I never wanted to be a singer though, I always dreamed about being a dancer. Until – on a high school exchange program in the States – I messed up my knees doing a so-called “jump split“ in the Oregon State Dance Championships (luckily it was the ending pose in the routine) and had to wear a full-leg splint after that. To live out my pent-up creativity, I reluctantly joined the school choir and was stunned when I (as a foreigner!) got picked to perform the American national anthem at our graduation ceremony. “Why me?” I asked myself and still puzzled started to take professional singing lessons from an amazingly motivating teacher when I came back to Germany. After high school, I decided to study something “prudential” and got my diploma in business psychology. But all through university, I spent at least half of my time writing songs, performing at festivals and organizing my own concerts. I was lucky to find a musical accomplice and some really nice producers (now producing the tremendously famous band Tokio Hotel) who recorded my first demo songs. I performed in front of up to 20 000 people, had newspaper (yep, even BILD), radio (Top 3 of the local wish list) and TV coverage (a full 3 minutes), but somehow I never really managed to commit to music a 100 percent. So I ended the collaboration with my musical partners and moved from Hamburg to Munich when I got an offer to work for one of Germany’s greatest media visionaries. But while I was “working my ass off” in the world of publishing, I realized that not being able to make music became more scary than the thought of being a poor artist living under the bridge. So, I finally decided to “burn the boats.” I am ready…