Rainhard Fendrich

Rainhard Jürgen Fendrich (born 27 February 1955) is an Austrian singer, composer, entertainer, and actor.

He is one of the most successful Austropop musicians, and his songs are written in Viennese German.

He is very popular in Austria and in Bavaria, but less so in other German-speaking countries and regions.

In non-German-speaking countries he is little known.

Fendrich appeared at the Theater an der Wien from 1980 (in Die Gräfin vom Naschmarkt and Chicago) and played Judas in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar there in 1982.

In 1980 he was also engaged by Hans Gratzer for a performance series of Hamlet at the Schauspielhaus, made one of his first television appearances as a singer on the ORF program Wir-extra for the benefit of children in the Third World, and received his first recording contract.

Another appearance followed in Tritsch Tratsch in 1981 with the song Zweierbeziehung (Two-way relationship of a man with his car).

The debut album Ich wollte nie einer von denen sein (I never wanted to be one of them) was released in May of the same year, but initially failed to achieve high sales figures.

In August 1981 he landed the Austrian summer hit of the year with Strada del sole (in a similar style, about a "vacation relationship").

The single sold 99,000 copies in Austria, which would correspond to today's status of triple platinum.

The next number one hits followed in 1982 with Schickeria and Oben Ohne (Topless).

At that time Fendrich was already celebrated as a shooting star of Austropop.

In 1983 Fendrich presented his first compilation called A winzig klaner Tropfen Zeit (A tiny drop of time).

In the same year he also performed with Wolfgang Ambros at the School Closing Open Air in Vienna's Gerhard-Hanappi Stadium.

This concert was released on a live compilation with the album Open Air.

Fendrich achieved his next success in 1983 with Auf und davon (Up and away).

Although the album couldn't quite meet the commercial expectations of the previous album and the singles didn't manage that either, Fendrich performed at several sold-out concerts on his tour.

This led to the song Weus'd a Herz hast wia a Bergwerk (Cause you have a heart like a mine) being available twice as a single; in a studio version and in a live version.

After a short retreat from the public eye, the albums Wien bei Nacht (Vienna by night) and Kein schöner Land (No country more beautiful) were released in 1985 and 1986.

He also released another live compilation.

With Macho, Macho, sung largely in Viennese, another of his singles reached the top position in 1988.

In addition, this was followed by the big breakthrough in Germany with number 2.

Fendrich also achieved a top 3 position in Switzerland.

He wrote the song in five minutes, it was inspired by an article in Brigitte magazine.

Equally well known in Austria and Germany is his appearance with Reinhard Mey, with Ein Loch in der Kanne (A hole in the pot) in the television program Was wäre wenn (What if) in 1988.

In 1989 the album Von Zeit zu Zeit (From time to time) was released, which could not meet Fendrich's commercial expectations.

The singles Von Zeit zu Zeit and I Am from Austria were also not successful at first.

His song from 1990, "I Am from Austria" (its lyrics, except for the title, are in Viennese German) is still popular in Austria and considered to be the "secret national anthem".

Fendrich's mother was a Sudeten German while his father's family originated from Serbia.

His father was a mechanical engineer, his mother a model.

He has a brother, Harald Fendrich, who is six years younger than him and also a musician who played the bass guitar in his band and is now part of WIR4 (Ulli Bäer, Gary Lux, Harry Stampfer).

At the age of ten, Fendrich was sent to a Catholic boarding school, where he lived until the age of 17.

At the boarding school he was an altar boy and sang in the choir.

His piano lessons were cancelled because he was too bad at mathematics.

According to his own statements, he thought he was "chubby" and not very attractive as a child.

When he got a guitar at the age of 15, he taught himself the chords and also began to write lyrics.

Frustrating experiences with girls at that time find their expression later, for example in the songs Cyrano (1991) or Frieda (2001).

He dropped out of law school in order to finance acting and singing lessons by working various jobs.

Moreover, in 2020 the song was voted 14th among the "100 most important Austrian pop songs" by the pop culture magazine The Gap as part of the AustroTOP ranking.

Equally successful was the second album Und alles ist ganz anders word’n (And everything has become completely different).