Joey Kelly

Joey Kelly at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2017

Joseph "Joey" Kelly (born José Maria Kelly in Gamonal , Spain December 20, 1972 ) is a musician, extreme athlete and entrepreneur of American- Irish descent. He first became known as a member of the pop and folk band The Kelly Family , which has received several music and media awards, and who toured Europe and North America as a street musician from 1974 to 1994 and achieved their commercial breakthrough in 1994. Since the beginning of the 2000s, he has primarily appeared in the areas of professional and extreme sports and as a participant in fun competitions with a sporty character, such as the Wok World Cup and TV total tower diving .

biography

Musical career with the Kelly Family

→ Main article : The Kelly Family

Joey Kelly was born as the eighth child of the American teacher Daniel Jerome Kelly (1930-2002) and the fourth child of the American dancer Barbara-Ann Kelly (born Suokko, 1946-1982) in Gamonal in the Spanish province of Toledo . His father was a descendant of Irish immigrants who traveled to New York as a result of the famine in Ireland around 1850 . Joey Kelly has four half and seven full siblings. He was tutored by his father, never attended a conventional school, and never passed a state exam. Joey Kelly claims that his father never took home schooling seriously, and that is why he has had difficulty reading and writing to this day. When he was nine years old, his mother died of breast cancer . His father, who was addicted to alcohol until the end of the 1980s, then remained a single parent and regulated the family's coexistence and work with an “iron hand”.

From 1974 to 1994, Joey Kelly traveled with his siblings as a street musician through the USA and especially through Europe and played several concerts a day with increasing age. From the age of 15 he was initially responsible for advertising in the family company. Together with his brother John , he later organized the stage set up as well as the construction and filling of the serving carts that the group provided during their concerts in public places.

The family had their commercial breakthrough in 1994 with their album Over the Hump . The musical success was accompanied by a wave of euphoria among mostly young girls, which severely restricted the group in their usual freedom and made it impossible for them to continue the usual street concerts. In February 1995, the Kelly Family released the single Why Why Why , which Joey Kelly interpreted together with his brother Paddy . It made it into the top 30 of the German and the top 20 of the Austrian charts. A poll of readers of the youth magazine BRAVO identified Joey Kelly as the most unpopular member of the group. Although he contributed his own songs to each album, including The Wolf , Angels Flying , Another World , Hallelujah and True Love , it wasn't until nine years later that another single, Flip a Coin , followed with him as lead singer. It reached number 24 in the German charts.

In the band, Joey Kelly mainly played electric guitar , acoustic guitar and percussion instruments. He was tour manager, head of the vehicle fleet and for ten years managing director of the family-owned label Kel-Life GmbH with around 50 employees. After the death of his father in November 2002, he was a partner in the Gymnich Castle , which was leased in the meantime and the family's former residence. At the beginning of 2012 he pushed the foreclosure auction of the property.

During the 2000s, Joey Kelly largely withdrew from the music business. Although he sporadically goes to appearances with some of his siblings who are still musically active, he is not interested in a career as a solo artist. Music no longer plays a role in his life, and he never considered himself a good musician.

"It would never occur to me to buy my music."

- Joey Kelly

After the death of his father, Joey Kelly criticized several circumstances in his past. He emphasized that his father, described as strict and dominant, had the highest respect, but as a child and young person he had no choice but to conform to his ideas about life and learn to play music. He described the extent of their commercial success in the mid-1990s as unhealthy, and he also emphasized that he would never want to experience such a condition again. He is experiencing his “best time” now as a grown man with the realization of his own path. Hysteria meanwhile scares him.

Since 2017 he has appeared again with five to six siblings in the group The Kelly Family .

Endurance and extreme sports

"Had I not been so active in my sport, I would not have survived the Kelly Family"

- Joey Kelly

Impressed by Bruce Lee Joey Kelly began in his youth with kickboxing training . As a counterbalance to his organizational and musical tasks in the family business, he started doing more endurance sports from the mid-1990s. By 2006 he had taken part in over 50 marathons and endurance competitions - including triathlon events such as Ironman and Ultraman , the obstacle race Tough Guy Race and extreme sports events such as the ultramarathon . His starting place at the Ironman Hawaii 1997, the year of the first German Ironman victory, he did not acquire through qualification, but through a wildcard . He reached the finish line after 13:54:02 hours in 1180 of 1365 finishers. The time of the German winner Thomas Hellriegel was 8:33:01.

At Ultraman Hawaii 1998 (10 km swim, 421 km bike, 84 km run in three days) he reached the finish line in seventh place out of 29 participants within the time limit, but was subsequently disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct after a helper who was lying on the ground was disqualified Kicked his foot so badly that he had to seek medical treatment. At the Race Across America 2001, a long-distance bike race across the USA, he and Thorsten Vahl took 4th place out of seven teams and in 2002 in the 4-person mixed team , which included his current wife, 1st place out of two teams .

In 2008 he took part in the Atacama Crossing in Chile and covered the 250 kilometers in 36: 15: 3 hours. He crossed the finish line in fourth place after the 6th and last stage and was first in his age group while running through one of the toughest desert landscapes on earth.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the historic race between polar explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott , Joey Kelly took part in the race to the South Pole in December 2010 as a member of the four-person German team led by moderator Markus Lanz . They covered a distance of 400 kilometers in ten days at temperatures as low as −40 ° C. The ZDF documentary was nominated for the German Television Prize 2011 and the Emmy 2012.

Bet that..? -Moderator Markus Lanz runs from Düsseldorf to Cologne after losing a bet with Kelly in 2012

Inspired by the survival artist Rüdiger Nehberg , who in 1981 walked from Hamburg to Oberstdorf in Allgäu on a foot march documented by ZDF without financial means , Joey Kelly started a similar experiment in September 2010. During the preparatory phase, he took advice from Nehberg. Within 17 days and 23 hours, Joey Kelly hiked 900 kilometers from Wilhelmshaven up to the Zugspitze and, like Nehberg, lived exclusively on what nature offered him or what could be found along the route. A team from the RTL program stern TV recorded individual stations of its march. He summarized his thoughts and experiences during this time as well as memories of the musical past of his family in his 2011 book Hysteria des Körper .

Eleven years after his last participation, Joey Kelly contested the Badwater Run in 2011 , one of the toughest ultramarathons in the world. In midsummer 2012 he accepted the challenge from stern TV to cross the USA without any money of his own. The 5,000-kilometer route from Los Angeles to New York included the specified stage destinations Las Vegas , Denver , St. Louis , Chicago and Washington, DC . Kelly had to cover the distances between the six stages using various means of transport. These modes of transport included the one-time use of a bus, a truck, a car, a bicycle and hitchhiking . It was also allowed to use a joker. Joey Kelly had to work for himself the money needed for accommodation, food and transportation. He was also allowed to accept donations from passers-by. He reached the goal within 16 days.

Under the title No Limits , Joey Kelly holds lectures nationwide, which deal with the topics of motivation, discipline and goal setting, among other things.

Private life

Joey Kelly has been married to Tanja Niethen, a former member of the Bellini band, since 2004 , has four children and lives near Bonn.

social commitment

ambassador

Joey Kelly is the officially appointed ambassador for the German José Carreras Leukemia Foundation . In addition, he was the official ambassador of the Oxfam Trailwalker 2012 and at the same time took part in a team of his sponsor Dimension Data in the 100 kilometer charity event that was held on September 8th and 9th in the Harz Mountains. With the establishment of the AtemWeg Foundation - Foundation for Research into Lung Diseases in 2009, Joey Kelly, together with other celebrities, supports the foundation's activities as a breathing ambassador. Since August 2016, Joey Kelly has also been an ambassador for LOOP ® children and youth welfare, which helps children, young people and families with social problems.

RTL donation marathon

Joey Kelly has been taking part in the RTL donation marathon regularly since 2003 . So he put in a 11-day charity trip from 16 to 27 November 2003, alternating with the extreme athlete Hubert Schwarz the route Berlin - Baghdad by bike back. The 40,000 euros experienced in the process went on the one hand to the association RTL - We Help Children eV and on the other hand it was donated to the private aid organization CARE for a children's hospital. On November 23, 2006, together with Freddy Nock, he set a world record in a “wheel of life”, a double balance bike: Within 24 hours, the two athletes covered 135.3 kilometers and 43,077 vertical meters and rotated 9088 times around their own axis . The 50,000 euros that this campaign brought in were donated.

In 2010 Kelly balanced for 24 hours without interruption and in the open air over a rope 11 meters in length stretched 12 meters above the ground. With a distance covered of 15 kilometers and 686 meters he achieved a Guinness world record. The donation total was 90,000 euros. After another world record in the following year, in which he walked under water for 24 hours and covered a distance of more than 16 kilometers, he scored a third record in November 2012 when he climbed more than 50,000 steps within 24 hours up the direction of travel of an escalator. In this way he raised 120,000 euros for a good cause.

German sports aid

As part of the ZDF television garden on Whitsun 2010, Kelly ran a 24-hour run on a treadmill for 148 kilometers with just one break and helped the Deutsche Sporthilfe Foundation to raise a donation of 30,000 euros. On the 2012 Pentecost holidays, he ran for 24 hours on a death wheel , collecting money that was donated by Deutsche Sporthilfe for training new athletes.

Kick with heart

Kelly has been a regular member of the FC St. Pauli Hamburg Allstars team since 2013 as part of the charity game Kicken mit Herz, which has been taking place annually in the Hoheluft Stadium in Hamburg since 2008, against the medical team of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf , the Placebo Kickers Hamburg. With this event, the children's heart station is supported.

Sports shows on TV (selection)

RTL celebrity boxes

• 2002: Winner (opponent: Ralf Richter )

TV total

Wok World Cup

• 2003: silver (individual)
• 2004: silver (individual); Gold (foursome)
• 2005: bronze (individual); Gold (foursome)
• 2006: Gold (individual)
• 2007: silver (individual)
• 2008: bronze (individual)
• 2009: Bronze (individual)
• 2010: silver (individual)
• 2012: Bronze (individual)
• 2014: Gold (individual)

Diving

• 2007: Gold (individual)
• 2008: silver (individual); Bronze (synchronous)
• 2009: bronze (individual); Gold (synchronous)
• 2010: Silver (synchronous)
• 2011: Bronze (synchronous)
• 2014: Silver (synchronous)

Stock Car Crash Challenge

• 2006: Rodeo winner
• 2011: rodeo winner; Winner in the 3000 cm³ class
• 2012: Winner in the 3000 cm³ class
• 2013: Winner in the 3000 cm³ class
• 2013: Caravan Crash Cup winner
• 2014: Caravan Crash Cup winner
• 2015: Caravan Crash Cup winner

Autoball

• European championships
  • 2008: runner-up
  • 2012: semi-finals
• World championships
  • 2010: semi-finals
  • 2014: semi-finals

German ice football cup

• 2009: Winner (with VfB Stuttgart )

PokerStars.de night

• 2009: winner

beat the celebrity

• 2010: winner
• 2014: Winner (against Steffen Henssler )
• 2017: Winner (against Alexander Klaws )

DVD

• Joey Kelly: The Ironman , 70 minutes, 2005

literature

Several online booksellers have announced the publication of an illustrated book from Kelly's pen for October 5, 2017. It is titled Yukon: My Hated Friend and is published by Kelly and the singer of the band Rammstein , Till Lindemann .

• No Limits , Sportverlag, 2001, ISBN 3-328-00929-9 .
• with Ralf Hermersdorfer: Hysteria of the body: The course of my life , Rowohlt Verlag , Reinbek, 2011, ISBN 978-3-499-62810-8 .
• America For Sale , Rowohlt Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-499-62931-0 .

Web links

• Joey Kelly's website
• Interview with Joey Kelly on funsporting.de
• Literature by and about Joey Kelly in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joey Kelly at Krömer - The International Show
2. ^ Documentation ancestors wanted , WDR television , broadcast on January 27, 2012
3. ↑ TV interview with Markus Lanz , broadcast on June 29, 2011
4. ↑ Conversation on the TV show Willkommen Österreich , broadcast on February 11, 2014, ORF
5. ↑ Joey Kelly: Hysteria of the Body , p. 186
6. ↑ Chart source Why Why Why chartsurfer.de, accessed on January 23, 2013
7. ↑ ^{a b} Interview with Markus Lanz, broadcast on June 29, 2012
8. ↑ Chart source Flip a Coin ( Memento from December 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) musicline.de , accessed on January 23, 2013
9. ^ Ingo Schmitz: Foreclosure auction. Expert estimates the value of Schloss Gymnich , Kölnische Rundschau of August 11, 2011
10. ↑ ^{a b} Interview with Joey Kelly planet-interview.de, accessed on January 23, 2013
11. ↑ Joey Kelly: Would never buy my music Abendzeitung-muenchen.de, accessed on January 23, 2012
12. ↑ Interview with Markus Lanz, broadcast on November 13, 2012
13. ↑ http://www.schlagerplanet.com/news/aktuelle-nachrichten/kelly-family-comeback-in-dortmund-2017_n9254.html
14. ↑ Joey Kelly: Hysteria of the Body, p. 177
15. ↑ http://www.tri226.de/resultlisten/hawaii/im-hawaii1997.pdf
16. ↑ http://ultramanlive.com/history/ultraman-history-of-events/
17. ↑ Information on Joey Kelly
18. ^ Result list of the Ultraman 1998
19. ↑ RAAM website with results list 2001  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
20. ↑ RAAM website with team overview 2001  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
21. ↑ RAAM website with results list 2002  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
22. ↑ RAAM website with team overview 2002  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
23. ^ Result list Atacama-Crossing 2008
24. ↑ German TV Prize: Race to the South Pole nominated diepresse.com, September 21, 2011, accessed on January 23, 2013
25. ↑ Markus Lanz nominated for Emmys tagesspiegel.de, October 10, 2012, accessed on January 23, 2013
26. ^ Cathy Cramer: AdventureCORPS Presents :: 2000 Badwater 135 :: Race Results. Retrieved October 15, 2017 . 
27. ↑ Cathy Cramer: AdventureCORPS Presents :: 2011 Badwater 135 :: Race Results. Retrieved October 15, 2017 . 
28. ↑ Joey Kelly in the desert ( Memento from May 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) stern.de, September 14, 2011, accessed on January 23, 2013
29. ↑ The Kelly Family is back: This is what Paddy, Angelo and Maite became. bento, November 7, 2016, accessed February 13, 2017 . 
30. ^ Ambassador of the Carreras Foundation
31. ↑ Extreme athlete trains three teams
32. ↑ Loop: Ambassadors & Friends - Loop youth welfare. In: LOOP - youth welfare. Archived from the original on November 22, 2016 ; accessed on November 22, 2016 . 
33. ↑ Message on the press portal about the charity trip ( Memento from February 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
34. ↑ Report on Maxfun about the record  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
35. ↑ Joey Kelly's crazy tightrope action: New Guinness World Record ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) rtl.de, November 19, 2010, accessed on January 23, 2013
36. ↑ Joey Kelly runs 24 hours against the escalator rtl.de, accessed on January 23, 2013
37. ↑ ZDF television garden redeems 30,000 euros for sports aid ( Memento from December 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
38. ↑ kickenmitherz.de