Phonoboy is a solo project by Munich-based songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, studio and label owner Christian Höck. "Love and Let Die" is his fifth album as Phonoboy after taking a seven-year break to focus on other projects like Les Millionnaires. Phonoboy’s first album in English is a singer-songwriter-Americana album mixed with Indie-Folkpop songs.
Biography:
Christian is half French and half German and was born in France. His mother gave him his first piano lessons when he was only six years old. She also showed him some first guitar chords when he was 14 and had just started to compose music and write lyrics. In the 1990s, he played in two bands – guitar in The Chamberdeacons and bass / organ in The Heartbeats. Both were influenced by Sixties garage beat.
Phonoboy’s name is derived from a record player designed in 1969 and was founded as a duo in the early 2000s by Christian Höck and Markus “Weyssi” Weissenhorn, his bandmate from The Chamberdeacons. They developed a sound of classic songwriting meeting loops, power pop meeting electronic music, Sixties Britpop meeting French Pop – a unique mixture not following any rules, which was also true for the lyrics, which included French, English and German.
In 2002, the first release was “C’est ma vie” on legendary Munich club Atomic Café’s “French Cuts” compilation. It received worldwide airplay and was immediately picked for other compilations. Nina Kraensel (Miles, Crash Tokio) on bass and Nico Erdmann on drums joined the band for the first live gig in 2004. The year after, Phonoboy’s debut album Très chic, Trashig was released and got nominated for music prizes in Germany. Lauro Cress, son of drumlegend Curt Cress replaces Nico on drums and more tours followed in Germany and Austria as well as a TV shoot for Arte’s show “Tracks” and a second album released by Frank Popp’s label TV Eye Records called Pas de temps in 2007.
In 2008 Weyssi quit Phonoboy and shortly after Lauro Cress moved to Berlin so Christian Höck finished the third, appropriately named album This Is Not A Band (Smarten Up Records) on his own. For live shows, Alex Föllmer joined him on the drums. The single “Do You Know?” stayed in the German Alternative Charts for five weeks. After Nina had also moved to Berlin, Phonoboy became a solo project and an EP called “Autoroute du soleil” in collaboration with Ben Mono was released.
In 2013, Christian started to run his own label 1969ok! Records to put out his fourth album Obsession. New Phonogirl “Fredo Ramone” took over the female vocal parts (two years later, she founded Les Millionnaires with Christian) and Marc Boysen (Young Chinese Dogs) played the drums.
All records are produced at Christian’s Telstarstudio in Munich, where the Arctic Monkeys had recorded their song “Mardy Bum” in 2005.
Sideprojects: In 2003 Christian produced several records with Thom Snively (Gown) who is a grand-cousin of Gram Parsons. He plays the bass parts and they do shows as a trio with also Lauro Cress on drums. Supportshow for "The Kills"
In 2009 Christian played some shows in Nic Olsen’s band Sonofold with Flo Schanze on drums.
Remixes for Atomic “Heartbeater” (2009) and Die Sauna “Auf Dich” (2017)
Discography (Albums):
Phonoboy
Très chic, trashig (redwinetunes / Pias, 2005)
Pas de temps (TV Eye Records / Cargo, 2007)
This is not a band (Smarten Up / Rough Trade, 2010)
Obsession (1969ok! Records / New Music Distribution, 2013)
Love and Let Die (1969ok! Records / Edel 2020)
Pink’s Not Dead! (1969ok! Records, 2015)
Never Mind The Money (1969ok! Records, 2017)
Other former bands:
The Heartbeats, Two Down, Four To Go (Twang! Records, 1996)
The Chamberdeacons, Gigant 200 (Blickpunkt Pop/EFA, 1998)
The Heartbeats, It’s Happening! (Fourtune Records, 2001)
Gown, Mrs. Yellow (Little Teddy Recordings/Broken Silence, 2003)
Gown, Economic Amplifier (Amazon, 2006)