Phil Charters
Robbie France
Rob Harris
David Goodes
Pierson Grange
Jakob Kiersch
Martin Lister
James Mack
Christian Marsac
Shane Meehan
Alex Slavik

See: The Alphaville Live Band

AtlanticPopes

Rainer Bloss

Chinchilla Green

The Other Ones

Lineup: Frank Mertens (keyboards and synthesizers), Matine (vocals), Felix Lille (guitars).
Frank Mertens formed Lonely Boys after leaving Alphaville. The band released at least one single, "Hold Me" (b-side: "Lonely Boy") in Germany and Switzerland in the summer of 1986. A second single was planned for release in the spring of 1987: though nothing is known about this single, it appears to have been released. Felix Lille left the group halfway through the project.

Performed the song "Nackt im Wind" ("Naked in the Wind") at the Band Für Afrika concert in December 1984.
Participants were: Alphaville, BAP, Ina Deter, Extrabreit, Geier Sturzflug, Herbert Groenemeyer, Gitte Haenning, Hans Hartz, Hein Rudolf Kunze, George Kranz, Klaus Lage, Udo Lindenberg, Wolf Maahn, Peter Maffay, Ulla Meinecke, Marius Mueller-Westernhagen, Muenchener Freiheit, Nena, Rheingold, Rodgau Monotones, Spider Murphy Gang, Spliff, Trio, Juliane Werding.
In February 1985 the song reached number 3 in the German Billboard Charts.

German All-Star Band

Performed "Sag Mir, Wo Die Blumen Sind?", a German version of Pete Seeger's Where Have all the Flowers Gone? at Anti-Waansinns-Festival, 1986. Particpants included Rio Reiser and Marian Gold.

Albert & The Heart of Gold

Listed as "our favourite band" by Alphaville. Albert and the Heart of Gold are credited as the lyricists of "Lady Bright" on Afternoons in Utopia (according to the Afternoons in Utopia music book, the writers of the song are Marian, Bernhard and Ricky).

Albert and the Heart of Gold appeared alongside Alphaville at the Tempodrome in Berlin at an Aids benefit concert in 1987, where they performed Islands (a cover version of the track by New Musik) and Big in Japan (both of which appear on the History album), and Underworld (which appears on Dreamscapes).

The band's line-up: Rainer Bloss/Fairlight, Flo/guitars, Stephanie/bass, Julie Ocean/additional keyboards, Dirk/drums, Gabi Becker/backing vocals, Marian Gold/Vocals.

Bowie's song Five Years was covered by Marian Gold on his second solo album United. Both Marian Gold and Bernhard Lloyd have often cited Bowie as one of their greatest musical influences.

Deiter Meier directed the video for "Big in Japan". His wife appeared in the video as the Japanese girl.

Formerly of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Johnson's first band was called Big in Japan. Other members of the band were Bill Drummond (JAMS/Timelords/KLF), Ian Broodie (The Lightning Seeds), Jayne Casey and Kevin Ward. They released two singles - Brutality Religion (1977) and From Y to Z (1978) before breaking up. From Y to Z was also released in November 1978 as a double 7" with the following tracks:
• Nothing Special (3:35)
• Cindy And The Barbi Dolls (3:32)
• Suicide A-Go-Go (2:26)
• Taxi (4:27)

Late seventies / very early eighties: Released a single called "Alphaville", the b-side of which was, oddly, "He's Frank." The Monochrome Set were Bid (guitar, vocals), Lester Square (lead guitar, backing vocals), Jeremy Harrington (bass guitar), and John D. Haney (drums).

Die Goldenen Zitronen

Recorded "Forever Punk" with Marian Gold on backing vocals. The group's name translates as "The Golden Lemons"

The entire cast of the early eighties Berlin band Ideal (minus the lead singer Anette Humpe), features on "Heaven or Hell". Ideal had a couple of hits in 1981 in German. Their style was mostly synthie rock (judging by their Greatest Hits compilation). They have also worked with Klaus Schulze.

Marian Gold worked with this group, and sang on their song "Tantra Tantra" which appears on their album "Stadt, Land, Verbrechen". Eff Jott Krüger, who played on The Breathtaking Blue, was at one time a member of the band.

She is credited as co-lyricist on "For a Million", "Feathers and Tar", "Missionary", "For the Sake of Love" and "Cosmopolitician", and as lyricist on "Sirens", "Heart of the Flower", "Legend", "Danger in Your Paradise" and "Pandora's Lullaby". "Sirens" and "Legend" are both taken from "Elegy", which appears on Dreamscapes. Some of her lyrics originally appeared as poems in the Utopia Mirror.

See also: Songwriters

He is a former member of Tangerine Dream, who produced The Breathtaking Blue for Alphaville. According to legend, Schulze arrived at Alphaville's Lunapark for a couple of hours and ended up staying for a year and a half.
He has released several solo albums, and some in collaboration with Andreas Grosser, most notably Babel (1989), the cover of which features Pieter Bruegel's painting of the Tower of Babel (which also appears as the background to the cover of The Breathtaking Blue).



Marian Gold recorded a song called Duel on Schulze's Trancelation album in 1994. The lyrics of the song come from an early, unreleased Alphaville song called "Into the Dark". The CD credits read: "Marian Gold appears by courtesy of ALPHAVILLE. His vocals were recorded by Bernd Lloyd at LUNAPARK STUDIOS, Berlin." "Duel" and "Into the Dark" both appear on Dreamscapes

See also: Interview with Klaus Schulze, Songwriters, Musicians

Marian Gold recently toured with Ulla and performed on her double live CD Kurz nach acht.

Credited as one of the writers of "Big in Japan" on the single and the Warner music sheet, though not on the album.

Wolf Maahn & Unterstützung

Marian sang in the background choir on the song "Tschernobyl (Das letzte Signal)", which translates as "Tschernobyl (The last signal)". The song was released in 1996 by Wolf Maahn to help raise funds against the use of atomic energy after the accident in Tschernobyl. The song reached about number 40 in the German charts.

Aleister Crowley

Crowley is mentioned in the comments for "Red Rose" on the First Harvest album.
Edward Alexander Crowley - later to be known as Aleister - was born in Scotland in 1875, the son of religious fundamentalists. At an early age he rejected his parents' beliefs, and turned to black magic (or "magick", as he preferred to spell the word, to avoid confusion with more down-to-Earth prestidigitators), alchemy and Satan-worshipping.
In his adult years, Crowley built up a large following who believed that he was an Earthly incarnation of Satan - in fact, he encouraged them to refer to him as "the Beast" or "the Great Beast of the Apocalypse." He used their adoration to satisfy his tremendous appetites: chiefly for sex and drugs.
His maxim was "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law," a phrase designed to justify his lack of ethics: by issuing this law, Crowley was able to use his followers to amass a large fortune, which he subsequently lost during the stock market crash in 1929.
Though he is largely unknown today, Crowley was infamous during the early part of the century. The papers were rife with rumours about his lifestyle, particularly his relationships with his acolytes. On more than on occasion it was rumoured that Crowley used human sacrifices in his experiments, though nothing was ever proven.
He died in 1947, penniless and alone.

Lilly is mentioned in the comments for "Red Rose" on the First Harvest album.
John C. Lilly is renowned for his work with dolphins, especially his experiments with communication.
Lilly also experimented with drugs and sensory deprivation through the use of flotation tanks (see Ken Russell's film Altered States for an idea of what Lilly was trying to achieve).
His early experiments with flotation tanks led to some very strange experiences: he believed that on some occasions he entered other planes of existence, populated by advanced and powerful beings. Around the mid-1950s he tried to combine the flotation experience with LSD, and found that the drug gave him even greater access to these other planes. Eventually, when LSD was finally outlawed, he gave up on it and continued with the tanks alone.