The band has existed for 38 years. They have 7 more releases than Black Sabbath, 8 more than The Rolling Stones, 12 more than their own countrymen, The Scorpions, 16 more than Dokken, 20 more than Motley Crue and The Beatles, 21 more than Bon Jovi and Van Halen, and 22 more than Def Leppard and Poison....still, no one seems to know who or what BONFIRE is. Although their history can be found in Wikipedia (I created the entry), here's the most important things any fan or future fan should know.
In 1972 Hans Ziller created a band with his brother Karl and called it CACUMEN, both being the guitarists. The history from the formation and who else was involved up to 1978 seems to be lost in the sands of time. What is known is that in '78 Claus Lessmann was hired as the lead vocalist and the group became a popular attraction. Also part of the band were guitarist Horst Maier-Thorn, Hans Hauptmann on bass, Hanns Schmidt-Theissen was on keyboards and Hans Forstner was the drummer. It was this line-up that put the first recording out in '79, the Riding Away single. When a full length album was being arranged, Karl left the band and Hanns bowed out, but did provide keyboards for recordings. The self-titled Cacumen album came out in 1981. For the 1983 release, Bad Widow, Hauptmann was replaced with Robert Prskalowicz and two years later the Longing For You EP was released. The band was gaining a great reputation and they decided to make a full-fleged career of being rock stars. Robert and Forstner though were nervous to make such a commitment and were replaced with Joerg Deisinger and Dominik Huelshorst respectively. Thus came the line-up that would step into the world-wide market.
First step for taking on the world was coming up with a new name. Although Cacumen was well known in West Germany, it just was not a favourite name for the record company executives. The band had a brain storming session and out of that came the new dedication of Bonfire. Their first album under the new name came out in 1986, Don't Touch The Light. Just before recording their follow-up, the group made a hasty decision of firing Dominik. This lead to the group not having a new drummer to record their album for 1987. They did use Ken Mary from Fifth Angel, but Ken declined joining. Fireworks was released and it became the group's Gold seller. By the end of the year, new drummer Edgar Patrik was hired on. When their second song from the album was prepared for release (along with a video), Horst's on-going illness had become too much for him and he had to quit the group. Angel Schleifer came in to take up the chore of second guitarist. For me this has to be THE best Bonfire line-up. Changes weren't through as during recording for the 1989 album, the band was forced to make a decision that even they in retrospect thought was not the best solution, they fired the founding member, Hans. Even with that decision, the record company decided to no longer promote the band in North America. strange since they recorded their next album, Point Blank, in the USA and toured there in support of the album. On the heels of that album, the band was asked to record a song for the Wes Craven movie, Shocker. Thus the Sword And Stone single was put out. In 1991, after going with a different producer, the album Knock out was released, clearly the band's worst effort. 1992 was the year that not only expanded the Bonfire interest but was also the worst blow they could take...Claus decided to leave, but in doing so he reunited with Hans to become a duo called Lessmann/Ziller.
1993....Bonfire fans was treated to four events. The announcement that Michael Bormann was Bonfire's new singer, the band releasing Live...The Best, a live recording when Claus was still the singer and the third thing was Lessmann/Ziller's release of a totally German language album called Glaub Dran. The forth thing came later, a bootleg release of End Of An Era, which was the demo songs recorded by Bonfire with Michael singing. The following year, Lessmann/Ziller released the Charlie & Louise single (for a movie with the same name) and the German language Fur Dich single. Unfortunately in the Bonfire camp things were not so good. The record company refused to release any music without Claus singing and to add insult to injury the grunge/alternative scene had taken root in the mainstream instustry. The band broke up. Lessmann/Ziller was not doing much better either. Acceptance to the duo was not as well as either hoped so they rebanded themselves as Ex and released the Die Antwort Weiss Der Wind single, a song all in German. After the release, Joerg and Dominik were asked if they would be interested in joining and accepted. This however only lasted for a very short time. Claus and Hans were still not pleased with the reception and realized that they needed to be Bonfire again.
After negotiating with Angel, Joerg and Edgar, a one-time payment was made to them in 1996 by Claus and Hans and thus Ex evolved into a second band called Bonfire. The album Feels Like Comin' Home came out right afterwards, with a limited edition German version called Freudenfeuer. Then a greatest hits album, Hot & Slow, was put out and the duo hired Chris Lausmann as rhythm guitarist, Uwe Kohler on bass and drummer Jurgen Wiehler. (To hear the music from 1979 - 1998, please use the following address to download a file with a song from each release.)
http://rapidshare.com/files/338821001/Best_Of_Claus_Lessmann-part_1.zip
This new line-up put out Rebel Soul in 1998 along with the Because It's Christmas single. Also added to that year was the release of Charade's self-titled album. Charade was formed the year before by Michael and Angel for the purpose of putting out the shelved Bonfire album they recorded in 1993. They decided to stay together and release new music. Bonfire released Fuel to the Flames the following year and then their former record company decided to capitalize on their new success by releasing a greatest hits CD called Who's Foolin' Who (not to be confused with the single of the same name from 1989).
In the new century, Bonfire started off by putting out Strike Ten, then a double greatest hits album called 29 Golden Bullets that featured new versions of songs and a demo. 2002 saw a loss of Chris in the band, but the foursome put out a live album called Live Over Europe! The following year they released a more modern sounding recordings. Tell Me What U Know single was the preview and then the album Free was available. Bonfire fans all around the world wondered what happened to their favourite band. 2004 though was a great year. Claus and Hans managed to aquire the rights to their older material from Cacumen (as well as Hans' band after he was fired from Bonfire, EZ Livin'). They re-released these recordings as The Early Days (a 5-disc set) that featured the original albums (along with the Lessmann/Ziller album) with additional recordings. Then they put out the Schanzer Herz single in honour of their hometown of Ingolstadt. Charade also released their second album, II. Bonfire decided to do a redition of the "MTV Unplugged" series by performing on TV an acoustical performance, which they released as a double disc called One Acoustic Night with a studio song for the benefit of the tsunami victims in Indonesia.
2006 was when Chris Limburg joined as co-guitarist. He had been supporting the band live for a few years and was formally asked to join. Double X came out immediately and another live disc in 2007 called Double Vision was released to great fanfare. 2008 saw the release of The Rauber, a rock-opera album that the band performed many many times in Ingolstadt's theatre, sold out almost every time as fans from all over congregated to the city.
Last year Bonfire lost Jurgen to another band, but to fill his seat, coming almost full circle, was Dominik again. A double best of ballads disc was released, You Make Me Feel, and now us Bonfire fans are waiting on the 2010 release of a new studio album with Dominik on drums. How will they sound now?
(To hear the music from 1999 to now, download from this link.)
http://rapidshare.com/files/338837432/Best_Of_Claus_Lessmann-part_2.zip
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