Kellerkammando

“Dei Bier is mei Bier” (Your beer is my beer) is the name of the single that is released together with the new Kellerkommando album “Hobb edzz!” (Let’s go) in time for Beer Day. But it is by no means a crude drinking song. Rather, it evokes the unifying effect of barley juice. After all, when drinking it, people come together, regardless of nationality, skin colour, gender or sexual preference, and have a good, peaceful time together.

The Kellerkommando (Cellar Command) knows a thing or two about liquid gold, after all, the cradle of the band is in Bamberg, Upper Franconia. The region is known far beyond its borders for its tasty beer and for having the highest density of breweries in the world. Nowhere else can you still find so many breweries, most of which are run by families. In Franconia, the hop brew is not simply there to be drunk, but plays a major cultural role.

“Every brewery has a brewery pub and usually also a beer cellar (a particularly beautiful form of beer garden), where you can sit under shady trees in summer and comfortably sip from the mug. What’s fascinating is that the beer gardens and pubs here are still very colourful places where society reflects itself. Everyone sits together here – regardless of age, gender, level of education and social class,” the band enthuses.

Together with the single “Dei Bier is mei Bier”, the Kellerkommando releases its third album after “Dunnerkeil” (2013) and “Belzebub” (2015). After the last two arid Corona years, the band is impatiently scratching its hooves and now gives the signal to set off. “Hobb edzz!” reads the album title, which means “Let’s go!”

“Without Lockdown, the new record might not even exist. We were all so busy with the live concerts of our bands that there was no thought of songwriting and studio. Then came the Lockdown and then all these beautiful new songs,” says singer and accordionist Dada Windschi.

Soon after the band was founded in 2011, Kellerkommando won the Creole music competition, first at the state and then also at the national level. The concept that convinced the jury back then is still behind the songs today: You rummage in your great-great-grandparents’ music box and find irresistibly sexy catchy tunes with funny, whimsical or sometimes lovingly crude lyrics – just all the things that interested young people a good 120 years ago. Inspired by this, the bridge to the here and now is built both lyrically and musically. Rap meets popular refrain, brass and accordion meet fat beats and synth basses, in short, yesterday meets today to generate the pop music of tomorrow.

Two features can be found on “Hobb edzz!”: The Lower Bavarian rock songwriter Karin Rabhansl sings a duet with the Franks with Mexican-fiery rhythms. The song “Wer waaß” creatively settles scores with xenophobia, environmental pollution and sexism. The award-winning world music artists from Gankino Circus have already recorded a beautiful version of the Kirchweihhit “Wo is denn des Gerchla” (=Georg) themselves. Singer Simon Schorndanner sings about the bratwurst lover again in the cellar commando song “Brinzla” full of devotion, but around it a real trap thunderstorm rises and one can only marvel at what all rhymes with “Gerchla”.

These two examples alone indicate that “Hobb edzz!” cannot be pigeonholed stylistically. The mix is too colourful, open and exciting, with elements of electro, traditional music, punk, hip-hop, reggae, funk and more. And yet you can clearly hear the red Kellerkommando thread. Producer and band co-founder Sebastian Schubert is largely responsible for this in his Cologne studio. While he packed the modernity into the songs, singer Dada Windschi was always responsible for the folk music credibility. The latter’s name in other life is David Saam and he has made a name for himself as a traditional music expert, BR presenter and dialect specialist, which earned him the Bavarian Dialect Prize in 2019. The other band members Joachim Leyh (drums), Jakob Winterstein (bass), Stefan Schalanda (trumpet) and Ilya Khenkin (trombone) are also renowned musical Hansdampfe in all alleys and, in addition, music teachers and university lecturers.

“Our incentive for this record was to get back to our roots. We wanted to pack more of our live energy into the recordings and that’s why we worked on the songs together with the whole band much earlier than on the previous albums,” say the Kellerkommandanten and are already excited to present the record to their fans on 21 April 2022 at the E-Werk Erlangen. After that, it’s off to a whole series of festivals and concerts in the summer, where the Kellerkommando will once again shout to the people: “Hobb edzz!”