Rainhard Fendrich: Childhood without recognition from the father

Thanks to hits like “Macho, Macho” (1988), Rainhard Fendrich (69) has long been one of the best-known German-speaking musicians and one of the most successful representatives of Austropop. But his career wasn’t always entirely straightforward – from financial struggles to the difficult relationship with his father.

Before his breakthrough as a musician, Fendrich initially took on numerous jobs to make ends meet. “I bent iron in a forge, was a chauffeur or postman,” says the 69-year-old. He got to work on stage through a little lie: While working at a theater, he noticed that a replacement for an actor was being sought. “I got in touch and said I could sing and dance. The latter wasn’t true,” said Fendrich. However, his “outrageousness” would have impressed the theater’s artistic director and so he became part of the cast of the musical “Chicago”.

Being admired on stage was a completely new feeling for him and led to a real high – and for less nice reasons. “When I had my first successes on stage, I wanted to be admired simply because my father always put me down,” says Fendrich. “In the pub or at other parties he always said: My son is an idiot, he can’t do anything.”

The 69-year-old continues: “No matter what I did, my father did everything badly. So if you don’t get any recognition your whole life and suddenly you’re celebrated on stage at some point, of course you get a high. I admit that. It There was a long period of time in which everything I attempted succeeded immediately.” It was only over the years that failures occurred, “which made me humbler.” Now he sometimes thinks to himself: “How stupid were you? How much I would have liked to have enjoyed my wedding more intensively. Unfortunately, back then, many things were too obvious to me. Even success.”

Today he has a completely different relationship with attention: “In my private life today, I prefer to have peace and quiet. Today, when I enter a restaurant with my wife, ten cell phones are pulled out before I reach my table. And that still makes me That’s also why I’m no longer the social tiger I used to be.”

It used to be “great”: “I was out and about every evening, with Falco and all the other important artists in the Viennese scene. But today it’s no longer profitable for me to stand at the bar until four in the morning, chatting up random people to philosophize about the world.”

He has forgiven his father – even if only unspoken. He looked after his parents as they grew old, looked after them and cared for them. “I was also at his funeral and I forgave him. I said goodbye to him without any resentment. But I never had the relationship with him that you would want between father and son.”