Wolf Maahn

Wolf Maahn is a German singer-songwriter who was born in Berlin on March 25, 1955. As a musician, he is an integral part of the Cologne rock music scene and is also active as a producer, film composer and actor. Wolf Maahn began his musical career at the age of nine, writing his own songs in his childhood bedroom in Munich. A formative experience was attending a Beatles concert at the Kronebau in Munich when he was eleven years old. After playing in various bands such as X-Rays and Meier, he founded the English-language Food Band together with his brother Hans Maahn, Helmut Zerlett, Dick W. Frangenberg and Axel Heilhecker. The band released two albums between 1979 and 1981 and played as a support act for Bob Marley and Fleetwood Mac. Wolf Maahn began his solo career in February 1982 with the single "Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind", an electronic interpretation of the evergreen. His debut album Deserteure followed in September of the same year. He also calls his backing band, consisting of former Food Band members, the Deserteure. In 1983, the album Deserteure is nominated for the German Record Award. The years 1983 and 1984 brought further albums: Bisse und Küsse and Irgendwo in Deutschland. The latter becomes one of his most successful works and contains hits such as "Fieber" and the title song. In 1985, Wolf Maahn and the Deserters were the first German act to perform at the 15th Rockpalast Night in Essen's Grugahalle, which was broadcast live in 17 European countries. The album Irgendwo in Deutschland remains in the German Top 75 for nine months. In 1986, Wolf Maahn releases the album Kleine Helden with the successful singles "Ich wart' auf Dich" and "Karussell". The video clip for "Karussell" received the World Music Video Award in 1987. This is followed by the live album Rosen im Asphalt (1987) and the English-language album Third Language (1988). Subsequently, Was? (1989), Maahnsinn (1991) and Der Himmel ist hier (1992) are released in German. A special milestone is the 1993 unplugged album Direkt ins Blut - (Un)plugged, which is recorded in front of 70 people in the Dierks Studio near Cologne. The concert recording is broadcast eleven times on German television, including on WDR-Rockpalast and twice on VIVA. The following studio albums Libero (1995), Soul Maahn (1999) with the radio hit "Hallo Sehnsucht" and Zauberstraßen (2004) consolidate his position in German rock. In 2007 Wolf Maahn founds his own label Libero and releases the live CD Direkt ins Blut 2 - (Un)plugged. 2010 sees the release of Vereinigte Staaten, his first regular studio album since 2004 with exclusively new songs. He co-writes one of the tracks, "Am heutigen Morgen", with Xavier Naidoo. The album Break out of Babylon follows in 2020. Wolf Maahn works as a producer for artists such as Klaus Lage, Wolfgang Niedecken, Purple Schulz and Marianne Rosenberg. He composes film music for the Schimanski film Tatort: Zabou (1987) and the ARD series Leo und Charlotte (1991). In 1985, he became involved in the Band for Africa project with the song "Nackt im Wind" and in 1986 he addressed the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in his single "Tschernobyl (Das letzte Signal)". In 2009, Wolf Maahn takes on the leading role in the rock opera Das Lied von Schillers Glocke on the 250th anniversary of Friedrich Schiller's birth. In 2010, he starred in the RTL series Unter uns for 16 episodes. Of his 19 albums to date, 15 have reached the German album charts. Wolf Maahn lives in Cologne-Dellbrück. The musician plays rock and pop with German-language lyrics that mostly deal with everyday German reality. His characteristic playing style is characterized by the fact that he plays the guitar upside down as a left-hander, but strings it like a right-handed guitar.