History of The Group
Apart from Nils Olfert and Andrea Figallo, the members all attended the Hildegard-von-Bingen-Gymnasium in Cologne from 1981 to 1990. With their schoolmates Clemens Tewinkel and Christoph Tettinger, who also founded a brass band with them, they formed a rock band. At a school event, the band performed a single A Cappella song.
After graduating from high school with their A-levels (Abitur) in 1990, the group have focussed on A Cappella songs. They soon named themselves the "Wise Guys". Eddi's (Edzard's) 18-month alternative service for conscientious objectors in Brussels left the group as a quartet. In the meantime, the other four joined the Ersten Kölner Barbershop Choir. In early 1994 the group were placed third in a Barbershop Quartet competition; however, this type of music was not representative of their later work.
When Christoph Tettinger could no longer sing for professional reasons, Ferenc Husta joined the group in April 1995 as the bass voice. Christoph Tettinger became the group manager.
After their first album "Dut-Dut-Duah!" (1994), which was mostly in English, along with two-thirds cover songs, the band concentrated on German language, rhythm-based compositions with intelligent and often funny lyrics. Since 1997 the Wise Guys have turned professional. In the same year, the band released their third album "Alles im grünen Bereich" which signalled the beginning of their work with producer Uwe Baltrusch. Their following album was with EMI. With their Live-Album (2000), the band moved to Pavement Records.
With the song and videoclip from "Jetzt ist Sommer" and the album "Ganz weit vorne", the band achieved wider recognition. Their following album reached the top of the charts on Media-Control-Charts; the 2006 album "Radio" opened in third place, only behind Red Hot Chili Peppers and Silbermond.
Because of their mainly German songs most of their concerts are in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The exceptions are the concerts in USA, Canada, Poland, Luxemburg, and London.
The usual tours get enriched by big events like "Tanzbrunnen", "Totalnacht", and "Spezialnacht", festivals taking place in Cologne. In 2001 they got the world record at the concert on "Tanzbrunnen" (big area for concerts in Cologne) with 12,500 viewers. Their open air concerts at the "evangelischer Kirchentag" 2005, 2007 and 2009 (periodic Protestant church congress) were visited by 35,000, 70,000, and 65,000 viewers respectively.
Many high school German classes in the United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom use their music to aid classroom lessons.
Clemens left the band at the end of year 2008. The rest of the group wanted to maintain the Wise Guys and continue their work. On October 30, 2008 they presented Nils Olfert as their new band member. The first concert in the new formation took place on January 8, 2009.
In 2012, the band released an album in two parts entitled "Zwei Welten". It consisted of an a capella album released in May 2012 and an instrumental album released in September 2012. "Zwei Welten" was also released as a two-disk package with a two bonus tracks in December 2012, which brought them to their fifth gold record.
In March 2012 Ferenc Husta decided to leave the group at the end of 2012. Andrea Figallo took his place in December 2012.
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