Fast
Forward: What was the original idea behind starting
up Kraftwerk as a more defined group? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Florian and myself, we were this
conceptually, but we wanted a place where we could actually work, because
in Germany there's no music industry, or no fabrication that you can rely
on, or that is existing or picking people up; an exploitation system that
takes people from the streets, fabricates them into other situations and
marketing channels; productivity. And we had this idea of... ah... since
we didn't have that anyway, and we're not... politically we don't like it
anyway, so we would be our own factory, our own industrial productivity.
And then we started renting some space in some workshops. And we still actually
in the same place, although now we have taken over other parts of the building,
so it's quite magnetic. And we started producing there, and started making
our own sounds, tapes, with cassette recorders or a simplistic 2-track Revox
machine. And then we made all the sounds. And since we didn't have enough
money to mix it down in a studio we met Conny and he helped us out. We actually
worked together, but he had no part in producing the music. |
| Fast
Forward: Can you explain the concept of "industrial
country music" or "industrial folk music"? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Ja. It is...ah...at least what we're
trying to do, living in this industrial zone where the Rhine and the Ruhr
cross it's the biggest industrial zone in Europe, it stretches out over
100 km and there's like 20 million people, so when we were touring all the
time, we went from Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen, all the cities and
factories and... since we were into noise anyway, and we kind of liked industrial
production and we had this vision of our music being like the voice of this
industrial product. Germany has no popular music. When we started it didn't
have no popular music. We had no living culture. Now people in their homes
have a big amateur scene, everybody's fiddling with their electronic equipment,
communicating with electronics. There's thousands of people, especially
young people, who send cassettes to each other and make their own little
hobby kits or synthezisers. I'm not saying we made them do it but we are
part of this scene. It's a big amateur scene, and we would align ourselves
as being amateurs, because we are really very amateuristic. In the sense
that we love what we do, we love what we work. So today there's quite a
number of kids starting directly with electronics whereas we would have
started historically with piano and... it's really like in Germany and now
in England over the last two years they have been very slow because they
hang so much into the 60s and guitars and rock, and since they have a popular
culture already, they made one up with the Beatles generation and before
that they didn't have it either, because they were americanized. |
| Fast
Forward: When you say Germany has no popular culture
or traditional culture, which might be misinterpreting what you said... |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yeah, I'm saying that Germany had
a living culture in the 20s. Then like we all know, politically it turned...
to say the least... historical... |
| Fast
Forward: Yes. |
Ralf
Hütter: The country turned historical really,
so all these new people had to go. they went to America, they went to France...wherever.
Bertolt Brecht, or Kurt Weill on the musical side. From the film side they
went to America. And then still some people were left, but with the war
and everything that was bombed out also. So after the war everything was
replaced and turned into American culture. Coca-Cola and whatever. Whisky.
So we were in a way lucky since we lived in the british sector because their
system was not that overpowering. You can note that it has taken the Frankfurt
region the longest in terms of Germany, you can see that it's the most americanized.
Where we live is still very low key.
These two streams of culture we have, the modernistic and the more, let's
say, pathetic, historical, teutonic. Both streams were wiped out: one before
the nazis and one with the war. So when we knew there was more to life than
a house and a Mercedes Benz for the husband and a Volkswagen for the housewife
we started... and it was a shock... like shock treatment. And a couple of
years later we found out that's very good, because since we have nothing
we can make something. So it's a very good chance. And I think in the same
time period -the late 60s- a lot of people felt that, in other areas like
film-making... we have worked with Fassbinder on two of his films, with
some of our music. Other film-makers, literature... so like now today in
the 80s we have a german culture going, and it's a very good chance because
we don't need to push away all the people or father figures that dominate.
We have no father figures, so we might as well get ourselves something going.
It's very open. it's that old fascination with science in Germany that we
share because we are a mix between music and science. Germany is not really
big on the entertaining side of the world. They're not very entertaining.
They're more... |
| Fast
Forward: Serious? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yeah. In a way that's more Mediterranean. |
| Fast
Forward: Kraftwerk has been a major force in making
disco and electronic popular music respectable. And disco is a very entertainment-oriented
music style. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes,
but also it's a lifestyle for us. Living in Germany we would never go out
and listen to a band like you do in America, they all go to a club and listen
to a band. It's boring. Why spend 2 hours listening to one band when you
can spend 2 hours listening to a hundred records? So we always had records
& loudspeakers, and we liked this environment. I spent most of my youth
meeting friends and there would be an occasional concert... once every month
or two, but mostly we'd be going out to discos, so it was our environment...
technical environment. And that's where we had this thing... especially
since electronic music had this taboo of being serious only, which we found
always reducing, because it's perfect. And we like to dance so why should
our music be... ah... it didn't seem realistic for us. So we made Trans
Europe Express, and in America even black people liked the rhythms. It's
one of the few white music that gets played on black radio. |
| Fast
Forward: You would design your music to be played
in discos? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes, beacuse we like pulses and heartbeats
and body functions. |
| Fast
Forward: Bio-mechanics. |
Ralf
Hütter: Yes, minimalistic music. Simple.
And we do that ourselves. There's different aspects, we made some film music.
Especially we found it maybe has to do with the other german electronic
bands. They are into this drowning meditation only. And also the so-called
avant garde electronic music. We feel kind of dissociated from. We'd rather
leave and go to a disco. Just drag one of these serious electronic composers
into a club and onto the dancefloor and he'd be lost. He'd be, "Yes,
but it's my body. What should I do?".
Music was maybe the most reactionary form. Music was maybe the last artform
to adopt the 20th century, and I think it had to do with electronic instruments
from the 40s, the tape recorder. |
| |
| Interview
to Michael Trudgeon - 1981 |
Transcription
by Harvey Williams - England |
|
