From the hometown of carnival – no not Mainz - comes a band, that really rocks: Geist from Cologne are promoting their first album “Für alle Zeit” in Germany. The music is somewhere in between Tool, Pearl Jam and System of a Down with very emotional lyrics. But when Radio Goethe Reporter Nina Pauler met them on their stop in Nuremberg, they sang for her a song about tomato salad ….even before she talked to them:  

Radio Goethe:	When did you guys start with “Geist”? When did you found your Group?
Fares:	Well we started in the year 2000, more or less, we found each other and in the current formation with Tim on the guitar we´ re playing since 2004. That’s where the actual “Geist” started.
Radio Goethe:	How did you find each other? It wasn't a casting show I guess…
Fares:	No. (laughs) Lars and I went to school together, so we have known each other for quite a long time. Ollie and I were in the same studies and we got to know each other there. And we Tim met in 2004 in Cologne.
Radio Goethe:	Who invented the name “Geist”? Its “Ghost” in English – is it something spiritual or is it the little shiny ghost in a castle running around and making “Boohooo”?
Tim:	It was the band who invented the name and the translation “Ghost” is only partly the translation of the German word “Geist” and of course we prefer the translation “mind” or “spirit”.
Radio Goethe:	The question, you are always asked, I think, is, that you have been listening a lot to Tool and Pearl Jam, aren´t you?
Tim:	Yes, we partly listen to that bands and sure we like them. We often hear, that we sound a bit like Tool or like Pearl Jam. These two bands stand on two different corners, I think. So, we don’t sound like anyone else 100 percent, but surely we are influenced by other bands. But we can tell other bands too, bands which have an explosive live performance or live appearance and that´ s what we´ re like. And its not that we want to sound like another band.
Radio Goethe:	The question, you are always asked, I think, is, that you have been listening a lot to Tool and Pearl Jam, aren´t you?
Lars:	Lately we´ re all on the Motörhead Trip! So when we have been on our tour in Berlin, Tim brought this autobiography of Lemmy, the singer and bassplayer of Motörhead and each day we chose some quotation, the motto of the day and we were listening to Motörhead a lot.
Fares:	Up to now you don’t hear so much of that influence in our music but we are working on it!
Radio Goethe:	Its your first tour – how was it up to now? Did you rock Berlin?
Tim:	Yes! It was surprising for us too: it’s the first tour as we are promoting our album and this was the first time, that we did a couple of gigs in a row. We were in Berlin for ten days and we made seven shows – one in a live radio show unplugged – it was our first unplugged session and I think nobody knew that, because it went so very, very well. And the other shows… we were in Berlin for the first time and after the first show, we always met people at the other shows, who have been at the first show. So, I guess we have a few fans now in Berlin. That is cool!
Fares:	And we will return there. We now have a gig confirmed at the “Popkomm”, which is a big event in Berlin in September and we´ re looking forward to come back. This time we didn’t had a lot of promotion because that costs a lot of money and at the concerts there are always a lot of fans from other bands. So it´ s our mission to convince them, that our music is worth staying. And I think we convinced a lot of people that were actually coming for other bands. On the last gig in Berlin the club was really full.
Tim:	And surprisingly I talked to some people after the show and they had already heard from us in Berlin. They told me: you´ re not that unknown here – and I thought: wow! So our promotion tools have gained some success.
Fares:	You never know, from where people know you. We have been playing in the Black Forest in one club and there were a dozen of people who sang our songs and we had been there for the first time. That was really crazy!
Tim:	And at the last gig – it was in Riesa – it’s a tiny town in the East of Germany near Leipzig in the middle of nowhere, and the first thing we saw, was a girl with a Geist T-Shirt.
Fares:	It was really rocking and moshing! That was pretty cool!
Radio Goethe:	And how is it in Cologne, your hometown? Are you there the local heroes? And you can not go to the supermarket anymore?
Fares:	(laughing) Not yet. But we get everything for free there!! (laughs even more)
Ollie:	But the last show of our release concert we played in Cologne the club was full. I think there were about 300 persons and that was a great show.
Fares:	Before the concert started, our video was shown and the people were singing and rocking before the concert even began and that was really cool!
Ollie:	I think Cologne is too big and has a too vivid music scene to be a local hero there. I mean there are a lot of great bands and musicians coming from there and not just rock musicians.
Radio Goethe:	What about your lyrics? What is it all about?
Fares:	I am not singing always about the same, but more or less the songs are about relations between two persons or about some kind of feelings, about love too, about disappointment or hope. There are melancholic elements in it, but we try to put always hope into it and strength and power.
Radio Goethe:	Tell me a little bit about your video?
Tim:	The video was an amazing experience for us, because we did it with no budget at all. We made it with ten or twelve friends, some actors, who never acted before and we met for just one weekend, and did that in 48 hours – and we made it on a personal level and the result was surprising for us, because everybody said: it’s a video that looks very professional and very sophisticated, And we did it the first time, especially the main actors they did it for the first time. Everybody grew over himself.
Radio Goethe:	And the theme of the video?
Fares:	It´ s about a man,who starts running at one place and there are a lot of metaphors, pictures , that are visualized by people: one guy is an avatar for fear, the woman is an avatar for sexual passion and we got two avatars for aggression. And you can see, that the runner has some kind of fight inside his head. He runs and runs and you can see a lot of emotions in there and in the end he comes back to the place where he started again.
Radio Goethe:	What comes after the tour for Geist?
Tim:	The next one! We do tour blocks. We were ten days in Berlin. Now we are three days in the South, then we go to the North, back to the East, back to the South. We´re doing 50 shows – that´s our goal this year and we´re already writing new material for the next album. So our plan is to release the next album next year and to continue.
Radio Goethe:	And you´ re dreaming perhaps of the US to tour there?
All:	YES indeed!!
Fares:	We need flight tickets, we need clubs to play there, homes to sleep, catering….