AMON DUUL II

JW live at Olympic Stadium in Munich 2006, playing a show with Chris Karrer

John Weinzierl interview
by Jason Gross
(August 2008)

As one of the titans of 60's/70's German psychedelic rock (aka Krautrock, aka kosmische), most rock fans think they know about Amon Duul II but do they really? We know about the great albums, the line-ups and the discography but how much detail do we really know about that band? As it turns out, very little, which is surprising for a group like this. Their storied history is actually very sparse in details. Do a Net search and you'll only find scattered info at best. How could that be?

Part of the problem is that there is isn't much interview material out there to cover all the gaps. Founder/guitarist/songwriter John Weinzierl emerged recently as a source of information, working on an emerging site for the band. This is also this unofficial website which has details of the reunited AD that Weinzierl is a part of, including some info about shows from the last few years.

Thanks to the magic of e-mail, Weinzierl was interrogated about the early history of AD, going from their days as a pre-musical commune through their early classic albums (Phallus Dei, Yeti, Tanz Der Lemminge, Carnival in Babylon ,Wolf City) and some tantilizating details about a new album that he's working on. In an upcoming second part, Weinzierl will spill the beans about the even more misunderstood, later-day AD catalog.

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PSF: Talk about your background and early interest in music before you started playing.

I was born in '49. My father was a zither player who actually made it to play on Bavarian Radio Station. He had to stop playing when his mother died and never took it up again. My mother played accordion. I grew up with lots of classical music and whatever they played on the radio in those days. I remember that I never liked the so-called "Kunstlied" (art song); in fact, I can't stand operettas today and prefer the instrumental sound of classical music. In my teens, it was the Beatles giving us the real kick. As our parents and teachers were against that sort of music, the decision was easy. In boarding school, we formed our first group called "The Merseygents" (red shirts, black ties and trousers) as everybody was into Beatlemania. We started to play Yardbirds songs and Rolling Stones tunes like "Around & Around," "Last Time," "It's All Over Now." Later, we began to listen to Frank Zappa, Pink Floyds, The Doors, and the lot. I think the only albums I ever really bought in my life were Sgt Pepper and Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

PSF: Very little is known about this outside of the group itself. How did you first meet the other members of Amon Duul? Also, how did the other members meet up with each other?

I was in boarding school in Hohenschwangau with Jürgen Rogner - Falk's brother--and so met the early commune, while escaping the boarding school secretly, driving to Munich at nights, visiting the Duuls.

Most of the other members knew each other from their schooldays, visiting another boarding school in Memmingen together; the rest of the members met because of common interest in those days.

PSF: The original group has been described as a "radical political art commune". What important political and social values and ideals did the group have?

In the sixties in Germany, we had a very special generation conflict. The generation before us experienced the Nazis and war times. After the war, there was a completely different political climate, but in many institutions, the old smell was still present. Children asked their parents about the big war and their role in it, students asked their teachers, and it was hard to get proper answers. Among the youth, the arts, the universities there was this strong desire of freedom, but everything was still formatted in the old way.

Out of this situation arose a great friction between the old and the new, which ended up in the great students' revolution in Europe.

Amon Duul was part of that. In fact, we used to play at the sit-ins and teach-ins in the universities and academies. We were looking for a new way of living together in a free and creative way. We knew about the severe dangers of industrial life, 'cause industry usually develops the consciousness of an amoeba: eat and grow only. We knew that human beings sooner or later would be sacrificed on the altar of greed.

As a single person, it was impossible to resist this, 'cause the outer influences are too strong to resist. That's why we decided to live together in a commune, so we could live as we wanted to.

Together we were so much stronger, and of course we were visible to the outside. We couldn't be absorbed so easily by the mass and could start an individual experiment like Amon Duul.

Amon Duul was never a radical political art commune. It was and is a social experiment and an art commune. We never agreed with people like Baader/Meinhof, who were part of this "new start" in the beginning and later unfortunately became terrorists. We always stated that we wanted to try something new, and everybody who was interested could join in, come to see our concerts, be part of it, but we never wanted everybody to be like us, and we never thought "We're right and others are wrong." We didn't even wanna try to convince anybody of our views. Freedom for everybody was the aim. Not freedom through violence. Every real lasting development can only come through increasing consciousness. Our concerts were not just concerts, but happenings with music. It was not the audience on one side and the artists on stage, like on the other side; we were one family. The concerts were just the framework for a meeting of people with the same intention. In fact I remember many concerts, when we handed out simple instruments that everybody could use, like bongos or tambourines, to the audience, so they could celebrate the music with us.

PSF: Was Amon Duul I at first a commune of people living together that later decided to become a music group?

There never existed something like Amon Duul I. This is a great misunderstanding.

But Amon Duul (the name came only later though) was a commune at first. Most of them were students, involved in all kinds of studies but the lessons in university. When their parents found out about that, and stopped the checks, there had to be a new source of income. As some members played an instrument, the decision to form up a band seemed logical. Of course this had to be a special band, not a middle of the road sort of thing, which was despised to be a square thing then.

PSF: When Amon Duul did come together as a band, what kind of group did everyone involved want it to be? In other words, what was the idea about how the band was going to sound and how it was going to work? Also, was anyone in particular an official or unofficial leader or did everyone try to participate equally?

I don't think there was a definite view of what the band should be like. It should be unique.

The expression of the individual. There never was a leader, or an artificial hierarchy. As the members lived together, there was lots of music happening every single day. It was fun playing, and it was possible to express things through music that you could not express in any other way. We found out you could "talk" with music and transport contents much better than you could do verbally. Of course, we had preferences in the music we listened to and in a way the English and American bands were much ahead in their playing and equipment and so something like idols for us, though we didn't wanna copy them, but be different. This was one of the reasons to choose our name: all the bands worldwide had English names. We wanted something individual, expressing the state of the group: not just a band.

PSF: Also part of AD's legend is that many of the people were "non-musicians" who weren't technically proficient. Did you find that to be true?

There was the word: "everybody is a musician." In the commune, you couldn't say the musos play and the others can't. When there was music being played, everybody could join in. Even the little children in the commune used to play along. For a long time, this was a part of the sound of Amon Duul reflecting the political view of the commune. This was a part of the new touch in Amon Duul. Not just a band...

If you wanna communicate with music, you don't necessarily have to be able to master an insrument.

PSF: It's also rumored that the several Amon Duul albums that eventually came out later mostly came from one single day-long jam that was edited down into all of the different albums? Is this true?

The commune split up after a fight, just after they had had an offer to record their first album. Only some non-musician members went to the studio and recorded material, until they were kicked out of the studio because of recording useless shit – that's how the producer called it anyway.

The tapes were thrown into a dungeon.

Later when we recorded Phallus Dei, the first Amon Duul album, this former producer realized that Phallus Dei was a major seller. His greed told him to get the useless tapes back from the dungeon and every time we released an album, he cut an album's worth of those tapes and brought it to the market to use our success. Unfortunately, we were too inexperienced then to stop this, and so we have a big pile of rubbish being released as Amon Duul. The sad thing is that some people like this shit. My advice: every album called AMON DUUL II is the real stuff. That's why we called the musical part of Amon Duul AMON DUUL II. This is the only way to get the good original unique material.

PSF: Did Amon Duul II included some musicians that were not part of the original Amon Duul commune?

All the members of Amon Duul II were members of the commune. Later, other and more people joined the commune, but Amon Duul members were always also members of the commune, with the exeption of Lothar Meid who always was an old fart anyway.

PSF: The title Phallus Dei is still an incredible one (it's blasphemous and hilarious). How did the band came up with that title?

I think it's a very creative title. It was a brainstorming idea and made the album sell really well, 'cause it was on the index the minute it was released.

PSF: The line-up of ADII on the first album was very unique also for the time--two drummers, two bassists, and a female singer. How did that come about?

Two drummers because we had Dieter Serfas on drums and when Peter Leopold left the desolate recording session in Berlin to join us, we decided to play with two drummers, because it suited the tribal attitude in our music. There were all kinds of bongo-konga players anyway.

Not really two bass players. It was Dave Anderson who had just joined the commune playing the bass on Phallus Dei, the long tune, while I used to play the other (short) tunes. We never played with two bass players at once...

And not really a female singer; on Phallus Dei, Renate only performed a few "oohs" and "aaahs." It was only later when she got into singing in the front.

PSF: How did the songs on Phallus Dei come about? Were they group improvisations? Was everyone just bringing ideas together that the band was trying out?

Phallus Dei consists of 4 parts that were developed in improvisations, but then were arranged.

PSF: Do you think that the album Phallus Dei was very similar or very different from the concerts that the band was giving at the time? Also, was the band doing a lot of concerts then? What kind of venues and audiences were you playing for?

Phallus Dei was very much like the concerts. It was sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but it was always the same four parts played in similar fashion.

The band played almost every day. We played universities, academies, underground clubs, and every hall with a power socket and an audience.

PSF: Around the same time, other bands like Can, Tangerine Dream, and Kluster were also starting out. Did ADII feel any kinship/brotherhood with them? Did you feel that you were all part of a music scene?

We felt that we were all part of a big movement, something new was happening and it was happening all over the globe. We knew it wasn't a local thing, even when there were different local triggers. But it was definitely not only the music scene.

I remember playing bass for Tangerine Dream on a few concerts. The bands knew each other and we were playing together a lot.

PSF: Did the German newspapers/press/publications write about ADII early on? If so, what did they say about the band?

We were in all the papers all the time and they said the holy range--according to their single minds--about us.

PSF: Going back a bit, it has been rumored that Amon Duul was originally associated somewhat with another collective called Kommune 1. Is this so? If so, what details do you remember about this?

The K1 was based in Berlin and strictly political. People like Fritz Teufel and Kunzelmann were leading members of the commune. Whenever we were playing in Berlin, we used to stay with them. In the early days we never needed hotels when we were touring, 'cause we used to stay with one of the many communes spread all over Germany. Later Uschi Obermaier joined the K 1. Not very long later the K 1 ended.

PSF: Was Amon Duul II in demand for film soundtracks? If so, could you speak about some of this work and how the band put together songs for films?

Amon Duul II made lots of film music, soundtracks, and scores. We made music for Maria Schell, Veit Rhelin, Alexander Kluge, Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, R.Nüchtern, Syberberg and many others. In fact we received the German Grammy, called Bundesfilmpreis, in 1971 for the music of San Domingo.

The work is multiple. Sometimes you do dramatic scores, which means the music is written to the movie "as the drama goes," sometimes they just took our music, underlying it to the pictures.

I always liked writing scores the most, 'cause it is real making music, not just formatory shit.

PSF: Yeti seems very different from the first ADII album. How did you see this? What did you see as the main differences?

Well it was the second album, and everybody wanted to see if we could come up with another album. We usually wrote music and played it live. So every album in those days was a manifestation of what we had done and how the band had developed. As there was more tribal music in the period of Phallus Dei, though there were the arranged tunes on the B-side, there crystallized a more personal attitude on Yeti. There were single writers on Yeti heading for a new direction, as well as the tribal results like "Yeti Talks To Yogi." The members showed the development in the group in their music. Also parts of Yeti were recorded on the very first 16-track recorders, while Phallus Dei was still recorded on a shoestring.

PSF: Was Yeti purposely set out to be one album of more conventional songs and one album of improvisations? Also, how did the "Soap Shop Rock" suite come about?

Yeti was supposed to be a normal album with arranged songs. When we were finished and wanted to do the mix, the sound engineer told us he had recorded everything on a shoestring again to show what a good engineer he was, and that he didn't need 16 tracks to get a good recording.

After going berserk for a while, the band decided to do a double album to use the new 16-track facilities after all. So we added another 40 minutes.

I wrote "Soap Shop Rock" with the voice of Mike Harrison (Spooky Tooth) in mind. Unfortunately, no one could sing like him. It should not be a conventional song but definitely longer, like a suite as you called it.

Two years ago, I met Mike Harrison and he promised to sing the song for me. I'm arranging a new version of "Soap Shop Rock" at present for my John von Duul album. Maybe he's gonna be on it.

PSF: How or why did the band decide to work with former members of AD for the last track on the album ("Sandoz in the Rain")?

This was a session with Rainer, Ulrich, and other members of the early Duul. After we had become famous, we thought it would be a good idea to have a session together with former members on one of our Amon Duul II albums, just to let them play along for the sake of old times. This became "Sandoz in the Rain."

Sandoz was the company in Switzerland that produced LSD, and thought that's why we used their name in the song. Later, the company tried to sue us for using their name, but we told them the use of the word "Sandoz" was only a "sound painting thing"...

Of course I cannot confirm the rumor; we were all on acid while recording the song...

PSF: How was the album received in Germany and abroad compared to the first album?

Enthusiastic.

PSF: After Yeti came out, was the band playing more shows and playing at bigger venues? I'm guessing because the group started getting international acclaim, this changed things.

We were bigger since the release of Phallus Dei already. It was just going on and on since then. We had more performances with our international colleges and played lots of festivals.

PSF: The cover of Yeti is striking image- the bright and dark colors, Shrat in a black outfit with a scythe. How did the band come up with the idea for that?

It's not Shrat, but a guy called Krischke. The picture, which is our logo up to today, is also called "the grim reaper" and was taken in a photo session done before Krischke's death. He died during a LSD trip, freezing to death in a forest, where he was found later.

PSF: "Archangels Thunderbird" is another striking song from that album. Could you talk about how the song came about?

The song was written in the studio at the end of the recording session for Yeti. We had decided to do a double album, but we were 5 minutes short. So I offered the music for "Archangels Thunderbird" and Falk came up with the lyrics, and that was it. I think I'm gonna record this tune anew for my John von Duul album, 'cause I really like it, and want it in the charts one day.

PSF: Since both you and Chris Karrer were playing guitar, what kind of understanding did you have about splitting the parts between yourselves (i.e. playing rhythm or lead)?

Usually, I played the lead on Chris's tunes and he played the lead when I wrote the song. There was and is absolutely no problem between the two of us. On top of that, Chris used to play sax, fiddle and oud.

PSF: Olaf Kubler is listed as co-producing the records with the band. What were his contribution do you think?

He took care of the financial things for the band. Unfortunately, he never had the right perspective for what was ours and what was his; his musical contribution was none.

PSF: I know this is skipping ahead a little bit but I wanted to ask you about Julian Cope's book Krautrocksampler. What did you think of the book and the way that Amon Duul was portrayed there?

I've really never read it, but lots of people told me about it and I think it's okay.

As regards all the information in the Net (wikipedia also) about us, I think Julian's book is more to what we are. The other information in the Net is mostly simply wrong. Very important: we are NOT a Krautrock band.

PSF: After Yeti, did you or other members of the group have any contact with some of the former members of the early band? (for instance, Rainer, Ulrich) Do you know what they're doing now?

After Yeti we had only little contact with them. I met Ulrich the last time at Peter's funeral [Amon Duul drummer Peter Leopold, who died in 2006], when he (and we) played on Peter's grave. Rainer must be somewhere in Vienna now.

PSF: Where did the title Tanz Der Lemmings come from? Also some of the song titles were hilariously brilliant: "Dehynotised Toothpaste," "A Short Stop at the Transylvanian Brain Surgery," and (my favorite) "The Marilyn Monroe Memorial Church." How did the band come up with those titles?

You know what lemmings are, do you? We thought the world is just like Lemmings: running into one direction and falling into the sea and drowning in the end. We didn't think that it is even worse, as you can see nowadays. That's why we called the album Tanz Der Lemmings.

It stands for the mechanical way of living that leads to destruction, which seems to be a result of the abnormal psyche of man nowadays, and shows that the only way out is AWAKENING...

All the titles involved point at the same meaning and were results of brainstormings of the commune and Falk Rogner's creative brain.

PSF: It seems that the side-long songs are multi-part suites. How did the band come up with the idea to work that way? How did you see Tanz Der Lemmings as being different from Yeti?

Multi-part suites are very common in classical music. We didn't want to write short pop songs, but get into matters more deeply, and so we preferred to use the classical patterns of serious music, to express our artistic ideas.

Every AMON DUUL record is the statement of a different state of consciousness out of a different time. It shows the development of the art project AMON DUUL.

PSF: On that album, all songs are credited to you, Lothar, Chris and Falk. How did you share the songwriting duties?

Sometimes just that way, sometimes in equal shares regarding the commune.

PSF: The line-up had changed by this time. Shrat and Dave Anderson were gone while Lothar Meid and Karl-Heinz Hausmann joined. Could you talk about why the former two left and how LM and KH joined?

As the climate in the commune was very tough, Shrat left to form up Sameti. Dave Anderson unfortunately went back to England and we needed another bass player.

Our producer, Olaf "The Thief" Kubler, introduced Meid to us, and whenever we went to the studio to record an album, he joined the band to score the money and usually left after the sessions to leave us to find a new bass player for the tours. I was never happy with that situation, especially 'cause Meid could never play my songs properly--till today. I consider him a mere rip-off artist and even nowadays he is taking parts of my money.

Kalle Hausmann was an electronic guy and as we wanted to go into synthesizer music (mind you: synthesizers didn't exist then, so in the beginning Kalle used to build his own ring modulators and things...). We decided to work with him, and I liked it very much.

PSF: You mentioned before that the idea to write multi-part suites was also common in classical music. As such, what classical music was influential on AD's early years and albums?

We used to listen to the known repertoire of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and the lot. You name it, because we grew up with it.

PSF: You also mentioned that the group was still a commune by the early '70's. I don't think a lot of people realized that--most assumed that the first phase of AD (before ADII) was part of a commune. Could you describe how this commune was the same or different from the way it was originally when the band got together?

It was always the same group and the same commune, we had only moved to different places. Usually, we lived in a big house with practice rooms and electronic shop in the basement. What was called AMON DUUL II was also always a commune, in fact we still are, but we call ourselves a virtual commune at present. We still believe it's the better way of living.

PSF: How was Tanz Der Lemmings received by critics and the public compared to AD's earlier albums?

Enthusiastically as usual. Every album signifies a different level in our development, that's why they are different. We wanted to live and change all the time and not produce the same music all the time. We hated the attitudes of the record companies, who wanted us to play the same song for years. That's boring, and only features consumption as a means, which we profoundly belief is totally wrong. It leads to what we unfortunately have reached today: the kingdom of industry fascism, the kingdom of the gross, the greedy and the uneducated. Every society like that is doomed and will lead wars to distract from their unnatural ways of living.

PSF: The English press was also interested in the band then. What did you think of their coverage of AD? Also, did the band play in the UK (or other places in Europe) before the show that was recorded on the Live in London album? If so, how was the band received in other countries?

Of course, we'd played all over the continent before Live in London, even in the then-locked up Eastern Bloc. We were the first German band going international. It took the Germans a while to realize this.

In fact, our success was bigger in England, France, and other foreign countries. In the early days we were an academy and university act besides the underground clubs. When we made it big in other countries, we became bigger in Germany also. The prophet in the own country...

When we did Live in London, it was the "Roxy Music" days. The heavy underground days changed into different genres.

In fact, we were guests of Roxy Music in the Greyhound in Croydon, where they had their European farewell concert, before they went on their first U.S. tour, while we recorded Live in London in the same club.

I remember we had hired the Pye Mobile studio of The Who for that event, and funnily, they complained, we were too loud. I couldn't belief that, 'cause The Who were actually known as the loudest band, and we thought their technicians would be used to high volumes.

PSF: At this time, how was AD changing as a live band compared to when it started?

We were still a commune, but on the road all the time. Our center of gravity was music at that time, but the art experiment and the social significance were as important to us and our fans. As we were playing a lot the band became simply better and tighter. There were record people who wanted to make all kinds of industry puppets out of us, but this never really happened till today. Of course this had a certain price, but we paid...

PSF: What was going on with the band between the albums Tanz Der Lemmings and Carnival in Babylon?

We had a really great time. Of course, the commune went through all kinds of experiments and changes, also regarding the line-up. But the nucleus always remained the same. In those days, we had this huge big mansion near Munich--28 rooms, lots of people. Sometimes we almost lost control of who was who, but we were the most famous commune in Germany, and everybody tried to be close. The outer influences were not always becoming for the band, but the heat was on... Maybe I'll write a book about it on day.

PSF: Carnival in Babylon had a wonderfully unusual cover. Could you talk about how the band chose that from F.U. Rogner's design?

Usually, we designed a new cover especially for every new album. While we were working on the music, Falk used to work on the cover. I think he is one of the best art directors I've ever worked with.

In the book The Album Cover Album, the book of record jackets edited by Hipgnosis and Roger Dean, introduced by Dominy Hamilton, the cover of Tanz der Lemminge is shown among the best covers of the world.

PSF: It seems that on CIB, you had more input as a principal writer. Was there a reason for that?

Chris Karrer and I were the principal writers of most of the albums. Only on some albums, we decided to share everything with the commune--including the authors' rights--and so it says on the covers that we were all writers of a song, communistic party so to say... Today, I think this was a mistake, but it shows our attitude then. To write and force through a song was a serious effort with lots of often unpleasant situations, because you have something in mind which you have to explain to the rest of the band. In fact, you have to fight for the song.

When we decided to have a "communistic party" on a recording session, everybody got the same share as the other, and the hassle of fighting for your song wasn't worth it. Of course the result was accordingly.

PSF: Could you talk about how the two tracks credited to you came about ("C.I.D. in Uruk," "Kronwinkl 12")? The last track ("Hawknose Harlequin") seems like a group improvisation--is that correct?

"C.I.D. in Uruk" has a very surrealistic lyric. Uruk was supposed to be the oldest known town, and of course the C.I.D. was supposed to be everywhere--and always. Chris and Falk were using lots of surrealistic sounds, views and pictures. Sometimes it seemed to me as if there was no real understanding of surrealism, but rather an idiotic combination of weird expressions, just to pretend meaning and actually fool everybody. To countercarricate this, I wrote "C.I.D. in Uruk" to really mess with this idea and lead it to the absurd... Kronwinkl 12 was the address of our mansion near Landshut. "Kronwinkl 12" is about living there at that time.

I'd like to mention "Pigman" [from Vive Le Trance] here as well. Olaf Kübler was the producer at that time and I began to realize what kind of cheat he was, and how he ripped off our money. Nobody else in the group wanted to know about this, so I wrote "Pigman." The pigman is Olaf...

You're right about the last track.

PSF: How do you think that Carnival in Babylon measured up to the previous Amon Duul albums?

It was just another step in our development, another manifestation of a period in our musical life.

There was pressure of many sides to change our music, to go for the market much more.

We didn't wanna become pop musos, but the industry tried to make their influence work when they saw how much money they could score from us. Today we've learned that the present use of industry is a threat to human life, an omnidestructive rude moloch killing everything--including itself. One of the seven terrible steps of this development is the "kingdom of the gross, the greedy, and the uneducated" which we experience right now.

PSF: Wolf City is thought of as more "commercial" than previous AD records--shorter songs, less jams. Did you see it that way?

Yes, indeed, some people prefer that-- I'm not so sure...

PSF: In terms of line-up and instrumentation, things were different then than before. Peter Leopold was now a guest on the album and there were Indian instruments being used. Also, there are 6-7 guest musicians listed in addition to the band on the album. How and why did this come about?

Lots of politics, I don't really know.

PSF: Could you talk about the two songs credited to you on the album? ("Green Bubble Raincoated Man," "Jail-House Frog") How did you come up with the songs? "GBRM" is particularly pretty, I think.

In those days, our producer Olaf went to America to make contacts and score money. I'm not sure all the Amon Duul money really went to us. All kinds of side productions appeared. "Deutsch Nepal" was not a Amon Duul production but an obscure Kubler production, which was put onto Wolf City to give it a promotion for Kubler's product. The seed of money took its course. "GBRM" is talking about lost innocence.

Besides, I think it's a nice piece of work--one of my favorites--and we still play this song when we play live. In fact I'll have a new arrangement of that song on my John von Duul album.

"Jail House Frog" (does this remind you of something?) is the story about a mad professor playing the piano in the jungle. After playing the same chords for more than 10 years he experiences enlightenment, which bursts into "CIRCUS." This is what you hear at the last part of the song, the repeating cords and the circus end. Actually, in those days, it was the only sequence of chords I could play.

PSF: Where did the idea/concept of Wolf City (the title) come from?

The idea was the tough city, eating up their children, it's about merciless inhumane conditions in our life. It's about "the gross, the greedy and the mindless" ruling the world, and it's about losing the fight against the shameless and the mean...

PSF: Around this time, the album/band Utopia also started up. Could you talk about how that sprang up from AD? Was it a side project that met with approval from everyone in the band? How was it different from AD?

This is exactly the obscure production I was mentioning. Amon Duul had nothing to do with it, we were never asked about it, it was just Olaf Kubler trying to make more money with our name.

Well, Wolf City is not such a good project to talk about. Sorry. But still I like the album very much and advise everybody to buy it (especially the bonus track "Mystic Blutsturz"). And when you listen to the song "Wolf City," sing along the lyrics as we used to do: "Bull shitty is a girl without titty..."

PSF: Jumping ahead to the present briefly, could you talk about who's been involved in the AD reunion?

The current line-up is: Chris Karrer - oud, gtr, violin, voc, John Weinzierl - gtr, synth, voc, Lothar Meid - b, Renate Knaup-Koetenschwanz - voc,. Danny Fichelscher - dr, and our neo-Duul JanKahlert - perc,voc,joker. This line-up has been playing (together) since Peter Leopold has died a few years ago. Before that, it was the same line-up with Peter Leopold instead of Danny Fichelscher. No reunions, no comeback, no restart- the band has been like that since '95.

Before that, there were all kinds of line-ups with the current members as the nucleus always (few exeptions like Renate taking a break, or Danny and Peter playing both also). All other line-ups (with) only fewer members of the nucleus is NOT Amon Duul, but some fake shit trying to be Amon Duul. Beware of all information not comming from us directly, especially Wikipedia and sorts- it's pure fiction.