B.O.X.E.R – The band in interview: The beat for the catwalk

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FIV: Actually, all three of you come from the fashion scene. How did you come to music?

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B.O.X.E.R. – Sweat & Stripes
Anna-Maria, Jan Ole and Carl Jakob are B.O.X.E.R – Music meets fashion

Jakob: After years of piano lessons, at the age of ten I finally wanted to learn a sexier instrument, a cooler one: I wanted to play electric guitar like the casual junkies from the rock bands, like Kurt Cobain and Slash. At eleven I had my first punk rock band, at eighteen I was firmly in the hardcore scene and had three bands, later I plugged my guitar into the computer more often than into the amp and experimented with electronic stuff and noise.

Anna-Maria: I started taking singing lessons when I was 14. From then on I couldn’t get away from singing. Since then I have worked with various producers and tried myself out. At the same time I took part in the pop course at the Hamburg Music Academy, took part in the Radio Hamburg “Radio Hamburg is looking for the mega talent” and so on.

Jan Ole: I’ve been playing drums since I was seven years old. All the boys in my clique at that time took drum lessons, we were more or less a drum gang. When I was 14 I started my own band and from then on everything was clear.

B.O.X.E.R. – Sweat & Stripes

Anna-Maria, Jan Ole and Carl Jakob are B.O.X.E.R – Music meets fashion

FIV: How would youd you describe your music style? What can the audience expect from B.O.X.E.R.?

Jakob: It’s not quite straight pop.

Jan Ole: We make Indie-Electro-Pop, mixing instrumental sound with electronically programmed elements.

Anna-Maria: Spherical Indie Electro Pop

The Video – B.O.X.E.R. – Sweat & Stripes

FIV: I could already see on your homepage that you worked together with Germanys Next Topmodel. How did it come about?

Jakob: Very unclear, but at some point one of our songs played constantly before the show – and we were suddenly world-famous.

Jan Ole: Stylight, a Munich fashion blog and shop, asked us if they could use one of our songs, “Sweat & Stripes” as music for their commercial for the presentation of the last GNTM season. Of course we had nothing against it.

FIV: Do you also play at fashion shows? What do you have to consider as a musician?

Jakob: We tend to play at the after-show parties of fashion shows. The people are mostly emphatically uninterested, which is supposed to seem casual, I guess, so we have to perform all the louder and more wide-legged.

Anna-Maria: To nothing. That’s the beauty. You can be whoever you want. At that moment it’s nice to be a musician and to move through the fashion circus as a musician.

Jan Ole: Yes, we played for example at the Marina Hoermannseder Aftershowparty of the Berlin Fashion Week in summer.

You have to be on time at the bar, because in the fashion business there is even more drinking than in the music business.

FIV: Anna-Maria and Jan Ole, both of you were successful as models before you founded the band.you were already successful as models. Fo whom have you worked for? And who are your fashiongods?

Anna-Maria: I went to Paris for fashion week when I was 18 and started with designers like Dolce Gabbana, Givenchy, Chloe, Chanel, etc. I wouldn’t call it a fashion god. I wouldn’t call it a fashion god, but like Jake, I’m not emotional enough about the fashion industry. Vivienne Westwood is a style I would love to wear on stage though.

Jan Ole: Unlike Annama, I have only been working as a model for a short time. My most famous client is probably Hugo Boss. However, I particularly enjoyed working with Guido Maria Kretschmer. I really appreciate him as a person.

Unfortunately, I don’t know any gods personally.

Carl Jakob, you are not known as a model, but as a successful fashion blogger. What fascinates you about the fashion scene? Whatwhat do you write about on Dandy Diary in particular?

Jakob: On Dandy Diary I write about men’s fashion. I’m not really fascinated by that at all. The abysmal nature of the industry and all the ready-made people, that’s what interests me. The fashion industry does something to people – and that’s often not good, but always interesting.

Thank Yo @hustlebush !?? #boxer #bxr #shoot

A photo posted by BOXER (@b.o.x.e.r) on

Before the music career they were passionate bloggers

FIV: Now you are successful musicians, do you still work as models/bloggers?

Jacob: That’s the beauty of it: you can combine both really easily. I would find it extremely boring to just play guitar for 24 hours. Blogging for 24 hours, as well.

Anna-Maria: Sure, it can be combined wonderfully. For the one or other model job I was even booked because of that. It’s a nice lifestyle to fly to London for a job, for example, and then to stand on stage.

Jan Ole: B.O.X.E.R. offers us all possibilities, because the band moves in the fashion environment anyway. The points of intersection are simply big. For example, if we play at a Fashion Week party, there’s nothing to stop us from playing the shows beforehand.

FIV: What does fashion mean to you?

Jan Ole: Just like music: change and development, but also communication and identification. Nothing is set in stone, everything is allowed. A playground.

Jakob: I have no emotional relationship to it, no favourite fashion, no favourite designers. In the end, I don’t care about fashion.

Anna-Maria: Fashion has no deeper meaning for me. But because I move in the fashion world from time to time, I have already experienced some great things. That may also go on with pleasure just the same.

 

FIV: What are your absolute fashion must-haves?

Anna-Maria: Doc Martens!! I must have 6 pairs already and there are more to come.

Jakob: Currently you should still definitely have very expensive designer sneakers. Very soon you should wear bell-bottoms and fully embrace the 1970s trend.

Jan Ole: Besides the classic must-haves like suit & tie, the perfect t-shirt and good boots. All in black.

FIV: Are there any funny fashion faux pas from your youth?

Jakob: I looked really shitty in a too big pink sweater with long hair. Today, though, that would be extremely cool.

Anna-Maria: Actually everything I wore back then. It was always especially important to me to look somehow different than everyone else. I definitely succeeded in that, but it was connected with a creepy aberration of taste.

Jan Ole: Lots of stuff, where to start… Due to the dress code of my eco-pacifist parents, I mainly walked around in homemade knitwear. Of course that would be totally cool nowadays, but back then Mickey Mouse sweaters were more fashionable. I also had a particularly ugly pair of glasses as a child and a single long strand of hair at the back of my head. It was terribly in vogue back in the 80s.

FIV: How do you combine fashion with music? Or are they two different worlds?

Jan Ole: That’s definitely very clearly one. It’s simply about pop culture that expresses itself on different levels.

Jakob: Musicians are a bit different from fashion people – and in fact often more bourgeois. But at the end of the day, everyone likes to drink champagne and look at themselves in the mirror.

Anna-Maria: It would be great to create a music identity for a fashion brand. Using music as a communication tool for a brand works great. The same the other way around. If young hip bands go for a certain brand, wear it on stage, it might start a trend. Fashion and music is a meaningful interaction.

FIV: How do you prepare for your gigs? Also styling-wise?

Jakob: Half a bottle of wine before the performance gives every look the right casualness. Otherwise very important: Take a change of T-shirt with you. Apart from that, I usually wear exactly what I normally wear on stage. Annama has it a bit harder there.

Anna-Maria: Jake empties half a bottle of wine, I take maybe two glasses of the rest. But I try to go on stage with a clear head. Outfit technically we are supported by one or the other designer. That’s great and makes the question “What should I wear?” a lot easier, especially for me.

Jan Ole: I put on my headphones before the concert, listen to loud music and drum with the sticks on my knees. Adrenalin does the rest.

When I’m performing I generally prefer to wear very little, otherwise it only gets in the way when I’m playing the drums. Sometimes we do cooperations with designers that we like.

FIV: Good: You all three come from the fashion scene. But how did you three get to know each other?

Jan Ole: I actually know Jakob from the Hamburg music scene for quite a long time. I met Annama at one of the DandyDiary parties at the Berlin Fashion Week.

Jakob: At a Fashion Week party of mine.

Anna-Maria: Jake organizes every year THE opening party for Berlin Fashion Week, where I ran into Jole. Unexpectedly and relatively quickly we found ourselves as a third in the studio. It has sparked directly, so to speak.

 

FIV: How did the name Boxer come about?

Jakob: That was a purely aesthetic decision. The name sounds good, looks good, can be pronounced without major imponderables.

Anna-Maria: Why a name with a long story? A cool powerful name, which works in all languages as well as in its optics excellently and above all is easy to remember – very important. The actual meaning of a word sooner or later fades into the background.

Jan Ole: B.O.X.E.R. just looks pretty strong when written, and then it has an equally powerful meaning in pretty much any language. There are few words that exist in most languages.

FIV: What do you want to convey with your music, is there a message?

Jakob: I hope not! My favourite band is Sigur Ros, who at some point decided to stop using lyrics and sing in a fantasy language. I think that’s good. Maximum closedness of the lyrics, thereby maximum openness in the interpretation.

Anna-Maria: To make really good music and to offer a bit more beyond that.

Jan Ole: It’s about music, the moment, longing, pain and anticipation. Everything.

FIV: You come from Hamburg: What do you connect with the Nordic Hanseatic city?

Jakob: I loved Hamburg very much. My study time there was one of the very best times of my life, I met one of my closest friends there and also myself. Hamburg was great. And at some point it was enough. Now Berlin is great.

Anna-Maria: My home.

Jan Ole: The base. Hamburg is my home. I came here for the music and found what I was looking for.

FIV: What is a typical fashion cliché from Hamburg that you can absolutely confirm?confirmönnen?

Jakob: The boys all want to look like their own fathers.

Anna-Maria: The Hamburgers absolutely lack the courage to find their own style. It seems to me that they take over 1 to 1 the looks of the mannequins inspired by Closed. The Hamburg chic is definitely clean and elegant.

Jan Ole: More is more. A little less than in Munich, though.

 

FIV: What are your dreams andWhat are your dreams and goals, both as musicians and as private persons, models and bloggers?

Anna-Maria: Absolutely perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London! And first of all I would like to continue to live such a varied life as I have done so far.

Jan Ole: That everything stays as exciting as it is right now.

Jakob: I’m currently planning a bigger project with my dandy buddy David. It should be finished in April. It will be groundbreaking and the very best thing we have ever done.

FIV: What can we expect in the near future: Is Boxer releasing a new record/single?

Jakob: Yes, of course, everything. Soon!

Anna-Maria: Record will be released at the beginning of next year!!! A lot of exciting things will happen until then.

Jan Ole: Yes! The album is ready and will be released in 2016!

FIV: Dear B.O.X.E.R team, thank you very much for the interview!

 

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