The story of the band NENA is a tale of success unlike any other in the annals of German pop.
The early 80s saw the emergence of a new German language pop music culture, centred on West Berlin, that for quality and innovation could finally hold its own with Anglo-American imports. This was the “Neue Deutsche Welle”(New German Wave), which revolutionized the stuffy, traditional German media landscape. For the first time young German bands were breaking into the charts and reaching a wider audience. Bands like IDEAL and the Nina Hagen Band (later SPLIFF) were finally making pop songs with German lyrics respectable. Innovation was the order of the day. Two of these aspiring young musicians were Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen (synthesizer) and Jürgen Dehmel (bass) in Berlin. At the end of the 70s they had notched up their first local successes and produced their first LPs with their bands ODESSA and KATIA. They were now, at the start of the 80s, looking for their big break in the booming Berlin music scene.

It came from an unexpected source. In the winter of 1980/81 Uwe was offered a gig as keyboard player on a short club tour with THE STRIPES, a young ensemble from the provincial West German city of Hagen who had released an album in English with record label CBS. The album had flopped and the band had fallen out. But CBS was impressed with vocalist Gabriele Kerner (whose nickname was “Nena”) and wanted to give the young singer another chance, this time with songs in German. The plan was to send “Nena” Kerner – and her boyfriend, Stripes drummer Rolf Brendel – to Berlin to test the waters with the Spliff musicians, the producing team of Reinhold Heil and Manne Praeker, and their legendary manager Jim Rakete. But first the pair had to complete a ten day provincial tour with the ‘ ‘ Stripes‘ English repertoire, and for that they needed a keyboard player capable of modernising the Stripes sound. A number of musicians recommended Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, who already had a reputation in Berlin as an innovator. The first meeting between “Nena” Kerner, Rolf Brendel and Uwe took place in the winter of 1980/81 in an unheated flat above a shop in Berlin Schöneberg, in which the cash-strapped Stripes pair had stayed the night. It was a collision of two worlds: “Nena” and Rolf were provincial kids from Hagen in home-knitted pullovers, while Uwe epitomised the extrovert style of the 80s Berlin music scene. Uwe was sceptical, but accepted the gig because he needed money to buy a decent case for his synthesizer. That short tour, however, convinced Uwe of the huge potential that was slumbering in the Stripes line-up. He could see for himself the remarkable effect “Nena” had on audiences in the live gigs. So when “Nena” and Rolf needed a potential hit single to launch their collaboration with the Spliff production team, Uwe wrote and produced the music for two songs in early 1981. 

The two songs Nur geträumt (Just a Dream) and Ganz oben (Right on Top) were conceived by Uwe as minimalist, electronic pop compositions, and they were to become the template for the later sound of the band. “Nena” and Rolf were excited by Uwe‘s compositions and, although they had never written songs in German before, they came up with two great sets of lyrics. Spliff, Jim Rakete and CBS, recognising a potential hit, gave the green light to produce a single. There were now three core band members for the new project – Uwe, “Nena” and Rolf – but they were still missing a guitarist and a bass guitarist. On bass, Uwe recommended his old friend, the talented multi-instrumentalist Jürgen Dehmel. Jürgen fitted in perfectly straight away and went on to give the band many valuable artistic impulses. Finally, they were joined for the studio recordings by a friend of “Nena” and Rolf, the experienced lyricist and guitarist Carlo Karges, who had played in numerous bands including NOVALIS, EXTRABREIT and ULLA MEINECKE.

The line-up was thus complete and Rolf and “Nena” moved to Berlin, first moving in with Uwe, so they could work together on more songs. In a development that would soon pay dividends, Jürgen and Uwe provided access to ODESSA’s fully equipped rehearsal studio in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where the band could work and rehearse every day.

But the band didn’t yet have a name … So for want of a better idea – and because it would be easy to remember – the band members and their manager Jim Rakete decided to adopt vocalist Gabriele Kerner’s nickname “Nena” as the band name. In that they were following a precedent: Debbie Harry and BLONDIE. Everyone involved in the decision was aware that it could lead to confusion: audiences might assume the name NENA referred to a solo artist, rather than the band as a whole. But they were confident that any such misconception could be corrected in public by clear information in the press. That turned out to be a fatal error of judgement. So the band was launched with Rolf Brendel (dr), Jürgen Dehmel (bass), Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen (keyb), Carlo Karges (gt) und “Nena” Kerner (voc) as NENA in spring 1982, with their first single Nur geträumt (music: Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen / lyrics: “Nena” Kerner/ Rolf Brendel). At first, the disc didn’t exactly fly off the record shops‘ shelves. Then a lucky break came in the summer. The last minute withdrawal of another act freed up a slot on a TV music show called MUSIKLADEN (music shop) dedicated to the New German Wave. The hungry young band seized their chance, totally upstaging the established competition. By the next day, Nur geträumt by NENA was sold out everywhere and raced to the top of the charts. In the meantime the band had been working on new songs and already had enough material for an album, which they completed within just 3 weeks in autumn/winter 1982, again with the Spliff production team of Reinhold Heil and Manne Praeker in the Spliff Studio in Berlin-Moabit. Five songs and most of the lyrics on the album are from the hand of Carlo Karges – Vollmond (Full Moon), Es regnet (It’s Raining), Indianer (Indians), Ich bleib im Bett (I Stay in Bed) and Noch einmal (Once Again) – while the music for the single-releases 99 Luftballons, Nur geträumt and Leuchtturm (Lighthouse) was composed by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen. But every member of the band contributed songs and ideas: “Nena” and Uwe together wrote Nur geträumt and Leuchtturm, Uwe and Rolf Brendel wrote  Zaubertrick (Magic Trick), and Rolf by himself Kino (At the Movies) and Lass mich dein Pirat sein (Let Me Be Your Pirate), Jürgen Dehmel co-wrote Satellitenstadt (Satellite City) with Carlo and Tanz auf dem Vulkan (Dance on the Volcano)with “Nena“ and Carlo. The band had grown as an organic whole, in which each member was artistically on an equal footing, contributed to the repertoire and had an irreplaceable function: Carlo was the band’s soul, Uwe its musical brain, Jürgen the artistic tinkerer, Rolf the steady pulse and “Nena” the band’s face and voice. The first album under the band name, with the simple title “NENA”, was released at the start of 1983 along with their second single 99 Luftballons.

That song, a musically and textually groundbreaking anti-war song, was an instant hit on radio and went straight to the top of the charts, even surpassing the phenomenal success of its predecessor Nur geträumt. The band’s success now spilled over into neighbouring countries, with a sold-out European tour and a flood of Gold and Platinum discs from all over Europe. Thanks to the single’s international success, the NENA LP also topped the charts and turned the band into superstars. At the same time, however, it became harder to explain in each country that NENA was the name of the band and not of the solo vocalist. Internally, the band and manager Jim Rakete held solidly together and decided as a countermeasure to authorise no more individual photos of band members. The band’s punishing workload, trekking almost daily across Europe for TV appearances and tours, didn’t stop them recording a terrific second album entitled “?” (Fragezeichen – Question Mark) in autumn/winter 1983 with the Spliff team in Berlin. Once again, the music of the album’s hit first single– the title track “?” – was composed by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, with lyrics this time by “Nena” Kerner.  And once again, the album topped the charts, not just in Germany but other European countries, and the European tour that followed in 1984 became a triumphal procession for the band.