Background
Alfons Joseph Klimek was born on 3 February 1956 and grew up in Melbourne. His father, Alfons Klimek snr (died 1998), and mother, Luisa née Cester (born January 1916) had eight children: Eugenia, Lydia, Naomi (born 1953), Greta, Alfons jnr, Robert, and the twins Johnny and Jayney (born August 1962).
Career
During the 1980s he was based in Berlin as a singer-songwriter for Spliff (as Alf Klimax, 1980-1983) and The Other Ones (1984-1990). That group included his younger twin siblings, Johnny and Jayney. In 1987 The Other Ones had two hit singles, "Holiday" and "We Are What We Are", which charted in Germany and the United States.
The Klimek family had lived in various Melbourne suburbs including Kew, Oakleigh and, from 1969, Clayton.
Klimek"s younger cousins, Nic and Chris Cester, were founding mainstays of Australian hard rockers, Jet (2001-2012). In June 1977, Klimek joined the Stuffed Puppets under the guidance of Neville Tranter as a puppeteer and comedy script writer
The group flew to Amsterdam to take part in the Festival of Fools. In 1979 he left the puppeteers and joined a cabaret group, The Busby Berkeleys, writing shows and performing in Europe and in New York City.
A year later he joined the ex-Nina Hagen Band in Berlin, Germany, which was renamed as Spliff.
He was the group"s front-man and co-writer for their debut album, Spliff Radio Show (1980). In 1987, they had two hit singles, "Holiday" and "We Are What We Are", which charted in Germany and the United States. "Holiday" peaked at number 29 on the United States Billboard Hot 100 chart.
lieutenant reached number four in Germany, number ten in New Zealand, number 13 in Austria and number 22 in Switzerland.
Klimek left The Other Ones in 1990, he moved his home base several times between Berlin and Melbourne. He co-owned a studio, Birdland, with producer Lindsay Gravina and worked in event musicals.
In 1998 he was asked by Klaus Baumgart to create a series of musical and audio-book productions for the Laura"s Star series.