Die Toten Hosen

Die Toten Hosen is a German punk band from D?sseldorf. They have enjoyed decades-long mass appeal in Germany.

The band's name literally means "The Dead Pants" (i.e. trousers) in English, although the phrase "tote Hose" is a German expression meaning "nothing going on" or "boring". Their name is figuratively best translated as "The Deadbeats".

History

The members of Die Toten Hosen are Campino (Andreas Frege), Kuddel (Andreas von Holst), Vom (Stephen 'Vom' Ritchie), Andi (Andreas Meurer) and Breiti (Michael Breitkopf). Although most of the members are German, drummer Vom is actually from England and replaced W?lli as the drummer in 1999; W?lli's untimely departure from the band was due to injuries caused by a car accident. W?lli himself had replaced Trini in 1985, and is still an honorary member of the band; Trini became the band's manager when W?lli joined.

The band has existed for over 20 years, and their songs' focus gradually shifted from funny and nonsensical to serious; the songs from their first LP were mostly about having fun, but by the end of the 1980s they were focusing more on political and social issues such as racism.

Part of the folklore surrounding the band is the story that in their early days they played for free at private birthday parties or similar events. However, this was only under the condition that the host provided an unlimited beer supply and paid for all damages caused by the band.

The debut single "Wir sind bereit" ("We are ready") was released in 1982, and was followed by their first album, Opel-Gang, the next year. In 1988, Die Toten Hosen released the LP Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau ("A little bit of horrorshow" ("horrorshow" is Nadsat for "ok", coming from the Russian word ?????? (khorosho)) referring to the phrase in "A Clockwork Orange"), which featured the song "Hier kommt Alex" (referring to the movie A Clockwork Orange based on the book by Anthony Burgess); in 1988, Bernd Schadewald produced a German theater version of the book, in which the band performed as actors and musicians. "Hier kommt Alex" (Here comes Alex) was later redone for the unplugged show in 2005 with the opening piano of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Their 1000th concert was on , in the D?sseldorfer Rheinstadium, and was attended by more than 60,000 fans. A Dutch girl, Rieke Lax, died in the crowd; later the band produced the song "Alles ist eins" ("Everything is one") in memoriam for her.

Their first tour after this event was as part of the 1998 Warped Tour to New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Hawaii, and included hospital visits for Campino after two of the nine Australian dates (Byron Bay and Geelong).

Die Toten Hosen have collaborated with numerous other musicians (like Bad Religion, AC/DC, U2, Rolling Stones); they are also one of the few German punk bands popular outside of Germany (esp. in South America, Australia, Eastern Europe) other notable bands being Die ?rzte and WIZO.

As longtime fans of their local football team Fortuna D?sseldorf they sponsored the club from 2001 to 2003. They also published a song named "Bayern" in 2000, referring to the famous football club in Germany. Roughly translated, the text reads "many things can happen, many things can occur, I just know one thing for sure, I'd never join FC Bayern Munich".

In August, 2006, Campino (Andreas Frege) starred as Mack the Knife in a new version of "The Threepenny Opera" staged at Berlin's Admiralspalast, a short distance down Friedrichstrasse from where the play received its premier in 1928. Staged by actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, the much-awaited production opened to mixed reviews, with cheers for German rock star Campino, but scattered boos for Brandauer's "conventional" staging.