Botticelli Baby

Musicians from different areas and cities. Different ages. Different sizes. Different goals and dreams. From such different families. They gave their debut performance around 2012. In a totally different formation. The band’s line-up has changed several times. Some go, others join. The original members still in the band are Alexander Niermann, Marlon Bösherz and Jörg Buttler. Tom Hellenthal joined shortly after and Lukas “The Hungarian Sziego” Sziegoleit left after almost six years, in 2019 after the summer tour. The former pianist Lucius Nawothnig re-joined the band after a creative reorientation. Maria played the trombone and was with us throughout the sweaty early days. Her place was taken by Max, who is growing closer and closer to us and of course already has a place of his own. Jacob was on saxophone for several years and two of our albums. He is now exploring new horizons.

The fourth album SAFT sums up the feeling of these years – the many concerts in different countries, where the band feels right at home and goes out in the evenings. Sleeping in dive bars, hotels, a tent in a field, by lakes and rivers. Driving off and sleeping in a tent by a stream just before the Austrian border. Wild camping in Switzerland and watching the moon rise over two mountain peaks because the 5-star hotel for everyone isn’t booked until the next day. Jazz festivals are happy, the Giganten are playing and Botticelli Baby are there too presenting their thing and the people like it a lot. The audience is confused because after an hour-and-a-half gig in the basement venue, five of the musicians are still chatting and jamming with everyone all through the night.

After an epic demolition party in a circus tent with 800 people, where the technicians had to reinforce the stage beneath the band because of the vibrations, some of the band members join some of the crowd for a spot of skinny dipping. Why not. And the long hours on the tour bus? Hours and hours, many, many kilometres. It’s awesome. It’s their bus. They chat, argue, sing, listen to music, read, sleep, write poetry, play computer games, eat, talk on the phone, live. It is good when we get in and drive off, and then it sometimes becomes painful. Because the gig last night was hard and there wasn’t enough sleep and getting on the bus means driving for another six hours and not getting to bed before four or five a.m. again, beautiful landscapes, snoozing… In the coming years we’ll fly more. That’s also awesome. To Athens by car, or Bahrein or Spain – that’s what the band does when there is time and we want to play street music again. See ya.

OMG, I’m driving through rainy Belgium and listening to the album SAFT. Shit, we were there… how fitting.