Three years ago, there was just Simon and me. First we met at a forest near our home town, Bielefeld - also present: a blanket, a six pack of beer and, of course, our two acoustic guitars. We met nearly every day - it was almost like a nine-to-five job. We played our two guitars as if there was no tomorrow. We met at noon and left at sunset. But most of the melodies we played were not interrupted by the night-time. They were still in our heads. We worked on them. We had a lot of good melodies, which we tried to put together. After hours and hours sitting in the sun, after a huge waste of paper, with thousands of melodies on it, there was it: our first song. "But wait -- something is missing! What is it? Oh yeah...the lyrics."
It was not a hard decision to nominate the singer. Simon has a very British accent when he sings. That's what I really like (and I think he likes it, too) and it fits to our songs perfectly. We decided to write the songs in English, because it was much more interesting for us not to write the songs in our mother-tongue - we hear the German language every day. Our favourite bands sing in English - and so we do. We tried to get more familiar with the English language - "The language of Rock'n'Roll".
After our first completely finished songs, we already had our first guest singer. Her name is Jenny and she has an amazing voice. So now there were two guys and one girl sitting on logs in the forest and playing music together. We played a lot of our own songs but also some cover versions like "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash and June Carter - songs to perform as a duet.
Now it was about time to find a name for our "new musical project". We are two men. Men are masculine. Men are assertive and strong. Red is a strong color. Red is strong. Red is men. Simon and me represent the color red. Jenny is a woman. She is sensitive and thoughtful - just like the color blue. Jenny represents the color blue. Put those colors together and you get the color violet. We put the "I Met" before the "Violet" to create some kind of rhyme - no deep thoughts behind this. We never met someone called Violet - but we'd love to. We could tell her a good story - and she would feel honored.
We took the next step: we looked for a rehearsal room. And we found it - just a five minute walk from our first "wooden rehearsal room" in the forest. The Community Center just around the corner became our new field of activity. The amplifiers and guitars were already there and we could use this room for around $50 a month. But after a short time, we gambled it away with the owner of the Community Center by putting candles on the amplifiers and messing up the room. We were much faster kicked out of the rehearsal room, than we could say "I Met Vio...".
But there was this old room in my grandma's house that needed to be renovated. We renovated it. As a thank-you we were allowed to practice there. We were not playing loud music, so it was fine with her. But we wanted to get a little louder. We needed a bass player and a drummer. We forced my best friend Johannes to play the bass guitar - he had to learn it and he does a great job.
We met the man with the sticks at a school concert. We already knew Gregor but what we didn't know: he's a really great drummer. No great persuasion. He was in. Our "musical project" became a band.
Unfortunately, Jenny had to leave the band and now there were just four guys. But, on this basis, we never planned to start a "real boy band" where everyone is singing in different pitches.
We recorded our first Demo-EP in the new renovated rehearsal room - four songs in a poor quality. But good enough to be booked for some shows in our home town. Today we try to hide these old songs from the public.
In 2007 we drove to an old friend in Cologne. He has his own recording studio together with his best friend. We recorded three great mixed songs there (e.g. "Asleep", which you can watch as a video in this blog entry).
A few months later, we met Henning. I found him and his music on MySpace and his solo stuff is impressive. I asked him to join us. No great persuasion. He was in.
Photo: From left to right: Georg, Simon, Gregor, Henning, Johannes
With Henning, we finally found our "own" music style. It's not the two-guys-with-guitars project anymore. We have extra-ordinary influences with Henning's accordion and trumpet. Our music can be defined as loveable, relaxed Pop plus rock parts (my electric guitar). Most of the times we are quite relaxed - but "I Met Violet" can be loud, too! Just listen to our songs - they are about life, love and Simon's philosophical thoughts. There is simply the joy and fun we have making music together. It's all about friendship and having a wonderful band. Hopefully, this can be heard in our songs.
We played more than two dozen shows since 2006. By the way: we played our first show with the band "Ghost Mice" from Bloomington (Indiana) in a town near Bielefeld in 2006. And after that show we had two other performances with them.
In April 2008 we drove back to Cologne to record three new songs, that we found worthwhile. They are not mixed, yet. Stay tuned - hopefully in a few weeks I will be able to post them on this blog.
Enjoy our music at www.myspace.com/imetviolet
Be prepared - maybe we will play in your town tomorrow!
I Met Violet - Asleep
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