Dick Brave

German pop and rock vocalist Sasha, born Sascha Schmitz on January 5, 1972, in Soest, Germany, adopted the Dick Brave identity for a 2003–2005 run fronting the neo-rockabilly outfit Dick Brave & the Backbeats. Already leading the band Junkfood while still in high school, Schmitz inked a deal with Warner Music in 1998 and issued his first solo album, Dedicated To..., under the Sasha name that year. You arrived in 2000, followed in 2001 by a Reprise compilation in the U.S. that carried the same title as Sasha’s debut and listed the artist as Sasha Alexander. Surfin' on a Backbeat then appeared in May 2002 credited to Sasha without the Alexander surname. The tongue-in-cheek rockabilly Dick Brave venture, launched purely as a gag in 2003, yielded the album Dick This!, which climbed to the summit of the German pop charts. Planned from the outset as a one-time affair, the project wrapped, and Sasha resumed recording under his own name—rather than Sasha Alexander—when Open Water surfaced in 2006.