Moscow music fans just can’t seem to get enough of the German group De-Phazz. After two visits to the Russian capital in quick succession – one in November 2001 and another in March 2002 – the band is coming back, to the delight of its Moscow fans, to promote its new album "Daily Lama."

Founded by producer Pit Baumgartner as an "open-band concept" in 1997, De-Phazz now also includes Karl Frierson, Otto Engelhardt and vocalist Pat Appleton. The group’s style contains many influences, with saxophones, mild trip-hop, Latino, drum and bass or whatever catches the group’s fancy getting mixed in –always on a positive note. Their music has been hailed as a refreshing change to the current jaded music scene, and is described as "perfect for parties and to wind down with your loved ones, friends or just on your own."

The group reached cult status in Moscow after the release of their album "Death By Chocolate" in late 2001, and their popularity skyrocketed after their two concerts here. LifeStyle caught up with De-Phazz vocalist Appleton via e-mail while the group was touring Greece.

The demand brings us back. There are many people in Russia who love our music and we like to come to Russia because we feel very welcome here, and we have a chance to get to know the people here. We are an international band, although we are based in Germany, and we love intercultural interaction, and that’s why we travel so much.

We feel very honored about these comparisons, but we hope that we have developed our own style, which is hopefully noticeable in our work. Personal influences include of course old jazz masters like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, but also Me’shell N’degeocello and Bjork.

I started singing when I was a little girl, and I voiced very early in my life that I wanted to be a singer. My parents wanted me to become a politician, but I realized while studying that I did not want to use my voice to stress political ideas, but to please people with it instead. I quit my political studies, took voice lessons and today I have a job that makes me happy and hopefully many others as well.

In 1997, when Pit Baumgartner invited some friends into his studio and made the first album, "Detunized Gravity."

We didn’t really stray much from our style, but we did want to make an album that concentrated more on the singers that are usually blended to melt in with the De-Phazz sound. Karl Frierson, Otto Engelhardt and I had the opportunity to realize our ideas more than usual, and so the album has more of a personal note than the albums before. We are always taking up new influences and feel nothing would be more boring than copying our old style again and again.

We switched labels basically because of the dishonesty of our earlier record company, Undercover Music (Mole). We did not have much of a choice, so we decided to give a major label a chance, Boutique being a sub-label of Universal. However, we have now been given the opportunity of creating our own label, Phazzadelic, under which we will be able to produce more different artists, as well as solo albums for the De-Phazz members.

We will be touring a lot all over Europe and hopefully Canada, and maybe even take the leap to Asia or South America. We are so happy that so many people are fans all over the world and we would like to play for them and get to know their cultures. •