| BBC
- Well, as promised, I'm joined by Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk; it is
a pleasure and indeed an honour to have you here, Ralf. |
|
Ralf Hütter - Thank you. |
| BBC
- It really is a great, great pleasure and I'm sure it will be for a lot
of people listening... "Tour de France Soundtracks", the album
which we're here to talk about now, the interesting thing about this is
that the original commission for Tour de France, it wasn't your idea, it
was their idea wasn't it, they wanted some music-making to commemorate the
bike race. |
| Ralf
Hütter - No. |
| BBC
- No? it was your idea? |
| Ralf
Hütter - It's our idea from 1982/83. I had this idea of
writing a composition about our fanatical hobby, riding the bikes and doing
cycling exercises which we'd been doing long before, and to transform this
experience into musical work. And then we did the single in 83, it was planned
as an album, I had this whole concept of the "Tour de France"
album together with my partner Florian Schneider, and then... we just lost
the album concept and went on to some other digital exercises, working on
the "Technopop" album which then became the "Electric Cafe"
album, and so now last year when we did concerts in Paris with the new digital
Kraftwerk laptop live situation and the idea - we had always been playing
the composition "Tour de France" in all our tours which we did
in the 90s, and then the idea got back and some of the lyrics I'd written
with my friend Maxime Schmitt in French, so we then decided in working on
finishing the album which had been quietly sleeping for 20 years, and so
it's now been finished for the 100th anniversary of the Tour de France. |
| BBC
- So it wasn't the organisers of the race who commissioned it in the first
place... I always thought... |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, not at all, they were very surprised and happy
when they got the music, and this year they invited us as a gesture to be
part of the race, with helicopter, and we've been in the guest limousine
right behind the director of the race who is always in his red car, right
behind the peloton inside the race and that was a fantastic experience.
So we've been doing all these Alp passes and Pyrenèes ourselves over
the last couple of years, but now been as a guest inside the race, and all
the media, and helicopter, and motorbike, car, and riders and the public,
it was an amazing experience. |
| BBC
- It must be interesting for you to be in public. Do you actually get recognised,
very often by people? Do they know you? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No... sometimes. |
| BBC
- And yet, if they knew who you were I'm sure they'd be delighted to talk
to you. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Oh, well we get normally recognised... |
| BBC
- Thinking back, which I know I'm sure you don't want to do, to your college
days, this is where you met Florian... |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes. |
| BBC
- At Düsseldorf Conservatory... |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, experimental courses of experimental and improvisational
music. |
| BBC
- So it must have been a very advanced university, this was it? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, it was, there were like summer courses for
improvisational music and there we ran into each other, stayed there from
68 until now 2003, so its... Kraftwerk is 33 years in action since 1970
with our Kling Klang Studio. We've been going for 33 years and the "Tour
de France" is now for 100 years, so there's still time to go! |
| BBC
- So do you feel like you haven't finished your education yet? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Not at all, no, we... |
| BBC
- You're constantly learning, and everyone else is learning who's listening
to you as well. We're going to play three tracks from the album: "Chrono"
is the first one that I've chosen, so we'll hear that first then we'll talk
to Ralf Hütter some more after this... that was "Chrono"
by Kraftwerk from "Tour de France Soundtracks", the new album.
Ralf Hütter is still with us I'm delighted to say. Now, you actually
made two albums which I've never heard. The first album is "Highrail"
and then "VAR" in 71/72. I've never heard these albums. Would
I recognise them as Kraftwerk albums if I heard them? |
| Ralf
Hütter - What is "Highrail"? |
| BBC
- The first record that you made. |
| Ralf
Hütter - It's not "Highrail"... it doesn't exist. |
| BBC
- That's that cleared! |
| Ralf
Hütter - It doesn't exist. |
| BBC
- So what's the first album that you made? |
| Ralf
Hütter - "Kraftwerk". |
| BBC
- "Kraftwerk"? |
| Ralf
Hütter - The second was "Kraftwerk 2" and the
third is "Ralf and Florian". |
| BBC
- Right, well, "Ralf and Florian" I knew about but the first two
I never heard. So these names that I'm getting,we'll just forget those names...
the first two albums... I still haven't heard them, so would I recognise
them as Kraftwerk albums? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, part of their minimal concept would be recognisable
but we started from electro-acoustic... like transforming with our Kling
Klang Studio into the fully synthesized music from 73/74. Autobahn is really
the first... whereas... |
| BBC
- Is that the first album that really sort of came together? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes. Well, gradually progressing into the synthesized
music... |
| BBC
- I mean, some would see it almost as a scientific advance, what you're
doing as well as a musical advance, I mean you really were creating technology
that wasn't there. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, and we had certain ideas and then we worked
very closely with some engineers, they built instruments with us and we
built ourselves. The electronic drums, of course, was built by my partner
and friend Florian Schneider together with our friend painter Emil Schult,
and then we had later sequencers built and elements of musical synthesizers
combined by technicians and then later when we went into more computerised
music, when homecomputers were available. |
| BBC
- It seems hard to imagine... |
| Ralf
Hütter - The computer world was already out, we didn't have
homecomputers in those times, and then a couple of years later from there
to laptop equipment that we have now, it's been quite a development. |
| BBC
- So you've seen the technology change all the time. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, and it's been very helpful for us, and now
we can travel mobile, we did concerts all over the globe. |
| BBC
- So you literally take a laptop and just plug it up... |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, before we took our Kling Klang Studio and
it was tonnes of equipment and it was very fragile, and sometimes you know
the music machines would be out of tune or would run out of tune and electricity
currency changes and... such a lot of problems coming and we'd be working
very much during the day to set up for the concert, which we couldn't do
so many... but nowadays we're very mobile... |
| BBC
- Turn up... you could just put the laptop in the overhead locker and play. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, we presented that for the first time last
year, September, in Paris, Cité de la Musique, and the robots were
next door in the Musée de la Musique and they stayed there for nine
months doing their electronic dance and we have been going to Japan, Australia... |
| BBC
- Have these robots been literally the same robots since they were first
created? Or have you made new models? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, they developed also, but these we have since
the early 90´s and they're still functioning. We change little screws
and little elements that have been used. |
| BBC
- You tinker with them... |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes. |
| BBC
- You see, you must be tempted to send a robot along to do interviews, that
must be the next step, then you won't need to leave the home. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes. |
| BBC
- You'll welcome that day I'm sure (giggle) I'm glad you're here and not
the robot. We'll play "Titanium" now, from the album and then
we'll talk just some more after this... That's "Titanium" from
"Tour de France Soundtracks" by Kraftwerk who are back, and Ralf
Hütter is still with me... so... is that about Titanium? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes that's very personal because our bikes are
made out of Titanium and we are using Carbon parts, wheels, and Aluminium
elements on the bike so this is very close material for us. |
| BBC
- Yes. Well, you've always been fascinated by machines, obviously, and the
science of the machines, and this has come out in your lyrics in the songs
themselves. Were you always interested in mechanical stuff as well as music
when you were very young? Were you the sort or person who would take the
back off the radio or a television? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, sometimes, but mainly we're interested in
the everyday context of technology, so we've also been working with engineers
and not actually inside the technology, but using technology and viewing
different aspects, like Man Machine aspects, like cooperation between us
as Men and Machines. That's been what Kraftwerk is about. |
| BBC
- Now some would hold Kraftwerk up in the same light as The Beatles, you're
as influential as The Beatles some would say, in fact, more so I would say,
because there are so many entire genres of music that may not exist if you
hadn't done what you did in the early days. New Romantic music, the movement
we had here in this country, that's just onething, but you look at just
the whole of the 80's, all pop music seemed to be based on synthesizers
which we can trace back to you - electro, hip-hop it just all goes back
to Kraftwerk. I mean, do you sort of feel this weight of influence? Or do
you try not to think about it? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Well the... vision that we had was electronic folk
music and over the years it has become a reality, from pocket calculators
to computers, so for us it's very energetic feedback to go and continue
and work for the... in this direction. |
| BBC
- If I gave you an acoustic guitar now could you play a tune on it? Are
you good on the guitar? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, I play keyboards! |
| BBC
- Right... so really that's your only instrument, as it were. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, and not.. the keyboard is a steering wheel. |
| BBC
- So it's not the actual playing of the keys that matters, it's what you
get at the other end of it? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes. |
| BBC
- That makes sense. It does make sense. "Autobahn" is the piece
of music, or the album, certainly the track, the 22 minutes track that changed
your life in that the world suddenly heard this track and fell in love with
it. It actually sold thousands of copies in America and in the UK as well,
and it doesn't sound dated, it still sounds futuristic which is a strange
thing because so many records, of course, made in the 70's sound very old
and primitive. But when you were doing it did you realise that this was
a very important piece of music? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Well, we'd just been having endless tours in Germany
from the universities in my old Volkswagen which is on the cover of "Autobahn",
and that was like a vision of our music coming from the car radio because
in Germany we wouldn't be playing our music on the radio, so this was a
fiction, and then by later doing some kind of Autobahn drone/raga, humming,
and the engines are tuned, we did this with synthesizer controlled oscillators,
filters, and then this vision has become a reality for us. |
| BBC
- And do you listen to other kinds of music as well as elctronic music? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Well we listen to the environment, to the sounds,
the world of sounds KlingKlang is what we use as the world of sounds, it's
also the name of our studio, and we also go to clubs, to discotheques, to
dance clubs, we listen to the sounds in the streets and in nature so it's
all incorporated into music. |
| BBC
- And do you have Beatles records at home? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No.(smiles) |
| BBC
- No? Is it because you're not interested in The Beatles or it's just...
not for you? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Oh, it's played on the radio, I don't listen to
records at home, at all. I don't listen to so much music, I compose music. |
| BBC
- Right. That's good! And what about Punk Rock when that was occuring? Did
that come into your radio at all because you know as you were getting big,
so was this whole, you would have thought, opposite kind of music, angry,
guitar music. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes it was an energy level projected into this
musical style that was very positive, and energy into the boring world of
Mainstream Rock. So there was the electronic experimental music on this
side of the (indistinct) and then the energy... Punk. |
| BBC
- So you can see similarities really between yourselves and Punk? |
| Ralf
Hütter - In a way, yes. Also the simpicity, minimalistic
attitude, definitely. |
| BBC
- Absolutely. Well we're going to play "Tour de France" now, from
the new album. It's been a great pleasure to speak to you of course, carry
on making music, don't leave such a long gap this time, get another record
out very soon, this is "Tour de France" from Kraftwerk, thank
you very much, Ralf Hütter. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Thank you. |
 |
| Interview
to Andrew Collins |
| Transcription
by Anthony Moffoot - Scotland |
|
