Trio is the debut studio album from the German band of the same name. It was released on 27 October 1981, by Mercury Records. It included a bonus single and has a handle attached to the cover.
The commercial success of the album only started in 1982 with the release of the third version, which included the song Da Da Da, this being previously available on a separate single before. After April 1982, as part of the Neue Deutsche Welle the song became a national and then an international hit. The album reached #3 on the German charts. The album Trio contains 14 songs in all, most of them with drums, electric guitar and vocals. The majority of songs describe failed relationships and occasionally include media criticism.
Background In the 1960s, singer Stephan Remmler and guitarist Kralle Krawinkel had played together in the northern German beat music band Just Us.Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch vom 3. Juli 1968. After their breakup in 1970 and unsuccessful attempts at becoming solo artists, Remmler and Krawinkel became qualified teachers. Following a one-time reunion of Just Us in January 1979, they decided to give producing commercially successful music a second chance,Porträt über Just Us auf weglang.de, aufgerufen am 1. Januar 2011. writing the first songs for a potential album at Krawinkel's farm in Rastede, Lower Saxony. At that stage, the group still recorded songs such as Nasty or Energie in a classic rock style, using guitars, bass, drums, keyboards and vocals.Notenheft der Gruppe "Wind" im Archiv des Deutschen Musikarchivs. Remmler and Krawinkel worked with a number of different background musicians, among them the then unemployed drummer Peter Behrens. Commenting on Trio's eventual decision to continue making music as a three-piece band, which saw Behrens permanently join the other two, Stephan Remmler said:
Remmler, Krawinkel, and Behrens rented a house in Regente, Sage, for 600 marks, and developed the songs that would become the album Trio in the practice room in the cellar.Stephan Remmler im Interview bei Wetten, dass..?, 1982. Almost all the lyrics were written by Remmler, who took inspiration from everyday life in the shared house. In 2008 Krawinkel described the idea behind the lyrics to the song "Los Paul" ("Go for it, Paul"), which came to him when he and Behrens were watching a football match together:
The band, now named Trio, recorded a selection of these songs on a TEAC four-track reel-to-reel in their own rehearsal room. They recorded two tracks (Lady-O-Lady and Sunday You Need Love Monday Be Alone), as well as an almost 9-minute live version of the song Broken Hearts for You and Me onto a 10" mini LP. Hoping to secure a record deal, the band then submitted these tracks to several record companies but received 23 rejections. The song "Sunday You Need Love Monday Be Alone" caught the attention of an employee of the music publisher Francis, Day & Hunter, who then shared the demo with Louis Spillmann, the A&R Manager of the German record label Phonogram, who then attended a Trio concert. Convinced by the band's live performance, Spillmann offered the band a record deal that same evening.
Klaus Voormann, an intimate friend of the Beatles and former Bassist for John Lennon, was at this time an advisor for Spillmann. He went to a concert and a band rehearsal in Großenkneten.Günter Ehnert: Rock in Deutschland. Lexikon deutscher Rockgruppen und Interpreten. , S. 386. He encouraged Spillmann's decision to take the band under contract, not only because of their professional stage presence, but especially because of their role distribution in the band which corresponded well to their characters. From then on, Spillmann employed Voormann as the producer of Trio and they signed their first record contract.
Production
In the summer of 1981, Voorman requested 10,000 German marks from Spillman in order to buy two eight-track recorders for production of Trio's debut album. They chose "Schweinestall-Studio" near Husum as the recording studio. It was run by Detlef Petersen, producer and former keyboard player of the German-English band Lake, together with Geoffrey Peacey. The latter worked as a sound technician on the album.
The drums and electric guitar were recorded live for every song by Krawinkel and Behrens and Remmler's vocals were dubbed over afterwards. Because of the songs' minimal instrumentation, there was little that needed changing during the recording. The band mastered their songs through lots of practice and many performances, resulting in a rapid succession of recordings. Occasionally the perfectionism of Stefan Remmler caused problems when he sent his band members and Klaus Voormann outside so that he could concentrate more on his singing.
Some of the songs included instrumental passages that were kept short in the recording studio but extended during live performances. One example was the long solo on a child's guitar that comes at the end of "Kummer" ("Worrying"). Onstage this became a true cacophony, but in the studio this was shortened with fadeout. A long guitar solo in "Broken Hearts for You and Me" was completely removed. Other tracks, however, were fine-tuned with small additions. In "Nasty" the guitar solo is introduced by a tinkling sound that was created in the studio using a cardboard box that was full of broken glass and thrown around the studio.Song information on Nasty at stephan-remmler.de, retrieved on 1 January 2011. The intro to "Danger Is" always ended live with the band rhythmically calling "Da Gefahr!" ("Watch out!"). However, in the studio version they didn't want the calls to be heard simultaneously with the rhythm. In order to achieve this off-beat effect the band threw balls to each other, and when someone threw the ball they had to shout "Watch out!"Song information on Danger Is at stephan-remmler.de, retrieved 1 January 2011.
In addition to the thirteen songs recorded at the studio, the album Trio features two older live recordings (Ja ja ja and TRIO), as well as the original demo version of the song Sabine Sabine Sabine.Linernotes zum Remmler-Album 10 Jahre bei der Stange.
The album was mixed by Voormann, where exactly is unknown. The completed version was presented to the record company Phonogram and caused arguments. Klaus Voormann remembers how Thomas Quast was desperately waiting for the E-bases to be added:
In the end, Louis Spillmann put his foot down and Klaus Voormann's mix was accepted. The album Trio was released by Phonogram's sublabel Mercury Records on Tuesday, 27 October 1981.
Trio's German tour followed the release of their album, and the band used the minimal effort of live performances for promotional purposes by performing live at local record stores in the afternoons. By the end of 1981, Trio had played in a total of 39 record stores, starting with "Montanus" in Berlin and ending in "Studio 2000" in Homburg. When performing in a Müller drug store in Bad Tölz, Trio were kicked out for being too loud. They also performed several short concerts in record sections of department stores like Hertie or Karstadt. Their two-hour live show was only performed in the evenings in local clubs.
Some of Trio's other live songs such as "Oder doch – Wird so schlimm nicht sein", were not included on the album due to the suggestive nature of their lyrics:Liedinformationen zu Oder doch – Wird so schlimm nicht sein auf stephan-remmler.de.
Also the songs "Du ich wär so gern bei dir" (Oh, I'd love to be with you), "A little love", "Country Boy" and "Nirgendwohin" (Going Nowhere) from the bands' live performances were not included on the album. Whether or not the aforementioned songs were actually produced is unknown, as the original recordings from the sessions are missing.Bericht zum Remastering einer Trio-DVD . In 1985 a revised version of the song "Oder doch - Wird so schlimm nicht sein" under the name "Ready for you" was included on the bands' final studio album, Whats the Password.Songinfos zu Ready For You auf stephan-remmler.de. "Du ich wär so gern bei dir" was also rerecorded and released as Anna – Lassmichrein Lassmichraus at the end of 1982. In 1993 Stephan Remmler produced the song once again in its original form and featured it on his solo album Vamos.Songinfos zu Du ich wär sogern bei dir auf stephan-remmler.de.
Da Da Da
The band wrote the song Da Da Da in the course of their 1981 Germany tour and the audience loved it. In 2003, Rolling Stone editor Joachim Hentschel attributed Trio's success directly to the composition of their song Da Da Da:
Early in 1982 Klaus Voormann decided to release Da Da Da as a single. In the Zürich studio of their fellow band Yello, Trio recorded the music and vocals of the song. Then, in a studio in Berlin Annette Humpe and Joachim Behrendt, both members of the band Ideal, added backing vocals and castanets.Liedinformationen zu Da Da Da on stephan-remmler.de, accessed on 1 January 2011. A single and a maxi single of Da Da Da were released in February 1982. Gaining popularity through multiple television appearances, including Bananas and the ZDF-Hitparade, Da Da Da entered the German charts on 5 April 1982 and ultimately peaked at number two.
On the back of this success, Da Da Da was later added to the third edition of the album Trio as the second song on the B-side.
Album cover design In line with their musically minimal concept, the cover of the album Trio was also kept as simple as possible. The white background cover is mainly covered with black items. The band name, the logo and their private address and telephone number were printed in black on a white background. The image is an enlarged print of an address stamp of the band, containing a misspelled street name (the correct street name being "Regenter Str."). On the back of the album there is a list of the songs handwritten by Remmler himself. Information regarding the music, the identity of the musicians or the production teams is not included on the cover.
The song lyrics are printed in black and white on the inner-sleeve of the vinyl. The cover layout has also been minimised with the lack of punctuation.
The names "Remmler" and "Kralle" as composers appear only on the label of the disc, along with "Klaus Voormann" as the producer. Behrens, who did not take part in the composing of the songs, was not mentioned by name anywhere on the record.
Prior to the release of the album, some employees at the record company Phonogram Inc. were worried that, at record stores, the white cover could collect dirt and discolor over time, but the design ultimately remained unchanged.
The first vinyl edition of the album contained a bonus single with the songs Halt mich fest ich werd verrückt and Lady-O-Lady and was limited to 6000 copies. On the top edge of the record cover there was a handle made out of paper.Abbildung auf stephan-remmler.de.
The CD version, which was released in 1984, largely maintained the plain cover. Only the track list, originally handwritten, was replaced by print. In contrast to the vinyl edition, names of authors and producers were left out completely on the CD. The information on the CD version contained: band name, private home address, phone number, list of tracks and lyrics. In 2003, Universal Music released a Deluxe Edition 2CD version in Europe, containing the original album remastered (with "Da da da ich lieb..." added and "Los Paul" moved down in the track list), single tracks, demos and the debut 10" EP.