About Spirit

     Spirit was born 1963 in Germany and works on guitar strings since the early 70ies. Reason for use of the pseudonym „Spirit“ was the impossibility to play like a band since Spirit is just one not four (aaah shit!). Once we decided to make a video showing himself four times playing different instruments. After mounting of these four clips to one he had the feeling to see a somehow ghost four times – „I am Spirit“, he said, we said „You’re welcome.“.

     Later the nickname 'of the ecstasy' came up incidentially due to Spirit's particular characteristic and adrenaline-soaked way of solo guitar (mal) treatment. During the solo recordings we never saw Spirit playing these well practised workshop licks in these well constructed sequences, the dead of any guitar solo, but we noticed Spirit transferring his deep emotions words and music were stimulating onto the guitar’s neck, somehow. Within a couple of minutes the recordings were done, first take, best take. While doing so, we had the feeling Spirit was not with us, well, physically he was of course, but not with his mind. He somehow slipped into the music and added the spices, hot, gleaming, stirring, impertinent, free. On the next day Spirit told us he had not slept at all – his body was too flooded with adrenaline from the solo recording the day before.

     Spirit’s particular reluctance for drugs and people making millions with the suffering of others was the intention for the „Spirit of the Ecstasy“ song, the last one on his „Gelbcreutz“ album. „You don’t need drugs.“, Spirit says, „you need Rock’n’Roll. Imagine a constantly hammering snare, hardly braking through the guitars‘ brick walls, the fundamental roaring of the bass guitar, an orgiastic carolling of a solo that never ends, that’s the drugs in banging city, that’s my ecstasy, so why the f..k taking drugs making me weak and slow, dissolving my brain – forget about as quick as you can! Take all that wasted money, buy a Marshall amp and a guitar and give it to yourself...loud!“.

     Actually Spirit intended to work with a band but after years of unsatisfying experiences he gave it up: too much beer, too much gossip, few ideas and too much narcissism, altogether hardly good for an end-of-work-project, obstructive however for successful work, for tight and consistent realization of particular ideas this genre lives from. Thus, Spirit decided to do it on his own, entirely.

     Spirit’s music is loud, angry, powerful and impertinent, and so is his voice. Spirit's music is somewhat political and will always be political. He’s disgusted by German history, he's a convinced democrat who doesn't hide, words and chords are forged into a razor sharp blade of music, his opulently decorated coat of arms is supposed to symbolize all insignia of power in the hand of the real sovereign - the people - in order to remind those who abuse privileges only lend by the people to their final cluelessness. "Gelbcreutz“, Spirit says, „was a poison gas in WWI and is one of the few metaphores to verbalize injustice." And: "Sometimes injustice exceeds in a way only a German term from the dark past is emotionally strong enough, because it projects at least a small quantity of the victim's feeling of experienced bestiality into the mind of those who listen.".

     „The best ideas for new songs or riffs I have on the toilet,“, Spirit explains, „because the kids have to stay out and I can relax for a moment. A song’s riff has to sound like an air-raid, producing overpowering tension but has to have its slackening – however my point of view. This receipe sometimes might simplify songs, but produces coherence and identity insistent lyrics need for authenticity. Nevertheless I don’t want to have songs without a ‚smooth landing‘ in the end, my brain just needs that.“

     "Give me a pint" from the same album is dedicated to Gary Moore who passed away during the mastering of this album. Gary Moore has had particular influence on the biography of Spirit. As he was a pupil, Spirit remembers, he once listened just one time to the unforgettable "Black Rose" on the radio - a song Gary Moore played a unique solo for. Spirit could not find out the name of the song nor of the record but just remembered the band name Thin Lizzy. It took him fifteen years to find record and lyrics, Gary's solo always in mind. In the early 90ies, the search for this Thin Lizzy song brought Spirit during three summers to Ireland, before he was finally successful in a Dublin musicstore. The love to Thin Lizzy's music developed into a deep and still lasting friendship to the country and the people of Ireland he met there so he decided to continue having summer vacancies in Ireland and to live there from time to time, in the privacy of Dunquin, the most westerly parish of europe, located over the hills and far away. Accidentially Dolores O’Riordan (The Cranberries) became a neighbour but they never met.

     Spirit did so until Millenium, until he became victim of a crime that changed his life, was affected by injustice directly. Due to slander he lost his job that had given him so many opportunities to invest in music, he had to start a new life after divorce. A couple of years later this biographic gap become a chance as he decided to produce the record now he had promised his friends ten years before. So Blasket-Records proudly presents: Spirit of the Ecstasy. Enjoy it löud.