Ralf Hütter (born 20 August 1946) is a German musician and composer best known as the lead singer and keyboardist of

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...

, which he founded with

Florian Schneider Florian Schneider-Esleben (7 April 194721 April 2020) was a German musician. He is best known as one of the founding members and leaders of the electronic band Kraftwerk, performing his role with the band until his departure in 2008. Early li ...

in 1970, and became the only consistent member of the band (although he briefly left the band for several months in 1971), and the only one to have appeared on every single one of the band's albums. On 12 May 2021, Kraftwerk was announced as one of the inductees of the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), also simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and the ...

Personal life

Hütter was born on 20 August 1946 in

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

, Germany. In 2009 he lived near

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

. He met Florian Schneider while studying improvisation at the Robert Schumann Hochschule. The pair started performing at happenings and art galleries in the late 1960s, subsequently incorporating electronic sounds and building their own Kling Klang Studio. He is a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

. Hütter is a secretive musician who avoids interviews. Hütter is an enthusiastic

cycling Cycling, also known as bicycling or biking, is the activity of riding a bicycle or other types of pedal-driven human-powered vehicles such as balance bikes, unicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles. Cycling is practised around the world fo ...

fan, a fact reflected in some of the band's work. It was widely claimed that, when he was on tour, the group's bus would drop off Hütter 100 miles away from the next venue and he would cycle the rest of the way, a story that Hütter later confirmed. The band members took up cycling when recording the album '' The Man-Machine'' in the late 1970s. Ralf Hütter had been looking for a new form of exercise. The single "

Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage cycle sport, bicycle race held primarily in France. It is the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours, which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a ...

" includes sounds that follow this theme, including bicycle chains, gear mechanisms and the breathing of the cyclist. At the time of the single's release Ralf Hütter tried to convince the rest of the band that they should record a whole album based around cycling. At the time this did not happen, but the project eventually was released as '' Tour de France Soundtracks'' in 2003. Hütter was involved in a serious cycling accident in May or June 1982,

Karl Bartos Karl Bartos (born 31 May 1952) is a German musician and composer known for his contributions to the electronic band Kraftwerk. Career Karlheinz Bartos was born on 31 May 1952 in Marktschellenberg, Germany, named after his grandfathers Karl a ...

2017, ''Der Klang der Maschine'', ch. 12 during the initial period of

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

for the 1986 album '' Electric Café''. He was in a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to Nociception, respond normally to Pain, painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal Circadian rhythm, sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate ...

as a result.

claimed the first thing Hütter said when he awoke from his coma was "Where is my bicycle?", a story Hütter later disputed in a June 2009 interview in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hutter, Ralf 1946 births People from Krefeld Living people German keyboardists Kraftwerk members German record producers German electronic musicians German male songwriters German male singers English-language singers from Germany German experimental musicians Robert Schumann Hochschule alumni Synth-pop singers