We wanted to be different to the anglophone Rock'n'Roll-World...
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In the early 80s there are a lot of musically styles in the Charts, for example New Wave, New Romantic and different styles of Rock. Thanks to these heavenly proportions what belongs to the musically offers in the Charts also Rockabilly had the chance to be successful. The ACE CATS were one representative of this art form. The girls dressed up in petticoat, the boys also dressed up in retro-togs and with the at that time typical quiff... With this fashion style the group appeared and presented their music to the German music-fans. They were the native match to Shakin' Stevens and The Stray Cats. The first album was sung in English, but already the second album was sung in German and brought success to the band. Their first German single "Heut Nacht" placed in the Airplay-Charts on No. 40. The second single "Linda" placed in the German Single-Charts on No. 17 and stayed in the Top 50 for 12 weeks. This success was the reason for the band's invitation to the German TV Show "Hitparade" (a show where the audience can vote for their favourite song, ed.). In this show the ACE CATS were voted on No. 1. Other TV- and Radio-Shows followed. In relation to the German Single-Charts, "Linda" was the only commercial success of the band. Some more singles followed up to 1985 (for example "Gina", "Rockabella" or "Du liebst mich") and placed in the Airplay-Charts. A lot of the songs by the ACE CATS were often played on the radio.
Some musicians left the band in 1985 and started own projects (Thomas and Tina together in the band "SHEBOP", Markus with "Kreisler"). The band broke up a short time later. A few musicians tried to start a comeback in 1988 and 1989 under the same name. The singles "Süsse 17" and "Sheila" didn't enjoy popularity - probably because of the extreme change of style in music (from Rockabilly to Pop).
The comeback of the ACE CATS - like described on the first site of this Special - took place in 1996. With only one single ("Immer wieder solo") and a few weeks of media presence it was only a small one. In a conversation with Thomas Szalaga on January, 19th, we asked what happened in the meantime and what about another comeback of the ACE CATS.
Some musicians left the band in 1985 and started own projects (Thomas and Tina together in the band "SHEBOP", Markus with "Kreisler"). The band broke up a short time later. A few musicians tried to start a comeback in 1988 and 1989 under the same name. The singles "Süsse 17" and "Sheila" didn't enjoy popularity - probably because of the extreme change of style in music (from Rockabilly to Pop).
The comeback of the ACE CATS - like described on the first site of this Special - took place in 1996. With only one single ("Immer wieder solo") and a few weeks of media presence it was only a small one. In a conversation with Thomas Szalaga on January, 19th, we asked what happened in the meantime and what about another comeback of the ACE CATS.
Hello Thomas! Welcome at Music-Pleasuredome. What are you doing 10 years after the ACE CATS?
I'm working as a teacher for music and pedagogue for theatre since almost 10 years at the "Jugendkunst"-School in Unna and at different other schools in the vicinity of Unna. At the moment I'm working a lot of in language-support for children that cannot speak German very well - prevailing with foreign children. I'm preparing a lesson for this afternoon with the topic "Africa", now.
Luitger Fräger and you were foundation members of the ACE CATS. How have you got acquainted with him?
I got to know Luitger at the specialized secondary school for design in Dortmund.
In 1980, you and Luitger founded your band which originally was called ALLEY CATS. Why the name was changed into ACE CATS later?
Because there was a Punk-Band in America, which also was named ALLEY CATS. This band was relatively unknown but because of legal reasons we wasn't allowed to use the name "Alley Cats". Markus had the idea to change the name into "Ace Cats". He had further the idea to make this name to a main theme and also to use some symbols. The four boys were the "Aces" and the two girls were the "Joker". That was his artistic idea about the whole thing.
How did it come that the other musicians joined the band?
I played together with Christian in a band called "Apples" before. This was a Beat-Band. Later, I asked him to join the Ace Cats because I know that he is a fantastic drummer. At that time we had no good one. Markus is the brother of Luitger. The two guys have played together in another band before. The two girls were our girl-friends.
Which idea you had about the ACE CATS? What were the aims at that time?
We only wanted to play original Rockabilly and Rock'n'Roll. That changed a little bit later, because we wanted to be different to other Rockabilly-Bands. We wanted to go our own way and had the idea to make German lyrics for our songs.
Two years after the foundation of the band the first album was published. It contained own songs written by you and also coverversions. How did this album develop and how did you get your first record contract?
We had always the aim to make a lot of own songs and not only to cover other songs. Later we got to know our management "Energie" from Herne. They wanted to make a record with us. Thereon we sat down and chose our favourite songs which we wanted to play and everybody of us had the task to write some own songs. So the mixture of coverversions and own songs and in addition our first record developed. The result is not so good as we have imagined. The reason for that is that nobody in Germany known how to record such a music at that time. There are some nice anecdote for that: Luitger went to the toilet of the recording studio to play his contrabass there because this room had the best acoustics. We tried out a lot of things and it was really funny. We was quite inexperienced at that time and our producer, too. So we tested a lot of possibilities for our music until we was halfway happy with result.
In the beginning we played a lot of concerts across the country and had a lot supporters. When we played in the Ruhr area there came always hundreds of people to enjoy our concerts. Sometime, the record company became attentive on us, visited on of our concerts and thought: "Who had so much fans without a record contract will have even more fans and will sell a lot of records with a contract". So we got our deal. To play so many concerts in the run-up was one reason for the record contract.
Götz Alsmann was also involved in the development of your first album. How he came to the ACE CATS?
In the beginning we played together with Götz many times. Götz come from Münster and Markus studied there at that time. We was friends, also today. Götz played Swing-Music and we played Rockabilly and we organized a lot of things and gave concerts together in Münster and in the vicinity of Münster. It was a kind of "Rock'n'Roll Package" when we went on stage together. We asked him if he liked to play accordion and piano on our record. He agreed and so he became part of our work.
This album was still in English. The next album "Katzen tanzen durch die Nacht" was sung in German. Was the Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW) one reason for the change of language?
We had not so much to do with the NDW. But of course we was part of this musically wave. At that time we thought about what to do to be different from the anglophone Rock'n'Roll-World. That was the main reason.
This record was also produced by Gerhard "Barny" Murphy who was part of the successful band Spider Murphy Gang. How did it come to this cooperation and that he produced some of your songs?
We have already played together with the Spider Murphy Gang before. Over our record company (CBS) we came to a recording studio in Munich which was frequented at that time. Artists like Spider Murphy Gang, Münchener Freiheit and Sandra recorded their albums there. The sound engineer of this studio was Armand Volker and was quite good. The record company had the idea to get in addition to him someone prominent to produce our album. Barny had not make so much, it was the main part of the sound engineer. The cooperation with Barny was quite nice.
The single "Linda" became a big hit and is also today a often played song in the radio. A real evergreen. How big was the surprise of the success of this song for you?
Actually we counted on the first single "Heut Nacht" to be a success because we thought that this song is quite nice. It was a little bit strange with the accounting period of the TV Show "ZDF Hitparade" at that time because we were nearly invited to the show still with this song. But it didn't work. When we published "Linda" we reckoned to be invited to the "Hitparade" and that this song would be successful. But we never thought that we could win the first place in Dieter-Thomas Heck's TV Show immediately at our first performance. That was a big surprise because we were big outsiders there and relatively unknown.
Many TV-Shows and Live-Concerts followed. The ACE CATS were also at the interlude of a Shakin' Stevens concert, right? Do you remember this concert?
That was a concert at the Westfalenhalle in Dortmund. At that time we did not have the big nationwide success like we had later, but we were a local successful band. I don't know how but our management managed it that the Management of Shakin' Stevens heard our music. They liked what we did and they also liked that we was a well known band in the vicinity of Dortmund. So it came that we was part of Shaky's Show. I don't know exactly how this passed off at that time.
At all, your Live-Shows were always a real happening. Also the girls have incited the audience with their dance performances (always synchronously, ed.). Who was responsible for the choreography of the girls?
That was the task of the girls. We had an allocation of responsibilities which worked perfect. Christian and I wrote the most songs, Markus was responsible for the whole artistical part (Outfits, presentation, Coverartwork, etc.), Luitger managed the complete organizationally part and the girls worked out the choreography and their complete performance.
In the year 1985 the third album "Stundenlang im Fieber" was published. This record was as good as the second album but was not so successful like it. What do you think was the reason why this album didn't reach such a big success?
Probably because this album contained not such a big single hit like "Linda" on the previous album. In addition, we have changed ourself very fast. If you take a look on the photos of this time: We have changed our outfit completely every year. Today this would be a disaster for the marketing policy. Today's artists use their outfits five or six years but we had fun to make always something completely other. For the fans it was also not so easy to accept. Maybe it was also a reason for less success.
After that you left the ACE CATS and founded the band SHEBOP together with Tina. At least you've published three albums with this band. Where were the differences between the ACE CATS and SHEBOP?
First, SHEBOP was a band with a female singer. In addition we temporally went back in music history another 10 years as we did with the ACE CATS. We've made more Swing-Music of the 40s.
Also the ACE CATS tried to come back in 1988. But not so successful. What do you think about this try?
After the end of the ACE CATS in the year 1985 there was a try of a comeback with Luitger, Christian, Petra and a new singer named Ted Shansky. They have published the singles "Süsse 16" and "Sheila" which completely were flopped. This had musically nothing in common anymore with the music of the original ACE CATS.
In the year 1996 there was a real comeback of the original ACE CATS. How did it came to this?
The record company called us and said that they planned to publish our albums on CD again. They asked us if we wanted to make another small tour. First we said: "No way!". In the meantime, everybody of us had other jobs and duties. After mature deliberation and after we have asked the girls we decided to do it. With Jürgen Weber we known a singer who could sing all our songs very good. And so it came to the reunion of the original ACE CATS. For us it was a straight decision that we would do this again for just one year, quite without pressure and just for fun.
"Immer wieder solo" became again a small hit and you were invited also to television...
Yes, that's right!
Have you counted on the success of your music and the fact that Rockabilly would be in demand in such a way?
I think, that this music is in demand every 10 year. Possibly it's a stupid saying but this music is really timeless and you can hear it again and again! Even today there are a lot of Rock'n'Roll and Rockabilly music in demand. I'm still waiting for the real big Comeback of Rockabilly-Music.
Also SASHA have tried it with his project "Dick Brave and the Backbeats" and was very successful...
Sasha really likes this music. By the way, he is an old ACE CATS-Fan! Everybody known SASHA before this project and it was something like a side-project. But it was really very successful.
With "Lady Di" there was another single. It was withdrawn, right? Why?
The song was just finished when Princess Diana died in an accident. I think this song was a real good single and had to become very successful. The main theme of the song was very current, the lyrics funny and the music really good. Then there came this tragic accident and we said: "Now, we cannot publish this song anymore".
Now, it's again 10 years after. What about another Comeback of the ACE CATS?
Yes, we are thinking about something like that. But nothing under the name ACE CATS. A new friend and guitar player from my region, his name is Rolf Kaudelka, our drummer Christian and I thinking about the foundation of an Acoustic-Rock'n'Roll- and Rockabilly-Band. We wants to go back to the roots of the ALLEY CATS. At that time we also were three musicians with contrabass and completely acoustic. Maybe we will do such a project.
Do you still have contact to the other members of the ACE CATS? What are the ACE CATS doing today?
Luitger has died in an accident two years ago. Markus is living in Cologne and is a painter. He had a Rock'n'Roll Band with which I played together as a guest sometimes. He just have bought a house and established an art-studio. I'm still together with Tina. She's a teacher at a school for physically handicapped children. Petra and Christian are divorced in the meantime.
I thank you very much for your time and the answers. Do you want to say anything more?
I'm looking forward to this ACE CATS-Special you are preparing at the moment. I will have a look when it's ready.
I'm working as a teacher for music and pedagogue for theatre since almost 10 years at the "Jugendkunst"-School in Unna and at different other schools in the vicinity of Unna. At the moment I'm working a lot of in language-support for children that cannot speak German very well - prevailing with foreign children. I'm preparing a lesson for this afternoon with the topic "Africa", now.
Luitger Fräger and you were foundation members of the ACE CATS. How have you got acquainted with him?
I got to know Luitger at the specialized secondary school for design in Dortmund.
In 1980, you and Luitger founded your band which originally was called ALLEY CATS. Why the name was changed into ACE CATS later?
Because there was a Punk-Band in America, which also was named ALLEY CATS. This band was relatively unknown but because of legal reasons we wasn't allowed to use the name "Alley Cats". Markus had the idea to change the name into "Ace Cats". He had further the idea to make this name to a main theme and also to use some symbols. The four boys were the "Aces" and the two girls were the "Joker". That was his artistic idea about the whole thing.
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I played together with Christian in a band called "Apples" before. This was a Beat-Band. Later, I asked him to join the Ace Cats because I know that he is a fantastic drummer. At that time we had no good one. Markus is the brother of Luitger. The two guys have played together in another band before. The two girls were our girl-friends.
Which idea you had about the ACE CATS? What were the aims at that time?
We only wanted to play original Rockabilly and Rock'n'Roll. That changed a little bit later, because we wanted to be different to other Rockabilly-Bands. We wanted to go our own way and had the idea to make German lyrics for our songs.
Two years after the foundation of the band the first album was published. It contained own songs written by you and also coverversions. How did this album develop and how did you get your first record contract?
We had always the aim to make a lot of own songs and not only to cover other songs. Later we got to know our management "Energie" from Herne. They wanted to make a record with us. Thereon we sat down and chose our favourite songs which we wanted to play and everybody of us had the task to write some own songs. So the mixture of coverversions and own songs and in addition our first record developed. The result is not so good as we have imagined. The reason for that is that nobody in Germany known how to record such a music at that time. There are some nice anecdote for that: Luitger went to the toilet of the recording studio to play his contrabass there because this room had the best acoustics. We tried out a lot of things and it was really funny. We was quite inexperienced at that time and our producer, too. So we tested a lot of possibilities for our music until we was halfway happy with result.
In the beginning we played a lot of concerts across the country and had a lot supporters. When we played in the Ruhr area there came always hundreds of people to enjoy our concerts. Sometime, the record company became attentive on us, visited on of our concerts and thought: "Who had so much fans without a record contract will have even more fans and will sell a lot of records with a contract". So we got our deal. To play so many concerts in the run-up was one reason for the record contract.
Götz Alsmann was also involved in the development of your first album. How he came to the ACE CATS?
In the beginning we played together with Götz many times. Götz come from Münster and Markus studied there at that time. We was friends, also today. Götz played Swing-Music and we played Rockabilly and we organized a lot of things and gave concerts together in Münster and in the vicinity of Münster. It was a kind of "Rock'n'Roll Package" when we went on stage together. We asked him if he liked to play accordion and piano on our record. He agreed and so he became part of our work.
This album was still in English. The next album "Katzen tanzen durch die Nacht" was sung in German. Was the Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW) one reason for the change of language?
We had not so much to do with the NDW. But of course we was part of this musically wave. At that time we thought about what to do to be different from the anglophone Rock'n'Roll-World. That was the main reason.
This record was also produced by Gerhard "Barny" Murphy who was part of the successful band Spider Murphy Gang. How did it come to this cooperation and that he produced some of your songs?
We have already played together with the Spider Murphy Gang before. Over our record company (CBS) we came to a recording studio in Munich which was frequented at that time. Artists like Spider Murphy Gang, Münchener Freiheit and Sandra recorded their albums there. The sound engineer of this studio was Armand Volker and was quite good. The record company had the idea to get in addition to him someone prominent to produce our album. Barny had not make so much, it was the main part of the sound engineer. The cooperation with Barny was quite nice.
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Actually we counted on the first single "Heut Nacht" to be a success because we thought that this song is quite nice. It was a little bit strange with the accounting period of the TV Show "ZDF Hitparade" at that time because we were nearly invited to the show still with this song. But it didn't work. When we published "Linda" we reckoned to be invited to the "Hitparade" and that this song would be successful. But we never thought that we could win the first place in Dieter-Thomas Heck's TV Show immediately at our first performance. That was a big surprise because we were big outsiders there and relatively unknown.
Many TV-Shows and Live-Concerts followed. The ACE CATS were also at the interlude of a Shakin' Stevens concert, right? Do you remember this concert?
That was a concert at the Westfalenhalle in Dortmund. At that time we did not have the big nationwide success like we had later, but we were a local successful band. I don't know how but our management managed it that the Management of Shakin' Stevens heard our music. They liked what we did and they also liked that we was a well known band in the vicinity of Dortmund. So it came that we was part of Shaky's Show. I don't know exactly how this passed off at that time.
At all, your Live-Shows were always a real happening. Also the girls have incited the audience with their dance performances (always synchronously, ed.). Who was responsible for the choreography of the girls?
That was the task of the girls. We had an allocation of responsibilities which worked perfect. Christian and I wrote the most songs, Markus was responsible for the whole artistical part (Outfits, presentation, Coverartwork, etc.), Luitger managed the complete organizationally part and the girls worked out the choreography and their complete performance.
In the year 1985 the third album "Stundenlang im Fieber" was published. This record was as good as the second album but was not so successful like it. What do you think was the reason why this album didn't reach such a big success?
Probably because this album contained not such a big single hit like "Linda" on the previous album. In addition, we have changed ourself very fast. If you take a look on the photos of this time: We have changed our outfit completely every year. Today this would be a disaster for the marketing policy. Today's artists use their outfits five or six years but we had fun to make always something completely other. For the fans it was also not so easy to accept. Maybe it was also a reason for less success.
 |
First, SHEBOP was a band with a female singer. In addition we temporally went back in music history another 10 years as we did with the ACE CATS. We've made more Swing-Music of the 40s.
Also the ACE CATS tried to come back in 1988. But not so successful. What do you think about this try?
After the end of the ACE CATS in the year 1985 there was a try of a comeback with Luitger, Christian, Petra and a new singer named Ted Shansky. They have published the singles "Süsse 16" and "Sheila" which completely were flopped. This had musically nothing in common anymore with the music of the original ACE CATS.
In the year 1996 there was a real comeback of the original ACE CATS. How did it came to this?
The record company called us and said that they planned to publish our albums on CD again. They asked us if we wanted to make another small tour. First we said: "No way!". In the meantime, everybody of us had other jobs and duties. After mature deliberation and after we have asked the girls we decided to do it. With Jürgen Weber we known a singer who could sing all our songs very good. And so it came to the reunion of the original ACE CATS. For us it was a straight decision that we would do this again for just one year, quite without pressure and just for fun.
 |
Yes, that's right!
Have you counted on the success of your music and the fact that Rockabilly would be in demand in such a way?
I think, that this music is in demand every 10 year. Possibly it's a stupid saying but this music is really timeless and you can hear it again and again! Even today there are a lot of Rock'n'Roll and Rockabilly music in demand. I'm still waiting for the real big Comeback of Rockabilly-Music.
Also SASHA have tried it with his project "Dick Brave and the Backbeats" and was very successful...
Sasha really likes this music. By the way, he is an old ACE CATS-Fan! Everybody known SASHA before this project and it was something like a side-project. But it was really very successful.
With "Lady Di" there was another single. It was withdrawn, right? Why?
The song was just finished when Princess Diana died in an accident. I think this song was a real good single and had to become very successful. The main theme of the song was very current, the lyrics funny and the music really good. Then there came this tragic accident and we said: "Now, we cannot publish this song anymore".
 |
Yes, we are thinking about something like that. But nothing under the name ACE CATS. A new friend and guitar player from my region, his name is Rolf Kaudelka, our drummer Christian and I thinking about the foundation of an Acoustic-Rock'n'Roll- and Rockabilly-Band. We wants to go back to the roots of the ALLEY CATS. At that time we also were three musicians with contrabass and completely acoustic. Maybe we will do such a project.
Do you still have contact to the other members of the ACE CATS? What are the ACE CATS doing today?
Luitger has died in an accident two years ago. Markus is living in Cologne and is a painter. He had a Rock'n'Roll Band with which I played together as a guest sometimes. He just have bought a house and established an art-studio. I'm still together with Tina. She's a teacher at a school for physically handicapped children. Petra and Christian are divorced in the meantime.
I thank you very much for your time and the answers. Do you want to say anything more?
I'm looking forward to this ACE CATS-Special you are preparing at the moment. I will have a look when it's ready.
Interview & Translation: Christian Reder