ALPINKATZEN

Wolfgang Maier

When at the age of 14, Wolfgang laid aside the accordion - which he had been learning for four years, as his parents had wished - to make some noise with a drum kit in his room, there was still some parental resistance to be overcome.

Apart from his apprenticeship as a typesetter, he attended the state music school in Braunau, after that, the Mozarteum: the first term in earnest, the second sporadically, and in the third and last he allowed himself a self-approved term abroad: in Morocco, where he made music with the natives in African sounds, reworked the Innviertler Roas into an African Roas and performed native gstanzls for the surprised Moroccans. The way to the final destination had many corners. After his return he lathed aluminium bars in Ranshofen, found himself a job as a farmhand in the Mühlviertel (a childhood dream, even before the desire to be a drummer), became a civil service Red Cross driver, stoked the blast furnace in Ranshofen and finally became a professional musician in a commercial band.

In Canada, Florida, France and Switzerland, he entertained people for three years with most coherent songs between Upper Carniola and Caseation from his repertoire of 500 songs. The fact that he, quite secretly, listened to three cassettes with genuine folk music in the hotel room, remained a secret. Then he was a salesman in an drum shop in Vienna, eventually went back to the farm into the Mühlviertel, drummed for Ali, the husband of Lisa Fitz, and for the Salzburg band Josh & die Emotionen.

Wolfgang Spannberger, whom he knew from some of his musician jobs, put him together with Hubert von Goisern. The band grew together in initial rehearsals over several weeks on his farm.

In 1994, towards the end of the Alpinkatzen's last tour, Wolfgang severed the tendon of his thumb, leaving him only able to drum with one hand. Evert van der Waal joined him on stage with a second set of drums.

Since the end of the Alpinkatzen, Wolfgang has played for groups such as Seven Ages and played drums on five tracks on Hubert von Goisern's 2002 CD Iwasig.