RUPI
Real name: Rupert Friedrich
Born: 09/30/1976
Rosenheim, Germany
Instrument: Bass
email: rupi@voyage-rock.de

Hi there!

Like everyone in the band I am also playing my role in it. Sebi as the oldest one of us is more or less the rational one, Tobi as his counterpart is an action man, often he seems to do something before thinking about it. Pfingsti as our sound engineer is actually living just for the music. As long as he survives, Pfingsti would do everything for the band. And Martin is trying to be in the top ten working 20 hours per day all alone if necessary.
So I am more or less the brake for the band, I try to keep our doing conceptional. When there is something to do I want to have it done rather well than fast. Perhaps that is a part of my parents in me.

I was born as a son of two civil servants. My mother is a teacher, my father a customs officer. They are both thinking in a very secure way. They won´t accept a big risk. And so do I in band matters.

I got into the band in a simple way. In 1992 there was a concert of my former friends (now I am their bass player). At soundcheck time Tobi asked me if I could play the bass, because Elke, his girl-friend and bass player at that time wasn´t there yet. So I pulled the strings, what I never did before and it was fun. Not much later Tobi and Elke quit and the band needed a new bass player. That was my beginning at the band called Rockin´s Great at that time.

I really needed some time to get used to it. Learning how to play bass, to play the songs, getting to know all the band members and everything at the same time was no easy job. Especially David, our former drummer gave me headaches. We seemed to have nothing in common. But the problem was solved in a quite easy way. When Oliver Dier, the rhythm guitar player quit in 1995 the band was only five people. Then I could see that the difference between six and five is much more than one. David quit in 1997 and was replaced by Martin. So reduction and fluctuation formed a team that is loosely coupled but in a crisis it is hard as a rock.

When in 1995 our first album ´Facing tomorrow´ was released, I thought it was a shame that there is no song written by me on it. Having trouble with some girls I discovered song writing as a very good way to express feelings. Some of my songs made it on our new album ´Welcome to your mind´.

As you can hear by listening to the album, my songs are a bit different from those written by Tobi for example. That is because our musical influences differ from each other. I am a fan of 80s music of any kind. Of course I don´t want to play disco music. There is a lot of techno and house that replaced that and I don´t like that very much. But starting at Bon Jovi as our common denominator I seem to be the only one in the band who goes in the direction of pop. One of my favorite bands is Marillion whose bass player Pete Trewavas is one of my greatest idols. Also the projects of Mike Batt are uncomparably good music to me. On the other hand I like the heroic sounds of Rhapsody and Dream Theater, two bands who got famous in the late 90s.

You can see music is a big part of my life and I need the music as a balance to computer science. I will take my diploma at the beginning of 2001. I hope we can keep the band alive besides our jobs and families until we are old and grey.