| Medlemmer: | Boris Blank
Dieter Meyer
Carlos Peron
Boris Blank
Boris is the musical part of YELLO. He composes the songs and is, due to his extreme perfectionism, responsible for the characteristic YELLO sound.
Boris lives in Zurich, with his wife and daugther, Olivia. As a child he got blind on one eye because of an incident with gunpowder and empty bullet shells.
He was Born in Switzerland on January 15. 1952. Already as a child he was very interrested in music. In school he he had to learn the flute but he never had any formal training and he has never learned to read notes. Instead he banged around on his mother plates and cans produceing sounds and rythms. A playfull nature he has kept ever since, as he still has this approach towards producing new sounds and samples.
But the gear is a bit more advanced now. His favourite equipment since the early eighties has been the Fairlight and a set of JBL 4711 speakers, which he uses as monitors in his studio.
Rumours has it, though, that he recently switched over to a new set-up.
As teenager he got a taperecorder, a Revox A77, and he started experimenting with tape loops and echo effects. He recorded watersounds from a bucket of water and played sounds on a homemade bamboo flute. It was in this period he met Carlos Peron.
Boris considers himself as a constructor of music. He often states that he works very much like a painter, creating shapes, combining colors, etc.
When working on new songs he prefers to be alone in the studio playing with the sounds and samples. Many of the samples in the songs are self recorded. Manipulated sounds of a door slamming, a ball being thrown on the floor or slamming a wet newspaper into the wall.
He plays a bit of guitar, saxophone, flute and piano, but nothing like a professional, he says. So when he has finished a track he invites various additional musicians (like Beat Ash or Chico Hablas who appears an many of the YELLO albums) into his studio to record the songs with real instruments. Then Dieter comes, bringing his typewriter along, and adds lyrics to the song.
Dieter Meier
Dieter is the multi-artistical part of YELLO.
He writes the lyrics and performs the vocals. And, being a very visual oriented man, he writes and directs the videos as well. Dieter was born on March 4. 1945 in Zurich, Switzerland. His father was a succesfull self-made banker so Dieter grew up in one of Switzerlands most wealthy banking families.
When he finished school he became a professional poker player and joined the Swiss national golf team.
But it was first at the age of 24, he came out as an artist.
On November 17, 1969 he entered the world of performance art. He sat on a public square in Zurich and collected thousands of iron pieces into bags of ten pieces each. Since then he has performed and directed several other happenings like sitting outside a Zurich bank transfering coins from one pile to another or bying the word Yes or No from by-passers.
In 1972 he laid down a plate on Kassel Railway Station, Germany, with the inscription: On March 23, 1994, Dieter Meier will be standing on this plate between 3 and 4pm.
-And 22 years later he fulfilled the work and stood there.
There's some pictures available on Julians Homepage.
At another performance he asked people to send him money. If he recived 10,000 dollars he would declare it as art. He recieved 7,131 and returned every cent.
In 1966 he had an small accident with some shampoo and the result was that his hair were colored green. He turned the incident into an advantage and used the strange look to gatecrash parties at the Cannes underground filmfestival in 1966.
In 1972 he represented Switzerland at the annual world art exhibit, Documenta 5.
Before YELLO he was a singer for a band named The Assholes. But he has also released two solo singles and one single with the band Fresh Colours before he became a part of YELLO.
Dieter is always involved in a lot of projects besides YELLO.
Because of his wealthy family he has never had any actual need to work, so it's basically not the finances motivating Dieter to do his work.
He designs silk scarves and clothing. Twice a year he spends one night in Paris, painting hundreds of Japanese figures, which later are selected for fashion collections. He is also a co-owner of Ulyses Nardin, a company making high-end luxury watches, and he is the President & C.E.O. of ReWATCH, a company making watches out of used cans.
When he is not busy with YELLO, fashion or watches, he writes articles and novels. In 1981 he published the book Ein Bilderbuch [A picturebook] together with Urula Furst. -And he makes movies. His first feature film was a thriller entitled Jetzt Und Alles [Now And Everything] (1982) written and directed by himself. He is currently working on a movie for YELLO but no releasedates are given yet.
He has also appeared as actor in the movies Zoning (1986), Dandy (1987), Zwischensaison [Middleseason] (1992), Leo Sonnyboy: Vom Tauerkloß zum Herzensbrecher [Leo Sunnyboy: From ?lump to Heartbreaker] (TV, 1992) and as soundcrew on Der Kongreß der Pinguine [The Congress Of The Penguins] (1993).
Some of the videos he has directed, both for YELLO and other bands, has recieved many awards and prizes. The Pinball Cha Cha (CL) video is included in the music video collection at the New York Museum of Modern Art and a video he made for Alphavilles Big In Japan, was chosen Best Video of 1984 by Sky Channel. The videos for Desire (ST) and Vicious Games (ST) were both acclaimed at the Video Awards of MIDEM 1986 in Cannes. Desire won for best video script.
Dieter Meier is married and has 2 sons and 3 daughters (Eleonore, Sophia, Anna, Ludvig and Francis-Benjamin). The oldest daughter, Eleonore, appears in several of the YELLO videos.
Carlos Peron
The third member. From 1977-1984.
Carlos Peron were Born in Switzerland and has studied the classical flute.
Later he discovered electronic music and started playing soundpieces on a taperecorder and on some self-made soundgenerators.
It was this approach to music that brought him together with Boris Blank.
After he left YELLO he settled down as a producer and has released several solo-albums and a few movie soundtracks.
| | Historie: | YELLO
The early history of YELLO began in 1977 when Boris Blank and Carlos Peron first met. They were both at an automobile testlab recording noises. Being two souls with the same wish to explore music, they began working together using taperecorders as samplers and putting noises together with music. The YELLO style was born, now they just needed a singer. Boris then heard in a record shop about Dieter Meier who was singing in a group called The Assholes. They got in touch and YELLO were formed.
Dieter came up with the name, which he wanted to sound somewhat playfull.
A YELled halLO = YELLO.
In 1979 they released a 12", I.T. splash & Glue Head, on the Zurich underground label Periphery Perfume.
On a trip to the US in 1980 they were offered a 10,000 $ deal with Ralph Records in San Francisco. The contract said they had to make one album and two selfdirected promotion films.
The first american single was Bimbo (SP) which mostly were bought by people who were familiar with Ralph Records releases. But the second single, Bostich (SP), which were released in September 1981, became a huge hit in the dance clubs and on black radio.
In 1983 YELLO did their first ever and one of their VERY rare live performances. At New York's Roxy, in front of a mostly black and Hispanic crowd of 3000. The performance were later released on the EP Live At The Roxy and on video, The YELLO Video Show.
Since then they have stated that they don't want to perform live. Mainly for two reasons: 1. They don't want to reproduce what they've already done. -Dieter says that it may be as asking Matisse to paint some of his pictures again, and this time in front of a live audience. 2. The tracks and rythms are already played in the studio and are stored on track and in the synthsizers. So the live-idea would loose it's meaning.
Dieter says that he occasionally would like to though. And they sometimes do, but mostly in TV-shows, etc.
After the 3rd album You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess (1983), Carlos decided to leave the group to start a solo career as musician and producer.
In general YELLO works very different from most groups. They don't really sit together in the normal steps of composing, rehearsing, recording and going out live.
They use the tape in the same way a painter would use a paper or a canvas. -An expression often used by both band members when they describe their way of working.
When Boris is finished he invites Dieter into his studio in Zurich. Dieter then writes or improvises the lyrics and does the vocals. And later, when the singles are about to be promoted, Dieter also writes and directs the videos.
At a ceremony in Zurich on June 18th 1997 YELLO recieved the Art Award From The City Of Zurich. A great honour which never have been given to musicians before.
Dieter and Boris spends less time together now, than in the beginning. Their approach to the style of music is very different, but they still inspire each other. And hopefully they still have a lot of new songs in the works.
Billy Mackenzie
Appears on the albums One Second, Flag and Baby.
Billy who was in the goup The Associates, took contact to YELLO and asked to work with them. Together they made The Rythm Divine (OS), Moon On Ice (OS) and Capri Calling (BA). He did background vocals on Of Course I'm Lying (FL), Otti Di Catania (FL), Rubberbandman (BA) and Drive/Driven (BA).
His solo album, Outernational (1992), is produced and partially co-written by Boris Blank.
Billy committed suicide in January, 1997.
Ernst Gamper
Ernst Gamper did the covers for YG, ST, MI, OS, FL, and played guitar on most of the tracks on Baby.
Dieter has once said that he buys the work of those artists and friends that he believes. Ernst is most probably such a friend.
Shirley Basset
Appears on The Rythm Divine (OS).
YELLO had sent some tapes to her, and much to their surprise it showed that Shirley liked YELLO and listened to their albums. Dieter phoned her to do The Rythem Divine and when they met, it only took 45 minuttes to complete her vocal track.
Stina Nordenstam
Appears on To The Sea (PU).
Boris sent her a tape after he had heard her first album. Stina then came to Zurich with a song in the bag and they recorded To The Sea in four hours.
Rumours says that she will appear on the soundtrack for the forthcomming YELLO film.
Boris describes her characteristic voice as the voice of a fairy-tale-singer.
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| | | Sidst opdateret 04-08-2003 (mandag) af breiler.
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