I’ve long had issue with how poorly bands from continental Europe are covered when the Anglo/American music journos cover a particular genre. Even when the bands in question sing in English. Bands singing in any other tongue are a particularly hard sell, but every now and again, a notable project breaks through. And Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF from here on) stand out in this very small grouping due to the way they achieved a cult following in the UK a couple of decades before anyone had heard of Rammstein. This achievement was not despite the fact that they sung in German, but in many respects because of it.
Many accounts of this band focus solely on a period in the early 1980s, during which they produced their most influential music. It’s true that their most influential recordings are found within this short timeframe, but there is a story to tell before and after this peak. As ever, I’m here record the legacy of their recorded output – the ups, the downs and the just-about-average. As these guides don’t (yet) cover side-projects, I won’t be dealing with the member’s solo albums, but I will cover variant line-up offshoot DAF/DOS, since it sort-of shares the same name and I have the albums to hand anyway.