by Heather PharesThe German alt-rock quartet Guano Apes consists of vocalists Sandra Nasic, guitarist Henning Ruemenapp, bassist Stefan Ude and drummer Dennis Poschwatta. Ude, Ruemenapp and Poschwatta had been playing together for awhile and added Nasic in time to win first place in the 1996 Local Heroes competition held by VIVA, Germanys music TV channel. The Guano Apes fusion of metal, pop and rap beat out over 1000 competitors, and their debut single Open Your Eyes was a Top 10 hit in Germany that year and stayed in the Top 100 for 30 weeks. Thanks to VIVAs heavy rotation of the video for Open Your Eyes, Guano Apes signed a deal with Gun Records, who released the groups full-length album Proud Like A God in 1997. The groups second single Lord of the Boards, which was commissioned for the 1998 European Snowboarding Championship, was an even bigger hit and pushed the album to platinum status in Germany and gold status in other European countries. RCA released Proud Like a God in the US in 1999.