31 Facts About Klaus Dinger

Klaus Dinger was the guitarist and chief songwriter of new wave group La Dusseldorf and briefly the percussionist of Kraftwerk.

Klaus Dinger was born in Scherfede, Westphalia, Germany, to Heinz and Renate Dinger on 24 March, 1946.

Klaus Dinger was part of the school swing band despite having no prior musical experience.

Klaus Dinger left the school with a Mittlere Reife, later accusing the school of misinterpreting his "free mindedness" as misbehaviour.

Klaus Dinger became more interested in music, and practiced drums with spare bits of wood until he could afford a drum kit.

Klaus Dinger worked in a free jazz ensemble, making what he later called "noise".

In Summer 1970 Klaus Dinger received a telephone call from Ralf Hutter.

The homeless drummer moved into the house of Florian's parents, Florian leaving shortly after, but Klaus Dinger was kept on as a lodger.

Klaus Dinger describes Conny's abilities as a "mediator" between the often disagreeing factions within the band.

Klaus Dinger later changed the beat's "name" to the "Apache beat" to coincide with his 1985 solo album Neondian.

At some shows blood splashed, when Klaus Dinger hurt himself with a broken cymbal.

Klaus Dinger later said that the record company had tried to dissuade them from making it as it was not commercially viable.

Whilst Rother was at Forst, the Klaus Dinger brothers returned from London.

Rother's continued absence was the cause of many problems, as Klaus Dinger was at this point far from proficient at guitar.

Klaus Dinger returned to Dusseldorf disheartened, and immediately began to work on projects of his own.

Klaus Dinger has since maintained that she was "the love of my life" and continued to write songs addressed to her well into the 1990s.

Rother returned to Forst to complete a second album with Harmonia, whilst Klaus Dinger continued to tour with La Dusseldorf.

Klaus Dinger would remain signed to Teldec until he was dramatically dropped in 1984.

Klaus Dinger spent the summer of 1975 improving his guitar playing and writing lyrics, intending to turn La Dusseldorf into a viable pop group.

Klaus Dinger's guitar playing, at first criticised as amateurish, developed in time to be as simplistic yet rhythmically advanced as his drumming, and Klaus Dinger never played a full drum kit on record again until 1998's Year of the Tiger.

The personnel listing featured a "Nicolas van Rhein" on keyboards, a pseudonym that Dinger would continue to use for the rest of his career, although more commonly spelled using the Dutch version "Niklaus van Rheijn" after Dinger's relocation to The Netherlands.

The great commercial success of both the album and the single prompted La Dusseldorf to perform in concert, something which they had avoided up until then due to their music's heavily overdubbed nature and the fact that Klaus Dinger played all instruments except drums, making concerts a practical impossibility.

Stylistically similar to the Thomas Klaus Dinger-written tracks on Individuellos, it exhibits the electronic sound the band would adopt more and more in their final years.

In 1983 the Klaus Dinger brothers moved their studio from Dusseldorf to Zeeland, on the Dutch coast.

Klaus Dinger would keep a studio there for the rest of his life, first christening it Langeweg Studios after the road on which it sat, and then Zeeland Studios, which it was most commonly known as from the 1990s onwards.

However, La Dusseldorf had not split up, and the Klaus Dinger brothers continued as a duo for several months, preparing the fourth album.

Klaus Dinger criticises the commercialism and inhumanity of society.

The album cover art features visual representations of many of these themes, Klaus Dinger having a white feather stuck to his head with a sticking plaster, and the lid of a Coca-Cola bottle stuck to the photo.

Klaus Dinger's ex-bandmates objected to the new album being released under the La Dusseldorf name, and took him to court over the matter.

Klaus Dinger moved back to Zeeland with Mari and her children, decorating and furnishing the old farmhouse as a permanent family home.

Klaus Dinger died unexpectedly of heart failure four days before his 62nd birthday.