Bio - How it happened and why.

Some people say that Rock´n Roll was hitting this world like a giant earthquake. When Elvis, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and all the other great Rock´n Roll Heroes appeared in the 1950´s, they changed the world and lifes of so many people forever.

It is true. I know it by own experience. I was five, when the record player blasted "Rock around the clock" through my room and it changed my life forever and gave me a direction for my life, passion and a fire that will always burn.

Well, i should tell you that i was not one of that 1950´s kids. I was born in the 1970´s, long time after Rock´n Roll was gone or say: Right on time for the great Rock´n Roll Revival in the 1970´s. And i knew nothing about it. I was just a five year old bavarian kid that had "Razzle Dazzle" on his record player and jumped around, shouting more loud than great sounding to the music on the record. Little later i got a cheap keyboard at christmas and played each song i knew on it. Sometimes i heard a song on the radio and i liked it so i went to the keyboard and played it. If my eyes could hear it, my fingers could play it. It didn´t took long, until i heard people saying stuff like "this child needs support", or "that talent must be supported".

The problem was, that i was deep in Rock´n Roll and so i was not scared to turn the music of the great classical composers into wild Rock´n Roll twisters. I think Jerry Lee would have been proud of me. Well, the music teachers were not...

Thank god, there was this wonderful young lady, a piano teacher, that was willing to help me on my way. We made a deal: As long as i learned everything she told me and showed me, i could also rock´n roll like the devil. DEAL!!

I made big steps forward but then i discovered my love to the organ. That beast with two keyboards and bass pedals that you hit with your feet, while you are playing on both keyboards and fire notes with the volume pedal under your other feet. What a wonderful beast but sadly, my piano teacher could not help me with it. So our wonderful relationship ended and after i heard all that "he must stop playing that nigga-music" from some assholes, i deceided to go on without any music teacher. I got me a lot of books about the organ and studied the music of Glenn Miller. What a wonderful teacher he was!

At the age of 13, i had my first gig on a wedding. It was fun! And playing music and getting payed was a wonderful experience. When i turned 16, i started to play in a cover band, that did a lot of 50`s and 60´s stuff. The guys in the band could have been my parents but we all had grewn up with the same music. We had two guitarplayers and one of them gave me a cassette with a recording of "Tulsa Times" by Eric Clapton. He said something like: "We want to play that song and the guy on the piano sounds like you". So i took the tape with me and in the following weeks i played the tape all around the clock. What a great song, what a great piano playing! I think, i played the tape into pieces and so i finally ran to a record-store to buy me the song. I came home with the Clapton album "Just one night". The first song was "Tulsa Times" and in the next months i never made it to the second song on the record. I played "Tulsa Times" again and again. I was sixteen years old and totally addicted to it.

One day i thought, that it would be a good idea to listen to the other songs on the album and so i went to my room, turned the lights down and played the whole record. I can´t exactly put in words, what happened to me that night, but when the record was over, i knew, that i wanted to become a guitarplayer and i wanted to be like Clapton. Nothing more, nothing less.

I could still remember the problems i had to find anybody teaching me rock´n roll piano and so i deceided to do it on my own again. I went through all my jackets and jeans to find a buck here and a buck there. Together with the little money i had on the bank it was enough to get me a cheap electric guitar and a cheap amplifier. So i had all i needed to start but... how the hell was this thing working? I had an acoustic guitar since years and i had played some "three chord songs" on it. So i started to analyze the fretboard to understand where the notes were to be found. In my thoughts i turned one string into piano keys and very soon i could play melodys on that one string. Still five strings left... Before that day i was thinking as a piano player: From left to right. Now it was from left to right and up and down. After some thinking i made it to play melodys on two strings..

At the end i built "roads" on the fretboard and finally i had it done. At this moment i started to play first Clapton Solos from the record. I remember, that i was not good enough to play the whole solos so i cheated by filling the holes with own melodic ideas. I must confess, that 80% of everything i played in those days was simply stolen from Clapton...

My career as a "music thief" ended very quick, as i was jamming with some friends. After five or six songs, the drummer said something like: "Wow, you´re playing like Clapton". I think it was a compliment but it made me understood, that i was just a Clapton clone. And not the best clone in this world. And even if i could made it to became a first class clone, i would still be a clone. I was 18 years old and something had to happen..

In the following years i bought me a hell of cd´s from great guitar players to get further influences: B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler, Gary Moore, Van Halen, Buddy Guy. I listened to Pink Floyd and discovered the great Steve Cropper. I also played with everybody that was willing to share the stage with me and i learned from all of them. I played Reggae with some folks from Jamaica, Country with a singer from Texas, Blues, Rock, Hard Rock... I played with a pop band and worked as soundguy for bavarian folk music guys. I just couldn´t get enough of it all. If there was no gig at the weekend i drove to the next place, where a band was playing and asked them, if i could play the show with them. It worked a lot of times and finally people started to call me for playing shows. 

I was about twentytwo years old, when i learned, that music and business are not following the same rules: A famous artist (don´t want to tell his name) booked me to play shows with him. At the end of the first gig he got the money (18.000 bucks) and came to me: "Fred, you played so great. Here are 50 bucks for the gasoline. I love to play with you. Want to play further shows with me?". Well....  I was so hungry to play and somehow i got the reputation, that i was also playing for peanuts just to get on a stage. "The cheapest greatest guitar player in this area". I started to set minimums for the money and still got booked. Great lesson, by the way :-)

In this years i also started to produce demos of my own songs. I sent them out to the record labels again and again and got rejected again and again, too. "Too good, nobody will buy it", "too retro", "too progressive", "Boy, you are older than 20 years, forget it!", "You are bavarian, you must jodel". Cassettes turned into cd´s and i was still older than 20 and born in Bavaria.

Finally i was soooo close to a record deal. I was member of a pop duo and the singer was young and great looking.  We had great songs, a great producer, a great finished production, contacts with record labels. I was sooo close to go big. Then we met at the house of the producer and my friend the singer asked me to go to his car with him. There he played me the final mix of the songs. "Ain´t it great??". "Yes, but why couldn´t we listen to it in the house?". "Well, the producer said, it is not allowed to play the recordings to people that are not members of the project....". A nice way to fire your partner, right? I never saw him again but at least i couldn´t make it to become a popstar this time. My "friend" the singer, too. Instead of going to "Top of the Pops", he went to jail a little later. He started his idea of "living the rockstar life" too soon and maybe a little bit too heavy. I never saw him again. 

I joined another band and after practising like hell and playing great shows we sat together in a round with a guy from the music business to talk about our future. Well, we spent hours and hours with arguing about everything that was... lightyears away from being a band and going forward. Late at night we stopped and went home. A little later the band broke up. Spinal Tap is everywhere. And i was soooo close again :-)

After this all i made a decision: Never built your castle on anybodys beach but yours. So i built me a recording studio and started to work on my own. My first 8-track productions were made soon. Two of them: "Marching Angels" and "Christmas Dance Medley" got used by the showdance group "Showfunken" from Germany. They won the european championship with it in 1999. I went to 16 tracks and did some radio-jingles that found a great echo. Working for other people went fine as long as i didn´t try to make it as an solo artist. And i was 30 years old now, still born in Bavaria and not willing to jodel. Very bad problem. But the change was already waiting for me and then i found it.

At one night i was in munich at a show called "Songwriters Live". You can compare it with the songwriters nights in Nashville. The difference is, that it happens a few times a year, while they do it each night in Nashville. The lady that runs the Show, Ellie Weinert is a really great and wonderful woman. At this time, i had reached the "i will never get anywhere with my music" point and i finally believed all the things, that people has told me all over the years: "I am too old, not good looking.. ", all that stuff. 

As the show started i had my personal "Elwood Blues" Experience (remember that moment in the church when he saw the light, while James Brown was singing": All that guys on stage were older than 20, were not looking like supermodels and they did their thing. Played their own songs and enjoyed it. And there was me: The guy that ran from one gig to another, playing music that i never really liked to make money and sending demos around, hoping that somebody would "discover me". After the Show i talked with Ellie and she had a wonderful way to kick my ass and get me out of that black hole i was in for much too long. The next day i stopped playing in coverbands to get all that time and energy into the music that i really loved. And if nobody would sign it, i would sell it on my own. Damn it!

At the night, i talked with Ellie i also met Veronika Faber, a singer from Munich. She told me about Myspace. Very quick after we met, i got me an accout there and put my first songs on the page. In the first weeks nothing happened until i read: "Hello Fred, we love ya here" in the guestbook. Michael Harrison Blues Fanclub in the USA. 

The next weeks more and more friendships with musicians and music fans from the states were made and i realized that the fact, that nobody in my own country seemed to like my music doesn´t meant, that the rest of the world would do so, too. And i had a new song that was recorded and mixed: "Who killed Alex?". A very wild Rockabilly Tune about a guy that got treated very, very bad and runs amok. I thought, it would be the last song, that everybody would like to hear. I was wrong...

I took "Who killed Alex?" into Myspace and some other sites, too. Then i got sick and they brought me to the hospital. As i come back, my mailbox was FULL. "Alex" had reached the No1 position at the rockcharts at Broadjam. A radio station from the US contaced me to play the song on air. Hippo Radio in Scotland made me a featured Artist and i was one of the favourite artists of their owner. They played my music and helped a lot to spread the word around. Radio Aria in France played "Lie to me" in their Blues-Show, together with Songs from John Mayall, John Lee Hooker, Alexis Korner and other legends. Further radio stations in different countrys followed and my songs started to hit the Top10 at Broadjam. One after another.

I really believed that there would be no reason left to not sign me now. So i contacted the record companies in Germany again. What should i say? "That´s wonderful but... your music is for the wrong people... it is for old people". "Which age?". "Well, the guys over 20...". And my old favourite: "But you are bavarian...".



So i founded my own distributor in the states and my first album "Let me in" was now in the listings of 2.400 record stores. 1.800 in the states. One day i went to Amazon.de and saw my album there: "US-Import". It was strange, but funny. I must say, i started to love the idea of being an Indie-Artist and after the final: "But you are bavarian" i deceided to go my own way. .

So i had found friends in the states that loved my music. And they sent me emails, like: "when are you coming to play in our town?". I talked with some of them about the situation with the labels in germany and mostly got the same answer: "Go to Nashville!". I must say, that it was a scaring idea for me. I still could remember interviews with guys that have been there and they all agreed, that this city kicks you down: "Even the badest there is lightyears better than our best players at home". So what the hell should i expect from a city that was filled with giant players? Anybody there waiting for a guy like me? Surely not. But fate brought me some myspace friends, living in Nashville and then i got invited to play there at a songwriters night. Fate or not, i booked the flight and jumped right into the big adventure. Hard to tell anybody that i was flying thousands of miles because of "somebody from myspace said, i can play there". But i did it. And it was the best i could do.

It was a wonderful moment, to get out of the plane and find my two friends waiting for me at the airport: Pippy Lorraine and Joe Hrasna. We drove to town, ate some chicken wings and then it was time to go to bed (after 31 hours, since i jumped out of bed in Bavaria:-). I stayed in the house of Lorna  Flowers, a wonderful lady and great songwriter. In the next days, the three wonderful guys introduced me to people in town and Lorna told me a lot about writing better lyrics. I spend the days in town and the nights in Lornas house with books about lyric-writing. Sometimes i slept, haha. As i played my set at "Writers on the rise" i already knew a lot of people in the audience and i had the pleasure to share the stage with amazing people like Rick Stewart, Mark Stephen Jones, Suzie Hughes, Marghi Allen, Jeffrey James Sutherland and Don and Karen McNatt. Most of the people i saw at that evening became friends and Don and Karen told me, that they were planing to come to my country to play some shows there. Mark Stephen Jones played his "Red, White and Pink Slip Blues", a song that i couldn´t forget. One year later, Hank Williams Jr. rocked the Charts with it. What a song, what a writer. (Later i found another song from him on the actual Lynyrd Skynyrd Album. He really made it and he fully deserves it. God bless him).

Lorna helped me to become a member of the NSAI (Nashville Songwriter Association International), which helped me in a lot of ways: I joined Workshops with Vince Gill, Victoria Shaw, Gary Burth and Jon Ims. I always thought that i was a good songwriter but now i learned from some of the greates. You can say i went back to shool and what a great shool it was! A few days before i left the town, Lorna introduced me to her friend Kirsti. We met in a cafe. As Kirsti walked up on stage, she blew us all away. Finally i was told, that Kirsti was the great Kirsti Manna. Before i knew that, we talked about playing some shows together in Germany. After i knew it, i got scared but just one year later we played the shows and it was an amazing time to share the stage with "Lady Dynamite" each night. Anybody with a exploding ego should do that, too. There is no better therapy than playing with Kirsti and see what it means to be a REALLY GREAT PERFORMER. I love her.

There is another episode i want to tell you about: At one evening in Nashville i went to the birthday party of Joe Hrasna and at that evening i had some really H-O-T chicken wings. Stupid me thought, the waitress was talking about the temperature of the food. Everybody (me too) died laughing, as i sat on the table, suffering and burned down from the hot sauce. Don´t know how i survived it ;-) but the same night i wrote a song about it and i called it: "Bring me some water". Guess, that´s all i could say after i had them and i said it a lot of times. I thought it would be a wonderful memorie for Joe. Months later it brought me a contract in Nashville but that night i was only thinking about the song and if Joe would like it. And how i could stop that damned pain in my throat...

What should i say? I had the best time of my life in Nashville. Finally i didn´t had to excuse for what i am and nobody asked me to jodel. I can say, that it never felt like going to a foreign country. From the very first moment it felt like coming home after so much years. So it was more than hard to say goodbye and fly home. During the flight i wrote new songs: "Girl from the northeast", "Crazy Country Hopper" and "17 hours to Nashville". Back in Germany i wrote "Angel of Nashville" for Pippy Lorraine to thank her for everything she did for me. And i kept the contact with my new friends by email. Two months later i went back to Nashville to play at a songwriter competition and found further friends like Mercedes Montgomery and Rich Eckhardt. I din´t win the competition but i had a lot of fun. 

"Bring me some" water found a lot of friends in Nasvhille and finally the Saucy Sisters used it in their cooking show. Beware of the wings :-). I got booked to write songs for a musical about the Blues Legend Robert Johnson and won the competiton for a movie title song. My new album: "Michigan Avenue" found great response. A lot of wonderful things happened to me. One year later i was back at the beginning: The musical got dropped and the movie song will now not be there.  Well, i learned to stand up again and keep on walking. Sadly this time i fell in a hole and before i could leave it, i got sick and finally i spent two months at the hospital. Today i can say that i am glad that it happened. It really brought me back on my feet and so i am now working on getting back in the race. 

Finally you could say, that i didn´t made it. And that i am a loser. If i would have been running to become the next Robbie Williams, it would be right. At the other hand: For a boy from Bavaria, that got beaten in shool for listening to Elvis and Bill Haley instead of Limahl and Kajagogo and always got in trouble for his love for music, it is not bad to had 13 Top Ten Songs in worldwide Internet-Charts, Radio-Airplay in seven countries, and shows in the US and friendship (and gigs) with some of the greatest musicians and songwriters. And the game is not over yet. Oh no sir...

Love you all:

Fred

"Songwriter needs help" - A true story

My dear friends Lorna Flowers was battling cancer without an medical insurance and so people in Nashville did a big benefit for her to get the money for the chemos. I read it at the internet and started "Songwriter needs help". The idea was to give the songs from "Let me in" for free download, kinda "If you like it, don´t pay me, pay Lorna". It was a surprise that wonderful artists like Chris Caffary, Akascht and "Wir sind Wir" from Vienna joined it to help Lorna, too. They didn´t even know the lady...  To me, all this really showed how much can happen, when enough people get together. And we are NOT a society of people that don´t care about any other then ourselves. This world is much better than it´s reputation. Good news, right?