Musical Outlaw - ERIK COHEN combines Hardrock with German Lyrics

11. January 2018

Erik Cohen

Musical Outlaw - ERIK COHEN combines Hardrock with German Lyrics

Erik Cohen is an artificial figure, as the singer, who listens to the middle-class name Daniel Geiger, emphasizes time and again. "He's definitely a musical outlaw, who also goes through the wall with his head. Like 'Theo against the rest of the world'," he explains in allusion to the 80s film with Marius Müller-Westernhagen. Meanwhile, Geiger knows his way around artificial figures, and for many years he has headed his band Smoke Blow as frontman Jack Letten. When Smoke Blow decided to go into partial retirement in 2010 - they no longer release albums but still play concerts here and there - Erik Cohen was born: "Smoke Blow is punk, Erik Cohen is rock. But it is well known that these terms actually fit together quite well. It's all organic and not as far apart as you might think. Nevertheless, I consider Erik Cohen to be an independent design who from the beginning was not out to serve the smoke-blow clientele. On the contrary."

The big difference, however, are the German lyrics, which have their very own flow and also cost the Kiel musician some nerves in the beginning, as he had to adjust to this new way of composing for him. He had to "experience that it is extremely hard work to bring the German language into a rock musical flow and let it harmonize with the instruments. Especially the beginning was very difficult, and I encountered a lot of scepticism, incomprehension and rejection. German-speaking rock is probably perceived by many as not cool, is today unfortunately somewhat frowned upon. Maybe that's what makes this combination so rare in our country." But the question whether German is a rock language is still answered vehemently in the affirmative and the musician hopes that his albums will do their part to further establish them as such and to break down prejudices.

Lest mehr im eclipsed Nr. 197 (02-2018).