Guano Apes

Guano Apes is a German rock band from Göttingen, formed in 1994 by guitarist Henning Rümenapp, bassist Stefan Ude and drummer Dennis Poschwatta, with singer Sandra Nasić joining the same year. AllMusic calls their sound a fusion of metal, pop and rap. The band is here because of its singer: Nasić was born in Göttingen on 25 May 1976 and grew up there with her sister and her Croatian mother, and the Croatian Wikipedia calls her a German singer of Croatian roots. The band itself is German and comes from Göttingen, while Nasić today lives in Berlin.

They played their first concert in Moringen on 10 March 1994. Their break came in 1996, when they won the "Local Heroes" contest of VIVA and radio ffn ahead of more than a thousand bands with "Open Your Eyes". The prize money paid for the debut album Proud Like a God (1997), which reached number four in Germany, went platinum and stayed in the charts for over a year. "Lords of the Boards", written to order for the snowboard championships, and "Rain" followed as singles, and an 18-month tour of Europe and the United States made the band known abroad.

Don't Give Me Names (2000) brought "Big in Japan", their cover of Alphaville, and "No Speech", and the band won the MTV Europe Music Award for best German act. Walking on a Thin Line went to number one in Germany in 2003 with "You Can't Stop Me", "Pretty in Scarlet" and "Quietly". Nasić also sang on Apocalyptica's "Path Vol. 2".

After a farewell tour the band split in 2005; Nasić released the solo album The Signal with the single "Fever" in 2007. Guano Apes reunited in 2009, played Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and in 2011 Bel Air entered the German chart at number one with "Oh What a Night" and "Sunday Lover". Offline followed in 2014 with "Close to the Sun", and Proud Like a God XX (2017) revisited the debut, with a cover of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" and Danko Jones on a new "Open Your Eyes". In 2012 Nasić sat on the jury of X Factor in Germany. The playlist is the band's own channel.