{"id":1080,"date":"2020-04-10T15:03:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T13:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/?page_id=1080"},"modified":"2025-11-23T13:51:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T12:51:32","slug":"band","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/band\/","title":{"rendered":"Band"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flying Circus was founded in 1990 in the small German Rhineland town Grevenbroich and bridges the worlds of Hard Rock and Progressive Rock.<\/p>\n

Since our formation, we initially released the albums “Seasons” (1997), “Out of the Waste Land” (2000), “Pomp” (2004), and “Forth” (2010). To mark the 20th anniversary of the band, celebrated alongside the release of the fourth album, the “Forth” box-set version \u2013 titled “Back & Forth” \u2013 also included the bonus “CD Back”, featuring newly recorded versions of some of our early works that had remained unreleased until then.<\/p>\n

With the addition of two new members, Ande Roderigo (drums) and R\u00fcdiger Bl\u00f6mer (keys, violin) in 2011 and 2012, our first release with a completely refreshed line-up came in 2013 with the EP “Ones and Zeros”. In 2016, Flying Circus released its fifth regular studio album, “Starlight Clearing” \u2013 a concept work about a fictional band from the late 1960s \u2013 accompanied by the live CD\/DVD pack “25 LIVE” to celebrate our 25th anniversary.<\/p>\n

In March 2020, we released another concept album, “1968”, which transforms numerous historic events of this significant year into music. In 2021, under the simple title “Flying Circus”, we released a \u201cbest-of\u201d album featuring a brand-new song, many re-recordings of older tracks, and several remixes from the current line-up. In 2022, to mark the 25th anniversary of our debut album, we presented a completely re-recorded version of that work under the name “Seasons 25”.<\/p>\n

Two more limited live albums from 2022 and 2023 are now completely sold out (“A Live History” \u2013 1,000 copies; “Live im Roten Krokodil” \u2013 2,500 CD copies, still available on DVD). The 2024 live album “On Tour” is still available in a Pay-What-You-Want format at https:\/\/shop.flying-circus.com\/free-live-album .<\/p>\n

On November 7, 2025, we released our third concept album, “The Eternal Moment”, in three different editions. This album is currently the only one of our studio albums available exclusively in physical formats and NOT on streaming platforms.<\/p>\n

\n
\"R\u00fcdiger <\/div><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

R\u00fcdiger Bl\u00f6mer<\/h3>\n

Born: November 15th, 1960<\/p>\n

“The Scholar” – Keyboards and Violin
\nWrites musical scores as fast as the rest of humanity writes grocery lists. And that’s not surprising, because he’s got a university degree in this stuff – not only in music theory and composing, but also in playing violin and keyboards (at the Cologne University of Music and Dance, department of Aachen). He now also teaches all this and gets awarded composer’s prizes for his orchestral works now and then. He’s also a trained mixing engineer and therefore an excellent sound magician. Due to this entire formal education, he sometimes floats around in spheres into which no one can follow. But he always brings back nice souvenirs from these trips. <\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Roger <\/div><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Roger Weitz<\/h3>\n

Born: July 10th, 1951<\/p>\n

The Silent One – Bass (until October 2025)
\nAs a typical bass player, he’s the silent rock of the band, who likes to play things down – especially his own achievements. So he doesn’t make a fuss about the fact that he’s also an excellent keyboard and mandolin player, even having won competitions on the latter instrument as a youngster. However, because of his modesty, he sometimes forgets to mention even the most sensational things – for example that one of his ancestors composed “Silent Night, Holy Night”.* Can also paint splendidly. But hardly anyone knows that either. Maybe not even the rest of the band. Pragmatist. When everyone was impressed by the sensational look of his then new five-string, he only said: “Ah well, the low string sounded the loudest on that one.”<\/p>\n

*Note from Roger: “Please change the ‘Silent Night’ passage to ‘is supposed to have composed\u2026’. It’s just a story that is told in the family, but which ultimately can no longer be proven. Otherwise this seems too loud-mouthed.”
\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Dietmar <\/div><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Dietmar Berteld <\/h3>\n

Born: September 9th, 1959<\/p>\n

The Memory Maestro \u2013 Bass (since October 2025)
\nBlessed not only with bass-playing dexterity comparable to Roger\u2019s, but also with an incredible memory\u2014especially when it comes to song structures and arrangements. When he had to step in for Roger on short notice after only four weeks of preparation and just two rehearsals, singer Michael Dorp happened to glance at Dietmar\u2019s tablet during the intermission, expecting to see lead sheets or sheet music. Instead, he saw only a black screen \u2014 because Dietmar played the entire two-hour concert completely from memory. <\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Ande <\/div><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Ande Roderigo<\/h3>\n

Born: March 31st, 1963<\/p>\n

The Self-Taught Guy – Drums and Vocals
\nR\u00fcdiger’s opposite. Simply started banging on things as a kid and didn’t stop until he was a really virtuoso drummer. On the way there, he took part in a wide variety of projects: Whether it’s an indie band from Cologne, a music comedy spectacle (called “St. Punk”) or a Beatles tribute band (“Hard Day’s Night”, still active): Ande has done it all – and gladly. Approaches everything with a lot of fun and enthusiasm and also chose the autodidactic approach for singing – also with success: Sang the title song for a national TV sports show in the 90s and is part of the permanent singer ensemble of the German equivalent of the TV show “Dancing with the Stars”. <\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Michael <\/div><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Michael Rick<\/h3>\n

Born: November 26th, 1969<\/p>\n

The Sound Tinkerer – Guitar
\nPlayed until his fingers bled right at our first gig and thus involuntarily styled his guitar with blood spatter into an authentic Heavy Metal instrument. Today he tinkers with his instruments and amplifiers in a more targeted manner and is extremely well versed with effect pedals, pickups, phase shifts, electrical resistance and other topics that only guitarists are interested in. With this knowledge, however, he also produces a wonderful tone on the electric guitar, which he claims comes from his fingers. Might be true. Because he also sounds unmistakably like Michael Rick on the acoustic guitar.
\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Michael <\/div><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Michael Dorp<\/h3>\n

Born: November 16th, 1968<\/p>\n

“The Poet” – Vocals
\nStudied “theatre, film and television studies” as well as English and German at the University of Cologne and is something like R\u00fcdiger’s counterpart in the field of song lyrics and concept development (wrote the story for the concept album “Starlight Clearing”, had the idea for “1968” etc.). Otherwise simply a rock shouter in the face of the Lord, often compared to Robert Plant. But if you would like to do him a favour, you better compare his voice to Steve Marriott\u2019s. In contrast to Ande, he is only allowed to sing on “Dancing with the Stars” from time to time because his voice is too rocky for the responsible editors. Or too distinctive. Or both. And that’s about right – both. <\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

If you want to book FLYING CIRCUS for your venue, your festival or other events or just get in contact with the band? Then please send an e-mail to:<\/p>\n

michael.dorp@circuscrow.de<\/strong><\/a> or Phone +49 178 781 0690<\/a>.\u200b<\/p>\n

If you register for our newsletter Newsletter<\/strong><\/a>, you will be sent all news about FLYING CIRCUS automatically via e-mail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flying Circus was founded in 1990 in the small German Rhineland town Grevenbroich and bridges the worlds of Hard Rock and Progressive Rock. Since our formation, we initially released the albums “Seasons” (1997), “Out of the Waste Land” (2000), “Pomp” (2004), and “Forth” (2010). To mark the 20th anniversary of the band, celebrated alongside the … Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1080","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13723,"href":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1080\/revisions\/13723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flying-circus.band\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}