Early years In the early 1980s, Hacke released a few solo tapes and mini-albums, such as
Hiroshima. He became a long-time member of
Einstürzende Neubauten and also was a member of several other bands, such as Sentimentale Jugend (with
Christiane Vera Felscherinow, also known as Christiane F.),
Sprung aus den Wolken and
Mona Mur.
Einstürzende Neubauten live in 2000: Alexander Hacke (left, playing bass) with
Blixa Bargeld (right) In 1980, at the age of fifteen, Hacke joined
Einstürzende Neubauten, which had been formed earlier the same year. Hacke played guitar and worked with the band's sound until the mid 1990s. Then he changed from guitar to bass and is now a bass player and, according to band leader
Blixa Bargeld, "a musical director of the band".
Solo activities Hacke's first full-length solo album was
Filmarbeiten (1992). In the 1990s, he was frontman of the band
Jever Mountain Boys, who played their favorite songs, particularly
country music cover-versions. In 2003, Alexander Hacke and his longtime partner
Danielle de Picciotto (married since 2006) organized the monthly event "BadaBing" in the famous Berlin 70s Club "Big Eden", presenting new and unusual bands and in this way initiating a new wave of Berlin-oriented "Futur-electroclash" music all over Europe. They travel extensively performing multimedia shows together and presenting workshops on Berlin
underground culture. In 2004,
Danielle de Picciotto produced a documentary on
Einstürzende Neubauten for which Alexander Hacke did the sound design. &
Danielle de Picciotto live with "The Mountains of Madness" (2007) In 2005, Hacke and de Picciotto conceived and directed "The Mountains of Madness", an audio/visual live show based on stories by
H. P. Lovecraft, inviting the English Trio
The Tiger Lillies to participate and perform in the successful production throughout Europe. In the 2000s, Hacke created the album
Sanctuary (released in 2005), travelling with a mobile recorder in Europe and
North America and collaborating with numerous artists, such as
J.G.Thirlwell (
Foetus),
Caspar Brötzmann,
Larry Mullins (also known as Toby Dammit),
Vinnie Signorelli (
Unsane), Michael Evans (KBZ 200), Sugarpie Jones (Celebrity Skin),
Bob Rutman (Steel Cello Ensemble), Nils Wohlrabe (
The Leather Nun),
Gianna Nannini,
Andrew Chudy (alias
N.U. Unruh,
Einstürzende Neubauten), Lary 7 (The Analog Society), and
David Yow (
The Jesus Lizard). In the reviews on this album Hacke was compared to
Frank Zappa and
Captain Beefheart. The "Road Record", an excerpt of which can be seen on Sanctuary, was documented by de Picciotto, describing the revolutionary recording style Hacke used to produce the record. Hacke also contributed to several soundtracks to such films as
Sonnenallee and
Das Wilde Leben (biography of
Uschi Obermaier, 2006/07). Hacke produced music for
Fatih Akın's film
Head-On (2004) and is a main character in
Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005), Akın's documentary of the
Istanbul music scene. On several occasions he reunited on stage with
FM Einheit (ex-
Einstürzende Neubauten) for an experimental performance. == Personal life ==