Line-up
Zweite Jugend consists of two people: Marcel Lüke (drums) and Eli van Vegas (vocals, sequences). Marcel also plays with Jäger 90 and Hätzer and is a permanent member of Combat Company. Eli is the founder and permanent member of Combat Company, trafo21, and formerly Medien. Krebs.Therapie. Both are involved in other projects from time to time, mostly for live performances.
Background
Marcel and Eli met as friends back in 2009. Over time, their friendship grew to such an extent that Marcel took over tour management for Eli’s band Combat Company and accompanied the band to all their concerts from around 2011 onwards. After a musical crisis in 2012, Eli decided to establish Marcel as an additional drummer in the band to bring new impetus and appeal to the music. Initially intended purely as a live drummer, Marcel quickly became an integral part of Combat Company. In the summer of 2013, Marcel and Eli had the idea for a side project and even had a name ready: Zweite Jugend (Second Youth). With the founding members of Combat Company splitting up in spring 2015 – Eli continues Combat Company together with Marcel – Marcel and Eli decided to seize the opportunity and actually form the band. Shortly afterwards, the two rehearsed a cover show they had already played with Combat Company, which was performed as a replacement for a private concert in July 2015 in place of Combat Company. The songs are almost exclusively derived from old punk music, which suited the guys only as an attitude – not as a fundamental guide for songwriting and sound – and so they began writing their own songs in September 2015. The two musicians share a common vision: Zweite Jugend’s music should be minimalistic, purely analog, pure, yet provocative and aggressive. This runs through all of their songs. A slight reference to the early works of DAF, Nitzer Ebb, and Die Krupps is essential here.
Since 2016 / Love Is Luxury & Electronic Body Music
In October 2015, Zweite Jugend released two “demo videos” (“Hoch die Tassen!” and “Liebe Ist Luxus”), which were intended to give a preview of the work to come on social media. In October and November, they played their first concerts, and due to the enormous feedback on the videos, Marcel and Eli spontaneously decided to release a demo EP entitled “Kleines Vorspiel” before the album – produced in a hurry, as things were moving fast. The edition was strictly limited to 100 copies and sold out within a few weeks. After a concert tour in March and April 2016, the first full album, “Liebe ist Luxus,” was finally released in July. It included the scene hit “Hoch die Tassen!” among a total of twelve songs. Several more concerts took the band to the “WGT EBM Warm-up 2017” at the Felsenkeller in Leipzig, among other venues. Music videos for
“Hoch die Tassen!” and “Euroträume” were also produced and released. After the album sold out and received widespread acclaim from the scene, Marcel and Eli decided to produce their second album in 2018. Over a period of more than a year, eleven new songs were written, some of which were already tried out on stage during the course of the year. The album was finally recorded in October 2018 in the band’s own studio. “Elektronische Körpermusik” is more mature and grown-up than the debut album, but remains true to Zweite Jugend’s concept in terms of content and sound. In December 2018, the band released the single “Leah und Alissa,” taken from the album, and also produced a music video for it. “Elektronische Körpermusik” was released on March 1, 2019. In March 2019 and the following months, the band played numerous concerts.
