ArtistInfo

Loaded Bananas

DE
Dance
A.k.a. Volker Grabs Bad Bo Maniac (3) On Air Plexx Rick Maniac

Born and raised in Frankfurt, Germany, Volker Grabs is also known as "Loaded Bananas" or "Electro Punk Zombie, Sol Noir, Rick Maniac". Volker Grabs … has been a part of music and the club culture for more than 18 years. During this time he has built up a reputation in a wide variety of capacities. He relocated to the United States in 2006, where he has since been living and working. Back in time: At an early age he developed a love for electronic music. It didn’t take long until he bought his first sampler, synthesizer and two 1210 Technics record-players. From this time on these machines took up all of his free time. His obsession went beyond Disco, Breaks, Soul and Rap music (like LL Cool J, Grandmaster Flash, Whoodini) from Electro, Funk and Punk (like Newcleus, Mantronix, Art of Noise, The Clash..) to Industrial, EBM (Coil, Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb) and later in 1988 to Acid House, Techno... His deejay career on the decks began at private parties back in 1987, he was later spinning in many clubs in and around Frankfurt like the Basement, Sven Väth’s legendary Omen, U60311, Ostparkstrasse, etc... and as a radio deejay for stations like Radio X (Frankfurt) with Ricardo Villalobos, Evosonic (Cologne), Radio Fritz (Berlin), Radio XXL (Frankfurt).... His second love was and is the film-business… He started working in a Frankfurt based Film production company (during this time he worked for companies like: Spiegel TV, Sony Music, Lufthansa AG and Wella AG...) as an assistant cameraman and film editor (producing in cities like Hamburg, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Miami...). In 1992 he got a once in a lifetime opportunity to work as an assistant art- and creative director and sound designer for “Portfolio Artists Network”, the company of cult director Marcus Nispel in New York. He was able to work with Nico Beyer, Alexander Davidis, David Nelson and Marcus Nispel among others producing music videos for artists like Faith No More, Dina Carroll, Suzanne Vega, George Michael, B 52s…. as well as working on TV-commercials for companies like Revlon, GAP, Coca Cola, 60 Minutes…. When he came back to Germany 1993, he encountered the fantastic, awesome and totally inspiring Techno-Scene of Frankfurt again. He immediately bought new equipment for his studio and started producing some new tracks. Of course he also continued to work as a deejay at clubs in the Frankfurt area. Many tracks from his multiple projects (Loaded Bananas, Electro Punk Zombie, SuperSonic...) have been released on labels like Avex (Japan), Superstar Rec., Kontor rec., Intergroove, Logic Records, Media Records, Universal Music, Hope rec....) Apart from his work as producer and deejay, he also worked for the very successful dance record label Logic Records (Snap, Dr. Alban, Joey Beltram, Sparks, Underworld). He started off as DJ-Promoter and later worked as A&R label manager for the cult-labels “Fresh Flavour” and “Save the Vinyl”. After his time with Logic Records he worked for Neuton Medien Vertrieb as manager of the Label Department. At Neuton he had the opportunity to work with labels like Ongaku, Klangelektronik, Kanzleramt, Bpitch control, Torema, Raum Music, Cheap, Refill, Axis...