Belfegore was a project and brainchild of the German singer and guitarist Michael (Meikel) David Clauss, formerly of
Nichts and Der KFC, with Manfred "Charly" Terstappen (aka Charly T Charles) and Walter Jaeger, formerly with
Die Krupps. The band was formed 1982 in
Düsseldorf and quickly became part of the
Neue Deutsche Welle (German New Wave) movement, playing a distinctly German style of new wave music that owed a lot to both the early UK goth scene as well as the European
punk movement. Their first album,
A Dog Is Born was a mostly self-financed affair, gaining limited release in Germany through Pure Freude and imported into the UK by
Rough Trade Records. This release was followed by the self-titled 12" EP
Belfegore and the 7" live single "Marmor". In 1983, just as the group signed a record deal with Elektra, Jaeger left the band and was replaced by Raoul Walton. The resultant album,
Belfegore, produced by Conny Plank and released with two different
cover versions, saw a shift away from the more experimental new wave sound to something harder-edged. The band supported
U2 on the European part of the
Unforgettable Fire Tour. In 1985, Clauss dissolved the band because he claimed he had had enough of the rock and roll lifestyle and he went on to study medicine in Germany. Raoul Walton later played with the German rock band
Anyone's Daughter. In 1988, Charly Terstappen joined
The Lords, one of Germany's longest-serving rock bands. The video for "All That I Wanted", which was directed by Academy Award-winning director
Zbigniew Rybczyński in one of his first forays into music video (he also directed promos for Art of Noise and Propaganda), was also aired on MuchMusic in Canada, to much acclaim. On 30 September 2011, the band (Clauss/Walton/Terstappen) played a one-off reunion gig at 'Ratinger Hof' in
Düsseldorf. In 2011, acclaimed director
David Fincher used "All That I Wanted" off of their second album in his adaption of
Stieg Larsson's worldwide bestseller,
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first novel in the
Millennium series. It was featured in the background during a scene when the titular character,
Lisbeth Salander, is hacking
Mikael Blomkvist's computer and does background checks on Dirch Frode and Hans-Erik Wennerström. The latter becomes an important part of the plot in the series as the story progresses. == Members ==