Alexander Veljanov

Alexander Veljanov is a Macedonian singer and songwriter, best known as the voice of the German dark wave band Deine Lakaien. He was born in Ohrid in the mid-1960s; the exact year is something he keeps to himself, like most of his private life. He has lived and worked in Munich, Berlin and London.

He studied theatre and film in Munich and Berlin. In 1985 the composer and pianist Ernst Horn, who had just left his post as conductor at the Baden State Theatre in Karlsruhe, placed a newspaper advertisement for a singer who liked to experiment. Veljanov, then a student in Munich, answered it, and the two founded Deine Lakaien that same year. In 1991 he left his studies to concentrate on music.

Deine Lakaien mix dark wave with pop and avant-garde ideas, from quiet piano ballads to harsh electronic pieces, mostly in English. Their albums run from Deine Lakaien (1986) and Dark Star (1991) through Forest Enter Exit (1993), their first to chart, Winter Fish Testosterone, Kasmodiah, White Lies and April Skies to Indicator (2010), Crystal Palace (2014) and the double album Dual (2021). "Over and Done" (2005) reached number 51 in Germany. For Crystal Palace the band's live line-up included the Macedonian guitarist Goran Trajkoski.

Alongside the band he sang in the Berlin rock group Run Run Vanguard until 1993 and built a solo career as Veljanov. Secrets of the Silver Tongue (1998) brought "The Man with the Silver Gun" and "The Past and Forever", and The Sweet Life (2001) brought "Fly Away". A singles collection, Kaleidoscope, followed in 2006, and in 2008 the German single "Nie mehr" and the album Porta Macedonia, on which he covered and sampled songs by the Macedonian band Mizar.

He has also been a guest singer for many others, among them the early music group Estampie on Ludus Danielis, Crusaders and Ondas, Schiller on Leben (2004), Das Holz, Stendal Blast and the Edgar Allan Poe Projekt. Prophecy Productions, the label of Deine Lakaien's Dual, has since released his new solo song "Nomos Shanderilan" with an official video.