Marius Müller-Westernhagen (75) has many fans, but not everyone loves the same man. Many people long for the early eighties, when their Marius world was still in order and the cool, skinny herring screamed original and provocative proletarian stories into his microphone to bluesy rock’n’roll. Others have learned to love the singer as a great stadium rocker in a noble costume, who gets his audience going with lighter hymns like “Freiheit” or straightforward, sing-along songs like “Sexy” or “Willenlos”. Quite a few people will be unfamiliar with Westernhagen’s introverted late work, in which he, with a cowboy hat on his head, seeks the way back to his artistic roots.
The numerous upheavals, image changes and U-turns that Marius Müller-Westernhagen has made in his career do not make it easy to hold on to the man and unconditionally wrap your arms around him on his 75th anniversary on December 6th. Looking back, it becomes clear that he jumped into different phases of his career as if into a role, which he then simply abandoned after a while.
Even the press release for his current anniversary album “Westernhagen 75 (75 Songs: 1974 – 2023)” cannot ignore this and speaks of an attempt to “once again bring together all the loose ends of this unique German career”: the “delicate individuality of the early work , the uncouth rock’n’roll rebelliousness of the Peppermint Prince, the curious joy of experimentation of the mid-eighties, the grand gesture of his megastar phase, the dedication and musicality of the past few years.
This tendency towards loose ends can be seen not only in his musical development. Even before he started out as a singer, he had already had a promising acting career, which he coldly gave up after his first musical successes in 1987.
Both careers are inseparably linked in an interesting way: Westernhagen had his big breakthrough as an actor in 1977 with the action comedy “Invitation to Dance”, in which he played the likeable Ruhrpott Hallodri Theo Gromberg, who likes to hang out at counters, at horse racing tracks or in the arms of beautiful women.
In an iconic outfit of jeans, leather jacket and tiger tooth necklace, he played his way into the hearts of the audience with proletarian cool. After the success of the first film, the popular Theo character got a sequel in 1980 in the road movie “Theo Against the Rest of the World”, which was a huge success at the box office.
Westernhagen used this fame to give new impetus to his musical career, which had previously been languishing indecisively. He switched from moody beat hits to harder blues and rock’n’roll and released his legendary album “Mit Pfefferminz bin ich dein Prinz” in 1978, followed in 1980 by “Sekt oder Selters”.
The robust Theo figure continues almost seamlessly on these two records. On the “Pfefferminz” cover you can see him standing around in a bar in identical rebel outfit with a whiskey bottle in his hand, surrounded by all the half-silly characters he sings about in his songs. In the other, he sits with a schnapps at a desolate breakfast table with a fine-rib undershirt and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. The lyrics of the songs are also tailored to the sleazy Theo world already established in the films and revolve around racetrack junkies, pimps, maternal prostitutes, provincial mafiosi or hard-working types without illusions who are addicted to alcohol.
Ironically, this creative phase, characterized by almost grotesque self-dramatization, is considered by his early fans to be his most “authentic”. In an interview session about his anniversary album, the singer openly admitted that he was primarily embodying one role. There he said: “I then took advantage of it. And that was because I filmed in this milieu, because I got to know this milieu. I grew up in Düsseldorf. Before I played Theo, I had never been there in my life Herne. Absolutely not. I hadn’t driven a truck before.” Of course, he never lived the working class life sung about on the early hit albums. As soon as he goes on stage, he “naturally portrays a role” and becomes a huge projection surface for people.
At the end of the 1980s, Marius Müller-Westernhagen demonstratively left his previous role and, after a few typical drum machine and synthesizer experiments, jumped into his next big role. After reducing his name to the trademark “Westernhagen” in 1987, he pulled out all the stops to become Germany’s biggest rock star and fill ever larger halls and stadiums.
With this gigantic and musically more commercial program, the “new Westernhagen” not only frightened many of his old fans, but in the end apparently also himself: after he had performed his new platinum album “Radio Maria” on another superlative tour in 1998, he suddenly pulled out the ripcord, announced that he no longer wanted to play stadium concerts in the future and took a longer creative break.
In an interview with the music portal “MOPOP”, Westernhagen explained this radical step as follows: “I couldn’t cope with it. I couldn’t hear my own name anymore. I couldn’t turn on TV or radio without me appearing there or about myself was talked about. I didn’t want that shit anymore. The packaging became more and more important, the content less and less.” The musician reflected on this time in “Spiegel”: “It was already the case that mothers handed their children up to me on stage. That was a role that I couldn’t fill. I first had to reflect: What was actually happening here with you?”
Since the turn of the millennium, we have been able to admire Westernhagen in what is probably his most authentic role: that of a musician who no longer has to prove anything to himself or his audience and can once again reflect on his musical origins, independent of major record labels. Such as on his 2009 album “Williamsburg”, which he recorded in New York with well-known American folk and blues musicians, or with the bluesy reinterpretation of his most legendary album in his “Peppermint Experiment”.
“I don’t have the ambition to be successful or be noticed,” said Westernhagen about his new existence as a former superstar. “I don’t care at all what people say about me, because most people don’t know me. But the ambition to make good and valuable records that trigger something in people is unbroken and even greater than when I was younger. “
