Silke, Ricky, Martin and Frank are the German SynthPoP band HELIOS. HELIOS was formed in the autumn of 1997 and had their first live-gig in the summer of 1998.

In February 1999 HELIOS opened for ALPHAVILLE in their home town JENA. Since then, they have had concerts in ERFURT (with MESH) and WEIMAR (Nightflight).

I got the chance to interview Martin of Helios.

What kind of musical education do the members of Helios have?
Hm... nothing special that would point to Synthpop. Except Frank who had singing and recorder lessons. I also started with recorder but changed to trumpet. Ricky learned accordion and had some keyboard lessons.

What occupation do you have?
Frank is a German and English teacher. Silke was a nurse but did a lot of other things. Ricky first started to study law and now he studies something with informatics. I am still studying law. Ricky also created the graphics for our CD. Actually he makes all our graphics.

From where do you get all the inspirations for your music?
We got most of the basics during playing with our keyboards. Some time you find or build up an interesting sound and then you test it for a song. First we try to program the groove. Frank is responsible for the singing. Usually we first create the melodies and then we try to find the suitable singing.

What does Helios plan for the future?
A lot of entrances! We just started working together with our label "Himmelpforten". We hope that we are able to build up something together. We are really want to get some things moving at the Synthpop scene.

How do you describe your music?
Oje, that is quite difficult. It is a very emotional and varied music in any case. It is very important for us that each song sounds different. Some people will say that your music sounds equal to other Synthpop bands, but we do not think so. We always try to find and create an interesting sound and we will not neglect the important lyrics.

Thank you Martin for the free CD.

Now, just listen to some of their MP3s and see for yourself.

• Platonisch Virtuell
• Not In You Anymore
• Safe In Your Arms

The copyright in these sound-files is owned by Helios. For all files I got the exclusive authorization of Helios. All sound-files are only for private use. Any commercial distribution and copy is prohibited.

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