Established performers of alternative music singing songs for children – a viable concept? Well, the creative minds behind Cologne-based indie band Locas In Love (LIL) thought so and promptly devised Gorilla Club – an incarnation of themselves that makes mellow music for kids.
Indie kids’ music that works for adults too
At times, guitarist and singer Björn Sonneberg actually sees it the other way around, commenting, “Locas is cool music for kids and I think the music Gorilla Club makes works for adults too.” A 2015 music video by LIL would certainly seem to prove his first point.
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The Gorilla Crew, as Björn likes to call them, first came together in 2018. Apart from LIL’s usual line-up of Stefanie Schrank (bass and vocals), Björn Sonnenberg (guitar and vocals), Saskia von Klitzing and Maurizio Arca (drums and percussion) and Niklas Jansen (guitar), Gorilla Club includes Luis Müller-Wallraf and Jennifer Jasmin Keßler (guitar) plus child guests and numerous other guests from Cologne’s music scene and, occasionally, other cities.
At Gorilla Club, kids get to decide what the songs are about
Gorilla Club’s songwriting process is a team effort. “Everyone in the band and everyone else involved plays an active role,” says Stefanie Schrank. “And we ask children of different ages what they would like to sing about or hear songs about.” The resulting topics have been things like “arguing”, “staying up all night”, “always having to eat fruit” and “looking through other people’s windows”.
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The collective presented the first batch of ideas on their two albums “1-2-3-4” (2018) and “Ok Cool!” (2021) and in their very own character for the Toniebox audio systems so popular with children. In their live performances and in the songs themselves, an ever-growing flock of friendly animals and creatures joins the cosmos the band have created.
We loved using our imagination to create a world in which anything can happen at any time.
Björn Sonnenberg
“The band mascots we used to know have fallen out of fashion a bit so we loved using our imagination to create a world in which anything can happen at any time. And where we can play with completely different ideas, free from the conventions of an indie rock band,” says Björn, explaining how kiwi Pina and her friends Kurt the ringed worm and Gomi the alien came to be part of the band. Stefanie and her friend Anna Lytton designed and produced the fabric friends for videos and live gigs.
After not being able to perform live for a while due to the Covid pandemic, the band is really looking forward to playing gigs all over Germany again starting straight away. They often invite children from the audience up on stage to play the drums or guitar – guaranteed to turn up the volume and turn on the smiles.
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