Meet me for Tea with H.P. Baxxter, Frontman of Germany’s most successful band Scooter

He has been mixing up the Techno scene like no one else for 25 years: H.P. Baxxter and his band Scooter. When the native East Friesian, who in real life is called Hans Peter Geerdes, enters the stage and roars “Hyper, Hyper” and “How much is the fish”, there is nothing stopping him. Then the crowd rages and 13,000 fans of all ages in the sold-out Berlin concert hall “Velodrom” get into happy frenzy. Who gets to know him, is sometimes surprised: H.P. Baxxter, who has invented shouting for his hits, is rather cautiously quiet and very polite in private. Meet me for Tea with the hydrogen-peroxide-blonde successful musician and a strong East Frisian mix in the cup.

H. P. Baxxter prefers East Frisian tea, a blend of Assam, Ceylon and a dash of Darjeeling, a very strong tea. Cream and candy are needed for refinement

MyStylery: Does the East Friesian make East Friesian jokes all the time?
H.P. Baxxter (laughs): The East Friesian drinks tea, however making the jokes is not true.
MS: You are an enthusiastic tea drinker since childhood. What brought you to the taste?
HPB: As long as I can remember, we had tea after lunch. I thought that was the case all over the world. In the morning for breakfast black tea, in the afternoon also with friends a cup and then for dinner. Black tea never prevented me from falling asleep either.
MS: So tea is strongly linked to your childhood memories …
HPB: Exactly. As a child, I liked to have a sleepover at my grandma’s. I was allowed to stay up late there. And it was our tradition to sit in the kitchen just before going to bed and drink black East Friesian tea, but with lots of candy and cream.
MS: This reminds of English tea drinking habits …
HPB: I also like to take PJ Tips tea bags from England. Especially when we are in the studio and the leisure is missing. At least there are tea mugs with the likeness of the Queen and Prince Charles (laughs). At home I especially like to drink the mixture “Bünting Privat Ostfriesentee”. This is a very high quality tea, which is important in the rather moderate, very calcareous water quality of Hamburg. In East Frisia, the water is much softer. I drink coffee very rarely, for example on Sunday afternoon with the cheese-cake.

Me and H.P. Baxxter in his suite at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin

MS: Does anyone still call you Hans-Peter?
HPB: Yes, my mother. Mostly. Sometimes she says HP. The name Hans-Peter was a problem for me as a child. I was so glad when my chemistry teacher in the 11th grade came up with the idea of ​​calling me “HP”. I suspect the idea came to him through the TV series Dallas and the villain JR. (Laughs)
MS: Are you checking in at the hotel under the name Geerdes or Baxxter?
HPB: When I’m officially with the band, always under Baxxter. In such a moment I get angry, when it says Hans-Peter Geerdes. This is private and is used when I order a craftsman for home. Although at first I always had to laugh when my manager at the front desk asked if the suite for Mr Baxxter was ready. In the restaurant I get the better table, if I order under the name Baxxter.
MS: Does your popularity sometimes annoy you?
HPB: When I’m stressed out, arriving the airport last minute and just then get into a bachelor party, where I’m asked for selfies and autographs, then that’s exhausting. On the other hand, of course, an indicator that you are still on the radar.

“The cups from KPM would also do well at my home,” says H.P. Baxxter

MS: Scooter has been Germany’s most successful band since 1993. This year you have the 25th anniversary. You are still the only founding member. Actually, you could sit back and relax now.
HPB: Music has always been my life, which I have never considered work, but always a great pleasure and a lot of fun.
MS: You always have to come up with something new …
HPB: Like the co-operations with Vicky Leandros or Status Quo, which are mostly spontaneous. We used to go back to the studio immediately after each tour and continue to work. Sure, there were phases when we could not think of anything. We then took nine month-break. A creative break, so to speak. Why didn’t we do that more often? I wonder.
MS: With the end of the “Love Parade”, some also saw the end of the Techno era. Is Techno still up to date?
HPB: Techno has changed a lot, but is still a matter. And this since more than 30 years now. There are different currents like Minimal or Electro House. In the clubs in Ibiza like the Pacha exactly these beats are played again. The sound of the gigantic open-air festivals eventually has its roots in Techno.

H. P. Baxxter remained on the ground: “It was a stroke of luck that we had slaved away without success for a long time, and when success came, it did not seem natural to us.”

MS: How do you explain the great success of Scooter abroad, of all things in Scandinavia or Russia?
HPB: In Russia with the political circumstances and the euphoria caused by the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Wall. Our sound was and is the connection between East and West. The Russian fans are also very loyal. They have heard us in their youth and still do today. And younger ones come after.
MS: Children want to become locomotive drivers or astronauts. You dreamed of a career as a musician.
HPB: I was totally fascinated by the glam rock era of the 70s, by bands like Sweet and T. Rex. The highlight of the week for me was when the shows like Beat Club or Disco with Ilja Richter came on German TV. At 14, I had my first student band. There was no one in my hometown of Leer who took this as seriously as I did. Some lacked the discipline to rehearse three times a week. For many it was just hobby-like rumbling. There I sometimes stood alone with my guitar.
MS: Can you actually sing properly? You have never been in the church- or school choir, right?
HPB: No. I always refused. My singing, the shouting, was the inspiration of a spontaneous idea. I actually saw myself as a great guitarist. When I became interested in electronic music and New Wave, like Depeche Mode or Simple Minds, I could not do anything with my guitar. So I switched to singing, although I had never sung at the time. The advantage of the 80s was that everyone had sung wrong. Expression and stage presence were crucial. So I became a frontman and a little later we founded Scooter.

H. P. Baxxter has a preference for the English way of life: “Last year, I made a dream come true and drove the Oldtimer through the Highlands, descended in old castles and drank a Scotch whiskey by the fire in the evening.”

MS: Many musicians take drugs. How do you manage to keep your hands off?
HPB: I’m watching the Narcos series on Netflix right now. Insanity, if you imagine how many tons of coke alone the Pablo Escobar clan has shipped and to what extent the people have always been taking it. For me, that was never an issue, even if I sometimes felt like the stupid, clueless redneck. Sometimes I regret that I’ve never been so Rock’n’Roll, not someone who just blew up all conventions. I do not have this self-destructive gene of an Amy Winehouse. I’m just too conservative for that.
MS: And you live that way too. Have you always been so Anglophile?
HPB: As a child I loved English series, “Captain Weasel”, “ Upstairs, Downstairs“, “All Creatures Great and Small“. I have always liked the dignified English way of life. Rock musicians like Mick Jagger then lived like English landlords, drove Rolls Royce and were simply cool. At the age of 16, I was in England for the first time, where I made a bike tour to London with a buddy. That blew me away.
MS: Some interpret this as a petit-bourgeois way of life. ‘HP and his stuffy antelopes’ was the title of an article about you.
HPB: Many have this pigeonholing. Does a musician always have to live in a minimalist industrial loft? I like to break with conventions. I do not consider gnu, tiger or zebra as hunting trophies, with which I adorn myself, but as part of my furnishing concept. I love this bizarre.
MS: And you find that in Hamburg-Duvenstedt? Why do you not live in Berlin?
HPB: I need the rural as compensation. I’m rarely home enough. Last year I was on the road for months straight. I really enjoy sitting around the fireplace for five evenings in a row, watching shows and drinking my tea!

“I need the rural as compensation. I really enjoy sitting around the fireplace for five evenings in a row, watching shows and drinking my tea”, says H.P. Baxxter

MS: Your career is interesting: You were a law student in Hannover …
HPB: That was the only way to get out of the small town. After all, I was in college for three weeks. (laughs) Then I decided on a commercial apprenticeship, two and a half years in a dental wholesaler. I would recommend anyone an apprenticeship as a professional basis.
MS: Did you ever think that you would also be a member of the TV casting shows DSDS and X-Factor jury, as well as having guest appearances in some German TV series?
HPB: No and I will certainly not start as an actor. These were not character roles. (laughs) Rather short appearances where I say, “How much is the fish”. But it’s fun to get involved in something new.
MS: You were married twice. Will there be a third time?
HPB: Three times is “East Frisian right”, is a saying in East Frisia. I would not bar it. I also believe in fate and do not do anything compulsively.
MS: You are a family man with close contact to your mother and the children of your sister. Do you regret not having your own children?
HPB: It just didn’t come about. Sometimes I find it a pity not to have a son with whom I could do pub tours today.

“When it comes to cars, everything stands still for me. That’s my biggest passion after the music. I have four vintage cars, two old Jaguars, a Rolls Royce, a lime green Bentley.”

MS: Do you feel a bit alone in your big house? You do not even have pets, you just hang around with those stuffed things.
HPB: Yes, that’s the way it is. Sometimes I have to talk to my gnu. (laughs) In my time as a single, there was one or the other lonely moment. But I am in a new relationship since a year and a half.
MS: Your girlfriend is 26 years younger than you. Not just a slight age difference…
HPB: It makes a difference whether your partner is 18 or 28. A certain life experience is certainly not a disadvantage. My previous partner was the same age as I, and I thought, she knew about life with her maturity. Everything would be relaxed, I thought. The opposite was the case. I need a woman by my side, who also has power, likes to go out and has a certain independence.
MS: How important is the encounter at eye level through similar experiences? You can look back on moments, where your girlfriend was not even born.
HPB: Yes, I agree with you. But after three years you do not talk about it anymore. Common interests are much more important to me.
MS: Speaking of planning for the future: Scooter and no end in sight?
HPB: I do it for as long as it’s really fun, full house, people are having fun and everything feels good. It was a long way to be able to perform at major mainstream festivals like Highfield. Traipse round discos with my hits that I played 30 years ago would not be my world. I think I’ll just fall dead on stage someday.  BvH

Info H.P. Baxxter and Scooter:

No German band ever had as many top ten hits as Scooter. With 30 million records sold in over 50 countries, Scooter is the most successful German band – consisting of H.P. Baxxter, Michael Simon and Phil Speiser – at all.

13.000 Fans – and me – at the Scooter concert in the Berlin concert hall “Velodrom”

Dates for the anniversary tour „100% Scooter – 25 Years Wild & Wicked Tour“:

Fri            08/17/2018          Hamburg (Trabrennbahn Bahrenfeld)

Sa            08/18/2018          Dresden (Elbufer)

Sa            08/25/2018          Beverungen (Weserufer)

The interview series “Meet me for Tea” is sponsored by KPM – Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur Berlin.
More interviews you’ll here.

The post H.P. Baxxter: Hyper, hyper craving for East Frisian tea appeared first on My Stylery.

Baron Enno von Ruffin says about himself that he’s a ‘car-driving rambler’

“The baron is coming in a second”, says the friendly woman and pleases me to wait. And then he’s standing in front of me – in red cords, a for him typical cardigan, of course with a breast pocket handkerchief: Baron Enno von Ruffin falls down on his sofa in his salon. “There was a problem with the cables for the Christmas illumination”, he explains his delay whilst being a little bit out of breath. But everything is sorted now. Like always. Even after 2 a.m., when a hotel guest stands in front of his door – without a key. Then it’s Ennos mobile phone that rings.

Since 400 years, Gut Basthorst is the home for the Ruffin family

Since 35 years Enno von Ruffin is leading Gut Basthorst in Schleswig-Holstein, a 650 hectares big estate, which includes next to its agriculture a company for gardening and landscaping, as well as a hotel and gastronomy with its own Basthorst Bier. And since 400 years, Gut Basthorst is the home for the Ruffin family that originally comes from Bavaria and Meran in Tirol. This is where Enno was born. Where he was raised. He knows every corner, every tree, and every shrub. He went to the village school, pending between mornings and afternoons, because there was only one classroom. Afterwards Enno has been sent to boarding school. At this stage he was only ten years old. He couldn’t really cope with the rough world of boarding. Suddenly there were different rules. Rules, which didn’t include cigarettes, beer or girls – Enno was, as a lover of liberty, truly not a fan of these rules. “In fact I was an easy child”, says Enno and grins. “Others probably saw that differently”. So he changed the boarding schools in periodically intervals, “I have no idea how many.” His protest against the establishment, “but never against the family.”

The manor: in the former private rooms of the old Baroness – the mother of Enno von Ruffin – today the hotel resides

After school he went to Bavaria, was lieutenant for the mountain infantry, completed an agricultural apprenticeship earlier. And spent one year near Dallas, where he dealed with the American agriculture. It seemed to be fascinating and deterred at the same time. This anonymity. “There was no caregiver, nothing familiar.” Instead there were miles of fields. “This literally broadened my horizon.” Enno von Ruffin returned to Germany to his home in Schleswig-Holstein. Because it was clear; he as the male heir takes over the farm and the responsibility for the business and the therefore involved people. At just 27 years of age. He structured, modernized, rented the empty buildings to craftsmen. The former horse stable nowadays contains an inn; events take place in the barns, from dog competitions to the ‘Players Night’ – a night where the polo cup, which regularly takes place at Basthorst, is celebrated.

In the former horse stable – built in 1913 by the ancestors of the Ruffin family, the Brusselles – visitors will find a comfortable restaurant, in which German cuisine is served

Basthorst is popular for its seasonal markets. Next weekend starts this years Christmas market. Ten thousands of visitors will come to attune themselves to the Advent season with Negus and deer-sausages. And to sing Christmas songs with Vicky Leandros. In the mid 80s Enno von Ruffin gets to know the famous singer in the once legendary Hamburg nightclub ‘Insel’ (island). First he didn’t know who she is; he did one of his flippant slogans, which she skillfully parried. He introduced her to his – luckily relatively liberal – parents so that Vicky’s Greek origin or the “standardized marriage” were no obstacles. Today they are amicably seperated.

The pond of the village lies romantically in the middle of the hundreds of years old building-ensemble

35 employees and a diversity of temporary workers take care of the farm estate. “I am farmer”, says Enno von Ruffin, “I don’t want to look after chair covers.” The animal husbandry – pigs, cows, sheep, chicken with which Enno grew up – have been abolished in the 60s. Now there are horses again, because Ennos companion, the Swedish Estelle Rytterborg, is a passionate show jumper. A passion that unifies both and nearly leads to a disaster: in fast gallop Enno fell from his horse, suffers from a life-threatening breach in his lungs. “Such incisions make you humble”, he says in thoughts. Since then he doesn’t smoke anymore. “Sometimes I drink enough”, he laughs. Enno enjoys skiing in Kitzbühel during his holidays and says about himself that he’s a ‘car-driving rambler’. “I got calmer, don’t have to attend every party.” The wild times are over now.

Enno von Ruffin with companion Estelle Rytterborg

What is from true importance? The family. Of course. The children Leo, Milana and Sandra. His companion Estelle and her daughter Pauline. Friendships. Basthorst. Milana, who’s meanwhile mother of two children, is going to take over Gut Basthorst one day. Gradually, how Enno von Ruffin emphasizes. Sometimes. Because he cannot completely release: “I always have an ear on the yard.” If it’s raining inside or if the wind whips off the tiles of the roof: it will be his phone, which rings. BvH

Christmas market in Basthorst

Tip:

The Christmas market at Gut Basthorst is one of the most beautiful in North Germany. It starts on the 20th of November (except the 22nd of November) and will be open all Advent weekends: from Friday until Sunday 300 exhibitors offer handcrafts and regional specialties in harmonic atmosphere.
Friday the 27th of November Vicky Leandros is doing a Christmas benefit concert in favor of ‘Ein Herz für Kinder’ (‘a heart for children’). You can auction a VIP-Christmas Tree that will be signed by celebrities like Udo Lindenberg, H.P. Baxter, Johannes B. Kerner, and others.

About the antique secretary the coat of arms of the ancestors

“I’m a human of yard and family, this is what makes my day”, says Enno von Ruffin, who is accompanied by the two Jack Russell terriers Lion and Trouper at every step

Shopping at Gut Basthorst: in the outbuildings of the yard are several shops that invite to further shopping experiences

Over all reigns the neo-Gothic, evangelist Granit church St. Marien – with Baron Enno von Ruffin as patron

Diverse trades have been established at Gut Basthorst: a shoemaker and bassoon-maker, a glider and a felt maker …

… There’s an antiques shop and boutiques for fashion, presents as well as a distillery, a bakery and a whisky-storage

Always with Enno von Ruffin: Lion and Trouper. Sweet!

Pure nature: Gast Basthorst in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

Accession at Gut Basthorst is an original ‘Holzhäuserl’ (house out of wood) from Tirol …

… marvelous lodge-feeling – for this no one has to drive to Austria

Impressions of the countryside …

… and one photo opportunity more beautiful than the other

Enno von Ruffin and me

Contact:

Gut Basthorst
Auf dem Gut 3
21493 Basthorst, Germany

www.gut-basthorst.de

The post At home with Enno von Ruffin appeared first on My Stylery.