They have been here and have waited for their entrance on stage for a television recording. They have been surrounded by young people and by someone who was waiting for autographs, their make-up has been applied and their lunch has been brought still hot, as rarely happens in Hamburg. The commuters from Münster to Berlin have become famous. Alphaville have sold millions of records, their last LP was produced in the USA. The keyboard player Bernhard Lloyd has been discussing with Milestones for an interview:

Milestones: How was your trio born?

Bernhard Lloyd: I'd known Marian, the singer of the group, for a long time. We started to play music with Frank Mertens, we were in our little town there, and we were able to play synthesisers. Later, I phoned Marian and asked him if he had time, so we planned an appearance. We took our time, we wrote a few lyrics together, one of them is "Forever Young". We became very enthusiastic when Marian sang. Also the appearance was good even if the music was recorded because we aren't professional musicians. We were so happy about the result, and we gave the "baby" its name - Alphaville. Then, we installed a demos studio with 8 tracks in Münster, in our unpretentious house-office; after 6 months, we had a recording contract and, after 6 more months, we had a Number One, "Big in Japan". This brutally surprised us, when we saw how our music was becoming important. After all, English lyrics and synthesised music weren't very popular in Germany. You already know the rest of the story.

M: Yes, sales are considerable, anyway. 1,500,000 LP's and 3,500,000 singles sold. Did you say that none of you ever had any musical experience?

BL: Certainly! Rick Echolette, who substituted for Frank Mertens after a year and a half, had previously taken piano lessons.

M: How do your songs come out?

BL: We write them together. Marian writes the words, the music comes from me and Rick.

M: There haven't been any live tours up to now! Do you have any plans to go in that direction?

BL: Yes, we would like to be on tour in the next few years, probably we'll finish the production of our third LP before that.

M: How long did the production of your last album take?

BL: It took a year and a half; but we were solidly in the office half a year. Also we have a studio with 24 tracks, which isn't used for commercial intent, only for our need. This is good, because we'll start to produce in a short time. We had to get together a lot of experience, for the first time, to know how a "24-track" should be used. That's not so easy, when you're not an expert in recording.

M: Would you like to produce other groups?

BL: At this time, we only want to produce ourselves, if we do something with other people, that's another question.

M: What is your equipment composed of?

BL: It's composed of a DX, DX-7, TX-Rock, also a Jupiter B and our PPG, which is really nice, but it never does what it should. On the contrary, the DX-7 is not nice at all, but it simply is perfect. I've got to say, at this point, that we have a kind of friendship with our instruments.

M: When one listens to your songs, he can hear you work a lot with synthesisers.

BL: Yes! In our first LP, we worked 90% with synthesisers. So, a moderate playback, but the voice comes from the singer, of course. In the new LP we certainly have worked in the same way with synthesisers, only because the cost for the production here, with 48 tracks, was too expensive, and we included more things. For instance the guitar, the bass, a bit of drums, even if the best always comes from the Linn. We don't have the Linn 9000, but we have the good "old" one, with which you can still do some nice things. This time there's a slight brass section, too. So, 4 brasses, and one arranger, which wrote the parts for the brass correctly. These parts have a different kind of feeling, and they are funnier.