His songs are classics of pop music and the soundtrack of a generation. Whether “Daddy Cool” or “Rasputin”: music producer Frank Farian created danceable world hits like on an assembly line. The breakthrough amazed him. “The success was a huge surprise. I always thought I wouldn’t make it. It didn’t look like it at the beginning,” he once told the German Press Agency. Now Farian has died at the age of 82 – in his adopted home of Miami, as his family announced on Tuesday via an agency. “Looking at the sun from the studio: that’s what I always wanted,” he once said about his move to the USA.
Roth: “Unique feel for the spirit of the times”
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) explained that Farian was “one of the first to prove that pop music from Germany can also be internationally successful.” He had a unique feel for the zeitgeist. “From soul, disco and pop, he created a whole new sound that was danced to all over the world.”
Saarland Prime Minister Anke Rehlinger (SPD) said: “Germany is losing a music legend with proud roots in Saarland.” People would remember Farian and keep his music in their ears. Former Milli Vanilli star Fabrice Morvan also expressed his condolences to the family of music producer Frank Farian. “His music will live on.”
He was born as Franz Reuther on July 18, 1941 in Kirn an der Nahe. As Frank Farian, his name was synonymous with international success in the music business. Since he made teenagers cry with his sad hit “Rocky” in the mid-1970s, he hardly ever performed – that “was over at some point”. His mega success began as a man in the background, as a producer. For example with the group Boney M.
Milli Vanilli: From huge success to scandal
Farian sang the first track “Baby Do You Wanna Bump” (1975) himself. Because he couldn’t perform the polyphonic song solo on stage, he looked for a band to present the song. Two members sang live, two more moved their lips. With success: hits like “Rivers of Babylon” or “Ma Baker” are pop history.
A similar project followed with Milli Vanilli – but it went wrong. It became a scandal in the music business. The disco-pop hit “Girl You Know It’s True” by childhood friends Robert “Rob” Pilatus and Fabrice “Fab” Morvan sold more than 30 million copies worldwide at the end of the 1980s. The first Milli Vanilli album was certified six times platinum in the USA in 1989, and the Munich duo won a Grammy for best new artist. It later became known that the two had not actually sung themselves, but had moved their lips to the voices of professional singers. The music world was shocked.
Farian criticized the Milli Vanilli film – but praised Schweighöfer
The case is still considered one of the biggest cheating scandals in music history. A film by director Simon Verhoeven tells the story currently in cinemas. Farian worked as a co-producer, but said he had no direct influence and trusted the film company. In his own words, however, he saw the story as not being portrayed correctly – the film was “less than 80 percent” true.
“It’s not my experienced truth. That’s why I’m a bit distant from it,” he told the “Saarbrücker Zeitung” before its publication in December. Singer Robert “Rob” Pilatus, for example, died differently than in the film. However, Farian was enthusiastic about the performance of actor Matthias Schweighöfer, who portrays Farian in the film: “Nobody can look like Frank Farian! But he embodies me excellently,” he said. In the interview, Farian also announced that a new Milli Vanilli album with previously unreleased songs would soon be released; the video for the second single had already been shot.
“Frank supported our film from the beginning, even though my script was quite critical of it — and I will always be grateful to him for that,” said director and screenwriter Simon Verhoeven, according to the statement. Verhoeven called Farian “a talent of the century.” He was “a music maniac” who “worked his way to the top of international pop music with unbridled ambition from the poorest backgrounds in the German provinces.”
Training to become a chef “because I was always hungry”
Farian was not born with success with bands like Eruption and No Mercy. “I never met my father; he died in the war before I was born. My mother was my personal rubble woman. She removed all the obstacles and made everything possible for me, even though we had no money.” At the age of 14, young Franz moved to live with relatives in Saarland and learned to be a chef – “because I was always hungry and thought I would always have something to eat.”
The musical beginnings were humble. At a family evening, the priest gave him a penny because he had sung “Moon has risen” so beautifully – “my first fee”. Farian recorded their first record with his band Die Schatten in a former stable in 1963. “There was a microphone and a tape recorder in the middle.”
Chart successes and gold records
From Saarland we went to Hesse, to a recording studio in Rosbach near Frankfurt, and later to Miami – and, for example, to concerts with Boney M. in Moscow. When Farian spoke about it, his voice sounded serious. “I often think about how we danced on Red Square,” he said. “My father died in Russia and I am a celebrated star there. You can’t dream of that.”
He won gold records and celebrated chart successes – but Farian once emphasized that he was unable to decipher the secret of his great success. When he mixed a song, he thought about his time as a chef. “It’s always about the ingredients. You can say you become a musician, but a lot of it is luck. Success cannot be planned.”
Enjoyment of life and work were important to him. He said on his 80th birthday that he had no other wishes. “I’ve succeeded in almost everything. I’m living the American dream in German.”
With information from dpa