Falco (musician)

Johann "Hans" Hölzel (; 19 February 1957 – 6 February 1998), better known by his stage name Falco (from Falko Weißpflog), was an Austrian musician. He had several international hits, including "Der Kommissar" (1981), "Rock Me Amadeus", which reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Vienna Calling", "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home (Jeanny Part II, One Year Later)", and posthumously released "Out of the Dark".

"Rock Me Amadeus" reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1986, making Falco the only artist in history to score a number-one hit with a German-language song in the United States.

According to his estate, he has sold 20 million albums and 40 million singles, making him the best-selling Austrian singer of all time. Falco died in a traffic collision at the age of 40 in 1998.

Early life

Johann Hölzel was born on 19 February 1957 to Maria (née Saurer), from Bad Tatzmannsdorf in Burgenland, a laundry branch manager, and Alois Hölzel, from Lower Austria, a machine factory foreman, on Ziegelofengasse in Margareten, a working class district of Vienna. Maria said that she had been pregnant with triplets. As it was a dizygotic pregnancy, she had a miscarriage of the identical twins during the third month and Falco, who was conceived via a separate ovum, survived.

In 1963, Hölzel began his schooling at a Roman Catholic public school; four years later, at age ten, he switched to the Rainergymnasium in Margareten. He was still a child when his father left the family, and he was raised by his mother. He was given a child's grand piano for his fourth birthday; His mother insisted he begin an apprenticeship with the . This too only lasted a short time. At seventeen, he entered military service in the Austrian army for eight months.

Early career

In the late 1970s, he became part of the Viennese nightlife, which included not just music but also striptease, performance art and a general atmosphere of satirizing politics and celebrating chaos. He played bass guitar in several bands under various pseudonyms, including "John Hudson" and "John DiFalco".

Shortly after leaving the Hallucination Company, Falco became a member of Spinning Wheel, a side project of Drahdiwaberl, where he first began to sing, transitioning from bass player to vocalist and developing his own style.

In May 1979, he recorded demos and early sketches in a recording studio, from which a single was released posthumously 28 years later.

His distinct style, coupled with his singing performance of the song "Ganz Wien" (literally "All Vienna", tag-lined "That Scene") led to manager offering to sign Falco in 1981.() Ironically, it was at a concert for drug prevention and "Ganz Wien" has a line proclaiming "All Vienna is on heroin today."

Einzelhaft, the album on which "Der Kommissar" appears, also topped the charts in Austria and the Netherlands.

Falco and Ponger returned to the studio in 1983 to record Falco's second album Junge Roemer ("Young Romans"). It was a difficult project, as the two artists felt immense pressure to match their previous success and the recording process was plagued by delays. Junge Roemer was released in 1984. Even though the music video for the single "Hoch wie nie" ("Higher Than Ever") was aired on prime time TV in Austria, it failed to ignite interest internationally.

Junge Roemer only charted in Austria where it went to number one. Outside of Austria and Spain, the title track and main single "Junge Roemer" failed to repeat the success of "Der Kommissar". As a reaction, Falco began to experiment with English lyrics in an effort to broaden his appeal. He parted ways with Ponger and chose a new production team: the brothers Rob and Ferdi Bolland from the Netherlands. However, it became a hit in many European countries, and inspired a sequel on his next album.

After the success of "Rock Me Amadeus", there were talks of crossing over more permanently into the U.S. by working with American producers and collaborating with other American artists. These possibilities fell through, in part, due to Falco's personal problems. At this point in his career, he was dangerously addicted to alcohol and other drugs.

Also in 1987, he sang a duet with Brigitte Nielsen, "Body Next to Body"; the single was a Top 10 hit in German-speaking countries.

Falco released Wiener Blut ("Viennese Blood") in 1988.

His 1992 comeback attempt—the album Nachtflug ("Night Flight"), which included the single "Titanic"—was successful in Austria only.

Out of the Dark (Into the Light) was released posthumously in 1998. It charted at number one in Austria for 21 weeks.

Personal life

Falco has been described by those who knew him as having a complex personality. He has been called ambitious, eccentric, caring, egotistical and deeply insecure. Thomas Rabitsch, a keyboardist who met Falco when the aspiring pop star was only 17 years old, said he was a quiet young man and precise bass player, but also arrogant and with a "very high opinion of himself". Markus Spiegel, the manager who discovered Falco, admitted that the pop star was "an extremely difficult artist" and known womanizer. Peter Vieweger, a guitarist who knew Falco before his success and continued to play in Falco's touring band and on his albums, remembers Falco as being "scared he would fail or be unmasked and not be as good as people thought he was".

Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, he became dependent on alcohol and cocaine. When under the influence he was unreliable at best and abusive at worst. Ferdi Bolland recalls that Falco was often so severely intoxicated that the writing process revolved around his "inability to be coherent, to even stand for a long time". Despite pleas from his manager and collaborators to get help, Falco stubbornly refused.

Residences

In the 1990s, Falco moved to the Dominican Republic and lived there as a tax exile. He bought the villa in 1987 and lived there in the summers with his mother.

Death

thumb|upright|Falco's grave at [[Vienna Central Cemetery]]

Hölzel died of severe injuries received on 6 February 1998, at the age of 40, when his Mitsubishi Pajero collided with a bus on the road linking the towns of Villa Montellano and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. At the time of his death, he was planning a comeback, which was successful with the posthumously released album Out of the Dark (Into the Light). His body was returned to Austria and buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery. Even decades after his death, Falco’s grave remains one of the most visited graves in the Vienna Central Cemetery and continues to attract visitors.

Legacy

thumb|upright|A Falco statue in [[Gars am Kamp, Lower Austria]]

In the U.S., Falco's music has been classified under the genre of rap and he has been considered the father of white rap.

In 1998, Rob and Ferdi Bolland (Dutch producers and co-writers on about half of Falco's albums) released the EP Tribute to Falco under the name The Bolland Project feat. Alida. The title track featured samples of Falco's music; the other tracks were "We Say Goodbye" and "So Lonely".

The film Falco: Damn It, We're Still Alive! was released in Austria on 7 February 2008, ten years and one day after Hölzel's death. Written and directed by Thomas Roth, the movie features musician Manuel Rubey as adult Falco. The end credits include the line "With love, Ferdi & Rob", his frequent collaborators the Bollands. This title also lends its name to a posthumously released album by Falco, Verdammt wir leben noch, which translates to "Damn, we're still alive!"

Cover versions of "Rock Me Amadeus" have been recorded by Megaherz on the album Kopfschuss and Edguy on the album Space Police: Defenders of the Crown. The track has been sampled by groups including the Bloodhound Gang, who also refer to Hölzel in their 1999 song "Mope", and by German rapper Fler in "NDW 2005" from Neue Deutsche Welle.

In 2023, "Rock Me Amadeus - Das Falco Musical" was performed at the Ronacher.

There is a staircase in Margareten, Vienna  that is named after him.

In Vienna, Falco's portrait hangs above the entrance to .

Discography

;Studio albums

Einzelhaft (1982)
Junge Roemer (1984)
Falco 3 (1985)
Emotional (1986)
Wiener Blut (1988)
Data de Groove (1990)
Nachtflug (1992)
Out of the Dark (Into the Light) (1998)
Verdammt wir leben noch (1999)
The Spirit Never Dies (2009)

Notes

References

External links

– official site
Official Falco – promotional site by Sony BMG
falco.net fansite
(Falco videos)
Falco performance list