The Amos Key Story
by Andreas M. Gross

Why the biblical name Amos of all names? Thomas couldn’t tell me either, the only explanation he had was that the name had somehow been fraught with meaning for him a good time ago. Back then he also thought of “key” as in keyboard, and felt the combination of these two words was a cool band name. At least it was fitting for the time.

Amos Key’s “home” was Emmering near Fürstenfeldbruck, close to Munich. At first there was only a stuffy rehearsal room in the outhouse of a large old mansion that accommodated an artist commune. The “band” passed for being ambitious, nevertheless, bassist and outstanding vocalist Berti bade the trio farewell in 1970. So keyboarder Thomas (Müller at that time) and drummer/vocalist Eberhard Wilhelm went looking for a new bassist. I heard about it, boarded the local train, auditioned and got accepted.

So far I had only played in school bands. Amos Key was a well known name to me and it meant I was advancing to a higher league, particularly because of the charismatic Thomas Müller, who was my senior by a couple of years and had a lot of musical experience. Many people, including myself, were impressed by his organ play, his obsession with sound, show and the big stage. Thomas wasn’t a hippie. He was a tall alpha type with a pitch-black full beard. Thomas was dead set to become a star. I liked this. He seemed the born rebel, and was very partial to film, literature and art, just to mention a few of his interests.

With all likelihood, he was more impressed with my determination to take up the chance that Amos Key offered, than with the virtuosity of my play. No sooner had I been accepted into the band than drummer Eberhard left as well. Now the new duo Müller/Gross had a bit of a problem being a mere keyboard/bass combo, but we were determined to continue as Amos Key. We had to come up with a drummer, and a vocalist as well, if possible. Someone with a really good voice. Phil Collins would have been ideal.

We tried several people and had some really adventurous experiences. There was a young guy with a Bavarian accent called Charly Huber, his father Afro-American and his mother Bavarian. A nice guy, but not the one we were looking for. Which was his luck, because later he went on to be a TV star. Then there came the wiry and super fit health freak with a short goat beard – Lutz Ludwig with his drum kit brand “Ludwig”. Although he definitely couldn’t sing, he was the one! Before joining us Lutz was drummer with a band called SUB, he had recorded an album (Help) with, and a 45 record containing the titles “Ma-mari-huana” and “Off”. Lutz rounded out Amos Key’s new line-up. Although Thomas didn’t have an exceptional voice, he was musical enough to do the vocals and I did the second voice. This sort of vocal combination explains why we quickly developed into a predominantly instrumental group.

Thomas worked in all sorts of jobs, more or less successfully. He had to earn money somehow, since Amos Key wasn’t profitable. However, his aim in the medium term was to go musically professional. This explains his tenacity with regard to the band, which had nothing to do with a hobby. Although for Lutz ( a university student) and myself (about to get my high school exam), a career as a rock star didn’t seem totally out of the question, it definitely wasn’t the ultimate purpose of our existence. We didn’t discuss this a lot, though. At that time only one thing counted: the three of us wanted to hit it big with the band and approached this aim with the necessary verve.

After a while Thomas rented an old little house on the outskirts of Emmering. This is where he lived. Amos Key had a suitable room there, full of equipment. Here we were able to make noise undisturbed. We rehearsed endlessly and had the ambition only to play our own, strictly arranged material. Together we took generous scoops from the overflowing pot of ideas, which constantly tempted us to bind many individual ideas together instead of making them into pieces of their own, as other rockers of our time used to do. That was too “boring”, and this is why we rarely did it. But there were times, like with “Got the Feeling” – our most successful live piece by far – when we roared in different variations from on stage on one night.

Thomas and I loved all things original, surprising and that really “rocked”. Lutz used to stabilize the arrangements when we ran into the danger of getting muddled up, which was quite often the case. With his style he underscored the musical constructions in a sober and reliable way. That was our luck and my advantage, because when it came to rhythm I never felt as secure as our drummer. On stage he seemed lost in thought, but was highly concentrated, reacted lightning-fast, drumming powerfully. He was an honest, precise musician, not a jittering, conceited minstrel. Thomas and I already featured enough of that. Whether concert or studio – Lutz was always looking for the perfect atmosphere in a wild, but controlled matter. He rehearsed with abandon. In him, discipline and a clear mind were paired with a sensitive, nearly dreamful nature. He rarely made a mistake- unlike Amos Key’s super show buddies bassist and drummer, who would miss the notes quite badly when they were too busy freaking out.

No question, “Thomas the keys” was Amos Key’s driving compositional force. He shared my enthusiasm for classical music and – typical for that time – sensational-voluminous sound. He worshipped his Hammond A-100, which he mastered confidently (he used to say: only those rehearse who need to), and was the only one of us who could read notes. He would top up his Leslie towers depending on the financial situation. What a sound - the loudspeakers rotating in the large veneered wooden boxes, spreading a flickering, wafting sound that came along in such a sexy way that made every fibre of the body play along sensually. To top it all off he had a new, ultra-hip Moog synthesizer, a monstrous kind of harmonium and an E-piano. The world of the black and white keys, beefed up by the modern devices that were on the market in the early 1970ies, was a magic kingdom of sounds and awesome electronics! In his kingdom Thomas ruled as a furious and apocalyptic dictator. Amos Key was his empire, it rested firmly on the fidgety pillars of bass and drums.

My instrument didn’t have to compete. There was no guitar, no saxophone and not even a singer deserving of that name. Admittedly - doing the vocals wasn’t our strength, and at the time, a dominant guitar wasn’t an option for Thomas in his territory. In this way, I was able to provide the whole range - melodies in the upper pitches, hard “beats” of deep plectrum sounds and gentle harmonies over all four bass strings. I was truly in love with my Fender jazz bass and the “cracking” sound of its crude Rotosound strings, whose Hiwatt amplified tones curdled the peritoneum, cracking mercilessly with a drop dead thunder from the loudspeaker tower made in England. Picture me rocking across the stage with my high decibel red bass, always in motion. Lutz had a giggle over our cultic obsession with sound, percussion and show, he didn’t mind it. Yes, he’d even have gone along with us unplugged.

In 1973 our boss Thomas did manage to get us a record contract under the wings of Intercord/Spiegelei. We recorded the titles for it in the end of 1973. About six months earlier we had done the SWF recordings. At that time we thought about including these still unpublished pieces in the LP, but dismissed the idea later on. Fact was, in the summer of 1973 our trio had reached its top quality. I had just obtained my high school exam, which left us with more time for rehearsals.

We had rehearsed the material extremely well and were getting ready for the recordings- it was all of a piece. The SWF recordings represent material made up of loosely put together fragments waiting to be forged into an LP- and in case it didn’t fit, to be included in a hopeful second LP. I thought these recordings were lost. They are particularly interesting to me, since they were recorded directly, without any kind of playback, “live” at the studio, so to speak. Moreover, they depict our musical state still looking for a profile for the LP. How much progressive /classic rock should it be? How many pieces suitable for dancing? More complex arrangements, or rather “easier to understand” ones?

Some pieces were discarded altogether, while others went straight on the LP nearly unchanged. It is a fascinating view into the work of the band looking for the perfect sound and style. Apart from several demos that seem to be lost, these are the only Amos Key trio recordings I know, apart from the LP.

For us, the recordings for the LP “First Key” was an overwhelming step, and to top it all they were done in the Munich Musicland studio. What is more: legendary sound engineer Mack operated the controls himself. The LP was released in 1974 in a small pressing and flattered our ego enormously- although it was far away from a (billboard) chartbuster. We just weren’t a dance band or some kind of psychedelic non stop improvisers, we wanted to give compact concerts. Like we had done back in 1973 at the SWF in Baden Baden. By way of comfort: from time to time a radio DJ played our songs, but it was definitely not enough for a breakthrough.

Chief musician Thomas had by now officially adopted the name Molin. He was still the driving force with regard to “marketing”, gigs, contracts etc. He was simply “Mr. Amos Key” and responsible for making contacts. We did only few gigs in Munich, where the scene was dominated by other local bands. In the beginning we rocked our way through the surroundings of Fürstenfeldbruck, where we had a faithful fan community and were able to fill largish halls. After the LP had been released and we had gotten some media attention, we did gigs all over Southern Germany, mostly in the province, up north to Frankfurt. Youth centres, top festivals, embarrassing carnival pubs, discos, small city halls etc. The audience varied between 100 and 2000, sometimes as few as 35 people – we took it the way it came. The audience thought we were classy, loud and rocky in a exotic way. Soon we started considering doing a second LP, but there was no material yet.

Our niche of classic rock was pretty much filled, but we didn’t want to step down to the murky waters of a contemporary “Krautrock” band. So our idea was to develop more bite and we decided to go looking for a guitarist with an acceptable voice. In this way we came across voice and guitar of Helmut Jungkunz. A true cosmopolitan due to his stays in the USA, he had a good sense for smart arrangements, paired with boisterous tomfoolery. The whole thing was ultimately topped by a new keyboard instrument, the “Logan”, and Amos Key finally ended up with violin sound. What followed was a hard creative period, with new songs and arrangements, and the Studio 70 demos were done.

We were mighty proud of the fresh demo songs we had paid for out of our own pocket, and went looking for a new record company. Without success. The music wasn’t commercial enough for the mainstream, and not freaky enough for other music styles that still found a ready market for German bands. Although the four of us had one more gig on the Bavarian TV, the radio didn’t play us any longer. Our belief in playing own material only wasn’t always well accepted where we played live, and so the gigs weren’t getting better or even more profitable in the long run. We were frustrated by the breakthrough that didn’t come. Once the last hope of the rising sun, “German bands in the USA” had burst like a soap bubble, our mood hit rock bottom. The band members’ different needs and life projects started to drift apart more and more. Changing from a trio to a quartet hadn’t brought us any luck. Helmut had to watch the promising band he had just joined fall apart slowly.

Thomas wanted to go fully professional at last and have a real band that earned real money. Helmut shared his interest. Lutz was in the middle of his architecture studies and rather interested in the ideas of a certain Karl Marx. I had taken up studies, too, and was getting increasingly fed up with the music scene. I thought Amos Key’s situation was rather disenchanting and decided I’d rather become an arts historian, archaeologist, painter, sculptor, photographer or whatever. I left the band in 1976. We split up and Amos Key was history. I sold the bass. That was hard, but there was no way going back. For years later I was suffering from stage and rehearsal room withdrawal symptoms. I missed the beefed-up instruments, the concentrated work on the material, the fight for a creative compromise, the gigs, the unique smell of our high tech buzzing instruments fed by electricity and the crazy full sound of the valve amplifiers that boomed through body and soul, coming from gigantic loudspeakers covered with synthetic material. That was it. No more rock’n roll, baby…

After Amos Key had dissolved, Lutz put aside his drum sticks for 15 years, until he eventually joined the rock band “Fox”. Apart from working full-time as an architect he has been active as a rock musician for the last 17 years. He rehearses for one hour every day and seems as fit as back then when I knew him. He describes his current drum kit as “early Lindberg, late Aldi”.

Helmut Jungkunz founded a one-man-supersonic sound company (audio hire) after the dissolution of Amos Key. His uninsured equipment burnt at the first gig in Bamberg when the hall caught fire, and the money was gone. After that he worked as a road engineer for Amon Düül II and even stepped in when Chris Karner went missing during a stage direction rehearsal at the radio show, but he eventually returned to his supersonic sounding business. After working as a sound technician for many years he is presently working with video on the computer. However, he can’t keep his fingers off music and is currently participating in two music projects. For further information on Helmut Jungkunz see www.helmutsworld.de 

Amos Key 1970 – 1976. In those days Ger-man’s music scene with its bell-bottoms, vinyl records and Uher reel-to reel tape recorders was totally different from today. Although the post Woodstock era had already begun, things were of course still 100% analogue. We didn’t even dream about devices like the Walkman, the iPod or even Mp3-players,problems with digital copy rights, the (still unborn) internet or even the chances that You Tube would offer. Even though, being a young musician in that German scene one had the feeling – with good cause – that one was vibrating at the pulse of the time. After all, Amos Key did use the most modern technical equipment, and with our own material we passed as a “rocky avant-garde” by all means.

So what else happened in Germany and around the world – and how did the band members perceive it? Apart from Lutz we were rather non-political throughout the 1960ies and 1970ies. For us, the new views on the world did not become manifest in demonstrations and peace marches. Much rather in intense rock and pop. That reminds me of the arts scene, design, record covers, the fashion of the time. Girls, dreams and all the adrenalin involved in teenagers turning into adults. From today’s point of view all this seems pretty far away. Colourful flashbacks,with Amos Key as the sound track – and I could go on forever!

To cut a long story short: for our generation, the early 1970ies were a very special period of our lives. Let’s not forget and carry on!

Andreas M. Gross, summer 2009


By way of promoting their first album “First Key”, the band provided the magazine “Sounds” with a short info, stating their intention was to “ raise complaints nationwide” and described the album as follows: “A true treasure trove of classic mayhem, anaemic jazz fragments and toothless rock clichés. Due to the lack of musical substance, improvisations have to give way to concepts, and very simple ones as such. There is neither a purpose, nor an ideological background. Zero progressiveness.”

For the potential customer, the info recommends “getting hold of well-dimensioned ear protection”. This makes for a provocative and funny advertisement, which invites contradiction. Therefore: Objection Amos Key! PLAY IT LOUD!


Translation: Dr. Martina Häusler

The Lost Tapes, SWF-Session 1973

01. Sometimes (Molin) 03:11
02. Flucht (Molin) 04:17
03. First Snow (Molin/Gross) 05:54
04. Ensterknick-Stimm-Stamm (Molin/Gross) 04:34
05. I Got The Feeling (Molin) 05:20
06. Emanon (Molin) 01:43
07. Toccata (Bach/Molin) 02:07
08. Knecht Ruprecht (Molin/Gross) 05:12
09. Satyr (Molin/Gross) 04:25
10. Important Happening (Molin/Gross) 08:47