Angie, Anna, Sonja & Ophelia all know each other from the VOXARTIS PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, which specializes in POP & crossover productions.
With this sound body they have already accompanied various TV and/or DVD productions, including large LIVE productions with Sarah Connor or SEAL.
All four girls have been playing the violin since they were children and have always had an affinity for, or corresponded to, pop music; be it through your own band or other ensemble projects.
In addition, for years they have been asked again and again by international POP acts or bands to take part in tours or TV productions, either all together – or in other combinations – precisely because they love pop music – and, what is extremely important for LIVE gigs, they Master the “in-ear play” that is actually unpopular with classical musicians. Normally, orchestral musicians prefer to work agogically dynamically, meaning they prefer to follow the conductor’s “flow” and beat, which can vary greatly, rather than having to adapt to the rhythmic click of a drum pad.
Over the last few years, the girls from Babaji have played – either as a foursome – or in smaller formations, with artists such as Meat Loaf, Herbert Grönemeyer, Toni Braxton, Sarah Connor, Robbie Williams, Lionel Richie, Jose Carreras, Rolando Villazón, SEAL or Michael Bublé, to name a few.
So it almost came naturally that at some point they said to themselves: “Why don’t we do our own thing instead of always playing for other people?” – which, of course, they still like to do if the artist is interesting!
So we met with producer Sascha Dücker in the studio to use a randomly (!!) selected song that he had on the mixing board: “BABAJI” by Supertramp/R. Hodgson, to develop a common sound, a musical feeling……to make POP music with classical instruments, but not only to play it, but to change it to the extreme or interpret it in an edited manner.
The main focus was on sound development, which was tackled using good song material from the 60s and 70s.
The girls deliberately made their first album consist of cover songs because they assumed that the combination of “own songs” and “own, unusual VIOLET sound” might be too “cheeky” for a newcomer act. They already have song material for several albums.
Working on the song “Babaji” was so clearly promising and creatively uncomplicated for Anna, Angie, Sonja and Ophelia that they spontaneously chose the song name for their band.
The girls were not aware that “Babaji” is a prophet known in the Shiva cult; Based on the understandable lyric “come to me, to help us to find the music, bring it out, so we can sing it out.”, they assumed that it was – as is rumored in rock literature – a homage from Supertramp to one of the beloved sound inventors who had the name BABAJI as a “nickname”.
Without a “big ideal superstructure” people were happy to stick with this name, which is short and contains a lot of vocabulary, so it’s easy to pronounce anywhere… if it weren’t for the complicated “j”. The correct expression is Babaj(= dsch)i.
Babaji consciously breaks new ground with the classical instrument VIOLIN. Sometimes they literally put on “other strings” that are not intended for the instrument at all, other times they also control guitar sounds with their Yamaha silent/electric violins in order to produce different sounds than you get from them used to a conventional violin.
All vocals led by Sonja, who enjoys being “carried” by the violin ensemble or the girls’ background vocals.
The band is produced in the Rhineland (Düsseldorf/Cologne) as well as in Karlsruhe.
The producers and managers behind the act are Sascha Dücker and Siggi Brandt, both “old hands” in the music scene. While Sascha, who has already produced live albums for SEAL and Sarah Connor, takes care of the basic musical sound, it is the former freelance WEA & EMI A&R Siggi Brandt who, together with co-producer Alan Vucelic, takes care of sounds, grooves and arrangements – together one wonderful symbiosis.
The musical work with the four women is not always that easy, as they both like to admit, since Anna, Angie, Sonja & Ophelia are musical personalities “to whom you can’t just say… we’re playing that so and so…”, but, according to Sascha, discussions begin almost “passionately” around every quarter and every turn.
In this context, the girls like to leave it unmentioned (while the producers are only too happy to confirm it) that all 4 young women have appeared in various magazines from Allegra to Vogue, from Petra to Amica for beauty, fashion and other production areas in recent years as versatile Models advertised.
Source: babajimusic.com