Liquido Proves To Be Solid Success

FRANKFURT‹One of the bestselling acts in Germany this winter has been Liquido, the guitar-pop foursome from Heidelberg.
Yet it took the press and a concert promoter to get the group signed to its label, Virgin.
The deal was negotiated by the band's management, Brainstorm, which also acts as an independent music marketing and promotion agency. Says the band's singer/keyboardist, Wolfgang Schrödl, "We had sent demos to every address we could get our hands on but received very little positive feedback."
What positive noises the act heard came from radio (public broadcaster SWR3) and alternative rock-oriented monthly Visions, which put the track "Narcotic" on its cover-mounted CD. That was the key to getting A&R execs to reappraise the band, says Schrödl.
So far, "Narcotic" has sold more than 500,000 copies in Germany alone, according to the label. The band's self-titled debut album entered the German chart at No. 4 for the week of Feb. 2.
Says Schrödl, "Part of the motivation for our decision to sign with Virgin derived from the fact that they were among the few who had not turned us down earlier."
The band had some extremely negative responses, he adds. "I mean, one A&R guy wrote to us that "If you get one or two late-night plays on your local college radio [station] you should consider yourselves happy, because that's all you'll ever achieve.' I don't know what you get out of saying something like that to a young band."