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Best known as the longtime drummer for the influential German punk band Die Ärzte, Bela B. also enjoyed success as an actor and solo artist. Born Dirk Felsenheimer in Berlin on December 14, 1962, Bela B. (a stage name derived from actor and childhood favorite Bela Lugosi) first served in the short-lived Soilent Grün before co-founding Die Ärzte (German for "the Physicians") in 1982 with singer/guitarist Farin Urlaub and bassist Hans Runge. Quickly emerging as a staple of the Berlin club circuit, the group soon appeared on the 20 Überschäumende Stimmungshits compilation, and after winning an amateur showcase spent their winnings on their 1983 debut EP, Uns Gehts Prima. The record brought Die Ärzte to the attention of Columbia Records, which issued the band's debut LP, Debil, in 1984. Die Ärzte made headlines in 1987 when the German Federal Center for Media Harmful to Young Persons blacklisted a number of their most popular songs, including the incest ditty "Sibling Love" and the zoophilia ode "Claudia Hat 'Nen Schäferhund." The ban forced the trio to remove the offending songs from their live shows, and record stores selling their albums were subject to criminal charges. With no product at retail, Die Ärzte's career sputtered, although the adults-only compilation Ab 18, a collection of their most tasteless songs past and present, attracted critical raves. With 1988's Das Is Nicht die Ganze Warhheit, Die Ärzte cracked the German Top Ten for the first time in their career, but at the peak of their fame they announced plans to dissolve, with a farewell tour yielding the chart-topping live LP Nach Uns die Sintflut.
Bela B. soon formed a new band, Depp Jones, so named after a character in the German comic book series Lucky Luke. Their 1990 debut LP, Return to Caramba!, failed to capitalize on the popularity of Die Ärzte, and subsequent efforts including 1991's Welcome to Hell and 1992's At 2012 A.D. fared even worse. Farin Urlaub's new band, King Kong, also struggled, and in 1993 he and Bela B. agreed to reunite Die Ärzte, adding Depp Jones alum Rodrigo Gonzales on bass. Their comeback single, "Schrei Nach Liebe," was also their most explicitly political effort to date, a polemic against the growing rise of right-wing extremism and racially motivated violence. With the Berlin Wall and its Cold War resonance now resigned to history, Die Ärzte were now upheld as champions of independent thoughts and ideals. With 1998's 13, the trio reached its commercial apex. The lead single "Männer Sind Schwein" proved their first number one German single, and its success launched the album to the top of the LP charts as well. During a subsequent hiatus from Die Ärzte, Bela B. returned to acting. A longtime character actor with a series of B-film supporting roles to his credit, he now enjoyed a recurring role on the TV series Alarm für Cobra 11-Die Autobahnpolizei and co-starred in horror pictures including 2000's Salamander and the 2002 Jess Franco feature Killer Barbys vs. Dracula. After a brief tour of Japan, Die Ärzte issued the double album Geräusch in 2003, returning to number one on the singles chart with "Unrockbar"; three years later, Bela B. issued his first-ever solo LP, Bingo, and guested on Lee Hazlewood's all-star swan song, Cake or Death. His 2009 album Code B featured Bela's new backing band, Los Helmstedt, along with guitar legend Chris Spedding as a special guest.
Wikipedia:
Dirk Felsenheimer (born 14 December 1962 in the Spandau borough of Berlin), better known under his stage name Bela B., is a German musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known for being the drummer and one of the singers in the German band Die Ärzte. In 2006 he released his first solo album entitled Bingo. Bela B. is also an actor and has done several voice-overs for television and film.
Early life
Dirk Albert Felsenheimer was born in Spandau, the westernmost borough of Berlin. He has a twin sister named Diana and his parents separated when he was five years old. Felsenheimer graduated from the Carlo-Schmid-Oberschule. Afterwards he joined the police force, partly due to boredom and partly because of the influence of his uncle, who was also a police officer. However, shortly before joining the force Bela became punk, which seemed at odds with the conformity required of him in the police. Despite his reservations, he began police training, as he could think of no other viable option and he did not want his mother to worry about him. However, he quit the force soon after joining because he felt that he did not belong there and he began being harassed by the other recruits. He then worked in a warehouse for a short time before beginning a 3-year apprenticeship as a window-dresser for the department store Hertie.
Felsenheimer took his stage name from Dracula actor Bela Lugosi, whom he has admired since childhood. The B stands for Barney, as the German name of the fictional The Flintstones character Barney Rubble is "Barney Geröllheimer" and he was nicknamed after him because of the similarity to "Felsenheimer". Felsenheimer is actually registered with the German performing rights society GEMA as 'Bela Barney Felsenheimer'.
Musical career
Die Ärzte
Bela B. first played in the short-lived Soilent Grün before co-founding Die Ärzte in 1982 with singer/guitarist Farin Urlaub and bassist Hans Runge. The group soon appeared on the 20 Überschäumende Stimmungshits compilation, and after winning an amateur band contest they spent their winnings on their 1983 debut EP, Uns geht's prima.... They signed a record deal with Columbia Records, which issued the band's debut LP, Debil, in 1984. After releasing several albums, the band broke up in 1988 and reunited in 1993.
Depp Jones
After Die Ärzte split up, he soon formed a new band, S.U.M.P, with friend Rodrigo González and the band released an EP entitled Get Wise, Get Ugly, Get S.U.M.P. featuring cover versions of popular songs. The band was later renamed Depp Jones, named after a character in the German version of the comic book series Lucky Luke. Their 1990 debut LP, Return to Caramba!, failed to capitalise on the popularity of Die Ärzte, and its follow-ups Welcome to Hell and At 2012 A.D. did even worse. Farin Urlaub's new band, King Køng, also struggled, and in 1993 he and Bela B. agreed to reform Die Ärzte, with former Depp Jones guitarist Rodrigo González joining them on bass.
Solo
In 2006 Bela released his first solo album Bingo, which was produced by Wayne Jackson and Olsen Involtini. The record combined many different music styles such as country, rockabilly, beat music and traditional rock elements. Bela's love for Horror can be heard in many of the songs on the album. He worked with country legend Lee Hazelwood and in return guested on his album Cake or Death. Charlotte Roche and Bela's close friend, singer Lula, also feature on Bingo. Bela's record reached number two at the German Top 100 and number five in Austria. Following the album release, Bela toured with his band Bela B. y Los Helmstedt, including appearances at several German festivals including Rock im Park, Rock am Ring, MTV Campus Invasion and Gurtenfestival. A follow-up record, Code B was released on 2 October 2009.
Musical Style
Bela is a fan of horror, which is reflected in many of his songs, such as Dein Vampyr (Your Vampire), Mysteryland, Der Graf (The Count), Die Nacht (The Night), Wir werden schön (We Become Beautiful), Der Vampir mit dem Colt (The Vampire with the Colt), Licht am Ende des Sarges (Light at the End of the Coffin) and Monsterparty.
One of Bela's particular features is that he usually plays drums standing up during performances. He has done this since he saw the Stray Cats perform in 1983. Up to that point he had performed sitting down for the first Die Ärzte concerts. However, he generally plays sitting down in the studio, and also performed seated during the "Rock'n'Roll Realschule" concert and in the unplugged sections of the "Jenseits der Grenze des Zumutbaren" ("Beyond The Reasonable Limit") and "Unrockstar" tours.
Hobbies and Other Projects
Bela was the owner of the Leipzig comic book publisher Extrem Erfolgreich Enterprises (Extremely Successful Enterprises), which published horror comic books, including German versions of independent series such as "Faust" and "Satanika". Their titles also included their own publications such as "Schweinevogel" and a comic about Die Ärzte. In an interview with the Berlin magazine Zitty in September 2006, Bela B. announced that he was giving up his publishing project, "In recent years the publishing house has just slowly petered out. In 2005 we published the book "Zehn kleine Grufties" (Ten Little Goths) and three other books. That isn't much for a publishing house and that's why we have now decided to close down EEE.
As an author he has written for the vampire anthology Liber Vampirorum: Last Blood and for comic books published by his publishing house. Bela's other hobbies include acting and he has appeared in many German television productions, including episodes of Alarm für Cobra 11 and Tatort, as well as in Gonger for the German television channel ProSieben in 2008 and in the film Ein Göttlicher Job. In 1985 Bela portrayed one of the main characters in Richy Guitar, a film about an aspiring rock band which also starred his Die Ärzte bandmates Farin Urlaub and Hans Runge. More recently, Bela played the lead role of concentration camp prisoner Hans Steinbrück in the 2004 film Edelweißpiraten. In 2005 Bela's acting roles included a role in the short film KINGZ (directed by Benni Diez and Marinko Spahić), which was produced by the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, as well as the role of Ronnie in Barbara Gebler's crime parody, Salamander. In 2007 Bela interviewed his favourite director, Quentin Tarantino, about the film Death Proof for the German newspaper Die Welt and later had a cameo role as a cinema usher in Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds.
His voice-over work includes the voice of Clay in the German version of the MTV cartoon television series Free for All. He also recorded the voices of various characters in the German version of the Danish film Terkel in Trouble. Bela's work includes several audio dramas, such as Faust vs. Mephisto alongside Thomas D from the German band Fantastischen Vier and the audio book Venus in Furs with German actress Catherine Flemming. Bela also recorded the audio version of a biography of Elvis Presley in 2007.
In early 2011, Bela recorded another audio book, Exit Mundi, a popular scientific book by the Dutch science journalist Maarten Keulemans discussing many possible and absurd end-of-world scenarios. The promotion tour took Bela on fifteen venues, reading on stage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The tour also includes nice gimmicks, such as Bela reading from the book to the tune of R.E.M.'s hit single The End Of The World As We Know It.
Bela is a fan of the German football team FC St. Pauli. He is also a keen runner, having completed marathons in Hamburg and New York. In 2004 he also completed the 20 km event in the 26th Ahrensburg Lümmellauf and the Dracula Transylvania Marathon from Sighişoara to Mediaş, Romania.
He has also supported many anti-fascist projects, including the initiative "Kein Bock auf Nazis", which was started by the Berlin punk band ZSK. His anti-fascist stance has also been shown in songs such as Schrei Nach Liebe (Cry for Love) and also Deutsche, Kauft Nicht Bei Nazis (Germans, Don't Buy From Nazis). Bela made the latter available to download for free from his website. Bela has been a member of the anti-globalisation movement Attac since 2007. He has also supported PETA, appearing in their 'Ink, Not Mink' poster campaign with Franka Potente in 2004 and in a further campaign with Catherine Flemming in 2005.
Bela is also a big fan of The Simpsons and has expressed a wish to appear in the series.
