Youth
Up to the age of seven, Vetter lived with his mother in a flat in the Moabit district of Berlin, and in Frohnau up to the age of 18. His parents were low-paid civil servants, and he has a younger half-sister named Julia. His mother often played records by The Beatles, and he was introduced to music at a young age.
At the age of nine he decided to take guitar lessons with an elderly woman who taught him classical standards. He played guitar while visiting holiday camps. Ironically in hindsight, his later music teacher advised him: "Whatever you do when you grow up, don't do anything with music!". At the age of 16, Vetter went on a school trip to London, and returned home as a punk with dyed blonde hair.
In 1980 he met Dirk Felsenheimer (later known as Bela B.) at the club Ballhaus Spandau, one of the few clubs in West-Berlin that occasionally played Punk Rock, and joined his band Soilent Grün, replacing the previous guitar player whose guitar had been stolen. When the time came to make up stage names, Vetter decided to refer to his favourite hobby of travelling, contracting the phrase "Fahr in Urlaub" ("Go on holiday") to Farin Urlaub. After completing his Abitur (school-leaving exams, equivalent of A-levels) in 1981, he enrolled in archaeology at the Free University of Berlin, but soon gave up studying to focus on his musical career.
Read more about this topic: Farin Urlaub
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Man’s own youth is the world’s youth; at least he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth’s granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
“In youth the human body drew me and was the object of my secret and natural dreams. But body after body has taken away from me that sensual phosphorescence which my youth delighted in. Within me is no disturbing interplay now, but only the steady currents of adaptation and of sympathy.”
—Haniel Long (1888–1956)