Johannes Oerding was born in Münster in 1981 and grew up in Geldern-Kapellen on the Lower Rhine, where he started out in a school band called Groovekeller. People outside Germany's club circuit first heard him in 2009, when he opened for Simply Red on tour, the same year his debut album Erste Wahl came out.
Every album since has charted higher than the one before: Boxer reached number 11, Für immer ab jetzt number 4, Alles brennt number 3 and Kreise number 2, until Konturen gave him his first number 1 in 2019. Plan A and Hotel went to the top as well. His biggest song is An guten Tagen. He came second at the 2013 Bundesvision Song Contest with Nichts geht mehr, coached on The Voice of Germany in 2021, and has hosted Sing meinen Song since 2020. His trademark is a hat, and in 2019 he was even named Hutträger des Jahres.