| It's
Monday evening in Amsterdam, about 11 minutes before 23:00, The reporter
is me, your reporter. Your reporter is at the front door of the Heineken
Music Hall, which is guarded by an army of Kraftwerk fans, weaponed with
album covers and felt-tipped pens. The Florian of the walktie-talkie is
Florian Schneider, one half of the main duo of Kraftwerk. In about one minute
the other half, Ralf Hütter, is prepared to receive Aloha for one time.
That is rather unique, because normally Kraftwerk refrains themselves from
any promotional activitities, in particular interviews. But today, March
29th 2004, Easter and Whitsun fall on the same day. At the moment that Schneider
steps into the elevator towards the ambush of signature hunters, I am guided
up via the staircase. The otherwise by VIP's and security personal crowded
corridor is tonight an empty, dead silent and fully lighted corridor, with
here and there green direction signs - text they do not have, only dotted
lines in the direction of the elevator and staircase. Through the portophones
of Kraftwerk's female roadmanager still sound the terms "Reporter", "Florian"
and "Club". Schneider will go, as proper Kraftwerk habit, dancing in the
city. Hütters dance event is being postponed, but this won't be for long.
For a moment I have to think about a promotion lady, various persons from
Mojo Concerts and a dozen other people who know already: "Count on 10 minutes,
if you get 15 minutes, you are lucky. If he stops talking after 5 minutes,
be happy what you have gotten." It's 10 minutes before eleven by now. I
would not be surprised if the daily schedule is followed with militairy
precision and states around 23:00: Leave of Ralf. |
| Again
a person appears with a portophone. This time it is the tourmanager, who
greets me with full name and details. It is the kind of reception which
you also have in James Bond movies: remarkable friendly, correct, but distant
and not refrained from any sentiment of distrust. Kraftwerk is not fond
of any people who are just interested in looking. The serene tranquility
and almost unbearable silence in the sterile hall on the top floor, sometimes
alternated with some language text through the portophone, makes me even
a little nervous. What am I about to expect? Is he gonna open his mouth
at all? What if Hütter walks away after 5 minutes? Where is the trainstation?
In my mind I strike my openings joke away, something with don't mention
the war Because of all the thinking I do not even notice that a man, dressed
in black, has arrived, standing next to me. He introduces himself as "Ralf".
He resembles a little to "Thé Lau" (twingo: Dutch musical artist). He seems
to me a kind person. |
| One
hour ago the same man was standing on the left of the stage, in a sold -out
Heineken Music Hall, singing about his Pocket Calculator. And fahren on
the Autobahn. And about the Tour de France. It's a strange experience, as
was to be expected of the first Dutch Kraftwerk convert in 12 years time.
Four gentlemen with increasing age, each behind a laptop, with on the background
an immense projection screen. Hütter and Schneider, left and right flanking
their studio-engineers Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz. The four of them
hardly looking towards eachother. More than 2 hours you would be dazzled
with elektro pop classics: The Model, The Robots, Trans Europe Express,
Radioactivity. Each track which made the current dance scene what it is
now. Because everywhere you are hearing Kraftwerk in the modern pop music:
Kylie has beats and bleeps, Daftpunk and Air stole the little atmospheres,
Rammstein is as much as mechanical and in an even more grey past whole musical
genras were created because of the creations of Ralf Hütter and Florian
Schneider. Because without Kraftwerk no Depeche Mode. No Zooropa (U2). No
DJ Tiësto (twingo: most succesfull Dutch DJ). No House, dance or hiphop
as we know it like now. Never before a white act influenced so much without
having stolen it first from black music. The "Krautrock Beatles" they are
called. Autobahn was their Revolver, The Man Machine there Sergeant Pepper.
But instead of a new Anthology a brand new album was released last year,
Tour de France Soundtracks. Which is about the bands love for cycling. Next
to Hütter and Schneider Kraftwerk consisted for years as well of the percussionists
Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür. The first left in the nineties because of
the extreme slow moving production proces of the two higher gentlemen. Flür
already quitted end of the eighties, because he got more and more a stranger
to the introverted Hütter and Schneider. And the ones who quit were kind
of right: after the album Electric Cafe in 1986 Hütter and Schneider hided
themselves in their mysterious Kling Klang Studio in Düsseldorf, in order
not to release any new material for the next 15 years. Except the mix album
The Mix ('91) and some little tours Kraftwerk wouldn't show anything. Press,
fans, recordcompanies, just about everything which has got to do with the
music business was banned out of there electronic little world. Only after
Kraftwerk composed the leader of the World Expo 2000 in Hannover (a 4 second
lasten vocoder voice saying "Expo 2000") the group allowed some interfearance
from the outside world. And when the album Tour de France Soundtracks was
released Hütter even dared himself into some rare interviews. Just as this
evening. |
| Ralf
Hütter, from head to toe dressed in black, seats himself comfortably, with
his black shoulderbag (ready for departure), in an evenly black one and
a halve seat sofa, in an empty room. He agrees to perform the interview
in English. And I have to say, his English is correct, although he has this
typical "'Allo 'Allo" accent (twingo: English TV comedy which lots of germans
speaking English with a strong German accent). Once in a while he cannot
remember a word in English and then he uses the German version. And how
about his Dutch? "Well, I just tried to speak Dutch. That was with the introduction
speech of Trans Europe Express, because we played that track for the first
live in Paradiso in 1976. Yeah Paradiso……" (twingo: Paradiso is a famous
music-temple in Amsterdam, still exists). Hütter leans backwards, is looking
towards the wall and suddenly starts to humm the melody of Trans Europe
Express, his head shakes from left to right. This he would do more often
during the interview, illustrating a sound with a humm or imitation. He
also constantly keeps smiling and is knocking his head "yes" with every
question to indicate he understands the question. Interviews in the past
confronted him with curious and direct quotes. Questions about the past,
private life and other mysteries in the Kraftwerk world were answered with
cryptic responses. Many times he "sampled" literaly old quotes when certain
topics were addressed. That would not be any different tonight. But the
Aloha magazine we brought for him, he scans briefly, and he asks if he may
keep it, since he likes the magazine. "Really reading I would not do, but
I can understand the words and the sentences, May I ?". He opens his black
bag and a quick look into the bag learns that the colorfull head of Jim
Morrison ends up in a bunch of unclear other black things. Even the bag
of the man is mysterious. |
| |
| Aloha
- You are not known for your openess towards the press and the
fans. What was the reason that Aloha was awarded with this interview? |
| Ralf
Hütter - It belongs to our record, "Tour
de France Soundtracks". We are currently busy with our World Tour and
a new live configuration for Kraftwerk. We used to bring our whole Klng
Klang studio during. Now all is inside laptops. A totally new situation.
It took us years to digitize all our material, because of this also little
new music was released during the past years. But now we are ready and Kling
Klang is all on a digital platform. |
| Aloha
- Since all fits into a laptop now, I guess you have lots of
space in your studio? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, not really. We have digitized
the whole bunch in order to store and keep it properly. Some of the oldest
tapes had been touched by tie. Those were already 30 years or more in the
archives. We are constantly busy with the latest equipment, but we never
throw away the old ones. From all the models and types of the synths and
sequencers, which we have used during the various Kraftwerk periodes, we
have kept one prototype. The machine we used for Autobahn is still there.
Florian's first homemade drumpads. Some equipment has a personal value,
do you understand? |
| Aloha
- That is typical for Kraftwerk, to attach an emotional value
towards an instrument. |
| Ralf
Hütter - I do mean a collection value. We
have old synthesizers, not so much because a certain sound or track was
created with it, but also to create certain sounds, which are nowadays impossible
to create with other instruments. |
| Aloha
- Describe how Kling Klang looks like inside? |
| Ralf
Hütter - A bunch of old taperecorders, echo
rooms, computers. It's an electronic garden. We like to perform some electronic
gardening. |
| Aloha
- The location of the building is a well kept secret. Are you
frequently "located"? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Sometimes somebody comes all the
way from Japan. But the doors are tightly closed and we are never inside
on a regular basis. We concentrate ourselves onto the music and not on what's
happening outside. We call ourselves "Musikarbeiter". Everything with us
is about the music and we do not want to be disturbed with that. |
| Aloha
- And if people do knock on the door? |
| Ralf
Hütter - There is no door to knock on. So
that's easy, ha..ha..ha... |
| Aloha
- Many fans you won't meet in this way, because according to
me you have very little contact with the outside world, during this tour. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Ah, I do meet people sometimes.
And we have friends. |
| Aloha
- To whom you refer to for any feedback? |
| Ralf
Hütter - The audience. Since they give us
vibes during the concert. On the basis of that you can judge if you are
correct or not. |
| Aloha
- Are you never afraid that the enormous mask of secrecy will
have a negative effect to the performance? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Oh, we do not care about this. We
just do our job, nothing more than that. We are musical professors which
are maintaining there music. And as we have said before: we play the machines
and the machines play us. |
| Aloha
- What was your first encounter with the phenomenom called synthesizer? |
| Ralf
Hütter - My first synthesizer was a Mini
Moog. I did not knew upfront how it would sound, but I had seen photos and
had read about it. But a thing like that was beginning 70's difficult to
obtain in Germany. Unreachable for us. I bought my import one through a
studio connection and it was as expensive as my Volkswagen. Ah, my old grey
Volkswagen…. That one you also see on the cover of Autobahn. |
| Aloha
- Are you and Florian after 34 years of cooperation stills the
same friends? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Sure, it's even 36 years, since
I met Florian 2 years before we builded the Kling Klang Studio and founded
Kraftwerk. That must have been in ´68. We are still very good friends.
It's an electronic marriage between mister Kling and mister Klang. |
| Aloha
- That quote you use more often in interviews. |
| Ralf
Hütter - [Smiles and knocks his head] "…." |
| Aloha
- What would you say about: "electronic Mick and Keith"? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Well, I´m not so sure" |
| Aloha
- Your work has always been inspired by travel… |
| Ralf
Hütter - Movement. Motion and Emotion. |
| Aloha
- I mean the themes: Autobahn, the train in Trans Europe Express,
the bicycle in Tour de France. How did you guys arrive today? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We flew in from Hamburg. |
| Aloha
- What is, beyond cycling, your favourite way of transport? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We do not like to fly. But sometimes
it is unavoidable. Florian does a lot of routes by train, I travelled by
train through the canal tunnel from England to Belgium. But the absolute
favourite remains the bicycle. |
| Aloha
- What is it this fascination with bicycles? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Well, in the part of Germany where
we live its kind of part of culture, just like here in the Netherlands.
We once participated in the Amstel Gold Race (Twingo: Dutch version of french
Tour de France). Not the real race, but just the route. The touristic route.
And all the mountain routes of the Tour. |
| Aloha
- Last year you have been visiting there, isn't it? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, we were busy with the the last
remixing of the Tour de France when wer were invited. Late in the evening
we departed from Kling Klang, flew to Paris, stepped into a helicopter and
the next day we were in the car of oud-professional cyclist Duclos-Lasalle.
We drove right behind Leblan [director of Tour de France]. Towards the Alpe
d'Huez, which we had cycled as well a few years earlier. I once was a spectator
of the Tour, but never experienced it from so close as this time. The concept
of the Tour de France originates from '83 when we made our single. We ever
wanted to make a movie on this, but the project got rather forgotten due
to other things. When the Tour had its 100 year celebration we picked up
where we had left. IN the single we saw the Tour as from a Satellite, Tour
de France, Les Alpes, Les Pyrenes. Now we were right to the core: Tour de
France, Radio Tour-information. This gave us just the right dimension for
our new songs. |
| Aloha
- Does the people at the Tour knew who you were? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, and we did not promot that too
much either. |
| Aloha
- Did you speak with Jan Ullrich? |
| Ralf
Hütter - He was too busy with cycling. |
| Aloha
- Did you ever speak to him? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, neither did that. |
| Aloha
- They do call him the Man Machine, like your musical track... |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, but in a different way, ´a
Kraftwerk on two wheels´, because he has so much energy in his legs.
I liked to read that. He is indeed The Man Machine in full format. Cycling
is very close to Kraftwerk. Time, movement, clear thinking. Exactly the
same balance we use for our music. On the bicycle you listen to the wind
and the rhythm of your breathing. ´Recharging our battery/And now
we are full of energy´. That piece of text is reality when we are
cycling. |
| Aloha
- As a cyclist , it must be enormous tiring to watch for 2 hours
to a (laptop) screen during a concert. |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, that is not so much tiring.
It's more all the things around a concert which makes you tired. The travelling,
for instance. You do not get into a right rhythm due to all the timezones.
You fly to Tokyo, play a full week every night and just when you get adjusted,
you are already flying back, and then you can start again. You have to pay
attention to your energy. Often this is very difficult. |
| Aloha
- Is it possible to cycle from Düsseldorf to the Netherlands? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, within one hour, about 30km. |
| Aloha
- So the chance is very high that in the neighbourhood of Nijmegen
or Arnhem I am going to be passed by a high speeding bicycle? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Venlo, mostly we end up in Venlo.
Then we cycle alongside the river Maas to the south and from there we return
to Düsseldorf. It's a rather windy part alongside the river Maas. |
| Aloha
- What do you know about the Dutch music scene. To what music
you are going to dance tonight? |
| Ralf
Hütter - I do not know yet, we still have
to figure that yet. Make us a suggestion. |
| Aloha
- Does the name Tiësto rings a bell? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Mmm... not really, not that I know
of. |
| Aloha
- I´m so much a dancer. But the Supperclub (Twingo: dance/lounge
club in Amsterdam) is a place to have been to. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Ah, that's a lounge? And until late
I guess? maybe, perhaps. Early tomorrow morning we will fly to Barcelona. |
| Aloha
- You are living in the world of Kraftwerk and cycling. But
last year you were of a sudden part of the pop world during the MTV Awards.
What did you think of that? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We tried to stay a little in the
background, but we did speak to Kylie Minoque. She has a very good electronic
vibe in her music. On what we did speak? Just nothing, just a little small
talk, chit-chat. |
| Aloha
- After 34 years of Kraftwerk, what are you most proud of? |
| Ralf
Hütter - That we are still here and that
we are moving forward. We have digitized all of our successfull records
and they wil be released under the name "The Catalogue". The music is still
the same, however we have changed the artwork. The old covers always had
something wrong: photos printed in mirror, bad looking inner sleeves. In
one stroke we did correct this all. Furthermore wewill release a new album
and a lot of concerts will come. That should be a nice thing to look out
for. |
| Aloha
- One more time back to the concert. You were only looking towards
your screens, not towards eachother. How did you guys communicate during
the show? Email? Messenger? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, during the concerts its kind
of "blind contact" between us. Telepathy. Sometimes I use a subtle code
with the fingertops. More we do not need. |
| Aloha
- Really? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Ok, ok, of course we also have our
microphones and screens. But if it really goes wrong, only one quick look
is enough. |
 |
| Interview
to Willem Bemboom - Holland |
| Translated
from dutch by Twingo - http://twingokraftwerkcom |
|
