Bell Book & Candle

Andy Birr * Jana Gross * Hendrik Rder

Before taking up the lead singer’s mantle for Germany’s celebrated Bell Book & Candle, Jana Gross’ musical forays had never extended beyond the confines of the bathroom. “Actually, I always thought I sang very well in the bathroom but I never had any music education,” confesses Gross. “I had thought about joining a band my whole life and wondered what the future would bring if I gave it a try. Finally, I said to myself, ‘Just try it! Do it before it’s too late!’” Those aspirations became a reality in 1994, while Gross was working as a waitress at Braeustuebel, a Berlin pub. It was in the midst of her shift that longtime friend Andy Birr and husband Hendrik Rder challenged her to supply the vocals to a new tune they’d just penned. “I didn’t think the melody they’d come up with was very good and I told them so,” remembers Gross with a laugh. “It was after I’d gone home and listened to my old Cure live album that I found myself humming the melody that we ended up using on the album. I just needed the right inspiration.”

Birr, the group’s guitarist/drummer, and bassist Rder have known each other from their earliest years; their fathers are both members of the Puhdys, the beloved East German rock band whose fame began to spread across Europe’s former Eastern Block in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Birr, whose credits include work with Nina Hagen, and Rder had long been working in Berlin on various musical collaborations, even prior to Germany’s reunification. However, it wasn’t until the pair recruited Gross that things began to really gel. “From the beginning, the idea was simply for the three of us to get in touch with the music,” says Gross. “The first rehearsals were very funny though. We were working on our one song, ‘Heyo,’ but they guys were playing so loud that I couldn’t even hear my own voice. It was a mess.” Named after the stage comedy by English playwright John William Van Druten, the newly launched Bell Book & Candle soon-after performed their first concert, staged at an outdoor festival in Berlin opening, as it so happened, for the Puhdys. “We were playing on a very big stage and I think there must have been 10,000 people there,” says Gross. “It was incredible to look out and see all those people. We only played three songs but it was just great.” The real challenge came as the band continued to expand their repertoire of English-lyric pop compositions. Not surprisingly, English was not a widely taught language during the trio’s DDR schooldays. “It was really difficult and a totally new experience,” says Jana of the writing process. “But my whole life I’ve listened to English music. In my childhood during the 70s, I listened the Beatles and – I don’t want to even say it – the Electric Light Orchestra! Later on I listened to Sisters of Mercy and Kate Bush. So when I write for the band, all those songs are playing in the back of my mind. It’s worth the effort because English sounds so much smoother. German is too hard and doesn’t really suit our melodies.”

Released across the Continent in 1998 by the Turbo Beat Music label, the band’s READ MY SIGN debut album was a near immediate success. Propelled by the popular reception to the group’s debut single, “Rescue Me (Let Your Amazement Grow),” the album scored gold status in Germany after only three months. “Rescue Me” also garnered platinum certifications in Germany and Austria, while grabbing gold in Sweden. “The music is wisely constructed around the graceful aerodynamics of Gross’ splendidly dusky voice, which leaps from a rich purr to an undulating yelp with effortless alacrity,” chimed Billboard’s Timothy White in his “Music To My Ears” column early this year, on the eve of the album’s Blackbird/Atlantic Stateside release. Fueled by a stirring blend of sweeping soundscapes and rhythmic melodies, READ MY SIGN thrives on Gross’s distinctively soaring vocals and anthemic phrasings – as heard on such dynamic tracks as “Heyo”; the bright, driving title track; the emphatic “So Right; and the reflective “Destiny” – a track written by Sheryl Crow. As Jana told Timothy White, “So in Bell Book & Candle, when Andy and Hendrick and I sing ‘Rescue Me’ or ‘Read My Sign’ or ‘So Right,’ we’re singing about simple things that everybody needs and must have: love in their lives and love for each other.”