Henning Mai, whose appearance in the German rock music space demolished the established authority of such giants as Wir sind Helden and Kettcar, is a young singer who does not consider himself a star at all. His songs penetrate the hearts of the listeners, and his boyish appearance contrasts with a mature, hard voice and deliberately aloof manner of performance.

Biography. Early years

Henning May was born on January 13, 1992 in Cologne, he grew up with his older brother in the Sylz region, stretching along the left bank of the Rhine.

In the early 2000s, the Mai divorced and both sons were left in the care of their father, a school teacher. Soon the artist’s brother also left the family, he decided to start an independent life with his girlfriend. According to Henning, he never attached particular importance to the fact that he was growing up in an incomplete family, his father did everything so that the boy would not feel deprived. The elder Mai was never able to establish his own personal life, and devoted all his free time to his son. Together they went to football matches and traveled, it was the father who showed Henning the chords on the guitar, which predetermined his fate – music became the main hobby of the young man.

An interesting fact is that the first concert the boy was taken to by his father was Sting’s concert. Not many years will pass and Henning will sing his legendary “Roxanne” in such a way that even the most loyal fans of the canonical performance will be forced to admit that the song has acquired a new and even more interesting sound.

Career. Start

Henning wrote his first poems at the age of 14 after a ridiculous quarrel with his father about a tattoo he planned to get. The quarrel quickly ended in reconciliation, but Henning had to promise that he would not get a tattoo.
After graduating from school, Mai entered a music school, where he met Christopher Annen and Severin Cantrait.

Friendship, which began on the basis of love for rock and blues, soon grew into a creative union, and the guys began to record their first songs, singing rock ballads. After graduating from college, they often performed on the streets and squares of Cologne, attracting the attention of passers-by with unusual arrangements and bold performances of legendary hits. Henning’s voice, hard and gloomy, with a pronounced coarseness, which did not correspond to either the age or appearance of the young man, did not leave the listeners indifferent. Formed by Rio Reiser back in the early 80s, the high standards of German pop-rock, seemingly lost forever with his passing away, were reborn by three yesterday’s schoolchildren, gaining more and more fans with each performance.

A lot of people have been asking what their band is called and where you can find their recordings. However, the guys, who were barely twenty, did not yet have a name or their own songs. With decisiveness and ambition characteristic of their age, they named the group AnnenMayKantereit, abbreviated as AMK, combining their surnames.

AnnenMayKantereit

2011 is officially considered the year of birth of the group, in two years the guys will release the album “AMK”, most of the compositions of which will soon be removed from the network due to poor sound quality. However, in the short time that the album was available, the young musicians won an even larger audience, thanks in large part to Henning’s voice and youthful charm. In the team, May is a frontman and multi-instrumentalist, in addition to guitar and piano, he is fluent in accordion and ukulele.

With the arrival of bassist Malte Hook in the band, the sound of the songs became even brighter, and in 2015 the guys completed work on their debut album, which was evaluated by reviewers and columnists of leading German music publications as an incredible breakthrough, which is unlikely to be repeated by any of the German musicians. “AllesNixKonkretes” consisted of 12 tracks, many of them were included in “AMK” and were already known to the fans of the group. The author of most of the texts for the songs is May, in which he sings with disarming sincerity about what excites every young person: about love, the joy of first dates and the bitterness of parting.

The song “Pocahontas” got its name from the nickname of the girl Mai dated, while “Barfuss am Klavier” was written in memory of a dramatic breakup.

One of the brightest songs on the album is “Oft gefragt”, it is written about Henning’s father, these are sincere words of gratitude, seasoned with subtle sadness about the past childhood.

Personal life

By personal life, basically, it is understood that a celebrity has romantic relationships and connections, but Mai prefers not to talk about this.

It is known that the musician lives in his father’s house, Henning’s hobby is reading. In an interview, the artist sometimes shocks fans, stating, for example, that he uses an old push-button telephone, or that in girls he is most attracted to a smile, but he would like to be stuck in an elevator … with Beyoncé, whose main advantage is hardly a smile.

Hanning May now

At the end of 2018, the Schlagschatten album was released, and the musicians began their first large-scale tour of the cities of Germany and European countries. Henning’s life is inseparable from AnnenMayKantereit, he gladly gives interviews, and it seems that the crazy popularity and adoration of fans only amuses him. However, the reaction to the work of the group from some famous people makes Henning blush. So, for example, Sean Penn, who has recently taken up literary activity, presented his book “Bob Honey, who just does everything” in 2018. The hero of the novel, on whose behalf the story is being told, is driving a car along the roads of America and listening to the song “Sometimes I Like To Lie”. Speaking about the book on the Stephen Colbert show, the actor also spoke about AnnenMayKantereit, which he called “a great German band.”

Photo source: instagram musician.