Torfrock

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Torfrock
Torfrock at Appen musiziert 2015
Background information
Origin	Germany
Genres	Rock
Years active	1976 (1976)–present
Members	Klaus Büchner Volker Schmidt Sven Berger Stefan Lehmann
Past members	Raymond Voß Jürgen Lugge Gunnar Kämmer Reinhard Heinrichs Thomas Dieckmann Ronnie Meyer
Website	www.torfrock.de

Torfrock (German pronunciation: [ˈtɔʁfʁɔk], lit. "Peat Rock") is a German rock group founded by Klaus Büchner and Raymond Voß in 1976. Guitarist Jürgen Lugge from Hamburg played lead guitar until his unexpected death in 1999. With their Northern German identity, they are notable for keeping alive the native Low German language in their lyrics. With many of their songs being Low-German covers of Anglo-American standards, their music style ranges from R'n'B to blues rock and folk rock.

Their humorous to surreal song lyrics mostly deal either with 10th-century Viking Rollo (in an interpretation obviously strongly reminiscent of Dik Browne's Hägar the Horrible rather than the actual historical person) situated in Hedeby instead of Skandinavia in their songs, or life in the modern-day fictional Schleswig-Holstein rural village of Torfmoorholm (lit. "Peatbogville").

Beside being a trademark of modern-day Northern German culture, the band is closely associated with another Northern German icon, the Werner comics and movie franchise created by comic artist Rötger Feldmann (aka Brösel), not only because the band wrote the original soundtrack to the first Werner movie and partly to its sequels, but also because Torfrock singer Büchner voices character Werner in the movies. Also, Torfrock guitarist and singer Voss voices the Präsi Dieter, the choleric, yet likewise good hearted leader of a biker gang Werner is a member of. The title song Beinhart topped the charts in Germany and also entered the Top 20 in Austria and Switzerland. This was their first song to include a guitar solo from Jürgen Lugge. He was only booked as a studio musician besides Klaus Büchner (vocals), Raymond Voß (electric rhythm guitar), Uwe Meitzner (electric bass guitar) and Gunnar "Gustl" Kämmer (drums), but, in Voß' own words, the band saw it as disrespectul to go on tour, play the song and then "have nothing at all for 20 bars". So Lugge became a band member. However, he suddenly died from a stroke in 1999. The band decided not to replace him, instead Voß took over the guitar solos too (which Volker Schmidt also did when he was forced to replace Voß from 2018 onwards).

Klaus Büchner and Raymond Voß both provide vocals. Voß also is the guitarist (both six and twelve stringed) and plays banjo; Büchner - who is left handed - plays harmonica and bass flute.

2023 Voß was forced to retire due to heart problems, and bass guitarist Volker Schmidt took his place. Schmidt on the other hand was replaced by Sven Berger.