| Campino | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Andreas Frege |
| Born | 22 June 1962 Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany |
| Genres | Punk rock, Hard rock |
| Occupations | Musician, Singer, Songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Associated acts | Die Toten Hosen, ZK |
Campino (born Andreas Frege, 22 June 1962 in Düsseldorf, Germany) is a singer/songwriter, and actor. He is most famous for his performance as the head of, and lead vocalist of the German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen.
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Campino is a descendant of the Frege family who owned the Frege House in Leipzig. His grandfather Ludwig Frege was the president of the Federal Administrative Court of Germany. He grew up as the son of a judge and a teacher. His mother was English, and raised her children to be bilingual. He has five siblings, amongst them his brother John, who is twelve years older than he is, who introduced him to punk music.
At the age of two, he moved with his parents to Mettmann. Campino attended the Humboldt-Gymnasium in Düsseldorf. He ended up repeating twice and, due to this circumstance, he ended up in a class with Michael Breitkopf, co-founder of Die Toten Hosen. Both graduated successfully from secondary school in 1983. Campino was conscripted into the German Federal Armed Forces for eight months, until his refusal was approved, upon which he subsequently did his alternative civilian service together with Michael Breitkopf, in the psychiatry field in Düsseldorf-Grafenberg. From 1978 to 1982 he was the singer for ZK, and later founded Die Toten Hosen with his fellow bandmembers Andreas von Holst, Michael Breitkopf, Andreas Meurer, Trini Trimpop and Walter November. Before becoming mainstream artists, Die Toten Hosen played many shows for just a "crate of beer" as "payment" by whoever hired the band.
He, and his bandmates, are huge fans of his hometown soccer club Fortuna Düsseldorf which the band sponsored between 2001 and 2003. Andreas also follows Liverpool FC and was injured after a Liverpool FC loss, in which he broke his foot by having kicked a garbage can, before the festival season started. Andreas and his band are currently sponsoring further social projects such as 'home work help for kids', 'fan projects against racism' and 'financial lawyer-support for asylum seekers'.[1] He has a son with actress Karina Krawczyk.
Campino wrote the song 'Alles ist Eins' on the single 'Pushed Again' for Rieke Lax – the Dutch girl that died during the 1,000th Gig of Die Toten Hosen in the Rheinstadion in Düsseldorf in 1997.
'Nur Zu Besuch' was written to help him cope with the death of his mother Jenny Frege and 'Unser Haus' is about Campino’s childhood and the death of his father. Both his parents died of bowel cancer and Campino has repeatedly participated in programs for better awareness of the cancer and has encouraged the population to undergo preventive medical checkups.
As spokesman of the Toten Hosen as well as an individual, Campino has a high media presence. Since the Mid 80s, he has participated in numerous talk shows on TV and is a respected conversationalist. In Bettina Böttinger’s show, for example, he met Gretchen Dutschke-Klotz and Alfred Biolek invited him together with his mother, another time with his friend Stephan Schröer OSB, the then abbot of the Benedictine Abbey in Meschede. In both shows, he commented explicitly on the church, faith and religion. In 2001, the NDR did a documentation about him in connection with their serial program 'Gott und die Welt' (literally translated God and the world, habitually used meaning all the world and his brother).
Campino has acted as a journalist on several occasions. In 1994, for instance, the German magazine Der Spiegel printed his interview with then Youth Minister Angela Merkel in which he asked her about her own experience with drugs, alcohol and her first contact with pop music. In 1993, he had asked Paul McCartney similar questions. One year before Joe Strummer’s death, Campino interviewed the head of The Clash in August 2001 for the SZ-Magazin.
Campino has also performed as an actor on several occasions. It was already in 1986 that he played a featured part in the movie 'Verlierer' by Bernd Schadewald and in 1990, he played a punk in the pre-primetime serial 'Der Fahnder'. In 1992, he played the main role along with Gisela Schneeberger, Dieter Pfaff, Ottfried Fischer, Jochen Busse and others in the comedy 'Langer Samstag' by Hanns Christian Müller.
Apart from a small role in the play A Clockwork Orange in Bad Godesberg in May 1998 for which Die Toten Hosen also wrote the soundtrack,[2] he had his theatre debut playing the role of Mack the Knife in Bertolt Brecht’s “Dreigroschenoper” (engl. ‘The Threepenny Opera’) from August to October 2006, amongst others with Gottfried John, Katrin Saß, Birgit Minichmayr and Maria Happel. The play was directed by Klaus Maria Brandauer for the Admiralspalast (engl. ‘admiral’s palace’) in Berlin.
In 2003, the ZDF, one of Germany’s public TV channels, called an election for the 100 most significant German characters. Out of the 300 nominated people, Campino made it to number 65. In 2006, he handed the most significant German music prize, the Echo, to Bob Geldof and held the laudation.
Since 6 December 2006, Campino has been the ‘godfather’ of the Regine-Hildebrandt-School in Birkenwerder where he is taking care of the project 'Schule ohne Rassismus – Schule mit Courage' (engl. 'School without racism, school with courage').
Campino plays the lead role in Wim Wenders’ movie Palermo Shooting (2008), which premiered in Germany on 20 November 2008.
Campino had a guest appearance on the following releases without the Toten Hosen: