This interview with Frank Farian first appeared on Spiegel.de on July 18, 2016.
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Farian, you had a sensational success with Milli Vanilli starting in 1988 - until it became clear that the duo Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus had never sung a song themselves.
How did this playback puppet theater come about?
Farian:
I hired them both for Milli Vanilli, and we soon broke sales records with hits like "Girl You Know It's True" and "Blame It on the Rain."
But Robert and Fabrice quickly lost their grip.
Fabrice used to be a dancer, Rob was a salesman in the department store and a model for sportswear.
They took off and lit cigarettes with banknotes.
They wanted to show everyone that they are now at the top.
That couldn't go well.
SPIEGEL:
In 1990 you even won a Grammy in Hollywood.
Farian:
When the name Milli Vanilli was mentioned at the award ceremony, I wanted to sink into the ground out of shame.
My first thought was: For God's sake, we're going to have problems now.
I knew it would be discovered that Rob and Fab had never sung a note.
And then, in their delusions of grandeur, they really wanted to go on a big live tour.
They had lost touch with reality.
SPIEGEL:
In 1996 you had to bail Rob Pilatus out of prison.
What happened?
Farian:
I paid $250,000 in bail to get him out of jail in Los Angeles on burglary charges.
He begged me to help him.
I brought him back to Germany.
But he couldn't be helped.
He said himself: "If I don't get my drug addiction under control, I will die from it." Unfortunately, that's how it happened.
SPIEGEL:
Is it true that producer Frank Farian was considered black by the industry in the USA?
Farian:
Right.
A crazy story.
There was this party on the eve of the 1990 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
I was at number one in the US with Milli Vanilli.
My name was well known in the music industry, my face was unknown.
Music legend Clive Davis, the discoverer of Whitney Houston, introduced me to the producer Babyface.
"That's Frank Farian, the producer of Milli Vanilli." - "My God, he's white!" replied Babyface, completely dumbfounded.
He hadn't expected that.
For me, who loves black music, his reaction was almost a compliment.
SPIEGEL:
Before you became a musician, you trained to be a chef - your dream job?
Farian:
That was more of a pragmatic decision.
I was a war child, born in 1941, and was always hungry.
Then my mother said: “If you want to be fed, you have to become a cook.” She was a real shambles, had to support me and my two siblings on a meager pension of 180 marks and was all alone with us.
My father was killed as a soldier in Russia.
My biggest dream back then was to drink a can of Libby's condensed milk by myself.
But we couldn't afford that.
SPIEGEL:
So you became a chef.
Farian:
Yes, good decision.
I enjoyed the training at the Schloßgarten restaurant in Saarbrücken.
I passed with “very good” and was one of the five best trainees in Saarland.
SPIEGEL:
Sounds like a career opportunity.
Farian:
And yes!
I got a job as a cook in Ettelbruck in Luxembourg and earned 2,000 marks plus room and board.
A lot of money.
My specialty was French cuisine.
SPIEGEL:
And what is your secret recipe for a hit?
Farian:
The studio is now my kitchen.
You can actually compare cooking and producing: the ingredients have to be right.
You need a fantastic interpreter, without a good voice nothing works.
And the song has to be straight to the ear, with a good melody and a memorable chorus.
Important: The repertoire must suit the singer, he must embody the whole thing - even with the right outfits.
Because people also hear with their eyes.
In a survey in the British magazine “The Face” in 1987, I ended up among the top 100 hottest fashion designers.
The outfits of my acts were all tailored according to my ideas.
SPIEGEL:
And that's how you achieved over 800 gold and platinum records.
Farian:
They're stacked up in my four studios.
I don't want to show off.
SPIEGEL:
Did your mother Cilla witness your success?
Farian:
Yes, and I am very, very grateful for that.
When I was twelve, my mother gave me a guitar that she had saved from her life.
But when I told her about my plans to become a musician when I was 20, she was worried: “Franz, stay a chef.
Someday you'll have your own restaurant or cook on a big ship." But I replied: "Mom, no, I have to play rock'n'roll music now.
I want to sing in this box later!” I meant the radio.
In 1976 my single “Rocky” reached number one in the charts.
Mother was very proud of me.
She was my hero.
She died in 2001 at the age of 90.
SPIEGEL:
How did Franz Reuther become “Frank Farian”?
Farian:
Well, with my real name I could perhaps have become a folk musician, but not a rock'n'roller!
I came up with Frank or Frankie because the US singer Frankie Avalon was currently very popular.
And Farian was a derivative of Fabian, a singer with one or two hits in America.
I then called my band “Frankie and the Shadows”, based on my English role models Cliff Richard & The Shadows.
SPIEGEL:
And how did the solid chef become a rocker?
Farian:
I was a chef in Luxembourg when one day there was a marquee right in front of the hotel where I was working.
The celebration was in honor of US General Patton, who once liberated the area from the Nazis.
That was the first time in my life I saw a real American rock'n'roll band.
Their sound almost blew me out of the tent!
There was an explosion in my head.
I went to the hotel, packed my things, threw my suitcase out the window, my girlfriend was waiting downstairs and caught it.
At the reception I said I was going for another beer - and never came back.
SPIEGEL:
And then?
Farian:
I was drawn to Hamburg, to the Reeperbahn.
The Beatles had just left Hamburg.
With the “Schatten” I at least made it into the opening act for Gerry & the Pacemakers at the Star Club.
We were really good.
I always knew that show was important too.
Because we called ourselves “The Shadows,” we had a paper curtain stretched in front of the stage at the start of the concert, behind which only our outlines could be seen.
Then we tore up the paper and rocked out.
That was very well received.
We had two maxims back then: firstly, only English lyrics because we wanted to have an international impact, and secondly, don't play Beatles songs because everyone was doing that.
SPIEGEL:
How did your first record “Yakety Yak” come about?
Farian:
I produced it myself in 1964 with a Grundig tape recorder in a discarded cowshed in Saarland.
That's what she sounded like.
But it was a start.
At that time I was into black music and listened to the Rolling Stones, who were also influenced by R&B and blues, Ben E. King, Smokey Robinson and Otis Redding.
Great!
SPIEGEL:
You made your breakthrough in 1976 with the hit "Rocky."
Why did you end your singing career soon afterwards?
Farian:
My first number one!
I was a regular guest on the “ZDF Hitparade” and Ilja Richter’s “Disco”.
But after 15 years I had enough of the stage.
The bosses at my music publisher Hansa in Berlin encouraged me to switch to producing.
They wanted me to stop singing, but I couldn't.
I promised to only sing in the studio and no longer on stage.
Then they gave me 80,000 marks so that I could produce new music.
SPIEGEL:
This initially became the single “Baby Do You Wanna Bump.”
Farian:
Exactly.
At the end of 1974 I sang all the vocal parts in Offenbach myself - the male bass voice in the style of Barry White, the female voice in falsetto.
Nobody noticed anything.
The single was released under the pseudonym Boney M. because I wanted to keep quiet about the fact that the Schlagerfuzzi Farian was behind it.
SPIEGEL:
Did the band even exist yet?
Farian:
No, that was my dilemma.
Suddenly the song became a hit in England and Holland.
People asked themselves “Who the fuck is Boney M.?” and people wanted to book the act for performances.
I started sweating, a group had to come.
An artist agency in Hanover introduced me to the singers Liz Mitchell, who was previously with the Les Humphries Singers, and Marcia Barrett, as well as the dancers Maizie Williams and Bobby Farrell, a DJ.
I needed Bobby because the song also had a male vocal part.
He couldn't sing at all, but he could imitate my voice well
(Farian sings: "She's crazy like a fool, what about Daddy Cool
"
)
.
All of our songs like “Sunny,” “Daddy Cool,” “Ma Baker,” “Rasputin” and “Rivers of Babylon” became top hits.
SPIEGEL:
And in 1978 you were even honored by Queen Elizabeth II.
Farian:
We broke all sales records in England.
But I sent the four Boney Ms alone to the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
I had to produce more hits in the studio and didn't have any time.
SPIEGEL:
What, you turned down the Queen?
Farian:
You can see it that way.
A few years later it was similar with the “King of Pop”.
Michael Jackson's manager Sandy Gallin wanted four songs from me for the upcoming album "Dangerous".
Michael Jackson became aware of me when Milli Vanilli was number one in the US Billboard charts.
I politely declined; it was more important to me to make new hits for Milli Vanilli.
SPIEGEL:
You once used your income to build a studio in Rosbach vor der Höhe in Hesse.
Why in the provinces?
Farian:
Because I'm a provincial.
I don't like the noise of the big city.
I can't work there, it doesn't inspire me, I need the peace and quiet.
Most stars don't come from big cities, but from the countryside.
SPIEGEL:
How did Stevie Wonder's visit to Rosbach come about?
Farian:
In 1982 he really wanted to record in Europe and had heard that I had the most modern digital studio.
So Stevie Wonder landed in Frankfurt, drove straight to me in Rosbach and recorded the global hit “I Just Called to Say I Love You” – in my studio!
Sometimes he would call me in and play me pieces.
On “I Just Called,” I told him, “Stevie, this thing is going to be your biggest number one hit.”
SPIEGEL:
Did you also cook for him?
Farian:
Not that, but out to dinner at the traditional Bad Homburg restaurant “Wasserweibchen”.
He enjoyed the down-to-earth home cooking there.
Stevie is a great guy, a great person and musician.
He has his own rhythm.
He often didn't start working with his sound engineer until midnight.
I was extremely tired and went to bed, but for him, as a blind man, there was hardly any difference between day and night.
SPIEGEL:
There was a big argument with Dieter Bohlen.
What was happening?
Farian:
We were good friends for years, spent vacations together in Ibiza and were with the same record company in Berlin.
I even helped him negotiate better contracts in the beginning.
He said: "Frank, you are my great role model." The break came in 2003 when he kicked the suitcases of all his friends in his first book, "Behind the Scenes."
He told some puff stories about me and also smeared Udo Jürgens.
The book was also published by the Bertelsmann media group, one of whose biggest revenue generators I was.
It all went too far, so I wrote a book myself, “Stupid This Bohlen.”
Dieter wanted to apologize to me later, but I decided not to.
SPIEGEL:
How do you react to critics who accuse you of being "test-tube bands" and "fake"?
Farian:
The criticism is partly justified, of course I also had a bad conscience.
I apologized for some things, learned from my experiences and proved in the 1990s with acts like La Bouche and No Mercy that my singers could sing themselves.
Since then, I only allow excellent artists into my studio.
I don't want to deceive anyone.
SPIEGEL:
You are now celebrating your 75th birthday.
Have you ever thought about quitting?
Farian:
Well, that's what I was waiting for (laughs).
The answer is: no!
I'm currently producing a Christmas album for Boney M. here in Miami and working twelve hours a day.
This is where I really blossom.
I want to work until I can't anymore.
I want to fall over in the studio and die.