DJ Ötzi

Gerhard Friedle was born 7 January 1971 and built a career in schlager, the earnest pop sound that dominates German-language airwaves. In 2000 he covered Bruce Channel's "Hey! Baby" as "Hey Baby (Uhh, Ahh)" and watched it explode beyond the Alpine circuit into English-speaking markets that normally ignore Austrian chart fare. The stage name came from Ötzi the Iceman, the mummified remains found in 1991 in South Tyrol's Ötztal Alps - a deliberate nod to something ancient, immovable, discovered by accident. The single made him the rare schlager act with passport-free recognition, though most of his catalogue still belongs to the countries where brass and accordions carry no stigma.