How time flies: five years ago we spoke to Udo Lindenberg about his 70th birthday, Easy Deutsch and the club for centenarians.
Now he is celebrating his 75th. For this reason, here is our interview from back then from the archive.
Early evening at the “Vier Jahreszeiten” hotel in Munich.
Udo Lindenberg welcomes you on the fourth floor, cigar smoke wafts through the room.
The singer and musician is deeply relaxed with a small wheat beer in front of him - he won't drink more than two or three sips in the course of the following hour.
The obligatory poison green of his socks flashes out between the black of his pants and that of his shoes.
Lindenberg's new album “Stronger than Time” has just been released;
on Tuesday he celebrates his 70th birthday.
High time to dive with the panic president "into the dark deep corridors of the past", as a Lindenberg song from 1972 is called.
That's why there is a pile of records in front of him.
What does it do for you when you see your records from 30 or 40 years ago today?
Great joy that it all exists. And I'm looking forward to another 30 years afterwards, right? I always associate that with the adventures, how the songs were created, and with the people I meet, the musicians, the privy councilors. (Abruptly.) Do you like a drink? Will come soon, right? Of course, I hear all that a lot these days, because according to the earthly count of time I will soon be 70. We don't know birthdays from outer space. You know the story: In Gronau I slipped off a meteorite and landed in a double grain field. (Laughs.) And sometimes I felt a little alien. Which may have been due to some active ingredients that I was taking. When I think of the number 70, I also think a lot of this record (suggests “All clear on the Andrea Doria” from 1973), foundation of Panikband.Many of them are loyal friends - through thick and thin and not through thick and stupid.
And also "through difficult times", as a song on your new album is called. In it you sing: “You no longer believe in miracles.” (Lindenberg lights a cigar.) There have been moments in your life when things didn't go well. Have you ever given up believing in miracles?
(Pause.) Well, I thought it would be a miracle if I survived all of this.
Such a rock star, he goes to 50 and then it's off.
Not already at 27, that would be a shame, right?
(Lindenberg alludes to Club 27, to musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain, who died at 27; editor's note) At 27, we really lived rock'n'roll consistently .
We thought it was fun - it was fun too.
Now at 70, I think it's really a medical miracle after all that excess has gone on.
But for some time now I've been doing a lot of sport.
Always go jogging at night.
Tonight too?
Sure, tonight on the Isar.
Well camouflaged, with a hoodie on.
Medical aspects are one thing. But how do you as an artist manage to motivate yourself over the decades, even through the dry spells? Where do you get the energy from?
It's some kind of automatic.
This is a deep impulse to experiment with music, to be an inventor with music.
It started with me when I was nine years old.
Of course I've had my crises - that's for sure!
Sometimes you think: you have written 500 texts - how do I get the phoenix up again with those heavy wings?
In a good Hollywood film, the hero has to slip off his horse at some point and fly into the mud, the audience has to worry, wants to fear too - will he get back on the horse?
He'll get the matter settled and all that, right?
If it hadn't been like that in real life, I wouldn't have had to stage it either.
But that was definitely right for the creation of legends.
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Were invited to the centenary club: MM editors Katja Kraft and Michael Schleicher with Lindenberg.
© Photo: Marcus Schlaf
That sounds clear.
Of course, sometimes I was a bit desperate, and I was also afraid.
How do I transform myself from a teen star with a “Bravo” star cut and all that into a dignified rock'n'roll chansonnier who is 70 or 80?
Charles Aznavour, whom I can use for orientation, still goes on stage at 90.
But there aren't many who do that at that age.
So according to the earthly counting of time.
I have two time counts.
The one after which we celebrate birthdays is not even known in space.
According to our era, you are a living legend today.
Some fans would like to have the panic president as federal president.
I think that's funny.
Some come with some kind of awe, yeah?
I always say: Forget all the posters between us, everything that has been created in people's imaginations over the years.
Take off your glasses (take off your glasses) and look me in the eye.
I'm just a crazy man too, you know?
Didn't learn anything properly, I had to do something.
Then I was given this voice and the musicality and now I'm on stage.
But not like a star, but like some kind of buddy.
Is this closeness the explanation for your success?
Yes. I also feel like someone on the street. There are a lot of people who work on the lyrics, on the street, in the pub, at the bar. (Laughs.) It's about everything that makes life - not just for me, but for most people. I just stood there, someone has to do the job. I haven't had a second singing lesson. I couldn't dance either. At first I was well on stage - and so that I wouldn't fly around, I developed a dance, the panic dance, which is still practiced today. Then I thought: Well, now you have to get to the special lyrics, you have to swim particularly far out in the whiskey ocean. It's a great gift that I can do that and that we have such a great audience, that we are such a great panic family together. Concerts are like family celebrations.
Does that mean that the stage Udo is also the private Udo?
Yes, everything is one.
Is it an exaggeration to say: Lindenberg has changed the German language?
You could say that. That's Easy German, right? Easy German, the street language. I really, really like reading Hermann Hesse, Brecht and Rilke. But today the language is different. And I changed them too - together with the street experts. I took slogans from graffiti walls and gave my slogans to the street. It's a constant correspondence. Sometimes you start a sentence and don't know exactly where it ends. Or a word is missing, then a new one is invented. And you can sing them well, which is also why I was so good at it because I used to be a drummer. Drummer at Doldinger. That's why I sing a bit like drums: Tong-de-Tong-Tong-Dong! Not to forget the Lindenbergsche Muscheln! I've got prizes for especially great mumbling. (Laughs.) I have to be a little careful when mumbling - but still speak clearly and audibly what I learned from Reinhard Mey.
"Death is a mistake" is what it says in "Strong Like Two", the theme song of your CD from 2008. Is your own death an issue for you?
Yes of course!
Even as a toddler.
In such a small town, you can clearly see that death is not as anonymous as it is in big cities.
So you see him on the street: the hearses that drive past with horses, and the whole city in black.
Sure, that's a shock, the more intensely you live - with the constant awareness: Everything is finite.
Everyone would of course like to be “stronger than time”.
My songs are stronger than time.
(Taps on the records) They are children, these songs, the small and the big ones.
Your heirs?
Yes.
This way of singing, making music, doing shows will probably endure for a long time to come.
If at some point I no longer ... (clears his throat. Pause.) But I don't have that at all in my planning.
I just founded the 100-year-old club.
(Laughs.)
Then we will meet for the next meeting in 30 years at the latest, agreed?
Clear!
You can also join the club.
I am in good shape.
