Amenophis

1977

Some decades ago ... north-west of Egypt ... somewhere in the middle of Europe ... in a land called Germany ... near the Lake of Constance ... there was a band called TUT ENCH AMUN. In this formation there were two brothers - a guitar-player and singer, Michael Roessmann (right) and a drummer, Stefan (left).  In January 1978 another musician joined this band. His name was Wolfgang Vollmuth (middle) - he played the bass-guitar and was also a singer. A new name was given to that group on December 15th - AMENOPHIS was founded.    

1979

Their very first concert was in Kressbronn near that famous lake in the south of good old Germany on October 20th. They played as an opening act before the group TT-Rock - a wellknown local rockband at that time. AMENOPHIS had several gigs in this area. Their first repertoire consisted of selfmade songs mainly composed by Michael Roessmann and Wolfgang Vollmuth.

1980

Only a few months later, the band had to expand. Their sound got more and more sophisticatedly and therefore two new members joined AMENOPHIS - Erwin Hillebrand (keyboards) and Reiner Plattner (stage sound). As you can see on this photo: Stefan Roessmann and Erwin Hillebrand sitting on the wall.
From left to right: Reiner Plattner, Wolfgang Vollmuth and Michael Roessmann.

1980 - 1982

In the following two years AMENOPHIS played in about twenty concerts. The songs THE FLOWER, SUN TOWER and THE LAST REQUIEM were composed in that period.
On 20 February 1980, the guitarist Wolfgang Hartmann (photo - left), a former member of the band TT-ROCK, joined the group for a few months. Songs like JOSEPHINE, RAT, THE EAGLE and FLY IN A DAY were always in the repertoire of those concerts. Wolfgang Hartmann left the group at the end of the year.

1983 - 1987

The AMENOPHIS album was the most important thing for them to do. This new kind of making music - playing in a studio - gave them a lot of new experience. From now on they had more freedom and possibilities to realize their ideas. The record was released on December 30th, 1983.  
Between 1984 and 1987 a few hundred copies of their album were sold. The group decided to split up officially. The main reason for that decision was the general lack of interest in German Prog-Rock.

It wasn't the end of AMENOPHIS.
It was only the end of CHAPTER ONE.  

1987

AMENOPHIS first album was discovered by a German distributor who asked the musicians for permission to sell it abroad. The international music press got more and more interested in that German Rockband. So, in March 1987, the distributor contacted the band and suggested to finance a second album, in order to record it in a professional studio. The catch on this story - it had to be finished within the next ten months.

1987

Because of a serious illness, Stefan Roessmann had to leave the group. He couldn't play the drums any more. So it were Michael Roessmann and Wolfgang Vollmuth who had to find some new members for the next album.
On the left you can see the new formation:
René Kius (drums), Kurt Poppe (keyboards), Wolfgang Vollmuth (bass, acoustic guitar & vocals), Michael Roessmann (guitars) and Elke Moehrle (vocals).

1987

This year was a very exciting one. New songs had to be composed and of course, new friendships had to be made. Wolfgang and René - bassman and drummer - an important coorperation within a rockband. Lots of moments were spent in talking about music and inventing new sounds and songs for the second album, which has to be both, progressive and commercial. That was really a challenge.

1988

The next challenge - the new album had to be recorded within two weeks. Therefore, the days were really very busy and the nights much too short. Half of the songs were more sophisticated and the other half more commercial.

2010

... was the year of a new project - AMENOPHIS REUNION - and it was again Michael Roessmann who did the first steps towards a reunification of AMENOPHIS. The first meeting was at Wolfgang Vollmuth's home in summer 2010. On this photo you can see Kurt (right), Michael (middle) and Wolfgang (left) talking about the idea of a new CD. Michael showed them a short part of an old song, he recorded at his own studio in Munich. The result was that Kurt and Wolfgang were immediately interested in that new project.

2010

"Which songs do we already have for our new record?" was one of their first questions. The answer: Wheel of Time and Avalon - two songs from the 1980s. They decided to start with the song Wheel of Time.
At Chipsy's Creative Center they made some preperations for this song.   
Here you can see Helmut Henk in his studio.

2011

The plan was to rearrange some of the good old songs and publish them together with new ones on a 3rd album.
This is Wolfgang, composing some melodies for a new song.
Wolfgang wanted a female voice for the song "WHEEL OF TIME". He knew a young and talented singer from Ravensburg. Her name was Eveline Sriyani Enderle. She was interested in singing this song with him.

2011

A rockband isn't a rockband if they haven't got a drummer, some people would say. Karsten Schubert, a very experienced drummer, joined the band. The first meetings with him and the rest of the band took place early 2011. The meetings checked out well and in summer 2011 Karsten joined AMENOPHIS officially. And so they could say: "Here we are again - AMENOPHIS is united"

2011

On December 17th, 2011, AMENOPHIS started to record the first tracks of the 3rd album in the MASTERMIX STUDIO in Munich. Here are Michael and Wolfgang listening to the sound of AMENOPHIS music.

In the middle - Stefan Gienger - the sound engineer.

2011

This is Reiner Krueger, an old friend of AMENOPHIS, who was the photographer in the 1980s. He took some photo shootings with AMENOPHIS, while the band was recording their music.

2011

Karsten Schubert playing the drum tracks for the song "AVALON".  

2012

This year has been mainly used for composing, arranging and recording new songs. The photo shows Kurt playing the piano part of "THE SANDGLASS SYMPHONY".

2013

Some time in August "....Yes, we all have a good feeling concerning to our new record.
At the moment we're working very hard on some new songs: MRS APRIL McMAY, SOME TIMES and
THE OVERDUE OVERTURE....
It all makes a lot of fun and we hope that we can release our third project in a few months."

2013

September - we are working on our booklet and record sleeve. The title is "TIME"..... and maybe .... it looks like that.

2013

From October up to now, we have checked some mastering-studios in and around Munich. We have decided to take the MSM-Studio for the final masterings. From left to right: Michael, Kurt, Christoph Stickel (the senior mastering engineer) and Wolfgang.

2014

A happy New Year
to all our fans.
With great excitement we are awaiting the
publishing of our new record.
The photo on the left is a little joke made by our photographer Reiner Krüger.

March 4, 2014. Here we are again. Presenting our new album TIME in a small and comfy pub in Tettnang, called "Flieger".  Tettnang is a small town in the south of Germany and the place, where the whole AMENOPHIS-story started sometime in the 1970s.
From left to right: Kurt Poppe, Michael Roessmann, Wolfgang Vollmuth and Karsten Schubert.

Old and new friends listening carefully to the tracks of TIME for the very first time.

Bettina Moore-Kumpfert and Colin Moore are two of the guests of honour on this special evening. Bettina is the news speaker on the song "Mrs April McMay" and also the narrator on "Coming Home".  

Martin Gastel - a former member of AMENOPHIS - he is always a pleasant person to talk to.

Ali Wagner - a very good old friend of Michael. He is the owner of a guitar-shop near Tettnang.

Yes, we can say that this was a really good event in a comfortable pub with lots of friends.  Thanks to Kurt Poppe who organized this meeting and lots of thanks to all the guests coming to our Release-Party.

We, AMENOPHIS, enjoyed this evening very much.

... to be continued.

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