His musical world ranges from detuned guitars to Armani rockers. Marius Müller-Westernhagen has been a constant for decades. The 75th birthday is celebrated with a great album.
The “Peppermint Prince” is stuck to him. “Freedom” also remains associated with his name. Marius Müller-Westernhagen represents the snotty rocker as well as blues in the pub or ballads that have been sung a thousand times. The long life of an artist gets a new number. The musician and actor turns 75 this Wednesday (December 6th).
Even successful songs are not sacred cows for Müller-Westernhagen, for example on the upcoming anniversary tour next year. “There will always be new things,” says the musician to the German Press Agency in Berlin. “There will always be the will to be creative with the old songs, to make them interesting for us and for the audience. I would never let that be taken away from me.”
“Theo against the rest of the world”
The son of the actor Hans Müller-Westernhagen was born in Düsseldorf. His father belongs to the ensemble of the municipal theaters there under Gustaf Gründgens, and “Marius” by Marcel Pagnol is also on the program. Marius Müller-Westernhagen discovered acting before music. By the end of the 80s there would be dozens of productions. He is best known as a long-distance Ruhrpott joker in “Theo Against the Rest of the World” (1980).
The musical steps begin in the second half of the 1960s. Müller-Westernhagen later describes the beginnings in the song “At 18”: “The guitars were out of tune, but it got off to a great start, we thought we were geniuses.” The debut album “The First Time” had little success in 1975. That changes three years later, “With Peppermint I’m Your Prince” forms the basis for a long career. “Astonishingly good songs, I wouldn’t have thought that,” said the musician decades later in an interview with dpa about the blues version “The Peppermint Experiment”.
With “Sekt or Selters” and “Stinker” he proves his qualities in text and music. Without the Müller of the double name, the musician becomes a superstar with albums like “Westernhagen”, “Hallelujah”, “JaJa”, “Affentheater” and “Radio Maria”. It was the time in the 90s when he filled football stadiums, with tens of thousands singing “Freedom” with him. Success leaves its mark. For some, the Theo buddy guy becomes an “Armani rocker”.
“I said I didn’t want to do these stadium tours anymore,” says the artist looking back, having been back longer than Müller-Westernhagen. “At some point there is no further artistic development except bigger, bigger and bigger, at some point the stadiums are too small for that.” In addition, the pressure increases. “I felt like I was losing myself.” Müller-Westernhagen is taking some time out to “think and reflect.”
“Life is a series of mistakes”
In private life, too, there are not only highs. “Life is a series of mistakes.” It is important to learn from it, reflect, face it and grow. “I always tried to stay within myself,” says Müller-Westernhagen. His second marriage is to the American singer Lindiwe Suttle. The couple lives in Berlin.
Over the years, comparatively moderately successful albums such as “In den madness” (Müller-Westernhagen: “My most important album for me, a departure and a new door”) or “Nahaufnahme” followed. Most recently, “The One Life” will be celebrated in 2022.
The recently released album box “Westernhagen 75” is a collection with 75 songs from 1974 to 2023 and follows the broad arc of the artist’s musical work. There are remastered original recordings, surprising studio recordings (“The mixing board was probably involved”) or even new interpretations of the “Peppermint Experiment”.
The version of “Dicke”, for example, which was originally criticized as fat-shaming and therefore misunderstood from the musician’s point of view, comes from the practice room. “I thought the version was very nice, it was very spontaneous and different. I always think it’s good to surprise people.”
Müller-Westernhagen wants to stay with music for a while. “I work very hard, also physically, to keep myself fit, I also try to keep myself mentally fit – and I’m lucky that that’s still working at the moment,” says the musician. “But you don’t know what will happen in two years, what will happen in three years.”
Big tour next year
Next year there will be a tour, with around 20 concerts scheduled from May onwards. Then there are also “the songs that meant a lot to people, that socialized them, that made them emotional.” Some of them he could only sing with a certain irony, but he still wanted to do so. After all, it is also entertainment, the fans pay admission. Müller-Westernhagen, then 75: “If they want to hear ‘Sexy’, then I want to sing ‘Sexy’.”