Sandranimal
From chicken-coop
to Texas. Goettingen's Guano Apes want to conquer America.
 She really would like to
know how it is to live like a real Popstar: Two bodyguards, a huge stretch
limousine, buying an island with the first million. "In America
they do that after two hits." Sandra Nasic already has two-and-a-half
hits, but no bodyguards, no driver's license, not even her own apartment.
"My room at my mother's place is big enough, and I'm almost never
home anyway."
The Guano Apes singer is underway with her band colleagues eight months
a year: Studio, video shoots, promo-tours, concerts...and everything else
that is expected from the face of the combo that delivered the "most
successful English-language debut album of all time in Germany".
Proud like Oscar: For over a year now, "Proud Like A God"
has remained in the charts. In Germany it was rewarded with Platinum,
in Austria and Switzerland, Gold. Even in Poland, Spain, and France there
were tens of thousands of buyers. And if it works, that what the 22 year
old from Goettingen has planned, then soon enough she will be seen even
more seldomly behind the bar in her mother's pub, where she has up to
now continued to pull the beers when she was at home. Not that the red
carpets and gold records have gone to her head, but a career in the good
ole' U.S. of A...: "Everybody dreams of that."
Only that the Guano Apes' dreams are a lot more concrete than they ever
will be for 99.9 percent of all German bands. At the end of '98, their
manager, Bjoern Gralla, held the first talks with record companies in
New York. In mid-March, the gang flew to Texas; more precisely, to the
South-by-Southwest music business convention in Austin, where in five
days 800 bands were ushered onto the stage. An audience of 300 squeezed
itself into the mini-club where the Guano Apes played. And one man sweated
more than the rest of the audience: The U.S. record company manager who
had offered the band a contract and who was now anxious to see how the
Americans ¿ and in particular, his bosses - were going to take to the
noisy Germans.
"Made in Germany" doesn't necessarily stand for top workmanship
in the USA rock scene. German dance-and disco-acts, they sell fine in
the States. But screaming guitars? The big exception to the rule was the
Scorpions. But the days when the hardrockers from Hanover held the flag
high lie a few years back now. And a Grammy Nomination for Rammstein still
doesn't signify a gold rush ¿ even when it "opens a door or two",
as Apes-Manager Gralla admits.
And not to give a false
impression that his proteges needed it, he adds immediately: "Texas
was a triumph.". For April, he worked out another gig in Boston.
Two, three months later the first single will appear on the American market.
And then it should be all systems go. At the moment Gralla is still negotiating
with U.S. partners to book concerts there, to represent the band, to push
the right buttons for the "big thing from Germany". This
much, the musicians have already learned from their first trip: Conquering
America is no school field trip. "It means more work than in Germany,
but also more chances".
In the States, opinion is not dictated by two video channels like here
with MTV and Viva. "Hits are made by college radio",
in Gralla's opinion, "and there's an unbelievably huge number
of those to work.". And the music press is not just concentrated
in a couple of big cities like here in Germany, where, with relatively
few gigs, the artist can count on national coverage. Gralla: "You
can forget any tour under 14 days in America. Six weeks is even better."
 But the band is used to the live grind. When all is said and done,
they played their way up through the clubs, and last year they took to
the stage 100 times. In contrast to Boygroups and other quick-cash cowboys,
they can boast of an almost classical, if not downright old-fashioned
career development in the rock business. These band members weren't selected
under a marketing microscope, but instead recruited each other from the
Goettingen student scene. The name was brainstormed at a roommate party,
and the first songs were rehearsed in a former chicken-coop. They even
still remember fondly the case of beer they got paid for a gig in the
school cafeteria. Today they pocket six-figure concert fees, have sold
well over a million records, have done all the significant press, and,
what's almost more important as a thermometer for Fame and Honor: In teeny
magazines, Sandra's hair color (frequently changeable) and love
life (allegedly extremely faithful) are hotly discussed topics.
Of course, the front woman knows exactly how quickly teenies can change
the posters on their wall. She can deal with that following her "Super
Showbiz Crash Course", says the daughter of a Croatian-German
marriage. First Lesson: 'First hit followed by a flop, Popstar's looking
for a job.' Dream over and out: No island, no stretch limousine, no bodyguards.
She really doesn't need all that, emphasizes Sandra Nasic. And even in
the worst case, the band won't be left standing broke in the street. That
much money, she's already put aside. "We definitely won't be standing
in the pedestrian zone with a sign around our necks, "Please help.
We're victims of the music industry.".
The
victory in a "Battle of the Bands" was the starting point
for a stellar career.
The first album, "Proud Like A God" has sold over
650,000 copies in Germany since February, 1998.
The hits, "Open Your Eyes" and "Lords Of
The Boards" each had over 350,000 buyers. |
From:
FOCUS 4/1999
Text: Georg Meck
Photos: D. Schelpmeier/H. Starck/FOCUS-Magazin |
