Bell Book & Candle

blacksheep presents Bell Book & Candle on November 30, 2024 with an acoustic show at the seated Kursaal in Bad Wimpfen. Ticket presale for 39 € starts on June 15.

This year the German trio Bell Book & Candle from Berlin is celebrating their 30th anniversary. The band was founded in 1994 and spent three years writing their first album “Read My Sign”, which conquered the world in 1997 with the international hit “Rescue Me”. The special magic of the band around Jana Groß, Andy Birr and Hendrik Röder was already reflected in the name, which was borrowed from the film Bell Book & Candle (1958).

Bell Book & Candle are a perfectly functioning team. All three musicians still compose and write lyrics together, each contributing to the songs according to their abilities. The aforementioned super hit “Rescue Me” was a real stroke of luck for Bell Book & Candle. The song captured the spirit of the times and reached the top chart regions in more than 20 countries in the late 1990s. The number even managed to place in the UK. The single achieved platinum status in Germany and Austria and went gold in Sweden and Spain. A total of sensational 750,000 singles were sold. Bell Book & Candle became one of the few German bands of international stature alongside Alphaville, Nena, the Scorpions and Münchener Freiheit. Even today, the hit is still present in the band’s media classification. Jana Groß says: “A lot has happened since 1994. The time after the fall of the Iron Curtain not only changed a lot in Germany. Today there are other topics that also influence us, music, togetherness, etc. The reduction to one hit, which we often encounter in the media, really doesn’t do us and our work justice. For us, time did not stand still in 1997; the Internet has also reached and enriched us. We are very aware of our good fortune, we always enjoy playing our most successful song ‘Rescue Me’ – especially since we wrote it – and yet we still notice these developments in the political world, art, fashion and the everyday things around us. This shapes our current musical vision, which combines our old ideas and possibilities with new ones.”

Bell Book & Candle underpinned their stellar career with further hits such as “Read My Sign” or the Tatort-Schimanski TV show song “Bliss In My Tears” as well as four other albums. They sold more than two million records, received awards such as the Golden Camera and the Golden Europe and even Sheryl Crow, who thought Bell Book & Candle’s music was great, wrote a song dedicated to the band, “Destiny”. At a festival in Austin, Texas, the US label Blackbird/Atlantic became aware of the band and signed them for the USA, which in turn resulted in enthusiastic reactions from the US press.
In order to break new ground, the Berliners launched their own label Onik-Music in 2002. There they released the album “Bigger” in 2005 and another two acoustic discs with “3 Days Under Pressure” (2009) and “Remainder” (2013).

Bell Book & Candle record their first record in German language

In 2017 the formation went back into the studio and recorded their first record in German, “Wie wir sind”. It was released by Universal Music in early 2018. But no matter what happened creatively over the three decades, Bell Book & Candle never really went away. They did what every real band should do if they can: play live. To date, Bell Book & Candle have played around 1,800 concerts between Templin and Texas. A wealth of experience from which the three benefit and which has continually shaped their music in new ways. Last year, the first foreshadowing of the anniversary album coming this year was released with the cheerful and playful “Gold” and the more indie-pop “Fight For Flight”. Bell Book & Candle also open up new worlds with their current single “Supersonic Speed”. The song is about love and appreciation for yourself. Jana Groß says: “It’s not about someone I’ve finally found. The line “in your arms again” refers – as can be seen in the video – to myself.”

“I have already used the sentence ‘Only once is today and today is the best time’ in the song ‘World from above’ and yet it is always relevant for us, it is also the keynote of our new album.” (Jana Groß 2024)

Three decades in the same line-up Bell Book & Candle not only stand for a clearly defined relationship between fellow musicians, but also for a genuine musical and human friendship. What has remained from the early days is the unbridled passion and opulent wealth of ideas, the penchant for large melodies and complex arrangements. The leitmotif of the perfect pop song is always the focus. All of this, coupled with the possibilities of current pop productions and the knowledge of seasoned musicians, makes Bell Book & Candle artists whose music and songs have a certain timelessness that arises from successful changes in the here and now. So cheers for 30 years of pop music at its best.