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German hard rock legend
FARGO
will release album-package
‘The Early Years’
format:
CD Boxset
4 separate LPs
black vinyl
printed inner sleeve
track-list – ‘Wishing Well’:
More Of Your Life
Little Smile
Silent Summernight
What Do You Feel
Blue Eyes
What Are You Doing
Born Under A Bad Sign
Fun Is Not Enough
Highway
A Kiss In The Rain
When The Show Is Over
track-list – ‘No Limit’:
Just The Music
Soulsurvivor
Hot Nights
I’m A Loser
Walking In The Moonlight
Take It Easy
Get Up
The Last
track-list – ‘Frontpage Lover’:
Frontpage Lover
A Girl Like A Trigger
Sunmaker
27 Hours A Day
Arrows In The Wind
Tokyo
Angel
Little Miss Mystery
Take Saeix
Wheel Of Fortune
track-list – ‘F’:
F
Here We Are
Squeeze Me
Feel Like Dancing
No Trouble
Plastic Chicks
The Tide Is Turning
Be My Brother
My Sweet Darling
Aphrodite Women
Hard Attack
current line-up:
Peter Knorn – bass
Peter Ladwig – guitars, vocals
Henny Wolters – guitars
Nikolas Fritz – drums
Fargo were one of Germany’s most important rock acts of the early 1980s, the Hanover-based band achieving true cult status on the strength of four studio releases between 1979 and 1982, and tours alongside AC/DC, Mothers Finest and The Small Faces, among others.
Following an extended hiatus, Fargo returned in 2016, bringing out two highly acclaimed studio albums and touring Germany and Switzerland several times.
23 February 2024 will see the re-release of their four early classics ‘Wishing Well’ (1979), ‘No Limit’ (1980), ‘Frontpage Lover’ (1981) and ‘F’ (1982) (out on Steamhammer/SPV).
‘The Early Years’ will be available as a premium 4-CD box set including photos and liner notes, as well as vinyl discs with printed inner sleeves.
All four albums have been remastered, their debut ‘Wishing Well’ also having been remixed.
The band was founded in spring 1973 by Peter ‘Fargo-Pedda’ Knorn, soon to be joined by singer/guitarist Peter Ladwig.
The group quickly garnered a loyal fan base and signed a recording contract with music industry giant EMI only a few years later.
In the meantime, guitarist Matthias Jabs had also joined the fold, but later proceeded to team up with the Scorpions in 1978, with whom he continues to enjoy global fame.
Fargo went on to garner international acclaim in their own right and released four sensational studio albums courtesy of the EMI Group.
The band toured Europe repeatedly, played live alongside international top acts and delivered brilliant TV performances (e.g. on German TV channel ZDF’s ‘Rock Pop’ music programme).
Due to their sensational stage act (Knorn’s legendary headfirst somersault being a regular part of the show), even Europe’s most popular teen magazine, BRAVO, dedicated two full pages to the Fargo bassist in January 1981.
After a period of upheaval, the hard rock band Victory emerged from what had been left of Fargo in 1984 and continued its predecessor’s successful career.
As Victory’s bassist, Knorn expertly navigated the pitfalls of the international rock circus with his new group.
Fargo had initially been put on ice, but returned into the limelight in 2016 and have been an integral part of the rock music scene ever since.
FARGO
‘Strangers D’Amour’
track-list:
Rain Of Champagne
Gimme That Bone
Closer To The Sun
Time
Mary Says
Law Of The Jungle
Homesick
Dear Miss Donna Vetter
No Reason To Cry
Car Expert
Why Don’t You
Fargo are:
Peter Knorn – bass
Peter Ladwig – guitar, vocals
Nikolas Fritz – drums
We all know that experience is one of the most valuable resources of an artist.
That irreplaceable talent of distinguishing the significant from the insignificant and always operating with perfect timing rather than being guided by nervous impatience easily balances out youthful enthusiasm and a penchant for experimentation.
Hanover rock act Fargo, comprising founder and bassist ´Fargopedda` Knorn, vocalist/guitarist Peter Ladwig, who joined the fold a little later, and drummer Nikolas Fritz (Mob Rules), has that experience and has once again deployed it:
Three years after their comeback album ‘CONSTELLATION’ (2018), 25 June 2021 will see the arrival of the group’s new (sixth) album ‘STRANGERS D´AMOUR’, proving that the band’s name has long become a trademark in its own right.
A trademark with a few innovations, that is:
True to the motto ‘reduce to the max’, ‘STRANGERS D´AMOUR’ presents Fargo as a trio.
The essence of Fargo, consisting of Knorn, Ladwig and Fritz, had already featured on ‘CONSTELLATION’ and has now recorded eleven new songs in spring 2021, composed by Peter Ladwig and – with two exceptions – written by Peter Knorn.
“Compared to ‘CONSTELLATION’, ‘STRANGERS D´AMOUR’ sounds even more mature and rounded, with our typically driving beats and lots of melodious chorus parts, but also with a few little surprises thrown in,”
Knorn explains.
“‘Gimme That Bone’ and ‘Why Don´t You’ have Ladwig play a Hammond organ and Fender Rhodes, as well as his guitar. And few previous Fargo recordings match the speed of ‘Rain Of Champagne’!”
Other than that, ‘STRANGERS D´AMOUR’ consists of Fargo’s familiar laid-back rock music, that characteristic classic rock that Fargo have been known and loved for since 1973.
The six-minute ‘Time’, for example, looks back at the late 1970s and brings to mind other Hanover acts such as Eloy and Jane, albeit stylistically more straightforward.
Knorn:
“At the same time, our songs have a common thread that links not only the new numbers but all our records: Ladwig‘s characteristic vocal style and his distinct sense of melody are simply unmistakable.”
Not to forget Knorn‘s intelligent and frequently mocking lyrics, this time about illegal liquor distillers (‘Mary Says’), the fight between two poodles over a bone or sex in a car (‘Car Expert’), but also critical statements about environmental breakdown (‘Closer To The Sun’) and even references to Goethe’s play, ‘Faust’.
‘STRANGERS D´AMOUR’ is complemented by its cover artwork featuring the three band members’ faces in a jungle guise, as if they’d just sprung from a primeval forest.
Says Knorn:
“The front cover stands for the wild and primal in all of us. Or the animalistic element, perhaps the ability to see into the future. To recognise these elements and to live in harmony with them, that’s what we wanted to convey with the album title.”
The members of Fargo have always been in harmony with each other.
As a predecessor of the globally successful hardrock band Victory, which Knorn founded in 1984 and disbanded in 2011 following their outstanding success in Europe and the US, Fargo is one of the most distinguished German rock acts of the early 1980s.
Their debut album ‘WISHING WELL’ was released in 1979, followed by three studio recordings on EMI by 1982.
Fargo have repeatedly toured all over Europe, played with some of the greatest rock bands worldwide, touring with the likes of AC/DC, Mothers Finest and The Small Faces, among others, and also featured on German TV channel ZDF’s ‘Rock Pop’.
Even Europe’s biggest teen magazine BRAVO devoted two full pages to Knorn and his spectacular stage performance in January 1981 (part of his nightly show at that time was a legendary headfirst somersault).
After a hiatus of 34 years, Fargo returned in autumn 2017 and went on to release their comeback album ‘CONSTELLATION’ one year later.
‘STRANGERS D´AMOUR’ is the latest of six releases by a band that is once again a force to be reckoned with, in the studio as well as live on stage.