Waidhofner Dennis Jale finds it extremely pleasant to be more famous abroad than in Austria itself, as it allows him to enjoy his privacy in his hometown Vienna with his partner and daughter to the full, even in lockdown. Since moping isn’t his thing, he makes the most of it. In addition to writing his first German song, the rock ‘n’ roll entertainer from the Waldviertel is closely following the developments of one-year-old Jaylin, while he is in contact with his long-time and good friend Priscilla Presley almost every week.
Deregistered from all schools. Even in his school days he was a bit out of line: “At all schools where my parents registered me, I de-registered.” In the end, however, he agreed to a compromise and completed an apprenticeship as an office clerk. After graduating, he had the blessings of his parents and was allowed to develop freely in the music world. For the trained office clerk from Waidhofen, picking up the guitar was his first encounter with music. “My stepfather bought us children a guitar, placed it on the living room cabinet that was difficult to reach and waited.” As luck would have it, she immediately laughed at him and piqued his interest. The then thirteen-year-old and still lonely Rainer Kaspar spent the whole summer in his new home Amstetten teaching himself to play the stringed instrument.
“Opened up a phone book and the rock ‘n’ roll sounding name Dennis Jale caught my eye.” About his stage name.
Without musical training in the role of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. The starting shot for his career had been given. From now on he was surrounded by music and professional musicians, played in bands and later even slipped into the role of the legendary King of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the Vienna Theater an der Josefstadt without training in musicals – at first somewhat involuntarily. “At the beginning, I totally disagreed with the choice of this character in the piece ‘Lapin agile’, because I didn’t want to play in the disguise of Elvis Presley.” To sit in the mask for two hours a day. “Not even my children recognized me,” he says and can now smile about it. Jale himself hadn’t known Presley as a child. “It wasn’t until my mother stood crying in the kitchen on the day he died that I realized what had happened.”
During a stay in Las Vegas he searched for and found his current stage name. “I opened a phone book and then the rock ‘n’ roll sounding name Dennis Jale caught my eye.” Two other decisive experiences shaped his life and were the beginning of a friendship that continues to this day. “I got to know Elvis’ band at a concert in London and expanded this contact even further during a performance in the Wiener Stadthalle.” That the TCB band was looking for a singer played into his cards. “Almost a year later we went on tour together for the first time.” Since then, Jale has been the only musician who has performed with the original Elvis Presley band since 2003 and comes very close to the “King”. Even if he appreciates this privilege extremely, his greatest professional highlight relates to himself: “I am most pleased that regional radio stations play my own songs.” So it would be wrong to approach Jale with an Elvis impersonator to reduce. He brings his authentic, versatile personality too much for that. “For me, embarrassing imitators belong in the carnival department,” he emphasizes.
Normally Dennis Jale would be on a European tour with Elvis’ original band right now, because his team would not have believed that the situation would drag on.
Concert dates will be postponed again. Instead, concert dates that have already been postponed are rescheduled to a later date, tickets are rebooked and people are informed. The same scenario continued in 2020, as concerts have a lead time of several months and there was no planning security. “Only open-air concerts and the tour with the Danube Island bus were inside, although towards the end of the summer a certain fear in connection with larger crowds was palpable”, he describes the difficulty in the artist branch.
Doubts about April dates because of distance rules. He doubts that the concerts scheduled for April can take place as planned. “The distance rule of two meters alone would mean that less than 50 people can be accommodated in the Vienna Metropol and not even cover the costs of the tape,” says Jale, describing the problem. When he will go on another cruise with his long-time and good friend Priscilla Presley to give fans pure rock ‘n’ roll enjoyment is still in the stars, as they are throwing all plans overboard due to the pandemic had to. His friendship with the American goes back to a joint cooking evening at Elvis’ best friend, Jerry Schilling: “We started talking and immediately understood each other.”
Can watch one year old daughter grow up. He sees the positive thing about his “forced break” in watching his one-year-old daughter Jaylin grow up. Dennis Jale wishes that the vaccination goes well, that people go out again without fear and that he, as Elvis, can rock the stage on the planned European tour in autumn 2021.
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