Christoph "Chris" von Rohr (born 24 October 1951 in Solothurn) is a Swiss rock musician, record producer, author, columnist, radio and television presenter.
[5] After a two-year stint at the public business school in Neuchâtel von Rohr founded more bands: first, the Plastic Joints and thereafter Inside.
[6] Meanwhile, the musician von Rohr kept himself financially afloat as a cook in the Solothurn Restaurant & Hotel Kreuz – the first Genossenschaftsbeiz of Switzerland.
[8] However, all these attempts to make it in the professional music business failed and so von Rohr worked again as a cook at the Restaurant Kreuz, followed by a semester at the Jazz School in Bern.
[14] With the same line-up, still with von Rohr as front man, Krokus recorded their third, totally hard rock album Pain Killer, which was also released as Pay It in Metal.
Triple-platinum in Switzerland and first concert tours in Great Britain and the United States followed, including the "percussion battle" between von Rohr and drummer Freddy Steady.
[17] As a result of continuing drug problems and unreliability of lead guitarist Kiefer, the first cracks in the band's structure became obvious and could not be ignored any longer.
First rhythm guitarist Mark Kohler was dismissed and replaced by Patrick Mason, and finally von Rohr, the last remaining founding member of the band, was ousted because he openly talked to Switzerland's daily newspaper Blick about his experience on the road and the tour excesses that followed as well as his rebellion against the business antics of their U.S. manager Stone.
Mounting management problems and both Marc Storace and Fernando von Arb throwing in the towel due to symptoms of extreme fatigue and exhaustion, marked the first official break-up in the band's history.
[28] After the dissolution of Krokus, Chris von Rohr worked under the pseudonym J. LaCross as producer of the first studio album Metal Marathon by a band called The Heavy's.
[32] Subsequently, the literary work, in which the author recalls the highs and lows of his career in his own words, became a cult book and bestseller not only for rock and metal fans.
[33] This cooperation turned out to be the beginning of a success story for both sides, as already the first, released in 1992, self-titled studio album Gotthard reached a significant chart position by making it to No.
[34] A year later, besides his duties with Gotthard, von Rohr also re-released his 1987 solo album Hammer and Tongue, this time however under the title The Good, The Bad and The Dög including the bonus track "See You Walking".
[35] Following this reissue, von Rohr's focus was again entirely on Gotthard and what followed was, despite or because of persistent internal tensions – at least in Switzerland – a single musical triumph.
[34] After that von Rohr participated on the ninth studio album of Polo Hofer & The Schmetterband (a Swiss dialect band) called Härzbluet, which was released in January 2000.
Through his connections in the music biz von Rohr initiated and produced the song "Who's gonna shoe your pretty little foot", a duet by Polo Hofer with the U.S. blues musician Willy DeVille.
This short detour into Swiss dialect collaborations was followed by a very significant private event of the successful musician and producer: the birth of his daughter Jewel in 2001.
[34] However, despite the successful joint working relationship over the last 11 years, that had its up's and down's and was not always easy for both sides, band and mentor von Rohr parted ways in 2002.
While he was working on his second book, he served as co-producer on Trybguet, the fifth studio album by Swiss dialect band Patent Ochsner, which was released in February 2003.
[37] Finally, in November 2003, his second literary work Bananenflanke (the second part of his autobiography) was published and rather quickly turned out to be another best seller for von Rohr.
[41] Von Rohr earned even more popularity with his slogan "Meh Dräck" during a broadcast of MusicStar, when he discouraged candidates to continue a music career due to their lackluster performance.
[47] However, the producers of the Schweizer Fernsehen (Swiss television) show were not convinced about the sustainability in the long run and Black’n’Blond was incidentally cancelled in September 2006.
[49] In December 2007 – despite Marc Storace still touring with the then active line-up of Krokus – an increased movement to revive the classic line-up of Krokus started when the Storace, von Arb, von Rohr and Steady performed in the Swiss TV show Die grössten Schweizer Hits (The Greatest Swiss Hits of All Time).
[51] Shortly thereafter, the return of rhythm guitarist Mark Kohler was announced, and the original line-up that recorded the 1982 album One Vice at a Time was reunited at last.
[52] Subsequently, the original Krokus line-up performed their much acclaimed reunion concert at the Stade de Suisse football stadium in Bern; then the band contributed the anthem for the Hockey World Cup, that was held in 2009 in Switzerland, called "Live for the Action".
[55] Before the preparations on a new album of Krokus could take place, Chris von Rohr published his third book Sternenstaub (Stardust) in October 2011, which includes some of the columns he had written over the years for the renowned magazine "Schweizer Illustrierte".
9 of the Swiss Fiction Book Charts and therefore established itself as a bestseller, like his two autobiographies Hunde wollt ihr ewig rocken (Dogs, do you want to rock forever) and Bananenflanke.