No More

Biography
"Suicide Commando, a song that refuses to die. A couple of years after these Germans recorded this, it spread like a virus to become a cult classic. The virus is still spreading to this day." - Optimo, UK
From early (No)Wave to Dark/Gothic Underground, from EBM via Techno to Electroclash - and back again!
In 1981, the legendary german band NO MORE landed the underground hit SUICIDE COMMANDO, which in the following years spread internationally regardless of genre and scene.
Whether in the New Yorker Limelight or in an Indie club in the Ruhrgebiet, at the Love Parade in Berlin or on the compilation of the Parisian shop Colette, whether in a techno club in Tokyo or at the Sonar Festival in Barcelona: SUICIDE COMMANDO was played everywhere during the last 29 years, not in the least thanks to the interpretations by DJ Hell, DJ Vitalic or Echopark.
And NO MORE's international indie-classic SUICIDE COMMANDO is still part of many DJ-Sets.
The band split in 1986 but after a long, long break at the end of 2008 NO MORE (condensed in the duo Tina Sanudakura and Andy Schwarz) got back on stage.
They successfully played, among others, in cities like Antwerp, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Athens, Warsaw, Milano, Rome, Paris, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin and at the famous M'era Luna Festival.
In January 2010 the new double-A-sided Single SUNDAY MITTERNACHT / A ROSE IS A ROSE was released.
With the album "MIDNIGHT PEOPLE & LO-LIFE STARS" the first "real" studio album since 1986 will be released on the 12th of March 2010.
Inspired by their tour across Europe, NO MORE present their impressions in the best Gonzo-journalism manner.
Whereas their Überhit SUICIDE COMMANDO was a monochrome plain that anybody in the song's almost 30-year-long success story could fill with their own longings, NO MORE now in each song turn sharp spotlights onto the present as well as the past.
Or, as the London Playground Magazine succinctly formulated at the end of 2009: "It's always impressive when a band go full circle and have the presence of mind to use the music of those they've influenced to re-invigorate their own sound."
Sometimes they use traditional song structures, then again they loop through songs, such as in the psychedelic The Kores Of Stockholm.
In concert NO MORE play extrodinary coverversions of Velvet Undergrounds Waiting For The Man and the No Wave classic Hands In The Dark.
They turn also old songs like FRENCH KISSES into Noise-Disco and with IN A WHITE ROOM they bring minimal electronica to the point.
And one's again reminded of the early NME review in 1982 that described NO MORE as "a trio of young Germans who appear to have fallen out of LOU REED´s BERLIN album".
When asked where one would have to place NO MORE's kind of music today, to which genre it belonged, the band answers:
"If we'd have to name that proverbial slot, we'd say that it is definitely Post-Punk-Electronica-Kraut-Glam. We take songs from all NO MORE phases as well as new songs, give the lot a turn in the time-shredder and - out comes great rhythmic noise: that is pop."
Line-Up 1979 - 1980
Andy Schwarz: vox, guitar
Tina Sanudakura: keyboards
Christian Darc: drums, vox
Thomas Welz: bass, vox
Kiel-northern Germany- Summer of 1979.
Frustrated and bored by their schoolband's music, Andy Schwarz, Tina Sanudakura and Christian Darc set up NO MORE.
They recruit Thomas Welz on bass - a schoolmate who has never played an instrument before.
They put an ad in the local newspaper, looking for a female singer. The only persons who respond are two male punks. But through them they enter the local post-punk/wave-scene. And Andy becomes a singer.
Within weeks, Andy plays bass on the first - and only- record of Kiel's proto-punkband NO HORIZON, and NO MORE perform their first gig on a partly public in-scene party in the countryside near Kiel, at one of the famous hogbarn parties.
At the beginning of 1980, NO MORE are an important part of the Kiel scene, creating a shortlived- fanzine, contributing to the Kiel tape compilation KEIN KIEL, recording and distributing their own tape releases (NO PROMISES and FRENCH KISSES) and playing their first gig in front of a bigger audience at a festival for new generation musicians in Kiel.
They create quite a stir, due to their harsh sounds, defiant looks and the Kiel scene pogoing to their music (at that time, Kiel hardly knew what pogo was).
On their third gig, they support MALE in Hamburg and the Hamburg punks hate them rightaway.
NO MORE record their first EP TOO LATE in a small laundry-room with a 4-track TEAC.
The record was later reviewed in the german SOUNDS-magazine as "strangely archaic music, brute sound that seems to be recorded with a purposely damaged 4-track".
Andy and Tina play on the "Inzucht und Ordnung" single and Andy plays a few gigs with this shortlived band. Thomas Welz leaves the band in autumn.
The remaining three band members decide to continue as a trio.
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Line-Up 1981 - 1983
Andy Schwarz: vox, guitar
Tina Sanudakura: keyboards
Christian Darc: drums, vox
The first half of this phase is defined by musical minimalism and experiments with sequencers, drumsynths and beatboxes including a brief sideproject called BLOOD AND FLOWERS.
One of the results of this mixture of electronics, post-punk and no wave is the recording of SUICIDE COMMANDO, released at the end of 1981 (b-side IN A WHITE ROOM).
But due to a lack of distribution, no-one outside their hometown really cared, although the NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS described SUICIDE COMMANDO -still none too ephorically- as "suitable german electro fashion."
In 1982, NO MORE begin the recordings for the 10" mini-lp A ROSE IS A ROSE, a mini-lp that is later reviewed by the NME as "a trio of young Germans who appear to have fallen out of LOU REED's BERLIN album".
The ingenious sleeve is designed by Stefan Brose, who also created the artwork for the SUICIDE COMMANDO single and who would later design the covers for LAUGHTER IN THE WINGS, HYSTERIA and the 12" SUICIDE COMMANDO.
The song HYPNOTIZED is later included in a compilation by the british label GLASS RECORDS.
DRUMS OF ALGIR is the song on "A ROSE IS A ROSE" that marks the beginning of a new musical direction because it expresses for the first time those oriental elements that will become a trademark of the "late" NO MORE.
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Line-Up 1983 - 1984
Andy Schwarz: vox, guitar
Tina Sanudakura: keyboards
Christian Darc: drums, vox
Yvonne Pfeifer: bass
At the end of 1983, SUICIDE COMMANDO starts its success out of the blue, while in the meantime NO MORE had decided to change direction.
Enter Yvonne Pfeifer on bass.
The first of many 12" releases of SUICIDE COMMANDO (on various labels and in various colours) sees the light of day - but the band does not like the song anymore because it does not fit into the new concept.
In spring 1984, Yvonne leaves the band.
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Line-Up 1984 - 1986
Andy Schwarz: vox, guitar
Tina Sanudakura: keyboards
Christian Darc: drums, vox
Thorsten Hartung: bass
Enter Thorsten Hartung on bass.
Within a short time, NO MORE start to record the mini-lp LAUGHTER IN THE WINGS that is going to be released the same year.
In the slipstream of the SUICIDE COMMANDO success, they start to tour germany but soon refuse to play the song.
In 1985, NO MORE record the 12" ep DO YOU DREAM OF ANGELS IN THIS BIG CITY?, play gigs in Belgium and the Netherlands, support THE SISTERS OF MERCY and X-MAL DEUTSCHLAND.
In 1986, the 12" DIFFERENT LONGINGS is released, containing a version of SUICIDE COMMANDO with some overdubs.
NO MORE start work on their first "real" album HYSTERIA in Aachen.
Andy Schwarz and Tina Sanudakura decide to leave Kiel.
And this is the end of the band for the next 20 years.
NO MORE play their last concert in a club in Oberhausen - including SUICIDE COMMANDO.
In 1987, their album HYSTERIA is released.
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Line-Up seit 2006:
Andy Schwarz: vox, guitar, bass, electronica
Tina Sanudakura: keyboards
electronica, treatments
As Andy Schwarz and Tina Sanudakura begin with the compilation of songs and videos, they realize that the "early" part of NO MORE has not been "finalized" yet.
It is well documented on the vinyl-compilation DREAMS (released 2005) but something is missing.
So they begin to overdub the old songs, cut them apart and mash them up with new bits and pieces.
They even write new songs, and that is so much fun that they decide to start with NO MORE - condensed in a duo - all over again.