Markus Zosel
He wasn't always so self-assured and adventurous. It's been a tough and rewarding journey for Markus Zosel whose original sound is now cascading through the airwaves as his new single ‘At The Pool’ rockets up the charts.
LAUREN: When did your recording career begin? What inspired you to first make music?
MARKUS ZOSEL: My musical career began in 1991, 27 years ago. I had my first public performance on a local celebration in my hometown. I had been very shy way back then but I took my chances, you know. I had sung before in school or to my friends, but never on a public stage. So that was the moment the ‚magic’ began and something that I never would have expected happened: passing people stopped and cheered and became an audience that stayed for the two hour duration of that first performance. So I got infected with the virus of making my own music and to do cover versions of my favourite songs, so to speak. The first inspiration to make music came from a little travelling theatre in the north of Italy, which I joined by accident when I was a kid and just 12 years old. They had build up their tiny set beside a restaurant we used to got to that night. They did their show and afterwards a bunch of kids, around sixteen or seventeen, used to sing old songs with a guitar. That was the very moment I caught fire. I told my dad afterwards when we were on our way back to the hotel that I wanted to learn to play the guitar and he just nodded and told me to go for it. The rest of the holidays I had a little job and I earned the money for my first guitar. I still have it.
LAUREN: Your new single is currently getting a great response on radio. How would you describe your new single? ’At The Pool’
MARKUS ZOSEL: It is little different from the ones before. It’s little more rhythm and rock orientated. It captures the feeling of being gladly back in the States again and doing so well. ‚California took me in…‘ this line tells so well what I felt that day. I surely take pictures when I go somewhere. But I also write poems, because they preserve so much more than a picture. It helps later, when I’m back home or in my studio, to get back all the magic I felt that very moment. It works fine for me to work that way. As I told before, I wrote the lyrics when I was back in Germany. But the poem was written at the GreenTreeIn Hotel in Los Angeles near Route 66. Right there at the pool. That was in April 2017.
LAUREN: How do you feel your music has changed this past year?
MARKUS ZOSEL: I am always grateful to grow in one way or the other. I am afraid of stopping or getting lost somewhere. That’s why it feels good to move on. I am, as any passionate musician, trying to get more professional when it comes to performing or recording my stuff. I hope it shows when listening to the brand-new song ‚At The Pool‘. That’s the changes I feel, especially when looking at this new one. I’ll always work on making things better but I’ve got a quite comfortable feeling when listening to ‚At The Pool‘.
LAUREN: What is your creative process when it comes to songwriting?
MARKUS ZOSEL: It simply happens. It may take ten minutes to write a song or it may take a whole year to finish what you’ve begun one day. When touring or being on the road somewhere I use to write poems to keep the precious moments, just as I told you before. The new album ‚Rooftop Dancer’ is like a diary from my trip to Los Angeles and all the things occurring to me there last April. That is another possibility of getting creative and into writing so easily. But I always feel the need to write and can’t stop from it. I feel at home when writing, wherever I am, you know. That’s a picture that fits the best, I guess.
LAUREN: During this creative process, do you feel you work better alone or in a team?
MARKUS ZOSEL: Almost always it is a process I am alone in. It feels familiar and safe to me that way. When you try to express yourself you have to feel save and for me that’s the case, when I am alone and all by myself with my guitar, my piano or a some sheets of blank paper.
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LAUREN: How do you feel about the Internet in the music business?
MARKUS ZOSEL: There’s two sides to every story. On the one hand I am grateful to be able to share my songs and my musical work worldwide. THE AKADEMIA helps me in this case and I shall be thankful for that. There’s a chance that people hear me in all the different parts of our wonderful planet earth (I know that there are the bad guys, but I do believe in the good ones), you see. On the other hand most people like to listen to stuff or songs they don’t have to pay for. And that’s the sad part of the story, because we need to get paid in order to produce new material. You’re grateful about the streaming-pennies on iTUNES, SPOTIFY, DEEZER and all the other major music platforms, but you make your living with selling CDs and perform in public places. YouTube is a good way for people to get an first impression of you, but it won’t feed you along your way.
LAUREN: What is the best compliment you've ever received?
MARKUS ZOSEL: »Thank you for being here and singing to us…« I found that little note on a crumbled paper on my stool after a neat concert inside a coffee-house at the time when fall turns into winter. There’s the cold outside, the fog and all the rain turning the world outside into something not everyone is able to deal with. This little paper was a word of being grateful of someone who felt in that very mood that night. I’ve kept this little note, I still have it today, and put it at home on one of the walls in the house that host all of my most precious pictures and images from the past 27 years.
LAUREN: If you had an extra two hours every day, how would you spend it?
MARKUS ZOSEL: Have a cup of coffee, just sitting on the porch or in my garden and share it with people from my family or my love. Time is precious and it’s important to share it with the people who are really important to you. Some day you won’t have the chance to do so for one or the other reason. Most of my day is being into music and writing anyway. That’s why this would be my choice for the two extra hours.
LAUREN: If you could sit down with one of your favorite artists, who would it be and what would you ask them?
MARKUS ZOSEL: I guess it would be John Denver, but he died way back in 1997. I grew up on his music and he let the mountains and all the places around me sing to me. At one period in my young life I really lived in and with his music very intense, but surely found out later, that I had to go my own way if I wanted to be authentic as a songwriter. Gordon Lightfoot or Jose Feliciano would be a second choice. They are also two of my top artists, you know.
LAUREN: In your opinion, which decade do you think produced some of the best music to date?
MARKUS ZOSEL: Personally I think that’s the 1970s. The the stuff I like to listen to most of all. But there is good work in the decades following. I would not limit that to just one decade gone by when taking a closer look at it. One of my all-time favourite songs is not from the 70s. It’s ‚Looking For Love‘ by Johnny Lee. That’s a song from the 80s. So it’s quite difficult to say for me.
LAUREN: When you are working on a new song, who is the first person you share it with?
MARKUS ZOSEL: My parents, my love and my closest friends. They would not lie to me about the quality of a new musical work. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and I am most grateful about that fact.
LAUREN: Is there new material in the works and when will fans get to hear it?
MARKUS ZOSEL: I just uploaded a new EP on all major music platforms. It’s called ‚Dusk Arising‘ and introduces five new songs of mine. I am also an author who’s writing books. There are two titles in English. One novel and a collection of short stories on amazon.com. The collection of short stories ist called »Cut Flowers« the title of the novel is »French Roof«. They are available worldwide on the internet. And, as you may guess, I am right now working on a bunch new songs - and grateful of being able to do so. It simply feels great to step on and on…
LAUREN: I look forward to hearing your new work! Thank you for letting us get to know you better as a musician and I wish you the best of luck and continued success.
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