Verenice: Burn the boats

About this original series

Who am I? Well, I don’t like shopping (except for groceries or at Abercrombie & Fitch). But I like to spend my money on traveling. I’m always curious to get to know new cultures; I have lived in the USA and India, studied English, French, Spanish, Hindi and Chinese. I eat about 100 g of chocolate every day. And I love my iPod. If you see me walking through Schwabing or jogging in the English Garden, I am probably listening to some fine tunes by a stunning independent songwriter like Damien Rice, Nerina Pallot oder Imogen Heap. It makes me feel like in a movie. And I want to make others feel like they are in a movie as well. No matter if it’s a drama or a tear jerker, as long as the feel something. People ask me how and why I write songs. The truth is I can’t help it, the songs just sort of “come“ to me. I wrote my first song when I was about 9 (“Patricia“ in honor of my bunny of the same name.) At the age of 11, I wrote my first sociocritical song triggered by Gulf War I that wondrously was also about recycling (can’t really remember the exact train of thoughts but it kinda made sense when I was 11.) I never wanted to be a singer though, I always dreamed about being a dancer. Until – on a high school exchange program in the States – I messed up my knees doing a so-called “jump split“ in the Oregon State Dance Championships (luckily it was the ending pose in the routine) and had to wear a full-leg splint after that. To live out my pent-up creativity, I reluctantly joined the school choir and was stunned when I (as a foreigner!) got picked to perform the American national anthem at our graduation ceremony. “Why me?” I asked myself and still puzzled started to take professional singing lessons from an amazingly motivating teacher when I came back to Germany. After high school, I decided to study something “prudential” and got my diploma in business psychology. But all through university, I spent at least half of my time writing songs, performing at festivals and organizing my own concerts. I was lucky to find a musical accomplice and some really nice producers (now producing the tremendously famous band Tokio Hotel) who recorded my first demo songs. I performed in front of up to 20 000 people, had newspaper (yep, even BILD), radio (Top 3 of the local wish list) and TV coverage (a full 3 minutes), but somehow I never really managed to commit to music a 100 percent. So I ended the collaboration with my musical partners and moved from Hamburg to Munich when I got an offer to work for one of Germany’s greatest media visionaries. But while I was “working my ass off” in the world of publishing, I realized that not being able to make music became more scary than the thought of being a poor artist living under the bridge. So, I finally decided to “burn the boats.” I am ready… www.verenice.com