Christoph Karl Eugen Speiche von Freydorf, fighting name “Christ”, is not only a veritable rock star, he is also an exemplary fan. This is how the front man of the Munich band moved Emil Bulls just going to get tickets for the concert of colleagues My Chemical Romance to buy in June 2022. “I’ve never seen it before, I’m looking forward to it,” explains the 44-year-old. Now the American colleagues are playing in a different league, namely in the Olympic Hall, but they too need such encouragement and support in the pandemic. And if you like, both alternative rock groups have something in common, for example in their willingness to experiment. While the US romantics last brought the original Liza Minelli to their album, the Emil Bulls played on their latest – “Mixtape” – songs by Billy Eilish, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars and selected from 300 favorite songs Destiny’s Child according to, that is, from role models that one would not assume as such among the metal bastards. Of course, Bulls fans have their brutal cover of “Take On Me” by the Norwegian popper Aha know, long a live hammer, then 20 years ago a hit on “Angel Delivery Service”, their major label debut with Universal Music.
Even serving the pop instincts of rough followers, that is certainly one of the ingredients of their recipe for success, with which they have been in the rock business for over 25 years. What they would celebrate these days on the grand finale of their anniversary tour, they would not have canceled it, even before the official decisions, because they “didn’t want to offer the Sparifankal Corona a playground”, as Freydorf says. Or: “Sitting or distance concerts and the Emil Bulls just don’t go together.”
“On-the-face numbers” and ballads – these breaks have always been her signature
Otherwise the band lives well from breaks: those between metallic, punky, grungy double guitar attacks along with Freydorf’s screams and then just ballad-like melodies with emotional singing. “On-the-face-numbers” and ballads, that was always her signature. Even when, in between, after two albums from their record company, they sat down and asked if it wasn’t “because of the wrong music” after all? “No,” says Freydorf, they stuck to their style. Others initially assigned it to grunge and punk, then they called it – when they were also rapping, had a DJ on stage and had dashing hairdos – Nu Metal or, depending on the trend sound that was in demand, crossover, alternative metal, groove, Skate, funk and emo core, stoner rock and on the most recent normal album “Kill Your Demons” from 2017 even the toughest thrash metal.
They say they are rock’n’rollers. This is more of an attitude to life that was put to the test during the great crisis: Shouldn’t one rather do “something sensible”? One of them stopped studying electrical engineering. The others wanted, couldn’t help themselves, took the risk, “don’t give a shit, we’re going through our utopian dream”, got through the difficult time with the stigma of “a band dropped by a record company”. Motto: “We’ll never stop, we’ll never give up, hungry at heart” (from “Nothing in this world”). From 2009 on it went uphill to the album top ten, especially to the big open airs and sold out tours to rock halls. “Where other bands have given up, we fought on,” says the singer. It was now in their own hands, they knew how to manage the band’s treasury and not burn money like the record company did with expensive TV commercials for teen TV shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.
“Sitting and distance concerts and the Emil Bulls don’t go together.” Here the band plays at the Free & Easy Festival in their “living room”, the Munich Backstage.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Your financial cushion has now melted after two years with virtually no income. Freydorf appeals to politicians to do more for the rock arts, “because there will soon be no more bands and clubs”. They will hold out until the third date of the anniversary tour in autumn 2022. By then they are actually already 27, but the band says: “Until the whole bang is over, we’ll stay 25.” Forever young, the old rock’n’roll dream – actually the five, at least from the middle rows – still look like teenagers. Cranked up, sometimes lolling like once in the rehearsal room at the Hohenschäftlarn monastery high school, they also appear in their only appearances at the moment: theirs “Emil Bulls Radio Show” on Radio Bob and its podcast, which has an audience of 10,000 per episode.
In “Mud, Blood & Beer”, autobiographically named after their own song and a quote from Johnny Cash, they tell – mostly the singer in dialogue ping-pong with the original guitarist Stephan Karl “Moik”, but sometimes with the other three James “Citnoh” Richardson (bass), Andy “Bocko” Bock (guitar) and Fabian “Fab” Füß (drums) – in 46 parts the development from a school band to a professional group. Like Freydorf after a concert by the scene pioneers Freaking Fukin Weardoz wanted to found such an alternative troupe on Tollwood himself, as they, as revolutionaries, let Satan move into the monastery halls with records like “Red Dick’s Potato Garden”, as they played everywhere around Munich, “where there is a socket”, such as they made it to 3rd place in the London European finals in the Emergenza band competition, like the industry leaders Linkin Park they praised them and invited them personally as the opening act, as they later almost managed to do in North America thanks to their internationally competitive sound, but this was not as lasting as their adventures with the “crazy fans” in Russia. “Actually, we wanted to go back in the spring, let’s see what’s going on because of Corona and the Ukraine crisis,” says Freydorf.
Guitar attacks and sometimes emotional singing are the signature of the Emil Bulls.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
“Actually” is the bad word of the Corona years: Actually, they wanted to go on a special little club tour for the 20-year-old of their major debut with DJ Zamzoe, actually they wanted to play at the big open airs, actually they wanted have long since released the new album, but without a tour it only feels halfway: “That paralyzed us, you need a goal to work towards.” But the demos are there, they are not about Corona, “no song deserves that,” promises the lyricist Freydorf. So then in 2022 for the festivals and the big “25 to Life” tour with the grand finale not in the Zenith, but – better safe than sorry – split over two shows in the Backstage. The singer is certain that the fans will join in: Hardly anyone has returned tickets for the canceled shows. Exemplary.
Emil Bulls, “25 To Life” anniversary tour, September 16, 2022 Nuremberg, 9./10. December Munich, backstage