Bernds Biography
Bernd Juchems
Music was my fist love, and it will be my last.
The first love came when my father started to buy all Beatles records from his youth. The perfect songwriting John and Paul provided has never stopped to amaze me.
I went on being a hardcore nerd fan, listening exclusively to Depeche Mode for almost two years, followed by a time when I came back to the pop & wave music of my childhood. That was when my unconditionally love for synthesizer driven music started with artists like Yazoo, Ultravox and Talk Talk, which eventually led me to Vangelis, Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre.
But I got fed up with pop and started listening to more guitar oriented music - coming from some goth rock bands to Heroes del Silencio to ... Bon Jovi!
Yes, I confess - my gateway to the world of hard (!) guitars was "Keep the Faith", still one of my famous rock albums of all time, sporting one of my absolutely most beloved tracks, "Dry County".
A new druck. Coming up in short notice a lot of teutonic metal bands like Running Wild, Helloween and especially Blind Guardian.
I always had a tendency to good musicianship, and I get bored quickly - I fell in love with complex song structures, great epic storytelling, reckless musicians. I discovered Marillion, but the real mind blowing experience came when some school friend showed me "When Dream and Day Unite" from Dream Theater. That primed my understanding of music itself, as well as my own musical attitude to myself - for better and worse. Today I love acts like Riverside, Leprous, Agent Fresco and Bent Knee, but also classics like Rush, Toto, King Crimson and ... and ... and ...
In the meantime I started making music by myself. Some guys at school had a band, and they tried real hard. I hang around at the rehearsals, there was a bass guitar lying around ... instant connection!
At the age of 17 - quite late - I bought my first bass guitar and the rest is history.
I love diversity. I love playing hard metal in one week and playing pop rock cover the next. Then going on with alternative blues rock, play acoustic shows with double bass, or droning some electronica, playing wild improvisations, just as it comes. I like being part of the session scene here in the Ruhrgebiet, where you may find me on some rainy saturday night at some backyard stage, being completely immersed with some other zombies, producing strange sounds that will never be heard again.
Some parts of my past and present: Salome's Dance, an early prog rock band I still am really proud of. There is Hanna Shedo, an artist I share the stage every now and then since, I don't know when. A long history also connects me to the pop rock cover band Optical Disaster. Currently I support Jaana Redflower on stage, also there is the Coverband Remnants that plays some lovely Classic Rock tunes.
From 2018 until they dissolved in April 2019 I was part of Seeking Raven, being a musical challenge, which provided a good preparation for MAYZE.
I had seen MAYZE on stage in 2015, short after the release of their first record, and the one thought I instantly had was - "that is a band I want to join!". I heard complex but catchy songs, musical mastership and a mighty and tight performance, both musically and optically, which lead me to expect greatness.
The time has come. We join our forces.
Expect nothing but greatness!
Foto by © Ulrich Grolla