Von Susi Ondrušová
In 2012 Wanda played their first concert at the Wiener Werk. They are releasing their fifth album these days. Wanda have developed into a headliner band in German-speaking countries, platinum sales, seven Amadeus Awards, sold-out concerts and fans who love them.
The concerts that Wanda did on her tour this year took place without founding member Christian Hummer due to illness, but he played a major role in shaping the foundation of today’s success. As the band announces today, Christian Hummer has died following a long and serious illness.
“After my mom came home from the hospital, I was put straight to the piano and started learning the piano,” says Christian Hummer in a 2016 FM4 interview. In the course of the conversation, he also reveals other biographical details: for example, that he wrote a piano quartet when he was eight years old, although he didn’t even know what a piano quartet was at the time. Is he a genius? “No!” But Marco Wanda, who is sitting next to him during the interview, replies: “Yes!”
Christian told us regarding getting to know each other before founding the band: “Our first contact was a telephone conversation. Marco got my number!” Marco adds: “I pushed myself on him! I came to you with four beers and a Danzer CD, is that possible?” They got along well and knew immediately that they would work together, BUT: “You borrowed the Danzer CD from me. I still don’t have it once more today!”
It wasn’t Danzer, it was Nirvana and Brahms’ first symphony, which the musicians listened to a lot when they were working on the first album. In the first FM4 interview, Marco talked regarding the genesis of the song that was to change her life: “We listen to a lot of records, either at Manu’s or at Christian’s. And we wrote ‘Bologna’ in one session like that.” Amore! “I believe that Wanda’s music is directly life! They are songs that you can identify with, because they are experiences that you – if you live – simply have!” Christian answered at the time when asked regarding the attraction of Wanda songs.
As a child, Christian had a recurring dream in which he was walking with two lions. When the multi-instrumentalist founded another band alongside Wanda, he also named them LoeweLoewe. There Christian might be heard as frontman on the vocals and guitar. About the debut single “Louder Than The Voice In Your Head” he said: “Actually, the theme of the song is dark, but through the repeated longing for something to drown out those inner voices, and through the contrasting musical structure, we consciously tried to bring the hopeful moment to the fore!” The second song by LoeweLoewe also sounds musically hopeful and driving: “Stop Lift Stop”
“Use the rock band as if they were a symphony orchestra,” is how Christian described his approach to making music with LoeweLoewe.
Christian was not only a musician in the studio, in the rehearsal room, on the microphone, on the guitar or on the piano. He’s also been behind the scenes and owns the label Radio International was created to offer a platform for up-and-coming bands such as Lorenz Ambeek and Rahel.
On the other platform, his private Insta channel, he played the piano with the camera pointed at his fingers during the many lockdowns in the first year of Corona: Brahms, Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven, Beatles, Elton John. He called this Insta series “isolation songs”. In a post he also commented on it with “Gedudel”.
The euphoria and concentration that was written all over his face during these small performances was different from what you would expect from him as a Wanda fan or music journalist. But what does it mean to know? Sing along, clap along, ask how you’re doing and if you’re a genius and what multi-instrumentalist really means.
He wanted to own one of every instrument. Writing songs, producing, sharing, touching, living, laughing.
My condolences to family, friends and band.
In the darkened office with Christian’s voice in his ear, a click into the comfort chamber of musician and author Nick Cave remains. On the question „What is the point in life?” In his “Red Hand Files” Nick Cave wrote a poetic treatise on the connection between loss, grief, happiness and joy:
“…We reach out and find each other in the common darkness. By doing so we triumph over our collective and personal loss. Through kindness we slant, shockingly and miraculously, toward meaning. We discover, in that smallest gesture of goodwill laid at the feet of our mutual and monumental loss, ‘the point’.”
