BIOGRAPHY AWARDS GOLD/PLATINUM Marius is the masculine form of Maria. Why then are so few males named Marius? There’s an Ancient Roman general and the son of Norwegian princess Mette Marit. But there’s really only one well-known man named Marius, although lots of little boys in Germany have been given his name. The Marius we have in mind was born on December 6, 1948. His mother was named Liselotte; his father was the actor Hans Müller-Westernhagen, one of the greatest members of Düsseldorf’s Gründgens Ensemble, which was just then performing “Marius” (1929), the first part drama of a trilogy by Marcel Pagnol. Hans was an important role model for Marius, whom he introduced to radio plays and stage acting. On the other hand, Hans was also a fearsome figure who suffered from bouts of depression and alcoholism, and died prematurely at age 44. Marius was 14 years old at the time and already on his way toward a film career. His mother had mixed feelings about that: if he really must opt for an acting career, she would rather have seen him in legitimate theater, for example, playing Hamlet. Marius Müller-Westernhagen was ambitious and talented. Nonetheless, shortly before his father’s death, his father took him out of Düsseldorf’s Humboldt high school, a humanistic institution with an inhumane French teacher. Bowing to his mother’s pressure, he agreed to finish trade school. His first leading role came in 1964, when he starred in a TV movie called Die höhere Schule [“The Higher School”]. It was directed by Wilhelm Semmelroth and its screenplay was based on a story by Sholom Aleichem. Young man Marius had become an actor. For the next 23 years, Marius Müller-Westernhagen would perform leading roles in more than 25 films. His filmography runs the gamut from many first-rate film versions of major works of literature, e.g. Sladek oder Die schwarze Armee [“Sladek, A Sexual Congress”] based on the novel by Ödön von Horváth, Der Gehilfe [“The Assistant“] based on the story by Bernard Malamud, Der Mann auf der Mauer [“The Wall Jumper”] by Peter Schneider and the excellent Autorenfilm Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages [“The Second Awakening of Christa Klages”] by Margarethe von Trotta, Klaras Mutter [“Clara’s Mother”] and Mosch by Tankred Dorst, as well as entertainment of the better sort, e.g. an episode of crime series Tatort and the worse sort: Hurra, bei uns geht’s rund [“Never a Dull Moment”] with Bill Ramsey and Dieter Thomas Heck is a film of which he’s still ashamed today. He performed under Christoph Blumenberg’s direction in Der Madonna-Mann [“The Madonna Man”] in 1987: this film which would be his last for some time. A second wave of fame was starting to swell for Westernhagen: his career as a rock musician was just beginning. His first wave of popularity had come overnight virtually in the late 1970s, when Peter F. Bringmann was shooting a second film starring a certain Theo Gromberg. The first one, Aufforderung zum Tanz [“Invitation to Dance”] (1977), had been such a successful TV movie that it practically called out for a follow-up. Two-fisted Theo gegen den Rest der Welt [“Theo Against the Rest of the World”] punched its way into Germany’s cinemas in 1979. Marius Müller-Westernhagen’s performance as a tough trucker searching for his stolen rig catapulted him out of the narrow circle of arts-section readers and into fame with mass audiences. Three million moviegoers made Theo the most successful German film since 1945: a blessing that put much-needed wind into the sails of the lanky young man’s rock-and-roll career, and a curse for the mature singer/songwriter to whom the Theo image would stick, stubborn as pinesap, though he repeatedly sloughed his skin. At first, everything happened all at once: his sudden rise to stardom thanks to Theo (which won the Ernst Lubitsch Prize) and his breakthrough as a musician. Everything before then had been searches and experiments. Marius Müller-Westernhagen had sung and and played rhythm guitar and harmonica with various bands. As singer with the Düsseldorf-based band “Harakiri Whoom,” he rose to the status of what Polly Eltes, who would later costar with him in a film, described as a “minor local cult figure.” Westernhagen had been the central figure in a 1968 film called Harakiri Whoom The flick, a colorful satire that lampooned the German army, was banned at first because it allegedly “subverted the nation’s ability to defend itself.” Westernhagen stooped to lowbrow satire in 1972 with the song Gebt Bayern zurück an die Bayern [“Give Bavaria Back to the Bavarians”], which was his cover version of Paul McCartney’s “Give Ireland Back to the Irish.” He also worked in the film business (above all as an assistant director), and as an author for the magazines “Twen” and “Underground” and for the satirical TV series “Express.” In his own words, “I wanted to compensate for my tenderness and prove to everyone that I can accomplish things on my own.” In 1974, at the age of 24, Marius Müller-Westernhagen moved to Hamburg, where he shared his apartment – and his life – with the actress Katrin Schaake. Singing scores under the pseudonym “Marius West,” he enjoyed a fairly strong initial success with Celebration the English-language title song to Roland Klick’s movie Supermarkt [“Supermarket”]. In Hamburg, the same city where Udo Lindenberg was emerging as the first credible German-language rock singer, Westernhagen met the producer and composer Peter Hesslein and the band “Lucifer’s Friend,” with whom he teamed up for his first three albums. The debut record was called Das erste Mal [“The First Time”]. The shy youth on its cover evoked protective instincts. The music is an ambitious but somewhat indecisive mix of rock, pop, and songwriter attitude beefed up with the era’s typical arranged brass sections. The record didn’t cause a massive upswing in his career, although contained a few tunes that would later become classics at his concerts. This debut album was followed by two similarly constructed follow-up records: Bittersüß [“Bittersweet”] and Ganz allein krieg ich’s nicht hin [“I Can’t Do It All Alone”]. Few fans and fewer critics would disagree that the second album in the series wasn’t much better than the first and that the third wasn’t much better than the second. Marius Müller-Westernhagen wasn’t particularly satisfied with the direction his career was taking. His book Versuch dich zu erinnern [“Try to Remember”] vividly describes a scene in the office of his record-company boss: Marius pounded his fist on the table and demanded artistic freedom, immediately and in writing. Siegfried E. Loch, then-president of Warner Deutschland and now the head of a very successful jazz label, granted him his freedom, in writing. The singer didn’t have much to lose since he was still basically an actor, and he had won this battle of wills. He recorded Mit Pfefferminz bin ich dein Prinz [“With Peppermint I’m the Prince”] with his new producer Lothar Meid, who played bass in the cult band “Amon Düül II,” in 1978. This was the first straight, forthright album in Westernhagen’s own distinctive handwriting. The album’s cover photo was by Michael Ballhaus, today one of Hollywood’s best cameramen. The music was simply produced: “full of mistakes, but also full of atmosphere,” MMW says. The disk wasn’t an instant bestseller, but it drilled its way into the ears of young people, who heard his saucy sound and wanted to see him live on stage. The Peppermint tour sold out even before the Theo film began its run in movie houses. MMW couldn’t attend the film’s premiere because he was performing live on the music tour. There are moments in life when everything suddenly and effortlessly goes right. Now a classic in German pop history, Mit Pfefferminz bin ich dein Prinz became for many young people the soundtrack of their adolescence. Today too, it’s lost none of its honest, rough-and-ready charm. It took three years of sales to earn a gold record. And in February 1999, 21 years after its debut, the album was awarded three platinum records for sales in excess of 1½ million units. The new recipe for success was quickly reused for two more albums: Sekt oder Selters [“Sparkling Wine or Seltzer”] (1980), with a cover photo by “Tin Drum” cameraman Igor Luther, and Stinker (1981), with cover design by Klaus Voormann, who created the cover for the Beatles’ album “Revolver.” These were still good records for MMW, full of earthy music and saucy lyrics, delivered in the language of convincing stage characters. The cast includes a poor gambler, Gerti from East Germany, a narrow-minded conservative bigot, and, of course, a variety of lovers. This trilogy established Westernhagen’s career as a real rock-and-roller and also polished his reputation as a lyricist whose accurate gaze could capture or caricature people’s feelings and thoughts, fears and hopes. Change, the endless search for newness, the perennial flight from the routine, is one of the constants in Marius Müller-Westernhagen’s artistic career. This may sound peculiar to those who, looking back at the 1990s, regard him as the personification of the German consensus musician. He never shied away from popularity and its perks, but neither did he ever bend over backwards to woo it. At a certain point, he had consciously begun to cultivate a folksy down-to-earth image to discourage people from identifying him with the roles, poses, and metamorphoses that he embodied. Not all of his fans were able to discriminate between the actor and the act. To escape from habitual routines and keep from getting stuck in ruts, he always sought new forms in his genre. This was his strategy after the threefold success of Pfefferminz , Sekt and Stinker . His next album, Das Herz eines Boxers [“The Heart of a Boxer”], came out in 1982. He’d recorded it in London with musicians whom he’d sought and found in England. It’s a coarse-grained, fast-paced disk with a touch of new wave and reggae, the kind of album that masochist journalists love because it metaphorically lifts its leg and pisses on theirs. “I used to have trouble with the boys. I was too naïve to speak the truth. I thought I was an ‘artist,’ not a whore. That did me a lot of damage.” This disk was followed a year later by Geiler is’ schon [“It’s Sexier That Way”]. Though it’s not one of his best-known albums, it features one of his best-known songs: Laß uns leben [“Let’s Live”]. Jim Rakete shot the cover photo, which makes MMW look like the softhearted rocker-boy next door. A change of image and a new style were soon to come. And come they did in 1984 with Die Sonne so rot [“The Sun So Red”], his first experiment with programmed beats, synthetic sounds, and Kralle Krawinkel of “Trio” on guitar. Westernhagen and his producer Lothar Meid recorded this album more or less unassisted, the same way they would later record Lausige Zeiten [“Lousy Times”] (1986). Going it alone is okay as a reorientation and artistic statement, but it’s not the royal road for a singer who belongs on stage in front of a loud rock band. Between “ Die Sonne so rot” and “Lausige Zeiten,” MMW released Laß uns leben [“Let’s Live”], a collection of his prettiest ballads from 1974 to 1985. He was in transition, and the dawn of something great and new was just around the corner. Westernhagen without Marius Müller At first glance, the man on the cover looks a bit chubby in his leather jacket and pilot’s sunglasses. A second look reveals that someone’s hugging him. Closer scrutiny discovers an eye peering from beneath MMW’s chin. The person standing there behind him is the new woman in his life: Romney Williams, a successful New York fashion model. They had first met in Hamburg when he’d just ended a long-lasting relationship with Katrin Schaake and had fathered a child with his English film partner Polly Eltes ( Der Schneemann ) [(“The Snowman”)]. Their daughter, named Sarah and nicknamed Mimi, was born in 1985. Marius and Romney each had a few hurdles to overleap before they could get together. Romney was still married in New York and she had a five-year-old son named Giulio. Romney and Marius were wed in 1989 and they’ve been the ideal couple ever since. They’re two complementary souls, an indissoluble unit. The new album with the aforementioned photo was made together with the Can engineer René Tinner. Its title bears the same name as its singer: Westernhagen for the first time without the cognomens Marius and Müller. He’s uncompromisingly true to himself on this record, which features arrow-straight, immaculately produced, up-to-date rock ’n’ roll set to emotionally openhearted lyrics. Along with Nimm mich mit [“Take Me Along”] and Ganz und gar [“Utterly”], the album also includes a song called Freiheit [“Freedom”] which began its life here as one good song among many, and was destined to become the unofficial hymn of Germany’s Reunification. The next coup was Halleluja (1989). It contained a catchy tune called Weil ich dich liebe [“Because I Love You”] and an audible version of Viagra called SeXy . Westernhagen played to sellout crowds on a major German tour and released a grandiose double album of live concert recordings of his best songs in 1990. Now the superlatives really begin. The man had become a megastar, and he would remain one throughout the 1990s. New albums repeatedly rose to the top of the charts; every new tour was a sellout; and the media made a commotion about a German musician on a scale that had previously been granted only to English or American pop stars. Westernhagen’s tunes were among the Top Ten on the Media Control Charts for 111 weeks between 1990 and 1999, including 28 weeks in the Number One position, with a commanding lead over every other international megastar. Only one honor continued to elude the decade’s album king: he never conquered a spot among the Top Ten in the biggest-selling singles chart. Westernhagen, a freak for control, holds all the reins in his own hands. He writes the songs and their lyrics . He has very precise ideas about the production of his albums and the licensing of his live performances. And, as the employer of musicians, graphic artists, directors, etc, he’s the leader of the pack and the alpha wolf. He’s acutely aware that Westernhagen the artist is also Westernhagen the product. To be taken seriously as an artist, that product must be perfect in every detail: from the music to the technical quality to the artwork. Each of the albums that he released during the 1990s embodies a thoroughly well-thought-out unity of form and content. The next apogee in his phenomenal ascent was called Jaja [“Yaya”], an album with an eye-catching aesthetic and a cover photo by the French star photographer Bettina Rheims. This marked the first time that Marius Müller-Westernhagen took sole responsibility as producer. The album had already reaped a rich harvest by the end of 1992: it earned three Echo Awards (Artist of the Year, Music Video of the Year, and Producer of the Year), plus the Silver Screen Award for the video to Krieg [“War”] and a Bambi Award in the “pop” category. Jaja sold more than a million copies (double platinum). The tour of the year took him to the republic’s soccer stadiums. Never before had a German musician dared to take this step, but after having sold out the country’s biggest halls, the charismatic performer now easily filled its sporting arenas too. It’s the mix that made the show go, and this blend became a recipe for success. Alongside moodily ironic numbers about complicated relationships ( Rosi, Men Are So Weak and fatal cases of male hubris, he repeatedly found eloquent words to raise consciousness about what was going on beyond the fun zone and out there in the big wide world: “It’s war / Can you hear the mothers crying / War / I’m afraid.” Even before its release, Affentheater [literally “Ape Theater”, figuratively “Farce”] (1994) had already attained platinum status thanks to preorders. Expectation creates pressure, but Westernhagen always takes enough time. The new release was a timeless, unmistakable album, well-rounded and self-contained in every respect, featuring Es geht mir gut [“I’m Okay”] and Willenlos [“Will-less”] as its catchiest numbers. The subsequent “Affentour” [“Monkey Tour”] was captured by the documentary filmmaker Don Pennebaker in a film called Keine Zeit [“No Time”] (1996), which was accompanied by the release of a homonymous soundtrack . At this point in his career, Westernhagen regularly appeared in front of enormous crowds. His live appearances were unforgettable communal happenings that had downright messianic overtones for some of his fans. But being pegged for a prophet can be a very risky tightrope walk. Westernhagen knew how to take advantage of this privileged situation. He could do more than merely organize a high-spirited celebration. He also knew how to preface his songs with plainspoken words that steered clear of fussbudget self-righteousness and never became a know-it-all message or a take-my-advice sermon. An artist must take a stand against the arms race, xenophobia, and political corruption. And when an artist is the best-known among the well-known, he’s repeatedly pestered by lobbyists who want him to put his face in front of a camera and sing or say a few soundbites into a waiting microphone. A pop musician at the peak of his popularity has only two options. He can do the splits trying to satisfy the competing interests and expectations of his fans, his record company, the media, and himself. But gymnastics of this kind are likely to twist him out of shape and leave him permanently hyper-extended. The other option is to make a firm decision not to knuckle under. When a flood tide of requests threatened to drown him, Westernhagen decided to leave nothing to chance and to keep the controls in his own two hands. This aloofness was essential for survival, but it has also been a source of criticism. Considering the integrity and fate of other celebrities of his caliber – whether athletes, artists, or television personalities – everyone has to decide for themselves whether Westernhagen’s decision was the right one. Radio Maria another thoroughly choreographed album, debuted in 1998. Irritated by verbiage from a religious broadcasting station in his Italian refuge, he used this new album to make many-faceted remarks about faith, gods, and fallen angels: not a bad approach for someone who had become the object of similarly idolatrous veneration. As usual, this album followed the familiar trajectory to the top of the charts. Radio stations played the song Wieder hier [“Here Again”] over and over. Its singer-songwriter again climbed the familiar stairs onto stages throughout the land. Marius Müller-Westernhagen bade farewell to the republic’s stadiums in a gigantic show of veritably Wagnerian dimensions. After that, he gave up the grueling grind of being a rock star at the instant when it was most beautiful to be one. And he granted himself a timeout. So far… … so good. But where can you go and what can you do when you’ve already reached the top? Make a “best of” album to celebrate a bountiful harvest safely carted to the granary. So weit... [“So far…”] (2000) was the modest name of this stocktaking. The album was released in a normal and a deluxe edition. Westernhagen went to London’s Metropolis Studios in 2000, where he and Tim Young digitally remastered his entire musical oeuvre , which they polished until its sound gleamed more brightly than ever. In April 2001, Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schröder recognized his social-political dedication and personally awarded him the highest honor that the nation can award to a civilian: the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande (Cross of Merits of Germany). Let honors be accorded to those who deserve them, and let hardworking artists take a well-earned break to refresh their creative energies now and then. But sooner or later a musician has to make music. It was at this juncture that a sudden event radically changed the world. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 collapsed much more than just two tall towers. The age-old hope for humanity’s ability to live together and the dream of a peaceful world order trembled too. Marius Müller-Westernhagen was by no means immune to the catastrophe in the hometown of his wife Romney, who had grown up with a view of the World Trade Center. He anticipated the consequences these occurrences would have for global politics and personal lives. He expresses many of his thoughts and feelings on his album In den Wahnsinn [“In the Madness”], which he co-produced with New Yorker Kevin Bents. This album, which debuted in November 2002, is as grandiose as it is undervalued. Some of its lyrics seem abstract and hermetic, as though they were yearning to be interpreted and understood. Other lines are immediately comprehensible: It’s time / that you finally realize / finally understand / that it’s not only about you . More musically complex and more meticulously crafted than any of its predecessors, this album is full of magical sounds, technical refinements, and rhythmic variety. Its songs are admittedly a bit grim sometimes and its title isn’t exactly optimistic. As usual, it catapulted to the Number One position and has sold quite well thus far: it earned platinum status with more than 300,000 copies sold. Nonetheless, its success lagged behind expectations. News of this shortfall was avidly gobbled up by the naysayers who recalled the “better times” their megastar had had in the past and who now believed that they were witnessing the setting of a fading star. But Marius Müller-Westernhagen had arrived at exactly the spot where he’d always wanted to be. He no longer needed to prove anything to anybody. He didn’t have to keep one eye on ratings and sales quotas. And he could indulge in the luxury of making his own music exactly as he saw fit. The lyrics of the songs on In den Wahnsinn ´were published in book form in a volume entitled Mein Herz dein Blut [“My Heart Your Blood”]. Versuch dich zu erinnern [“Try to Remember”], a comprehensive and lovingly designed volume of texts and photos, followed early in 2004. This compendium includes countless photos shot by Westernhagen’s “house photographer” Dieter Eikelpoth , a wide-ranging interview with the political journalist Manfred Bissinger , who asks Westernhagen totally different questions than the ones typically posed by a music journalist, and an abundance of movie posters, covers, snapshots, manuscripts, and other documents. In the autumn of 2004, Marius Müller-Westernhagen unexpectedly announced plans for a new tour of Germany’s biggest concert halls. He’d never said he would never perform live again. He’d simply wanted to put an end to the soccer-stadium shows, which had reached the limits of their feasibility. Most of the stops on this tour sold out so quickly that additional dates had to be added. And now the new album has just been completed. Nahaufnahme [“Close-up”] is a coproduction with Jay Stapley and Dieter Krauthausen. The cover photo is once again the work of a famous celebrity: Karl Lagerfeld. Marius Müller-Westernhagen’s skills as a singer/songwriter flourish with undreamt-of profusion here. He probably never sounded so relaxed, so totally at home in his own skin. He circumnavigates the world of feelings and passions in fourteen songs. And he finds insistent words to express the infinite facts and facets of love. Just as one could talk about a love story or a love novel, one could justifiably describe this record as a “love album.” With more than thirty years of career behind him and carrying the weight of more life experience on his shoulders, Westernhagen has found a new form here, a form that condenses into the self-confident assertion in the lyrics to the first tune on the CD to be released as a spin-off single : “I’m one / I’m completely one with myself.”