SHOWS
Upcoming Performances
Event Information
Date & Time
Friday, August 21, 2026
Doors: 15 Uhr
Show: 19:00
Venue
Bad Ischl Skatepark
Bad Ischl, Austria
The first few months of Volksranzler's existence were a blur of squats, underground shows, and the kind of chaos that can only be sustained by youth, stupidity, and an unshakable belief in the power of rock and roll. Their first gig was at Koma F, a dive bar in Lichtenberg that was already on its last legs when they took the stage. The owner, a grizzled old man named Klaus who had a face like a bulldog that had been kicked one too many times, had agreed to let them play after Jürgen promised him a cut of the door. (The door, as it turned out, was exactly seven people-five of whom were friends of the band, and two of whom were there by mistake.) The set lasted exactly forty minutes. It started with a song that Kai had written the night before, a fuzzy, feedback-drenched beast that he called The Wall is a Lie. It ended with Jürgen knocking over his drum kit in a fit of rhythmic ecstasy, sending cymbals flying into the crowd. No one was hurt, but a man named Dieter lost an eye to a flying hi-hat. (Dieter later sued the band for medical expenses. He lost, mostly because he couldn't prove that the hi-hat had actually hit him, and also because he had been drunk at the time.) Their second gig was even more disastrous. They played at Zur Hölle (To Hell), a bar in Kreuzberg that lived up to its name in every possible way. Halfway through their second song, the power went out. Rather than stopping, the band continued-Kai played his guitar unplugged, Volker screamed his lyrics a cappella, and Jürgen beat on his drums with his bare hands. The crowd, rather than leaving, joined in, clapping and stomping along with the rhythm. By the end of the night, the bar's owner had to call the police to break up the impromptu mosh pit that had formed in the middle of the room. Word of Volksranzler began to spread. They were the band that didn't just play music-they summoned it. They were the band that could turn a dive bar into a riot with a single chord. They were the band that didn't give a fuck about rules, or expectations, or common decency. And Berlin loved them for it. For the first year of their existence, Volksranzler had no permanent home. They crashed on couches, in squats, in the back rooms of bars, and, on one memorable occasion, in the basement of a church that had been converted into an anarchist collective. (The priest, a former punk rocker himself, had taken a liking to the band and offered them sanctuary in exchange for playing at his Sunday services. The congregation was not amused.) But their true home was Fabrik 17. The factory had become a hub for the city's underground music scene, a place where bands could rehearse, squatters could live, and the police dared not tread. Volksranzler had claimed the main hall as their own, and it was there that they wrote and refined the songs that would come to define their sound. Kai's guitar playing had evolved into something otherworldly. He had developed a technique where he would play behind his head, not as a gimmick, but because he claimed the spirits demanded it. The music comes from inside me, he once explained to a baffled journalist. Sometimes, I have to play it backwards to get it out. His solos were no longer just solos-they were sonic voyages, odysseys that could last ten minutes or an hour, depending on Kai's mood and the amount of alcohol in his system. Volker's bass lines had taken on a life of their own. He no longer played notes-he played textures, emotions, landscapes. His fingers moved over the fretboard with a speed and precision that belied the sheer size of the man, and the sound that came out of his amp was less like music and more like the groan of a dying star. His vocals, when he deigned to sing, were a mix of spoken word and guttural screams, a delivery that was as much performance art as it was music. And Jürgen? Jürgen had become a force of nature. His drumming was no longer just rhythm-it was alchemy, a process of turning noise into something sacred. He had begun incorporating found objects into his kit-metal pipes, scrap metal, the occasional hubcap-and the sounds he coaxed out of them were haunting. At one show, he played an entire song using nothing but a rusted wrench and a empty beer bottle. The crowd went wild.