The pop duo Milky Chance from Kassel has been on a steep upward trend lately. And even though the worldwide Corona pandemic is currently slowing down the two young Hessians (huge hit: "Stolen Dance"), as well as the entire music industry, the crisis is now giving them a big gig.
Milky Chance are the only German artists to perform at a major benefit concert on the Internet for the benefit of Corona helpers. That doesn’t make them nervous, singer Clemens Rehbein told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur beforehand. "Excited, perhaps, and excited, but not jittery. It’s cool for us to be there."The organizer of the benefit concert under the motto "One World: Together at Home", the development organization Global Citizen, had taken notice of the young German band.
In a livestream via Youtube and Twitter, pop superstar Lady Gaga brings together artists from all over the world in a two-part concert, including big names like Taylor Swift, Elton John, Andrea Bocelli and Paul McCartney. It is about support for the Solidarity Fund of the World Health Organization WHO.
Milky Chance will be there with a livestream from Kassel. "We still have our rehearsal room or home studio here," said Rehbein. His band colleague Philipp Dausch will travel from Berlin especially for the concert. Milky Chance want to play three songs at the benefit concert – "a mixture of new and old songs".
The flight of fancy of the band around singer/guitarist Rehbein and multi-instrumentalist Dausch (both 27 years old) continues with it. The two have been playing together since they were teenagers – their first songs were virtually written in their nursery, including "Stolen Dance". The debut album "Sadnecessary" was already a success for the newcomers, reaching number 14 in the German charts in 2013 and number 17 in the U.S.
The band name, the two revealed in the dpa interview on the latest album "Mind The Moon" (2019), has no deeper meaning. "It was already there before our project," told Rehbein. "I came up with that one. You can pronounce it well, but it has no real meaning."
Milky Chance songs have since been sold millions of times and clicked on the Internet. The album "Blossom", released in 2017, made it into the top ten of the German album charts, and the band has collected gold or platinum records, among other things. Their specialty: a smart mixture of different musical styles with summer hit character – pop, folk, reggae, electro.
Milky Chance also includes Antonio Greger (guitar, harmonica) and Sebastian Schmidt (drums). Currently, according to Rehbein, the band is working on new music from home. About every other day, he said, they were in the studio at the moment. In addition, Milky Chance have now released four "stayhome sessions" on Spotify and Instagram, among others, where they play acoustic versions of songs from the new album.
The two artists from Kassel count very different artists among their musical role models: from the Swede The Tallest Man On Earth to Bob Marley, Ray Charles and Jack Johnson to John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "It all goes hand in hand and is a colorful mix," is how Dausch described the mixture. "A wild musical journey, from one genre to another."