Frederik Heisler is a drummer based in the scenes of Basel, Switzerland and Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Additionally to his work as band leader of his own band MAMA MAGNET Frederik is a freelance drummer throughout Europe in various styles ranging from Jazz to Hip Hop, Pop, Rock and electronic/club music.
Born as the oldest of three children in Freiburg im Breisgau, Frederik grew up in the South of Germany. His father, Alexander Heisler, a doctor in the countryside, founded the world renown "Internationales Zelt-Musik-Festival" (ZMF) in 1982 in Freiburg that Frederik attended every year of his life and which enhanced his natural curiosity towards music and arts. Thanks to is father and also his mother, a professional music teacher and singer, he was always surrounded by music and began playing the drums at the age of six.
In the Fall of 2007, aged 19, after graduating from high school Frederik started traveling the world for ten months on his own. India,Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. were part of his itinerary and helped developing a tolerant, open and self confident approach to all kinds of music, art and above all life itself.
Returning to Germany in 2008 Frederik moved to Basel, Switzerland, and enrolled as regular jazz student at the Music Conservatory after leaving studies at medical institution Charite in Berlin, Germany. Switzerland became his home for the years to come and teachers like Malcolm Braff, Jorge Rossy, Gregor Hilbe, Aydin Esen, Larry Grenadier and Wolfgang Muthspiel have had a crucial influence on his musical development. In 2012 he studied with David Xirgu and Jo Krause at ESMUC in Barcelona, Spain and finished his studies the following year.
Until today Frederik has released MAMA MAGNET's (former Magnetband) record 'mixtake volume one' (2013) that won the U.S. Downbeat Magazines Student Music Award in categories Blues, Pop, Rock Group. He repeatedly plays with his spanish-catalan piano trio with pianist Marco Mezquida and bassist Manel Fortia. In addition Frederik is part of the jazz piano trio with Florian Favre - p and Roberto Koch -b.
Furthermore Frederik can be heard with his electronic duos Buffen&Brezeln with live electronic musician Julian Maier-Hauff as well as the live_club_two_man_impro_jukebox neo.magnet with the swiss pianist Florian Favre. He can be heard live and on record with surf rock band Mini Magnet and also as sideman with Swiss Singer Songwriter Lisa Hasler's Rhinozeros and Elisa Day. His modern energy_kamikaze_trio Glindebeat with Ingo Hipp and Johannes Maikranz will release its record in 2017, aswell as the german tenor saxophone player Sebastian von Keler with his band Tonhaufen Deluxe and Australian trombone and euphonium player Raphael Rosse's Mimon. New York based alto saxophonist Niko Seibold recorded and toured with Frederik on the drums the same year and was nominated for Neuer Deutscher Jazzpreis 2019. The same year German rap artist CHABEZO (Otto Normal) released music with musicians from MAMA MAGNET on the sessions.
In 2022 recently recorded albums with Mimon, Amster and KarateFohlen will be released.