…I always tell stories. For me, it’s an impromptu sharing experience. Sometimes I’ll talk a whole five minutes to the audience before starting the next song…” (Dieter Meier at a conversation with Bryan Ferry in 2011)
Dieter Meier is a Swiss musician and artist who has come a long way since 1979 when he was chosen by Boris Blank and Carlos Perón, as the lead singer of their band Yello. Since 1969 he has produced experimental films ( i.e. ‘Jetzt und Alles’, ‘Lightmaker’) which were presented in festivals around the world, he was the director of Alphaville’s videoclip for their famous song ‘Big in Japan’, he created street art in Zurich, Munich and New York while he has also provided articles and essays for several magazines. Besides art he owns a ranch in Argentina called ‘Ojo de Agua’, a restaurant in Zurich and in the 1990s he designed silk scarves and was involved with the company ReWATCH, that uses recycled cans in order to make watches.
As far as Yello is concerned, Boris Blank who consciously avoids the press and publicity, has been praised, especially by Dieter Meier, as a creative and genius musician who always sampled all instruments before recording and editing them. As a result of this meticulous work, Yello have built a large library of sounds (allegedly around 100,000) and with a lot of inspiration and humour, this band of self taught musicians begun their career which still goes on. Yello was not famous for their melodies but rather for the minimal in character, experimental analogue sounds that often reminded me of tv advertisements in a way. Since 1983 Carlos Perón is no longer a member of Yello as he started a solo career which has taken a fetish twist lately. Therefore, Boris Blank composes the music while Dieter Meier provides the lyrics and the emotion in Yello’s songs.
Having released mostly singles and EPs since 1978, Dieter Meier’s solo career has always progressed in parallel with Yello’s and in his first full length album ‘Out of Chaos’ which was released in 2014 by Staatsakt, we can trace elements of Yello’s sound in ‘Jimmy’, ‘Buffoon‘, ‘Fat Fly’ even though this album has compelling rhythms and more interesting melodies than any typical song from Yello. Continuing the cynical humorous mood of Yello but also stressing the haunting element of his singing Dieter Meier who, often reveals similar performing qualities as Barry Adamson, offers great songs in his album, sometimes roaring and whispering (i.e. ‘Schuefele’) sometimes with sheer lyrical emotion (i.e. ‘Loveblind’, ‘Another Day’).
On 16 September 2014, Dieter Meier visits London’s Jazz Cafe and we can are looking forward to it as we expect a unique live experience. After all telling interesting stories is what he is very good at…
“…I played my songs to the producers and gave them total freedom to arrange them their way. It was a great pleasure to be a guest in my own songs…“(Dieter Meier extract from an interview)
Blaue Rosen