Since their breakthrough with the album "Schick Schock," Bilderbuch have made every effort not to fit into any musical pigeonhole. Indie grunge rock, pop or rather glam funk? A little bit of everything, but always incomparable: this is how the successful Austrian band Bilderbuch, which has several number 1 albums in its home country, presents itself as the voice of a generation that it doesn't really want to be.
The band was founded in 2005 by four young Kremsmünster monastery students, who initially set fairy tales and children's stories like "Struwwelpeter" to music. The original lineup consists of Maurice Ernst (vocals), Peter Horazdovsky (bass), Andreas Födinger (drums) and Klemens Kranawetter (guitar).
The against-the-grain brushing of Struwwelpeter can still be found in Bilderbuch's style today: picture-rich, playful lyrics embedded in imaginative, sometimes unusual-sounding melodies that blur genre boundaries. And above everything bounces and jumps the sometimes bell-bright, sometimes scratchy-punky voice of frontman Maurice Ernst. He himself still sees in fairy tales one of the biggest influences for the band.
With "Schick Schock" comes the breakthrough
From the founding year to the first big success it should take a few years. With fairy tale lyrics set to music, they gain their first experience as a live band. In 2008, the guys have gathered enough confidence to tackle their debut album. Almost at the same time, guitarist Klemens Kranawetter leaves the band and is replaced by Michael Krammer.
2009 Bilderbuch lift their debut "Nelken & Schillinge" on the independent label Schoenwetter Schallplatten from the baptism. A mixture of Falco, Prince and rocking riffs. The single "Calypso" lands at number 4 in the Austrian indie charts. From now on Bilderbuch are regularly featured in the playlist of the youth culture radio FM4 and play at festivals like Frequency and Two Days A Week. Critics love the characteristic lyrical wit from the start.
On the chart radar the band emerges from 2013 - with style change into the poppy, the new drummer Philipp Scheibl and a new record deal with Maschin Records. The singles "Plansch" and "Maschin" make big waves in the music editors of Vice and Musikexpress. In 2014 Bilderbuch win the FM4 Audience Award. Then in 2015, the breakthrough comes with "Schick Schock": number 1 in the Austrian album charts, platinum status and a Europe-wide Bilderbuch tour.
Success like something out of a picture book
After "Schick Schock", the follow-up albums "Magic Life" (2017, platinum) and "mea culpa" (2018) land single-mindedly at number 2 in the Austrian album charts and can also secure a place in the Top 10 and Top 20 in Germany. "Magic Life" proves with hints of funk, glam-pop and idiosyncratic hip-hop that the band is not a pigeonholed product, but a genre in itself.
The fifth album "mea culpa" is released as a digital "overnight release" practically overnight and shows a thoughtful, decelerated style with traits of house, lounge, trip-hop and cloud rap. The sixth album "Vernissage My Heart", released in 2019, is conceived as an eccentric, playful counterpart to the introverted "mea culpa". This approach is paying off: "Vernissage My Heart" will be Bilderbuch's second number 1 album.
Also as a live act, the group is not letting the proverbial butter be taken off its bread. Already with the fairy tale texts of their early years set to music, they want to awaken especially the playful and childlike mind in the audience. This does not change in a Bilderbuch show today.
Good mood, colorful lights, confetti and a electrifying mood that tilts into the euphoric-fairytale: so live moments of a Bilderbuch tour can be described. The band will rightly be honored with the Amadeus Award as Live Act of the Year in 2020. Bilderbuch tickets are literally the key to music as if from a picture book, and this should not be missed!
