The birth of cream8

I was drifting in the summer of 1992. There was no solution to the question that is life. Neither professionally, as I was struggling in my studies, nor artisticly - which had been my Plan B - as I simply did not see any progress. Henning, the other half of TSU!, had left to work in another city .The attempts on a steady relationship in my personal life had not worked out. Basically I was alone and adrift. There was nothing to look forward to and the money ran low too. 

I went into the university-bookstore and checked their english-language books. Then this was something special and they did not have more that 50 paperbacks, in a cellar, somewhere in the back (Nohl in Weidenau!). Basically I was looking for new and undexplored sf and f books and one cought my eye. It was Rupert Thomson's "The Five Gates of Hell". I have no idea why I bought it, because there is basically nothing fantastic about it. Maybe it was the shining turquoise cover, maybe the title. 

In the summer break I started to read it and I was totally immersed. This was obviously autobiographical and obviously the author had been at the same spots in life where I just was: Abandoned, adrift, broke, hopeless. The five gates refer to the seven circles of hell, with each of  the above mentioned states being the entrences. Needless to say that our hero was goth and found stability when he started to work for a funeral parlour. Their car, of course had the license plate "CREAM8". He drove around and through strange circumstances was able to touch the ground once in a while and become stable. That was the car I was going to ride, to take me out of my dead-end-street: cream8. 

To day, I have read all the books by Rupert Thomson and never have been disappointed. He is something like an virtual older brother to me, who experienced all the stuff that I went through in live, but was there to write about it. What a joy and pleasure that he is an extraordinarily skilled author too. My best loved book actually is the  "Book of Revelation".

The german translation of "The Five Gates" "Das Schwarze Herz der Stadt" /"Into the dark heart of the city" flopped terribly, so I was able to grab a lot of copies from the reduced-bin and I would give them to everybody to read. I doubt someone did. (I did the same with George RR Martin's "Armageddon Rock"- which funnily led to having contact throughout the years and a very drunk and very funny evening with George much much later in the pubs of Cologne).

The second thing that led to cream8 was the urge to recreate a song written by Claudio Simonetti of Goblin. Basically all my earlier work was based on "Demons", but I had just received his "Best Of" CD called "Evil Tracks", so this time I wanted to cover DON'T ANSWER  a song he had written for Ruggero Deodato's late-giallo "Dial:Help". I don't know what made me pick up the guitar and going in for a cover as - until then- they had miserably failed. This time it worked out. Not perfect, no copy, but close enough to pass as a cover and far enough to be something on it's own. When I listened to it, I thought ... This is the sound I want to explore. And that became, basically the style of cream8. I rewrote my current songs ("Lethal Urban Zone") for the new sound and finally thought I had something exclusive.  Here it is: CREAMVIII DON'T ANSWER ON BANDCAMP

cream8 was born.