Andreas Gabalier: The Alpine Elvis is 40 years old

In his impressive career, Andreas Gabalier (40) has already climbed several peaks of success. With over five million albums sold, reliably sold-out tours and an impressive list of prestigious awards, he is now one of the biggest acts in the pop scene. On his 40th birthday today, he feels at the peak of his powers.

The musician, who was born on November 21, 1984 in Friesach, Austria, did not immediately start his musical career as the “folk rock’n’roller” that he is now notorious as. On the covers of his first two albums “Da komm ich her” (2009) and “Herzwerk” (2010) you can see the young Gabalier posing in his iconic short lederhosen with the Styrian harmonica, but his current pomaded rockabilly hairstyle is missing still every trace.

He only transformed into today’s folk rock’n’roller with the release of his third album “Volks-Rock’n’Roller” in 2011. At this point, the former law student had already appeared in the hit show “Musikantenstadl” celebrated his big breakthrough in 2009 and achieved gold and platinum awards with his first two albums.

Shortly after his image change, he described how he came up with the idea of ​​reinventing himself as a “people’s rock’n’roller” to the “Welt” as follows: “I made my first appearances in Austria in festival tents and on Folk festivals, still without a band. Many of the girls in the front row simply fainted – it was hot, it was crowded, and they hadn’t had anything to drink for hours. That reminded me of Elvis videos 50s, 60s. I thought: That’s it.”

After his enlightenment, he immediately registered the folk rock’n’roller as a trademark. “I immediately googled the term and didn’t find anything,” said Gabalier. “Then it happened quickly: first I patented it, then I got it tattooed on me, the full program.” After all, he also learned a lot about marketing when he dropped out of his studies.

With the release of “Volks-Rock’n’Roller” the newly minted Alpine Elvis came under suspicion for the first time of being close to yesterday’s ideas. Since he is depicted on the cover of the album in an extremely complicated posture with his limbs bent at right angles on a mountain peak, speculation arose that the singer was imitating a swastika – an interpretation that Gabalier, of course, vehemently rejected.

In the years that followed, the home-loving Austrian provided further fodder for the insinuation of a supposedly reactionary attitude through controversial statements he made in interviews or at public events. In 2015, during a speech at the presentation of the Austrian music prize “Amadeus Award”, he provoked people with the statement “It’s not easy in this world if you, as a Manderl, are still into a woman.”

In addition, in numerous interviews he repeatedly spoke out against the contemporary “gender madness” and suggested that same-sex couples not to express “this sexuality so widely in public” – out of “respect for our young children”.

In the meantime, the general outrage over Gabalier’s supposedly reactionary worldview has noticeably subsided again, which has not least to do with the release of his song “LIEBELEBEN” on his last album “A New Beginning” in 2022. The cheerful hymn to interpersonal tolerance and the unifying power of love says, among other things, “Whether woman and man / Or man and man / Or two girls then / At some point” or also “You are the way you are / And that’s a good thing / There’s a reason for it / And that’s a good thing.”

The folk music superstar, who was obviously reformed in this respect, celebrated his entry into the new decade of his life on November 16th with a big “half-time show” in the Graz town hall in front of thousands of fans. a few days before his birthday: “I now have a new area code, the 4th. But I’m not having a mid-life crisis, I’m in full swing and feel at the peak of my powers.”

He feels even fitter today than he did when he was 30, when he was still drinking all night and drinking Jack Daniels before concerts. “Sure, it’s still in my wardrobe today,” said the popular rock’n’roller. “But I only drink half a glass before the concert, if at all.”