Die Toten Hosen

Die Toten Hosen formed in 1982 at the Ratinger Hof, a Düsseldorf punk bar, when Campino and Andreas von Holst, both formerly of local band ZK, joined with Andreas Meurer, Michael Breitkopf, Trini Trimpop and Walter November. The band's name plays on the German idiom "tote Hose," meaning nothing happening or boring, a joke about the chance their shows might not sell out.

Their debut single, "Wir sind bereit," appeared that year, followed in 1983 by the album Opel-Gang on their own Totenkopf label. The early records were fast, funny and rooted in street punk; over the following decades the songwriting broadened into melodic rock and singalong choruses without abandoning the punk framework, and the band became one of the biggest live draws in the German-speaking world.

The lineup shifted over the drum stool: Trimpop played until 1985, then became the band's manager; his successor Wölli held the position until 1999 and remained an honorary member until his death in 2016. English drummer Vom has played with the band since, while guitarist Walter November left the original lineup in 1983 because of drug problems.

A 1983 video for the drinking song "Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder," set at a chaotic wedding in a Bavarian church, was kept off German television for years, and a hip-hop remix of the song later featured New York rapper Fab Five Freddy. The band signed to EMI that year, played a session for John Peel on BBC radio in 1984, then moved to Virgin Records after EMI objected to their touring costs and an onstage parody of one of its own top-selling artists.

Most of their catalogue is sung in German, and the group has also recorded football-terrace material and covers, including work under the alias Die Roten Rosen. Their audience extends well beyond Germany, with a particularly large following built up in Argentina and elsewhere in South America. Campino's between-song talk and the band's long relationship with its audience remain central to what the shows are built around.