Harold Faltermeyer

Born October 5th, 1952 in Munich, Germany, Harold Faltermeyer was raised in a countryside neighborhood just outside the city. The family lived and still lives in a large compound where?music was always a part of daily life. Harold’s Grandpa was a gifted violinist, Grandma had a beautiful classical Alto soprano singing voice and Harold’s Father still plays excellent piano. Needless to say with this background and after discovering Harold’s budding musical talent, all efforts were taken to guide him toward a musical education. After completing high school Harold studied music at Munich’s prestigious, “Hochschule für Musik”, the equivalent to a?music college. ?While studying there, he took on a job at the “Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft” recording studio as a volunteer technician. Harold soon discovered that this area of the music business would be essential for his future career. His job in this studio became ever more important to?his education so, after graduating from music collage he continued to work at this studio as a sound engineer for several years. Parallel to this, he was also honing his skills in electronic music, programming synthesizers, composing, arranging and conducting. With this kind of?dedication, Harold didn’t have to wait very long to obtain his first jobs in the rising world of Disco music. Established producer Giorgio Moroder soon learned about this multitalented kid and offered him a serious Multi-tasking job as musician, arranger and engineer.?Harold worked nearly two years in Giorgio’s famous Musicland Studio in Munich before he got the chance to be part of Donna Summer’s new album “Bad girls”, which was due for production in early 1979. It was this album that launched Harold into the bigger world of the?music business in the USA. When he got the chance to compose several songs on the album, he took it! “Hot Stuff” is still one of the all time Disco classics. Then, while working on several projects together with Giorgio, Harold met movie producers Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson. In 1983 they offered Harold the opportunity to compose the music for their new feature “Thief of Hearts“. Soon after he was hired for “Beverly Hills Cop“, “Top Gun“ and “Beverly Hills Cop II“. Collectively these movies garnered 5 Grammy nominations, 2 Golden Globe Nominations and one Academy Award nomination. Harold won two Grammy’s and several awards abroad. The theme from Beverly Hills Cop - “AXEL F.” was his biggest instrumental hit so far and was covered several times by various groups around the world. In 2005, two decades after it’s origin, the Crazy Frog version of “AXEL F.” became the biggest selling ring tone of all time. Not only ring tones were charting but also the CD release of that version hit the English charts and went straight to #1, outselling Outcast 4:1! It was a Euro #1 hit and will end up being one of the top selling single CD’s in 2005. During 1985 -1992 he wrote the music to several successful movies like “Fletch“(starring Chevy Chase), “Running Man“(Arnold Schwarzenegger), “Fletch Lives“(Chevy Chase) “Fatal Beauty“(Whoopi Goldberg), “Tango &Cash“(Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell) and “Kuffs“ (Christian Slater). In 1989 his daughter Elena was born and the decision was made to raise her in Germany were the entire family lives. While back in Germany, Harold produced the highly successful Pet Shop Boys album “Behavior“. In 1991 the twins Florian and Bianca arrived and now the center of his world truly was his children. During 1992-1997 he spent the majority of his time in Munich working on several Movies, TV Series and developing new artists like “Chaya, Marshall & Alexander, Jessica DeRooy“ and many more. In 1997 Harold met Austria’s multi-platinum seller Rainhard Fendrich with whom he composed and produced a trilogy of very successful albums. In 1998 he began, together with Fendrich, to write a musical called “Wake Up“ which had its premiere September 2002 in Vienna’s famous “Raimund Theatre“. The musical played through January 2004 and had more than 300 performances with not less than 320,000 visitors. Currently Harold is working on an new musical together with Rainhard Fendrich called “Car Dump“, a story drawn from the romantic era of classical cars like the Corvette, Mustang, Mercedes SL and many more. Harold is also writing a score for an action Video game for Zuxxess Productions. His first Musical, “Wake Up“ is currently being modified and staged to fit the budget of a tour production through the German speaking countries. An English language version is also on the way. Although Harold enjoys the European flair and lifestyle back home, he has recently made the decision, now that the kids are 16 and 14 respectively, to move back to the USA and commence working again at the place where he once started back in 1979.