Christian Steiffen

Born in Osnabrück in 1961, German musician and actor Hardy Schwetter developed from the 2000s his schlager-singer alter ego Christian Steiffen, a character whose aesthetic is strongly influenced by German variety music of the 1970s and 1980s. Under the name Christian Steiffen he offers a mix of schlager, pop and humorous chanson, with narrative lyrics tinged with irony and a stage persona close to musical cabaret. After a long career on the German rock and pop scene, Christian Steiffen’s recording career took shape with the album Arbeiten wo andere Urlaub machen (2013), followed by Ferien vom Rock’n’Roll (2016), then Gott of Schlager (2019) and Göttlich (2022), which continue this offbeat approach to the variety repertoire. On stage, Christian Steiffen performs notably with the Haselandorchester in concert halls and at festivals across Germany, where the theatrical dimension of the character occupies a central place, alongside regular acting work in television and film productions.