Hybris:gothic darkwave hard-edged rock
Hybris was formed during a cold winter in the city of "Kiel", in Northern Germany in 1998. The local musician scene was mostly represented by heavy- and trash-metal bands, but gothic and other dark music styles are quite popular at several clubs and local events. 7 musicians had the dream of creating powerful melancholic music - representing the emotions of the local gothic rock community.
Gothic rock has as many facets as other music styles and a poll of 7 different musicians will have at least 14 opinions about the right way. The first try at Hybris ended without any success and only 2 half completed songs. The lack of success led to disharmony and the band came apart.
Those members of the band, who had decided to not give up, were in a difficult spot. Gothic rock musicians are not as common as representives from other music styles and even in the coldness of Northern Germany there won't be so many guitarists with the "right" emotions. So they've decided to start an experiment. Instead of working with 7 musicians with very strong emotions about "the right" style of gothic music they opened the band for musicians with wider and different experience in different music styles - and due to that a more experimental approach to the right music style.
One of the new members was Janis Schibalski a former guitarist and songwriter of a glam rock/party-metal band. Despite his changed preferences (more serious, darker music instead of event driven music the differences between him and most of the other members could not be bigger. Hybris was never planned as a project of friends - it was planned as an experiment, a melting pot of emotions, ideas and extremely different individuals. It was a courageous plan with a strong dedication to at least local succes. This led to the band name: Hybris (which means Hubris in English).
Helge Barth (Bass), Anne Kampmann (Backing Vocals) and Thyra Christmann (Keyboards) were the most "classical" gothic musicians, Malte Volquardsen (Drums) had several roots in Punk, Folk and other music styles. Bent Maczewski (guitar) was the bands representive of solid rock music, Gerret Goos (Lead Vocals) had several roots in gothic rock and metal and Janis Schibalski (guitars) with his long experience as live musician and songwriter completed the band.
An era of hot emotions started in the Hybris rehearsal room - conflicts, discussions but the strong will to achive results. Rotten Flowers was the first result of the melting pot process. Based on an old song of Janis, the band managed it to create a symbiosis out of everyone's influences and emotions. A real conjointly-created work and a sum that was more than its parts.
Strife changed to euphoria and the band quickly recorded the song together with "Final Trust" to create a demo CD. Helge handed copies of the demo recording to local DJs of Gothic Clubs and Events and -very ungothic-like- the members of Hybris nervously awaited the first reactions of the audience. The result was much better than expected. Rotten Flowers and also Final Trust were dancable (note: which means dancable for gothic-fans :P) the DJ urged to make clear, that this was really a demo recording of Hybris and some visitors of the event asked "Which band was it? Never heard it before!"
Motivated by the first success, Hybris worked on additional material and completed the last song for the first live-gig only days before the event. The impressive Voice of Gerret and the multifaceted gothic-rock of Hybris lead to several gigs in northern Germany and the CD-Recording "The First Words" which marked the zenith of the band history.
Success ushered strife.
Some members of the band wanted bigger influence to the songwriting and the direction of the music, others wanted to invest more money for the "Big deal" and others wanted to concentrate on live events.
Another cold winter in Northern Germany, and the band fall apart. Flowers rot, Hybris died, but the music is still remembered - which describes the Album "The First Words" and the emotions in this music in a better way than long stories can tell.
Hybris - The First Words. Germany 1999
Music and Lyrics: Hybris (Schibalski, Goos, Maczewski, Volquardsen, Christmann, Barth, Kampmann)
Produced by: Ulf Ronneberger and Hybris
Recorded by Hybris at Jam Tonic Studios, Flensburg (Ger)
Cover Art: Janis Schibalski