Wonderwall (band)

Wonderwall is a German pop group. In its original formation, its members were Kati (Kathrin), eLa (Daniela) and Jule (Julia).

Biography

Wonderwall strongly emphasize that they are not a made-up girl group. They compose all of their songs and write all of the lyrics themselves and impress by naturalness and relaxed treatment of fans and media. Their music is soft acoustic guitar pop with piano, percussion and English lyrics.

Kati got to know to Jule through ballet, while she knew eLa from school. At the age of 11 the started playing music together for fun and called themselves "McDowell-Brothers". Although their level of English was not very high at this point, they wrote their lyrics in English already and thought about matching guitar accompaniment.

Through a common theatre performance all three got to know each other and performed as three on garden parties or local celebrations in and around Cologne. By chance they got to know to a producer who liked their music, and so gave them a record deal. The first single "Witchcraft" was released in May 2001 and reached position 77 in the German single charts. After another single (Who Am I, November 2001) which did not enter the charts, there was a breakthrough with "Just More" in May 2002. It lasted three weeks on position 2 of the German single charts.

Shortly followed by that, their first album "Witchcraft" was released and reached position 4 of the German album charts. The last single from this album was "In April" in September 2002, reaching position 33. Then they went on tour through Europe with Ronan Keating.

The Echo Awards 2003 saw Wonderwall nominated four times and winning in the category "Best German Newcomer".

The second album "What Does It Mean", released in November 2003, only reached position 48 on the charts. Also their shortly before released single "(One More) Song For You", the last song together as three, was not that successful as previous singles.

In November of 2003, Jule left the band to work as a solo artist. Musical differences divided them after six years. Jule wants to start a solo career and lives together with her boyfriend in London. Their friendship did not suffer.

January and February 2004 saw Kati and eLa going on their first headliner tour through Germany with their band, The Mighty Sleepwalkers. "Silent Tears" was released in March 2004 and also became the song for the German preliminary contest for the Eurovision Song Contest. They did not win, but they achieved a remarkable fourth place competing with well-known German musicians such as Scooter and winner Max who was strongly supported by Stefan Raab.

On 8th April 2004 was announced, that they changed their record company from WEA, a Warner subsidiary, to producer Jack White's "Seven Days Music".

They also lend their voices and songs to two audio books, published in "Der Audio Verlag" in the "Freche Maedchen - Freche Hoerbücher" series.The first one is "Alles Machos - außer Tim" by Thomas Brinx and Anja Koemmerling was released in September 2004. eLa takes the role of Rubi, while Kati speaks Alina. "Everything-You-Do-Is-Wrong-Day" was selected as the title track. The second one is "Umzug nach Wolke Sieben" by Sabine Both, released in October 2004. Kati takes the role of Jule and eLa the one of Mechthild. The song "This Is" supports it.

Together with Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer, Wonderwall worked on the sound track to the animated cartoon "Laura's Stern", a German production which entered the cinemas on 23rd September 2004. "Touch The Sky" became the title track and was released as a single on 20th September 2004.

In November 2004 the third studio album "Come Along" was released.

Discography

Albums

*"Witchcraft" (2002)
*"What Does It Mean?" (2003)
*"Come Along" (2004)

ingles

*"Witchcraft" (2001)
*"Who Am I?" (2001)
*"Just More" (2002)
*"In April" (2002)
*"Witchcraft 2003" (2003)
*"(One More) Song For You" (2003)
*"Silent Tears" (2004)
*"Touch the Sky" (2004)
*"Losin´ You" (2005)

External links

* [http://www.wonderwall.de Official site]
* [http://www.wonderwallfriends.de Official fanclub]
* [http://english.wonderwallfriends.de Information for non-German speaking fans]