Interview: Johannes Oerding on songwriting and German-language pop – Munich

Other school bands used to burn 30 CDs when he sent 300 demos to record companies. Johannes Oerding’s rise “from the village boy from the garage” to the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and now to the Olympic Hall was a work victory. But it also requires musicality, songwriter skills and empathy – the 41-year-old has landed two albums in a row at the top of the charts and co-wrote other number one albums by Peter Maffay and Udo Lindenberg.

SZ: How do you write a good song? Your colleague James Taylor once gave us his beginner’s recipe: Find one you like, copy the chords and change it up a bit.

Johannes Oerding: James Taylor is right: Making a good song can be quite easy. Sometimes two chords are enough, like on “Another Brick In The Wall,” or even one, like on Pink’s “Get The Party Started.”

But it can’t be that alone.

You need a good line first. It should say a lot, trigger something, “I think the same thing,” “Oh, he said that nicely,” or “How embarrassing is that?” Generate attention first. And you have to have a roadmap: Where do I want to go with my song? Otherwise you’ll get into trouble: I’ve already said everything in the first stanza, what else is there to come? Widespread, we call it the “second stanza syndrome”.

The chicken-and-egg question: first the lyrics or first the music?

I’ll start with the text. Then I have my two, three, four lines and ask myself: How do they sound? Sad? Then I choose a sound dress in minor. If it’s positive, breaking, motivating lines, the music can also sound like that.

Then do it the other way around as Herbert Grönemeyer, who lives out musically and first babbles “banana lyrics” to the melodies.

I was amazed when I heard that. It reminds me of my first two albums. I was so happy that I was able to record an album in a real studio at all, that I quickly got to work on the music. Then I realized: I still have to write lyrics. Accordingly, they sound unfinished today.

Peter Maffay is very enthusiastic about you. What does working with the old German rocker mean to you?

I really appreciate what Peter has done for me. It started with “MTV unplugged” and with “Tabaluga”, where he first brought me in as a fan of my voice. He gave me the spotlight on stage, which is something special given all the vanity that we artists are said to have. On top of that, he let me into his private life, a friendship formed that led to him saying: let’s meet, talk, and through these conversations come to songs.

Is the songwriting craft different when you set the ideas of others like Maffay or Udo Lindenberg to music and not your own life?

That’s different. But that way you don’t get in each other’s way, so that you have to say: Oh, the song would suit me better than you. Peter’s way of writing or speaking is very different from mine. He’s more lyrical. While I almost use prose. I can relate well to an artist who comes from a completely different generation, even from a different genre. Udo also has a completely different language and wants to sing about completely different things than I do. I have to put myself in there. And that’s only possible if you spend time together.

Then you actually pursue two different professions: the singer-songwriter, and the songwriter, such as Peter Plate or Annette Humpe, who mainly write for other stars.

I do this rather sporadically when I have the head and time for others. I’ve received many requests. But I’m often already in the process of making my album and I have to say: I’m in my head right now. I am first and foremost a performing artist who wants to tell my own stories on stage.

Open detailed view

Your job is like gastronomy: there are top chefs and there are top chefs who become TV chefs because they also have show talent. That includes you. Is it part of the musician’s job in Germany today to be present?

I’ll take that as a compliment. But I don’t know if that’s part of it. So doing “The Voice” or “Sing my song” again also has to do with the coincidence that you couldn’t do anything else during the pandemic. But it’s definitely part of showing people your face and your ideas. I don’t sit on talk shows to promote my record, but to reveal more about myself: What does the boy actually stand for? Where does he stand politically? In the end, people come because of you as a person, not because of a song.

Why did you become a bit more personal on “Plan A” than on the more political previous album “Konturen”?

I had already made up my mind to deal with society again. But somehow “Plan A” turned out to be a pandemic album, you were at home a lot and dealt with the closest and smallest circle, the friends, the family, just those who were tangible. You haven’t been out in the world much, so it’s become very introspective, interpersonal.

“One to One Talk” is addressed to your father and has touched many listeners personally. Did you find it difficult to be so open?

Writing was not difficult for me. But then the question: Do I want to disclose this publicly? So I asked my father if that was okay. He was very touched and agreed. I notice more and more from album to album, this blabla, which has been said a thousand times, is told and too superficial. I’m more looking for the intimate topics that prick and hurt, where you sometimes wince and say: Does he have to tell that now, isn’t that too private? In the end I read something nice: If you, as a songwriter, have the feeling that you are running naked through the pedestrian zone, then you have written a very good song.

Can you still sing the word “love” or is that too trite? “Blumfeld” once said yes, you have to recapture it from the hit bards.

Jochen Distelmeyer is right. You can use any word, including heart and pain, if you put it in a nice context. For me, that’s the difference between Schlager and pop lyrics. On my record I also sing: “I think that’s called love”. But I imagine two mature sixty-year-old men at a counter in leather robes saying: “Hey Rolf, we’ve been here for 30 years, you’re a good friend, I think I love you.”

And then there is true love: “Ecke Schmilinsky” is a love song to Ina Müller, her partner, as many suspect.

Yes, it’s definitely a song about our history. What I’m singing is somewhat true. Except for the fact that it didn’t start on the Reeperbahn, but in Schellfischposten. But I liked the homage to Hans Albers. There you can see it again: I made a thousand songs about love. But I hadn’t sung about the moment when you get to know each other.

What did you learn from Ina Müller as an entertainer?

Good preparation is everything. In order to shake something out of your sleeve, you have to have put something in beforehand. If things go wrong on stage – raise your mouth and smile. The old cabaret school. And: say no sometimes, no matter how much the appeal is there, wanting to be present everywhere because you are afraid of losing relevance. You have to endure that. Even phases where you are not asked. Now, for example, no German-language music is played on the radio. This is a disaster for our genre.

In between, German-language hip-hop and songwriter pop from Bendzko to Giesinger dominated. What happened?

I admit, it was very inflationary with German-language music. Of course, because of the masses, it becomes less important at some point, because everyone copies what is successful. That’s why it’s definitely good for us to have a break where we can reinvent ourselves.

You wrote the lyrics of “Porcelain” in a few minutes. You said you were amazed that the fastest lyrics often become the most intense. Is this a good tip for aspiring songwriters?

Anything that comes out impulsively, I think is super meaningful in art and music. Of course you can still use a file from the back. But it means something when your thoughts slip out like that. That’s why you should always hold on to it, day and night. And don’t make the mistake of saying: Oh, I can write that down tomorrow, then you often forget it and get annoyed.

Johannes Oerding, Wednesday, March 29th, Munich, Olympiahalle