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Tenor, baker, avantgarde artist, who impressed Bowie himself, and ambitious creator with a vision. Also, one of the earliest victim of AIDS among popular musicians...
The first time I learned about the existence of Klaus Nomi was almost 20 years ago, while looking for some unique and original, timeless artists. Back then Klaus already was gone for more than 20 years, which made me instantly sad.
Few biographical facts for starters. Klaus was born in Bavaria, like year before the war ended in 1944, raised by a single mother. Since his childhood he already had two passions - classical music, and pop rock. One could assume that already then a devilish concept of mixing the two crossed the mind of young Klaus. First thing first, he trained his voice, therefore achieving full 6 octaves (same as Rob Halford, while King Diamond apparently has only 5).
For comparison - average human achieves normally 1,5
octave. 7 octaves, which is really a high register, is quite rare, a known example would be Mariah Carey, while there is only 1 person in recorded human history to achieve 8 octaves, an italian-brazilian singer Georgia Brown, whose voice is sometimes called a "whistle register". There is no known person, who achieved the final 9th octave.
Klaus did not believe he could afford the living by being a tenor only, therefore he got a degree in pastry baking, and apparently he was a also a master crafter in this area as well. Baking funded his dream of becoming a popular singer in the future, just so you know. He moved to New York, and tried his luck there.
His serious debut was in 1978, being part of the event called "New
Wave Vaudeville", and while his image was more or less developing, the critics were already awed by his out-there, almost alienlike visuals and show.
He then met some whatever showbusiness lackeys, with whom he started working on his career. As I often mention - since the dawn of man, if you want to make a name for yourself, you have to do covers (even Beatles, or Elvis Presley himself had to do that, before they became famous). Klaus did Lightnin' Strike (originally by some American singer, who actually died recently), which you can see here:
Working with management didn't turn out to be satisfactory, and as such, Klaus continued without it. And this is when he met David Bowie, with whom he performed on stage during Saturday Night Live show:
Bowie himself liked the visual key, and creating a unique image, lest we forget about his alter-ego Aladdin Sane from 1973. Maybe that's why he was so eager to bring Klaus on scene, to show to the people "hey I'm not the only one".
The first album (out of two) was released in 1981 r., and was self-titled, with the famous iconic look of Klaus on cover. It had all of the hits that Klaus was working on previously, during his early stages. The second, called "Simple
Man", which was released year later, was more accurate to the vision that he had, which is mixing opera with pop music (something that Pavarotti would be known in the future). However, the record is really a child of its era, and nowadays might sound very dated. But still, a very worthy listen.
Another year passed and our dear Klaus died due to health complications caused by AIDS. As his final wish, he had his body cremated and scattered by the winds in New York. In 2007 a post-humous, unfinished album was released, called "Za Bakdaz".
I will not lie to you and pretend that I understand all of these artistic concepts that Klaus was inspired by (pre-war, 20s Germany?), or that I have knowledge to go in great detail about them. Feel free to educate me, using comment section. I will do say, that Nomi's sci-fi / futuristic approach, and being an outsider among outsiders, with his love for classical music makes Klaus a honorable Metalhead :)
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