The Bates

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The Bates was a German punk band, founded in Eschwege, federal state of Hesse, Germany in 1987. The name refers to the character Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho.

To a broader public, The Bates were mainly known for their cover versions of songs made famous by other artists. On each of their albums they published at least two such cover songs alongside original compositions. Due to the fact that the cover versions were particularly well received, The Bates released the album 2nd Skin (2000), which featured cover versions of songs taken from various genres. The Beatles ("Helter Skelter"), Rolling Stones ("Out of Time"), Sailor ("Glass of Champagne"), Aneka ("Japanese Boy"), and Eiffel 65 ("Blue") were covered in the album in typical The Bates style.

Amongst The Bates' commercially most succesful singles was their cover-version of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean (1994), which reached #10 in the Swiss charts, gaining them the highest charts entry of their career. Some other well-received songs were the Shakespears Sister cover Hello (Turn Your Radio On) (1994), A Real Cool Time (1995), It's Getting Dark (1996), and Independent Love Song (1997). Fan favourites are It's Getting Dark, Say It Isn't So, A Real Cool Time, Bitter End, I Don't Wanna Love You, or Not Like You.

In 2000 the The Bates disbanded. The band members re-united only briefly (for December 28, 2006) to play one concert, as a tribute to their former singer Markus "Zimbl" Zimmermann, who had died earlier that year. The concert was filmed and, together with some interviews of family, friends and former aquaintances of Zimbl, made into a movie: "Zimbl - a real cool time". A shortened version was first screened a year later on the same date as the concert.

1 Discography
2 Sources

[edit] Discography

[edit] Studio Albums

1989 No Name For Baby
1990 Shake
1992 Psycho Junior
1993 The Bates
1995 Pleasure + Pain
1996 Kicks 'n' Chicks
1997 Punk?
1998 IntraVenus
1999 Right Here! Right Now!
2000 2nd Skin

[edit] Live Albums

1993 Unfucked: Live
1997 Live

[edit] Singles

1994 Hello
1995 A Real Cool Time
1995 Billie Jean
1995 Say It Isn't So
1996 It's Getting Dark
1996 Poor Boy
1997 Independent Love Song
1999 Bitter End