Spliff was a German rock group that existed from 1980 to 1985. Herwig Mitteregger, Bernhard Potschka and Manfred Praeker first formed the the political rock band Locomotive Kreuzberg in the seventies. In 1977, the band dissolved due to financial reasons. Together with keyboard player Reinhold Heil, who was then active in the jazz formation Bakmak, they formed a band with the working title Spliff (slang for a joint as in a cigarette filled with marihuana). The band was contacted by Nina Hagen to form the Nina Hagen Band. Together they had international success but relationships with the singer were already breaking up after the first album. Separately they finished the second album but after this, Spliff went ‘solo’.

After the separation of Nina Hagen, the four musicians created a concept show called ‘the Spliff radio show’. The rock opera was created together with singer Alf Klimek (of the band Klimax), the German-American DJ Rik De Lisle and singers Lisa Bialac and Russel Lyma. The show premiered on 2 May 1980 in Kant and was a bitter satire on the music business around the fictional rock star Rocko J. Fonzo. The English-language album appeared in 1980 but wasn’t the international success they expected.

In 1982, they returned to the German language with the album ‘85555’ (named after the catalog number of the album). The album was released in an English version but Spliff started focussing on their domestic market. Their greatest hits from this period were ‘Heut' Nacht’ and ‘Carbonara’. The other singles ‘Déjà vu’ (from ‘85555’) and ‘Das Blech’ (also from German-speaking album ‘Herzlichen Glückwunsch’) were also very successful in the German charts. The video for ‘Herzlichen Glückwunsch’ was made by later trance producer Paul Schmitz Moormann. In 1984 appeared to be the last album Spliff Schwarz auf Weiß with the single ‘Radio’. After this the band went on tour but fell apart in 1985 due to musical differences.

Reinhold Heil, Manfred Praeker and Bernhard Potschka founded the group Froon in 1987 (with Lyndon Connah) but had only one a minor hit (‘Bobby Mugabe’) and the band already dissolved in 1989.