Although everyone advised him against it at the time, Max Giesinger (34, "80 million") let his friends manage him more than ten years ago. "Starting this business with my friends and choosing my 21 and 23-year-old managers was one of the best decisions of my life," Giesinger told the German Press Agency in Hamburg. He made the decision on instinct. "Sure, we all had no cash and no idea how this was supposed to work. But it felt right," he recalled.

After all, the lads have played a big part in getting him where he is now. "And so I always had my environment with me. I always knew where I came from. That grounded me very much."

His fan mail is also organized within the family: "My mother takes care of that. She collects it, and whenever I'm at home I have to sign it." But laundry baskets full of letters are not. "No, that's a few hundred. I'm not a Backstreet Boy," said the native of Baden-Württemberg with a smile. Giesinger grew up in Waldbronn near Karlsruhe and has lived in Hamburg for about eight years.

He also doesn't regret in the slightest that he broke off his banking apprenticeship to take part in the casting show "The Voice of Germany". "I had a very clear feeling that music is my talent." Giesinger has now sold more than 1.5 million records and millions of his songs have been streamed on the Internet. His most successful songs include "80 million", "When she dances", "On what's to come" and "Sometime is now". Giesinger's new tour was scheduled to start on Sunday (March 5th) in Switzerland and will end in Leipzig on April 9th.