AnnenMayKantereit

Alles nix Konkretes": that was the title of the first album by Cologne band AnnenMayKantereit in 2016. There couldn't have been a better title. After all, there really was no career plan at the time, the motto was more: do it first, follow the vibe, see what happens.

Christopher Annen (guitar), Henning May (vocals) and Severin Kantereit (drums) had already done this when they met at school and performed together as street musicians, and it remained the same when they published early songs on YouTube, produced their first album, which is now long out of print, and finally released a debut EP in 2015 under the equally telling title "Wird schon irgendwie gehen".

And how it went: What has happened since then is quite extraordinary and - well, one of the most impressive careers in German pop of the past decades. Since the band was founded in 2011, AnnenMayKantereit have continuously developed from an insider tip in Cologne to one of the most successful bands in Germany, without ever losing their grip on reality.

With their five albums to date, AnnenMayKantereit have achieved gold and platinum status, played at the biggest festivals; their videos for songs such as "Barefoot at the Piano", "3 Days by the Sea" and "Often Asked" have been clicked over 1.4 billion times on YouTube. They have 1.9 million TikTok followers and over 1.4 million on Instagram, and five million people listen to them on Spotify every month.