#The Band

The members of Paris & Lenzerheide are scattered across several thousand kilometers in Europe and Scandinavia. While our singer, lyricist, and frontman André has lived in rural Norway for many years, most of the other musicians live in Germany and Switzerland.

What unites us and brings us back together again and again is a common goal: We want to express, through music, how things have changed in Germany, Norway, Switzerland, and Europe over the past ten years – in ways that need to be talked about publicly. Musically beautiful, but thematically painful. Subtle, but unmistakable. Friendly, but uncomfortable. From the perspective of ordinary people. For everyone. This is why we founded the band a few years ago in the Swiss town of Lenzerheide.

We sing our critically-minded pop music in German, Norwegian, English, French – and sometimes even in Swiss German.

While most of us have long played in German and international bands, André Paris previously worked as investigative journalist and press officer in Germany, Switzerland and currently in Norway.

#Unwoke?

The name of our first album, “#Unwoke?”, is also part of the band’s history: At our first workshop in Switzerland, André slammed down a few lyrics and ideas with a lyrical sledgehammer. Some band members felt it was too blunt. A keyboardist said something like: “I can’t release that under my name – I’d get canceled in Germany. That’s way too unwoke for the German cultural scene!” André replied: “Unwoke? Unwoke?? What exactly is unwoke about plain and factual truth?” We joked, laughed, and had a long discussion. After that, we were a band – and had figured out two things:

1.Our first album had to be called “#Unwoke?”.

2.To avoid compromising too much thematically, all musicians except André will remain unnamed and grouped under the name Lenzerheide – for as long as they feel it’s necessary.