Dominique Wörndli started playing the drums before he could walk properly. He strokes his long angel curls. “When I was just two, I rattled my grandmother’s pots with trowels.” He laughs at the memory of his childhood. When he was three years old, he was given his first «Drummeli» and proudly strolled through Baden with it. Then there was the first mini drum kit in kindergarten. This sealed my career as a musician, so to speak. And: “I already knew in primary school that I wanted to emigrate to New York one day.”
While other people’s early childhood dreams often burst like soap bubbles, with Wörndli everything always seemed to come true. How does he do it? “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m sure I listen more to my gut feeling than my head. And when I want something, I do everything I can to achieve it. So far it has always worked. ” His nonchalance is enviable and his life story sounds a bit like a fairy tale.
He runs his own business with his partner
For the interview, the 38-year-old opens the doors to his new realm in the Oederlin area, in the Obersiggenthal district of Rieden, where he and his partner Roxane sell hand-made biodegradable soaps and sustainably produced cotton towels under the label “Marmara Studio”. The two have been a couple for three years. The Swiss woman with German-Turkish roots studied political science in Paris; he was a real estate agent in New York and played drums. The initial long-distance relationship withstood the great distances. Now the two are living together in Baden for the first time and run their start-up company together. The goods they sell online and in select stores are mostly from Istanbul, where Roxane’s mother was born.
Dominique Wörndli’s parents ran a hairdressing salon on Rathausgasse in Baden for decades. They have been on a world tour since they retired in 2016. The drumming junior was also drawn into the distance early on. At 16 he did an exchange year in America. At just 21, he traveled through India on a motorbike for months. On the way he fell in love with an Israeli woman and followed her to Tel Aviv.
“The relationship lasted four months, but I stayed,” says Wörndli, looking at the street sign in Hebrew script that hangs on the wall to commemorate that time. He attended courses at the local jazz school and ran an alternative bar near the beach. “In addition, I organized reggae and soul concerts,” he reports and again as lightly as if it had fallen into his lap. From Tel Aviv, the globetrotter returned to Minnesota. He bought an old bus and drove alone on Route 66 through America and the west coast of California. “After attending the Burning Man Festival, I got stuck in San Francisco on the way back and finally ended up in New York, which was my new home for twelve years.”
Wörndli describes the metropolis as a “hard place”. “Nobody there waited for a drummer from Baden.” But here, too, fate played into his hands. With his open manner, the born communicator quickly made contacts. And because he speaks Hebrew fluently, he gained a foothold in the real estate market through Israeli friends and completed an apprenticeship as a broker.
Back in the tranquil surroundings
Little by little he also made a name for himself with his drum skills, worked with studio musicians and played gigs in jazz clubs. “In Baden, you quickly get to know the local scene. In New York you never know who you’re going to meet, ”he says. “I spent one of the last Christmas parties with Jay-Z and Beyoncé.”
Dominique Wörndli was always financially independent and showed herself to be self-determined from an early age. “I never wanted persons of authority above me.” He sees the fact that the corona crisis has washed him back from New York to Baden as an advantage: “I live with my great love, have a new company and have not been as creative as I have been in a long time. New York was great, but also loud and hectic. Here I can go down and create something new. ” And he firmly believes that everything will turn out well. “Life is a dance … Don’t stop moving” is his life motto.
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