Tillmann, who come from Munich and Augsburg, Germany, describe their sound as full of sweet pain and bitter melancholy which is sometimes tender and light and then, with a smile on their lips, they explode into a pressurized wall of sound. They are working hard on being non-conformist sound bastards. In the beginning, 1995, there were three Tillmänner, Thomas Kiemle (Tom), Ludwig and Dieter Kandler (Sammy). The reason for just three was simply based on the fact that they'd all played music together before and knew each other well. Although it was hard to free themselves from playing cover songs, which were widely accepted, during the course of a year so many ideas for songs had been collected that it was time to archive these for posterity's sake. Werner Schultheiss was found as the right man to take the controls for their debut. The story of the band name, by the way, is such: In the song, Galeere, there's a part in the first line that goes: Riemen schneiden, dein Gesicht in See...For whatever reason, Tom always sang the beginning of this as Riemenschneider which, in time, made them think of the late 1400's sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider and since then they've called themselves Tillmann. Their first work, Blutroter Stein, was produced in just a few weeks which was remarkable considering that none of them had even seen the inside of a studio before this time. Full of pride, the band presented the finished product. Without a doubt, Blutroter Stein wasn't only impressive because of its stylistic variety and striking lyrics which made the punk rocking Alfred L and the melancholy rock ballad Blutroter Stein into two small hits which were played not only on local radio stations but it was also remarkable because of the group of fans that would regularly call these stations to request them. Scarcely a year later Alex Onea (axo) joined the band as keyboardist & the band's spectrum of sound was considerably widened. New, exciting stories were, piece by piece, transformed into distinctive songs. Just when they'd started playing with the idea of creating a successor to Blutroter Stein, however, bassist & fellow co-founder Ludwig took his leave of the band. They got lucky though and Chris joined the band as bassist shortly after. 1999: In the Black Lab Studio in Augsburg, under the direction of Hartmut Welz, the band's second CD, Gott der Stadt was recorded. It was only a maxi-CD with 5 tracks that were tightly connected with one another... a mini concept album, so to speak. With this production they managed to create a further sensation. Local, as well as regional, press acknowledged the band's solid handiwork. The title song received a fair amount of airplay and slowly but surely the band began to flourish. Loads of appearances were underway - whether it was on festival billings or on the German-wide Europegel 2001 club tour. The four boys from Bavaria proved most impressively that they could do something other than yodel. The Europegel 2001 tour was a complete success and proved that this band could ignite audiences anywhere, not just locally. A short time later Davina became the first Tillfrau in Tillmann. New songs were introduced and the Aktionswochen tour was planned. The Aktionswochen tour ran beautifully, the band played a lot of shows and rocked audiences. After finishing the tour, Davina leaves the band. Keyboardist Alex also left the band because his schooling took him to Berlin. The band is again a trio with Tom singing, Chris on bass and Sammy pounding the drums. Their third album is due out in the spring of 2006 - “Vorsicht, Fahrstuhl!” The producer of Tillmann´s album, Vorsicht, Fahrstuhl!, - Mr. Nils Hermanski - has joined the band, playing bass guitar and has also produced the new Tillmann album, Geld, Gold & Glücklichsein” which will be released in summer 2010. Official website: tillmann.de Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.