Now that we've gotten to Nena, Uwe needs to connect her to Deep Purple.
1. Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen (UFP)Nena is like Alice Cooper, it started as a band and became a solo artist. In its first five to six years, Nena operated as a democratic band. The girl singer didn't even write all of the lyrics, much less the music.
99 Luftballons' music was written by UFP (as were many other Nena hits of the early years), the lyrics were penned by guitarist Carlo Karges.
(UFP to the right of Nena, Carlo Karges to the left).
When the original band dissolved, UFP co-founded Voodoo X with Jean Beauvoir (ex-Plasmatics, ex-Litte Steven & The Disciples of Soul, co-writer of Paul Stanley).
Anyway, UFP came from a musical household (his brother is a music professor) and his instrument of (his parents') choice was the organ.
He first realized that you could also rock out with it when he heard Deep Purple's In Rock and Jon Lord's Hammond growling and hissing through Marshall stacks there.
Of course, little Uwe's home organ sounded nothing like it so me moved to the cellar, built his own little distortion effect and proceeded to learn Jon's solos off In Rock. Come Christmas, he was to play before relatives the "Music of the Season", but little Uwe chose to give them a treat of distorted Jon Lord solos. He never looked back (or had to do family Christmas Specials again).He's a producer, musicals and soundtrack writer today and has worked with Nena again (as her producer) after the Millenium. He also produced Kim Wilde's comeback album around that time and wrote songs for NSYNC. And still sometimes guests with Nena ...
2. Van Romaine (VR)VR has been Nena's drummer (once she turned solo) for many years.
He has also played with Enrique Iglesias.
But he's a proggie at heart, having been a decade-long member of the Steve Morse Band and also of the Dixie Dregs (when Rod Morgenstein is not around). Steve's day job, we note, used to be with our subject matter for almost three decades.
(Steve's solo spot with the Steve Morse Band during a restaging of Purple's Concerto for Group &
Orchestra of 1969 thirty years later at again the Royal Albert Hall, VR on drums)
3. David Coverdale (DC) on the subject of balloons as suchAs
99 Luftballons was climbing up the charts, German music mag Musik Express asked DC (at that point promoting the Saints & Sinners album and a new Whitesnake line up in Germany)
to comment blind test-style on some singles they played to him. He tore into U2's New Year's Day (
Is that The Doors? Too much echo-o-o-o ... Mind you, The Doors' music is even more old-fashioned than mine and that is saying a lot ...) and was disappointed about Bob Seger's Makin' Thunderbirds (
That's Bob Seger! I love Bob Seger, but if that is his new single, then he should perhaps go back to the 50ies when they were still making Thunderbirds ... The piano sounds like someone is rolling an orange up and down the keys ...). The last single played to him was
99 Luftballons and he opined on its musical strengths as follows:
"What is she singing about? 99 what? (Uwe's edit: DC had lived near Munich for a few years in the late 70ies, so had some command of Deutsch) Luftballons? Balloons you say, what about her balloons, is she well-endowed, ja? I just luuuuv' me some balloons! (Uwe's edit: Nena was/is at all times an attractive woman, but busty she was/is not, in fact more the opposite + to her credit: she never tried to improve on nature either). Nena is wonderful, danke schön, I think I just fell in love."
