World hit by the band Nena
Composer still lives on “99 balloons”
September 17, 2023, 7:42 a.m
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Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen composed an evergreen for his former band Nena. It’s financially worth it; the keyboard player can still live off the royalties to this day. But something about the success of “99 Luftballons” also bothers him.
Sometimes a single idea is enough for a life that is at least financially carefree. Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen released the global hit “99 Luftballons” with his band Nena in 1983. As a composer, you dream of leaving something lasting behind, he told the “Bild” newspaper. “I definitely succeeded here. The royalties are still enough today that I can make a good living from them.”
According to his own statements, this gives the now 63-year-old free head for his creativity. “The pressure to be successful and to earn money quickly is not nearly as great,” reported Fahrenkrog-Petersen. “And I know this pressure only too well, because after my bankruptcy everything was confiscated. It’s a miracle that my new projects almost always worked out.” Later, for example, he appeared with Thomas Anders (Modern Talking), and in the early 1990s his music accompanied the start of ntv. Today he is developing musicals such as “Wüstenblume” – based on the book of the same name – which is coming to Germany in October.
In the USA, “99 Luftballons” is played even more often on the radio than in Germany, the band’s former keyboardist and composer said proudly. At the beginning of the 2000s, Fahrenkrog-Petersen worked again with Nena, who had started her solo career after the band of the same name broke up at the end of the 1980s. However, her former bandmates are annoyed that she is the only one associated with “99 Luftballons”.
“People no longer know that Nena was ‘just’ the singer of a band, just like Mick Jagger is the singer of the Rolling Stones,” Fahrenkrog-Petersen told “Bild”. “But if you said ‘Satisfaction’ was Mick Jagger’s biggest hit, Keith and Co. probably wouldn’t think that was very cool.” In his eyes, calling the band Nena was a “big mistake.” Nena now has a “great career of her own, which is of course based on our success in the 80s”.