Fox Reviews Rock

Introduction

Today we have another of the acts who will be playing this years Orange Blossom Festival! Botticelli Baby are a seven person strong jazz punk band from Essen, Germany. Their sound is so unique I am sure you are going to love it!

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Interview

I think first of all I would love to know who everyone is in the band and what instruments they play as last time I counted there are seven of you?!

Hello and thank you for your questions: Alex Niermann Trumpet, Max Wehner Trombone, Lucius Nawothnig Piano and Synths, Tom Hellenthal Drums, Jörg Buttler Guitar, Marlon Bösherz Bass and Vocals.

Then I think it’s important to know exactly what it was about the artist Botticelli who died over 500 years ago inspired the name of the band? 

The time the band was formed we were so into music that a name wasn’t that important for us. We had some ideas but these names were even more boring. In a night of music and what ever… a local musician came over to our table and drunk as he was a short alliteration poured over his lips into our direction. Botticelli Baby. I offered him a beer to buy the name… that’s it. Over the years it made sense: Somehow we are into art and tradition, how couldn’t it be that way, a mass of musical and artistic history lies behind us. Baby is the oldschoolish roughness that describes us all. 

Let’s get straight into why I am interviewing you today! I am going to the Orange Blossom Festival in Germany. What should I expect from your performance at the festival and how excited about it are you?

We played a lot of concerts everywhere under very beautiful and interesting circumstances, but every concert makes us excited. We trust into the magic of the stage itself but up there every thing can happen. No performance is like the other. There will be a special energy. It  will be arty and deep. A lot of layers describe our performance and music.

You’re allowed to enjoy and if you like there are dozens of stories between the lines. Somehow it’s a mixture of quality and roughness. Understandable and true, but also strange and shocking. While watching us it might happen that you think: „ah, got it“ but in the next second you’re surprised. It’s going to be poetic, performative, contemporary and handmade.

I would love to know what you’re looking forward to at this years festival?

We’re always looking forward to encountering new attitudes in the music scene especially on festivals, we haven’t heard about yet. So, let’s have a look. Sure we know some of the bands and it’s always a pleasure sharing a stage with old fellows… 

On your Spotify you call your own music Junk, as well as having an album with the same name… We obviously don’t think your music is that! Why did you use this work to describe the sound you produce?

Our music is our stuff, our drug with all the time that happens around it. It’s also a mixture of Jazz and pUNK. The attitude, the mission, the feeling of Jazz and punk is condensed to our sound. Parts of the liberty of both styles tell our story the easiest way.

Speaking of jazz, what about this style of music attracts you to it?

Jazz once was part of the revolution. Poly esthetic, Poly chances giving. You could tell your stories even without words, a high end artistic way of expression. We want to keep up this feelings. Apropos feelings, it feels so good. 

Would you mind letting us know what inspired the song “Hold On”?

We had a songwriting camp in which we composed and tried out a lot of music. At the end, in the last hours of our gathering, I started to play the baseline and started to sing the hook out of the blue. Don’t know which muse said hello in that second. But it’s just normal that every period of creativity spits out  some deep ideas which you can only trigger while being active… 

The artwork that accompanies your releases is really bold and in your face! Who does your artwork, and what did you want to achieve with this visual accompaniment to your sound?

Yeah, it’s Philipp Krabbe one of my best friends who I studied art with in Düsseldorf. 

He has strange ideas in his head, which accompanies with our special tendencies of thinking.

Do we evaluate „in your face“ as positive, his art work is what we want to do with our music. Individual experiences change the perspectives and interpretations of his art and our music.

We went on a bit of a deep dive to your self titled album… “Blue ‘Bout Nothing” is a remarkably playful track! I want to know if the band was to embody a colour , what colour would it be and why?

Being blue about nothing is a light and illuminated feeling of morning dawn fog. Nothing is too bad 

It is a hopeful gray a violet slipping into melancholy. But on the other hand it describes the thin red line into a real depression and should make people sensible for this topic. You have no reason for being sad, but the sadness sleeps deep inside of you and you are not able to change it, even if the outside is good to you.

If you had named yourself after an artist from a different painting style, who would it have been?

The Rembrandt Rockets, Modersohn Becker Mandalas, Kahlo Karacho, Zündung Zwetajewa hahaha!

Moving forward now to your most recent album “Boah” , “Poems” kicks things off with really distinct vocals. I want to know though what comes first, the vocals or the instruments?

The naked process is making music together, jaming around and finding a sound. I’m writing poems whenever I can, so I’ve some of them with me and during the session I try out which one fits into the mood. Somehow we always work in a parallel. Sometimes it goes like said or the other way round.

Orange Blossom this year has a mascot called Gunter who is an Otter. We want to know though who is that lovely dog on your merchandise selling a scarf?

To be honest I don’t know her. But she looks friendly. I like animals. 

What is the best thing about being in a band with so many of you?

We have a lot of drivers on tour. And it’s like having a big family. You can talk to specialists  for different topics, different problems. A lot of input which makes it stressful but interesting to have a creative exchange. 

All rights to the songs in this interview are retained by Botticelli Baby. This site claims no rights over them. The images were provided by Botticelli Baby and taken by Martin Hinse & Yannick Obry.