.
After we had hatched out new songs in 2000/2001, we went into the Exponent studio once again in August 2001 to "lay" our fourth CD. Peter's and Gert's participation in the band caused our music to become more thrashy. Following the recording sessions there arose a bad mood within the band. For that reason Gert and Peter left the band in July 2002 again. Thus the band and the CD was put on ice for some time.
In August/September 2002 Roger started looking for new musicians to revive APOPHIS. For Erik it was soon clear, that he would take the durmmer's place again, thus keeping the team Roger/Erik alive.
Our new line-up reads as follows: Roger (guitar, founding member), Erik (drums, founding member), Patrick (bass, ex-Dark Reality), and Anton (guitar). Andre who recorded the vocals on the upcoming promo CD (see below) left the band in April this year.
Again we went to Hlohovec where we recorded a promotional CD in August 2003.
The sound on that CD is even clearer and more compact than on the previous CDs, some songs have been re-arranged. The songs are a great deal more aggressive than those on Heliopolis:
The fundamental bass supports the guitars and the powerful, partly groovy drumming. The vocals are various and brutal. The guitar solos impress by feeling and musicality in our typically melodic way.
Altogether this results in a style, which may be called unique and which is interesting not only for Death Metal Fans. It is impossible to assign APOPHIS to only one musical direction, because the band continually opens up new musical dimensions.
In lyrical respect APOPHIS deal with topics beyond categorization; reduced to a common denominator it may be "mystical, philosophical, dark". The lyrics contain questions on human existence and many kinds of death. APOPHIS create some kind of unity between lyrics and their music by expressing the lyrics through musical intensity.
---
Source: http://www.apophis-music.de