Campino

While still a child, in 1964, he moved to Mettmann with his parents. Growing up in the middle class, he came into contact with punk music at an early age. She then joined the punk scene, despite her mother's protests. Campino made his stage debut in 1970 as a 16-year-old. In 1982 he founded the German punk group "Die Toten Hosen" from two Düsseldorf punk bands, "ZK" and "KFC". Meanwhile, he attended the Humboldt-Gymnasium in Düsseldorf, where he graduated from high school in 1983. The band's first single was released in 1983. The title "Ice-cold Bommerlunder" shaped the image of the band around Campino as a drinking and rowdy combo. The first LP with the title "Opel-Gang" followed in the same year. After the band's second album "Under False Flags", Trini Trimpop left the band as drummer and became their manager instead.

Wolfgang "Wölli" Rohde was hired as the new drummer. In 1986 they recorded their third album "Damenwahl". Despite their high popularity, there was no economic success, so they couldn't make a living from music alone until the mid-1980s - at that time the band was still putting up tour posters for the "Rolling Stones" and Peter Maffay. Campino and his band took a political and social stand and played at the "Anti-Madness Festival" against nuclear power. Another tour followed and the next album "Never Mind The Hosen" in 1987. In it, the band brought their pseudonym "Die Roten Rosen" into play for the first time. The change was necessary because the music on the LP no longer had anything in common with the music of "Toten Hosen". Rather, the German hit was robbed of its innocence. Not only the band, but also the individual band members gave themselves code names for this record, so Campino became "Judas Inocenti".

In 1988, "Die Toten Hosen" achieved their final breakthrough with the song "Here Comes Alex" and the album "A Little Bit of Horror Show". The song was used for the stage version of "A Clockwork Orange" and was the band's first single to enter the charts. Her love for football, and especially for her hometown club Fortuna Düsseldorf, made "Die Toten Hosen" a recurring theme. In 1989, for example, one mark was donated to the sports club for every concert ticket sold. In 1991 the band recorded the album "Learning English, Lesson 1". For this project, Campino played with idols such as TV Smith, Jonny Thunders and others. A tragic incident associated with this record involved punk icon Jonny Thunder, who died 24 hours after recording the song "Born To Lose". In the same year, "Die Toten Hosen" recorded a single in Rio de Janeiro with the legendary mail robber Ronald Biggs. When the song "Sascha... An Upright German" was released at the end of 1992, Campino and his band found themselves caught between the fronts of the political left and the right.

The song, which was directed against xenophobia, was interpreted differently by some critics. This sparked a heated public debate. The band donated part of the sales proceeds to asylum seekers' homes. In the mid-1990s, "Die Toten Hosen" reached another high point in their career. The LP "Kauf Mich", the best-of "Reich & Sexy" and the English version of it, "Love, Peace and Money" were released one after the other. This meant that the band around Campino had three albums in the charts at the same time. The group has now played on international stages, including in Russia and with "Green Day" in the USA. In 1995, Campino founded his own label "JKP" with the "Toten Hosen", which released its first single with the title "Opium fürs Volk". It reached number one in the charts and brought the band a criminal complaint. The impetus was the lyric in the song "Bonnie & Clyde": "We'll shoot 2,3,4,5 cops when there's no other option." The "bulls" were now replaced by "cows" at concerts.

The band's most successful single entitled "10 kleine Jägermeister" was released in 1996. The song, significantly again a drinking song, stayed at number one in the charts for several weeks. On June 28, 1997, "Die Toten Hosen" played their 1,000th. Concert in the Rheinstadion in her hometown of Düsseldorf. After 30 minutes, security discovered a dead girl in the audience. She had been crushed. The concert continued anyway because there were fears of panic if it was canceled. After this incident, Campino and the band took a break from the concert. Campino dedicated the ballad "Alles ist eins" on the single "Pushed Again" to the Dutch girl Rieke Lax. After a six-month break, the "Rote Rosen" album "We are waiting for the Christ child" followed and in 2000 the "Tote Hosen" work "Unsterblich". In 2002, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the "Toten Hosen", the best-of album, which had been released ten years earlier, was released as a follow-up project entitled "Reich & Sexy II". There are the big ones greatest hits of the past ten years.

He became the father of a son with the actress Karina Krawczyk on March 9, 2004 in Berlin. In addition to many show greats, "Die Toten Hosen" also took part in the Live 8 Festival initiated by Sir Bob Geldof. Almost 2 billion people worldwide watched the gigantic spectacle on July 2, 2005, which fought for debt relief for Africa's poorest countries. In 2006, Campino gave the eulogy for the "Echo" to Bob Geldof. Campino entered a new genre for him in August 2006 with the portrayal of "Mackie Messer" in the "Threepenny Opera" directed by Klaus Maria Brandauer. He played the main role in Wim Wenders' film "Palermo Shooting" in 2008. The work deals with the transience of existence. The world premiere was on May 24, 2008 at the 61st Cannes Film Festival.

For his role as narrator in a new version of the musical fairy tale "Peter and the Wolf" (2015) by the Federal Youth Orchestra, conducted by Alexander Shelley, Campino was awarded the ECHO Klassik in October 2016. In 2019, Campino took on British and German citizenship. By the end of 2019, the band had released more than 80 singles and EPs.