2024-01-12 08:00:00
From Saxony into the world: Daniel Myer is one of the busiest musicians in electronic fields across Europe with numerous projects such as Haujobb, Covenant and Scope. At the end of January, Leipzig will be hosting its own festival for the 20th time: “Planet Myer Day”!
Planet Myer Day.
Choir, ballet, GDR radio. Daniel Myer’s musical beginnings don’t initially sound like an electronic career. But what blew over the wall into the ether and soon grabbed hold of it was synth pop, new and dark wave, Depeche Mode, New Order, Erasure, Anne Clark. Myer was particularly infected by beats.
Since he was soon banging on various household items, still under his real name Daniel Meier, his parents gave him his first drum machine in 1988. In 1992, having since moved from Saxony-Anhalt to Bielefeld, he founded his industrial and EBM band Haujobb, which is still active today. Already after his first appearances, including at the legendary club Zwischenfall in Bochum, it was clear to the young Ossi: it was music, even professionally! A hairdressing apprenticeship was canceled and when he registered with Gema he came up with his stage name: Because there was already a Meier of his first name registered there, he was inspired by the main protagonist of the horror film series “Halloween”, Michael Myers. This fit pretty perfectly with Haujobb’s rather dark, cold machine music, which was flourishing within the black scene, which was still viewed with suspicion by the mainstream.
But it shouldn’t stop with this band. In addition to other projects such as Clear Vision, Hexer and Aktivist, almost every label that worked with Myer wanted to use a new name from him, especially during his more intensive drum’n’bass period at the end of the 90s. Around 25 to 30 aliases came together over the decades.
Today the 52-year-old is also a producer, tinkers with commissioned works, has been the keyboardist for the Swedish future pop heroes Covenant for many years and is currently still active in five of his own projects: In addition to Haujobb, he also plays Liebknecht, synthpop and dark wave. Duo DSTR and as an architect since 1998 – a name under which he publishes everything else he creatively releases. He affectionately calls it his “Moby project”.
Last year, Myer also released a techno album under his own name for the first time, “Hingabe”, and all other projects are scheduled for release again in 2024. Many fans are particularly excited about the upcoming first Haujobb album in eight years. Five albums in two years is probably a record, even for someone who can theoretically always carry his musical equipment with him in a small bag and who says he can work very well on the train.
In general, until before the pandemic, Myer’s music was mainly created while traveling and even though a lot of it now takes place in the professional home studio, impressions from on the road are still extremely important to him. And he is still traveling worldwide. Just last year he toured extensively through the USA again under three different names, and this year Greece is once again on the work calendar.
“There are Myer fans all over the world. Of course also from the individual bands and projects, but you also often hear: Daniel did that.” This is how the former speaks
DJ, organizer and WGT veteran Markus Müller about his colleague and friend, who usually appears rather modest. It was also Müller who came up with the idea of his own Myer festival in 2002 for and with the then new Leipzig native: “We were fans of his music, we just wanted to see all of these cool projects in one day, to show the range of this musician.” “Planet Myer Day”, PMD for short, in the Moritzbastei was born. “I found it strange from the start because I don’t really like personality cults,” says Myer himself. But he went along with it, and after the first two years there was only himself to experience in all shades of Beat, he is now drawing himself responsible for putting together a suitable lineup.
And that can surprise from year to year, but is always made up of reliable, sometimes big names, but even more so, experimental stuff. In addition to Klangstabil, Die Selektion, even Front 242 and of course always Haujobb & Co., there were insider tips such as the Hungarian pop noir sensation Black Nail Cabaret or “People during Sex”, the trash electro project by the former Think About Mutation singer Ralf Donis on stage.
The now internationally known band Solar Fake around gothic icon Sven Friedrich was also “discovered” at the PMD and had their first appearance there in 2008. Regardless of whether it’s a star guest or something absurd, Myer loves to network and bring people onto the stage who otherwise wouldn’t have found their way to the Moritzbastei. In particular, the 20th edition of Planet Myer Day, which takes place on January 20th, consciously refuses to be a self-confident best-of program, but is both an experiment and a statement: only projects with female participation will be on stage, and the music will be more colorful than ever . As an architect, Myer is supported by the beguiling Kylie Minogue voice of the Black Nail Cabaret singer Emke Arvai-Illes, as well as the glitter dance wave duo Tilly Electronica, who are competing for participation in the Eurovision Song Contest this year and the new Leipzig electronic-indie-pop Hope Asia Imbiss.
The fact that the Frittenbude side project Dina Summer is the first band from the Audiolith label to appear at a “Grufti” event is also a novelty that Myer and Müller are only too happy to bring into play: “We never wanted to serve something, we wanted to always discover.” In general, the strong anchoring of Myer’s music in the black scene is certainly justified. Industrial, IDM, future and synth pop have their home here. Myer himself has not missed a WGT as an artist since 2002, but that was never firmly planned: “I am “I’m not the mainstream goth, but I don’t really get out of the scene. But I’m always me and don’t like dressing up.”
Despite the diversity of the scene, the sometimes unreflective play with uniforms or totalitarian symbols with the excuse of being apolitical bothers him. The convinced animal rights activist doesn’t wave flags either privately or in his music, but when it comes to right-wing tones, he likes to follow the motto: “I’d rather take a clear position against it than say nothing.”
Das Festival The 20th edition of Planet Myer Day, or PMD for short, will take place on January 20th in the Moritzbastei in Leipzig.
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