Jeans Team Tickets

Jeans Team
Back in 1997 Schutte and Reimo Herfort founded the band in Germany a decade ago, starting as a video art performance group. Two years later the duo were joined by Henning Watkinson and Gunther Kreis.

The line up consists of Franz Schutte (Vocals, Bass, Keyboards), Henning Watkinson (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards), Gunther Kreis (Drums, Keyboards), and Reimo Herfort (Vocals, Keyboard). The band became popular with hits such as: Keine Melodien, Baby 3, Oh Bauer and Das Zelt.

The Jeans Team has won over admirers such as Peaches, Stereo Total, Doc Schoko and Kissogram, who have all covered their songs live on stage. The late John Peel was also a fan, having invited them over to the UK alongside Tarwater for a session on BBC2.

Naming themselves after a neon sign they found at an abandoned jeans shop in Berlin, the band take the electro template as laid out by Kraftwerk but add a healthy dose of tongue in cheek humour. Their debut album testified to their unconventionality hinting at a newly shaped boygroup in the tradition of popular Germans Trio & DAF.

Their sound was a new form of electronic pop music, composed of hypnotic melodies and dry rhythms packaged in foot tapping arrangements with very few lyrics in between. Over the years the quartet has ascended the tech ladder, going from the VHS format to new-fangled compact discs, from four-track tape recordings to digital, largely in the confines of their custom-created studio, Nadel Eins that was founded in 1998.

Franz Schutte and Reimo Herfort, met Henning Watkinson and Gunther Kreis at their under ground club called Galerie berlintokio - one of Berlins most magnetic and stimulating underground clubs in the late 90s. The venue gave rise to the bands first rehearsals, live performances, and recordings.

It is where they met and produced their punk singles, Hi Fans and Ein Atom, which were released on their own label, Nadel Eins, in 1998.In 1999 Jeans Team recorded their debut album 'Ding Dong'. The band recorded the album in their own Nadel Eins Studio and released it in June 2000 with the label, Kitty-Yo.

Together with new tracks the album contained versions of their singles 'Ein Atom' and Hi Fans! After touring through Germany, the band released another single, 'Keine Melodien' - a dance remix version of MJ Lan (Low Spirit), a cover version of Peaches and the original version.

The band again toured Germany, then Austria and perform on the Benicassim-Festival in Spain. Each of its records shows a new step in the evolution of Jeans Team. In 2001 came the re-release of 'Keine Melodien' including remixes by Peaches, Op:L Bastards and Johannes Heil, on Kitty-Yo/V2-Records.

The video was shown on Viva and MTV for a while. The single sold around 15000 copies and ended up on DJ playlists in international clubs. In 2004 Jeans Team released the mini album Gold und Silber which also appeared on Pluxemburg Records for Skandinavia. While the bands minimal electro pop and synth rock anthems have remained consistent, theyve undergone many changes in recent years.

Their long relationship with Berlins Kitty-Yo, the label behind the likes of Peaches, Gonzales and Louie Austen, came to an end in 2004 when its founders, Raik H?lzel and Patrick Wagner, parted ways. According to the reports, the relations became strained when the band hesitated to renew their contract. Wagner co-founded Louisville Records, the label on which JT released 2005 album, Music Von Obenthe. On that album the band merges electro/techno with new wave and indiepop.

The following year another album, Kopf Auf was released. It unites guitar, bass, and drums with the Jeans-Team-typical electropop. It has very earthy topics?vagabonds and finding freedom by denying certain standards of society. Obscure and overt humor (Kopf Auf, T.Y.T.T.S.), aggression (Palme, Komet) and casual coolness (Segel Dein Schiff) are combined with serious, wonderful lyrics that manage to get to the point through simplicity (Wandern, Zelt).

When they started recording, they didnt know what the results would be. Just as surprising were the euphoric reactions to the demo version of Das Zelt, which was downloaded more than 30.000 times in a couple of weeks, was in rotation on several radio stations (as a demo!) and the finished version of which (the only one to be produced out of house by Tobias Levin) ended up in several magazines top ten (#1, Spex). JT also played live for the shooting of a commercial for a Motorola mobile phone distributor in 2005.

Jeans Team released a single in 2006 on JefDrive which is a pure indie-pop at its best, and it is backed with two remixes by My Robot Friend and Flash Atkins. My Robot Friend rips apart Nonstop Nonstop Nonstop and creates a textured, electro inspired track full of vocoders and crazy sounds. Typical Robot! The Flash Atkins remix takes a totally different interpretation? slowing down almost to a stop.

In mid November 2008 Jeans Team toured again and participated on German Esplanade Guangzhou 2008. It is an open air festival with top German acts such as: Doro, Letzte Instanz, Kira, Corvus Corax, Deine Lakaien, Tobias Escher, Monokino, Tele, Texas Lightning, Christoph Haberer, etc.

Also participating were Chinnese artists like Wang Yong, The Swamp, The Honeys, 3 Step etc. After the Festival, JT will do a small tour through south China on its own.

Balancing post-rock nuance and e-pop sparkle, punk energy and performance-art irony in varying measures, Jeans Team have proven themselves one of the most interesting and durable products of the late-90s creative boom in Berlin. Theyve become that rare electronic breed who sets out to create music with a charming character and timelessness.