Beacon
Radio : With me at the moment I have Ralf Hütter
from Kraftwerk. First of all I'd like to welcome you to Birmingham and
England. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Thank you. |
| Beacon
Radio : I'd like to start off by going right back
to the beginning of Kraftwerk. We just had a chat before we started the
interview and you put me correct on one of my points that I was going to
make concerning a band called Organisation. I was under the impression that
you and Florian were involved in the band, but perhaps you could explain
to me what the situation was. |
| Ralf
Hütter: We had a very loose form of musicians
playing together in Germany, and at one point somebody recorded something
in a studio, but it wasn't "our" project or anything, so really
Kraftwerk started in 1970, when we formed our Kling Klang Studio in Düsseldorf,
and we recorded there the first Kraftwerk album when we produced ourselves.
Everything we did was self-produced with an old Revox machine and some tape
recorders, feedback... and that's really when we started. |
| Beacon
Radio : Of course when you formed Kraftwerk it
was just you and Florian. You called it "Kraftwerk", why did you
choose that name? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Because we just ...had no idea of
what to call it...we just kept looking around ourselves in the studio and
saw all this electronic machinery. And we thought, "this has nothing
to do with music, it looks more like an electronic plant or something".
So we chose the word Kraftwerk, because also we were very concerned about
our German identity. At that time Germany was very much under the influence
of Anglo American music culture, which it still is today but not so much.
But at that time exclusively: all the German bands at that time had English
names or American names, which we didn't think was correct for us to do.
So we had this Kling Klang Studio, and we took a German name from our mother
language. Even many German fellow musicians at that time said "you've
gone crazy". Kraftwerk means electrical energy or electrical power
plant. |
| Beacon
Radio : Now in 1972 here in the UK we saw the
first album from Kraftwerk. Obviously at that time you were one of the first
electronic sounding bands. Surely some of the equipment you were using at
that time must be pretty dated now. I wonder if you could tell us how much
new equipment you've developed since Kraftwerk has been in existence. |
| Ralf
Hütter: The most important thing for us was
always the rhythms. We came from a semi-classical music, we are trained
in that field, German classical music. So Florian used to have a flute with
attached pick-ups, feedback and echo chambers. And I came from piano, so
I had an electronic organ and also oscillators and pick-up microphones.
And we produced a lot of sounds with tapes. The biggest problem we always
had was with drummers, because they were very much into the whole physical
thing of gymnastics, you know. I think every drummer who came to play with
us from the area where we live, I think we had about 20 different drummers,
and they wouldn't stay with us, because we asked them to electrify, to get
away from this physical thing into an electrical sound. They wouldn't do
it. So one day we found ourselves standing there on our own, just the two
of us. And I happened to have an old rhythm box. So we started recording
with that in 1971, and from that day on there was no turning back. And when
Wolfgang came in, he was the first to be open enough to play. And by that
time we had developed either the rhythm box playing automatically, or we
attached a special system so you could also play manually, by closing electric
circuits you could trigger the electronic noises. And I think Wolfgang was
the first who was open enough to play that stuff because the other drummers
wouldn't touch that. At that time there was a big taboo. Drummers seemed
to be very reactionary, very much oriented towards "historical"
things: big drum sets to hide themselves behind. And with this electronic
machinery that we have developed over the years, the whole group is synchronised,
we can always synchronise ourselves into the rhythms. So we can either play
it automatically, or change the programs while they are running. |
| Beacon
Radio : The next album was called "Ralf &
Florian", released in 1973. The titles on this album are still in German.
Is it right to assume at that time you considered yourself as more of a
Continental band? |
| Ralf
Hütter: We always considered ourselves a
German Continental band. At that time we introduced more voices, because
at first we were very much working on basic sounds. The name "Kling
Klang" means "sounding sounds". So it's a combination of
"yin and yang", because we were just two people, and "sound
& sounds". And also in German it means a metallic noise that you
make when two metals come together. So we introduced more voices into the
music, and also we started working for the first time with Emil, a painter.
And we did some more visual things. |
| Beacon
Radio : Success in the UK and the States arrived
with the album "Autobahn". Can you tell us something about that? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes. We had done about 5 years of
touring in Germany. We played everywhere... Berlin, Hamburg... and every
time we went from city to city it was on the Autobahn. In my old grey Volkswagen
we did about 200,000 miles. So one day we had the idea while driving, why
not electrically or synthetically make an album about what we do: driving
on the autobahn from city to city. And that's how it came about, the sounds
and tuning of motors, the sounds of the wheels and the landscape. And Emil
painted the picture for the cover, we even had our old grey Volkswagen in
the picture! And when it came out it was immediately played all over the
radio, especially in America, England and Germany. And it just... exploded.
I don't know why. Maybe at that time nobody had thought of doing that. Everybody
was very much into love songs and feelings, and we thought OK, everybody
is talking about that, and we haven't got much to say in that direction.
We'd rather record something more direct realistically. The sounds of the
radio, and sounds of cars. And that's how it came about. |
| Beacon
Radio : After the success of "Autobahn"
you replaced one of the people you'd just recruited with Karl Bartos. What
was happening behind this? |
| Ralf
Hütter: There was only one guy, he didn't
play on "Autobahn". He just played electric violin. A guy called
Klaus (editor's note: he's credited with violin and guitar on the album
cover) . He was only with us for 1 or 2 concerts in Hamburg, and he didn't
want to stay with our group, so today he is still into guitars. And then
we ran into Karl in some night clubs, and he came with us playing a second
set of electronic drums and also keyboards, and then we went to America
to do these concerts. |
| Beacon
Radio : And at this time you also changed your
record company as well. |
| Ralf
Hütter: We were a little embarrassed all
the time with a German record company. At that time they didn't understand
where we were. They were in Hamburg, which is a very reactionary German
town, very historically-oriented. We come from Düsseldorf, which is
the centre of German industry. There are no record companies in Düsseldorf
so... we were "left to ourselves", which I think is OK, because
we organise ourselves, we manage ourselves, have our own studios. It has
a lot to do with self-productivity. You can take your own things into your
own hands. That's what we were about: to produce with people collectively,
because we don't think we are "music people", we are more like
workers in the musical field. We found a little more understanding when
we changed record companies. |
| Beacon
Radio : After the success you had with "Autobahn",
you seem to have gone, with "Radioactivity", slightly less commercial,
particularly on side 2. It's more technical with overlapping tapes and radio
signals and such. Would you agree with me? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Musically, yes. Because it was our
dedication to the age of radio. We were boys listening to the late-night
radio of electronic music coming from WDR in Köln, where there was
one of the first electronic studios in the world. They played a lot of late
night programmes with strange sounds and noise. So it was like our dedication
to the age of radio, and radiation at the same time, breaking the taboo
of including everyday political themes into the music. |
| Beacon
Radio : By 1977 Kraftwerk seems to have settled
into a fairly stable line-up, with you and Florian dealing with the electronics
and vocals, with Karl and Wolfgang on electronic percussion. The next album
was "Trans Europe Express", and by this point most of the vocals
are now in English and most of the song titles are in English. |
| Ralf
Hütter: First of all I must say that we always
record our albums in German, and we see everything more like films. We're
very closely associated with the new German cinema... Win Wenders and especially
Fassbinder. We record the albums in German, and then we do synchronised
versions, like in films. And we don't engage other people from other countries
to synchronise like actors do, we synchronise ourselves into English, and
some we did in French. So the album you're getting here is the synchronised
album. In Germany the songs are called "Trans Europa Express"
, "Schaufensterpuppen", "Spiegelsaal" and so on. So
we do different versions for different countries. The original version is
always in German, and then we synchronise. |
| Beacon
Radio : How many different versions are there?
Do you one in Japanese? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes. On the latest album we did "Pocket
Calculator" in Japanese. We had some Japanese friends from a discotheque
in Düsseldorf. They translated "Pocket Calculator" for us. |
| Beacon
Radio : After "Trans Europe Express"
came "The Man Machine", which was a year later and it seems with
this one, and your latest "Computer World", there seems to be
a central theme running through the songs. Were you at this point influenced
by robots or as you call them, "man-machines"? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes. In fact we always had this strong
relationship between ourselves and our music machines. We are always plugged
into our electrical systems, and we're always attached to our machinery.
We produce sounds with musical machines. Most of the ideas come from our
day-to-day experience. We don't look to the moon or to outer space for inspiration.
We mostly look at our work and ourselves, things we talk about, things we
understand, because we live with them. To us it was quite direct to speak
of The Man Machine because that's what we really are. It's the connection
and cooperation of men and machines, because sometimes we play our machines,
and sometimes they play us. It's like a dialogue: sometimes we switch on
certain automatic machines and...they play very nice music... and we listen.
We spend a lot of time listening to our machines, and then we change the
programs and reset them. So it's like an exchange of ideas between us two.
That's what "The Man Machine" is about, and also certain aspects
in society where people are mechanically reproduced, or bought and marketed,
or robots: the original Russian word "robotnik" means "worker".
That's really our identity, what we are. |
| Beacon
Radio : As we mentioned last time, the album "The
Man Machine" had a theme running through it, and the new album is the
same. This time you're relating to computers, so perhaps we should start
with the title track, which is "Computer World". Could you tell
us about this one, and maybe the idea behind the album. |
| Ralf
Hütter: The idea is that we have been working
the last 3 years since "The Man Machine" album towards making
our studio transportable. We wired everything new, and built most of the
equipment ourselves. Some standard components of course, but most of the
equipment we have is self-made, together with an engineer. Because we always
found that we had certain ideas for what we call "software", musical
software, but there wasn't the hardware available: we couldn't go into a
shop and find the right instruments for us. We always had certain ideas
about how we should play, and we had to put a lot of work into building
musical hardware. So we used a lot of microcomputers. It was also very direct
for us to record "Computer World", because it's really everywhere
around us, and it changed our whole attitude of producing sounds because
they have a lot to do with numbers, and how a lot of sounds come down to
voltage controlled filters, oscillators... It all comes down to numbers,
programming certain numbers. It started off a whole new side of our programming
compositions, and we just had to record this new album "Computer World".
I don't think we could have done anything else. |
| Beacon
Radio : You mentioned hardware and software, maybe
you'd like to explain to people what you mean by this. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Software, in our context, is musical
notes, filters, sounds... or visuals. Anything. But in order to put across
these ideas to other people... I mean, you can have something in your head
that you imagine, this sound or that sound... but if I want to play it and
hear it from a loudspeaker - because we make loudspeaker music - technically
I have to go to work. And we work with an engineer now, who is a friend
of ours, he's also within the group, he's called (Joachim) Dehmann, and
also a mathematician from the society of informatic in Germany. So he's
normally doing another job, and we just take up his complete weekends and
spare time by making him write certain programs. Florian now has a singing
computer... We thought of these ideas and concepts but in order to make
it come out of the loudspeaker we have to get involved in hardware, rewiring
the equipment and programming computers and the whole stage set-up. Because
it's fine to make something in the studio, overdub this, and overdub that,
that's OK. But if you want to do it in a one-to-one situation - and we are
taking our Kling Klang studio on stage , the only things we are leaving
in Düsseldorf are the walls. And we have five doors there, and no telephone.
So we're leaving that at home and we're bringing our studio here. That's
hardware, the physical side of musical programming. So we have to take both,
and I think they both have to be together. It's just materialistic things
and immaterialistic things. They have to be together. Programs and apparatus. |
| Beacon
Radio : How much are computers now a part of Kraftwerk? |
| Ralf
Hütter: We have the whole rhythmic structures
on computer, and we have established certain musical programs, but we have
access to the memory, and we can change while it's playing, so it's not
just running. We can always change it. We can alter the programs while they're
running. And it took us the last three years, every day we do an 8-10 hour
shift in our studio. I think only on saturdays we take an evening off, when
we go to the cinema. |
| Beacon
Radio : The first single to be released from the
album is "Pocket Calculator". You've released numerous singles
since "Autobahn", but none of them seem to have had the impact
that the first one did. Why do you think this is? |
| Ralf
Hütter: I don't
know. The singles are just like short films, whereas the albums are what
we're really about. I think we put more emphasis into the album and the
whole concept of Kraftwerk, the whole "identity" thing. And maybe
people are more interested in the whole album thing. But I cannot explain. |
| Beacon
Radio : "Pocket Calculator" is interesting
because you do actually play it on pocket calculators and I notice you happen
to have one sitting on the table. Perhaps you could give us a demonstration? |
| Ralf
Hütter: I'll just play the melody on this
small pocket calculator... let me just switch on... if you hold the microphone
here I can play it... (Ralf plays it. And sings it!). |
| Beacon
Radio : That's absolutely amazing, because I've
never considered that you could make a song out of a pocket calculator.
I suppose there must be a lot of people around who don't realise how close
music is to them if they really want it. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes, it's everywhere around you,
just open your ears. We always say we have two stereo microphones in our
ears and a little cassette recorder in our brain when we're walking round
the streets. That's how we came up with autobahn, radios and trains. We
just walked last winter into the department stores in Düsseldorf and
we saw some instruments in the toy department. Because at one time we had
all these computers which are not so big, but still they make us more into
programming engineers in a special situation where you have to stand still
and be very attentive. But on the other hand we like to run around, and
when we found those toy instruments and pocket calculators we were more
flexible. We're wired to the equipment, but we're more flexible to move
and... it's more... "micro-music". |
| Beacon
Radio : The whole development of Kraftwerk has
been very complex, and there must be problems when you go on tour. As you
say, you transport the whole studio now from Düsseldorf. What sort
of problems have you come up against? |
| Ralf
Hütter: It's not very big, it's very compact.
We have everything in compact dimensions, it's in racks. The hardest problem
is that we only have everything once, so if something breaks or if the truck
has an accident, we are out of work for quite some time because we can't
replace it. If you break a guitar or a string, you can go into a shop anywhere
and get a new one. Even if you have a specially built instrument you can
still replace it. But some of the things we have just once, they are products
of our fantasy. So we hope everything goes well. So far everything has worked.
And our engineer is travelling with us, so when we check the machines in
the afternoon we should be OK. They're functioning pretty well because we
treat them well. It's like if you're in a cooperative relationship between
men and machines I think it shows on the machines, because they give back
to you. If you treat them like garbage or exploit them then they will degrade,
you know? It's more like a new kind of relationship that you have to establish
and then they give back to you. And so far they haven't let us down on this
tour. |
| Beacon
Radio : I read somewhere recently about a very
elaborate plan you've devised concerning future tours... in fact concerned
with transmission of holographic images. Could you tell us something about
this? |
| Ralf
Hütter: It's still very advanced because
technically it's... nearly possible, but still it's out of context, at the
moment it's more like a concept. We have a lot of fictional concepts, but
some of them we make realistic. At one time we played simultaneously in
New York and Paris with "The Man Machine album", where we had
two sets of our duplicates simultaneously presenting the new album to the
media. And we were just walking around, two of us in Paris and two of us
in New York, talking to people while our duplicates were presenting the
concept of the album to the media. Because we believe in the industrial
production process, it's very much what we are concerned with. So physically
we don't need to be everywhere at the same time, certain aspects of our
work can function better when we, for example, we have plastic duplicates
and they can do very good photo sessions because they never blink their
eyes. And they can be very static, people can look at them for hours and
hours and they will always be very relaxed standing there whereas we are
sometimes very tense and get nervous. So we can then do other things. |
| Beacon
Radio : With the technology we've been getting
in the 80s and the way - after talking to you - that I can see Kraftwerk
are moving, I suppose that even now you're moving towards "the ultimate
goal". I suppose it's a goal which always keeps moving. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes, we feel like we haven't even
started. When I think that we have been going for over 10 years I can hardly
believe it myself. We've been talking about former albums, but I still don't
remember most of what we did, because we're so much more concerned with
what's going on now and the future that we have to keep very open not to
divert, and be open minded. I think that's what it's all about, rather than
saying, "well, I did this in 1973, I did that whenever...". It's
of no real importance today. And we're very much into situationists, so
what we do now, and the next few steps, is what we're concerned about. |
| Beacon
Radio : We'll play a final track from "Computer
World", maybe you'd like to finish off with "Home Computer",
and maybe give us some of your views on how you see computers in our lives
over the next 5-10 years. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes, they are everywhere already.
And unfortunately a lot of control-oriented people have been using computers
to store other people's data and take advantage of it. We didn't like that
too much. In Germany there's very strong state control, a very strong bureaucratic
system. The BKA have, I think, millions of people's data stored. This made
us very upset. We're more concerned with working with computers in other
directions: more creatively or productively, and not leave it to these kind
of people who are only into compensating for their lack of love or personal
acknowledgement. We are more interested in cooperating with computers as
an extension of the creative side of the human being. Which I think is more
the way society should be going: being more productive in expressing your
ideas and fantasies and wishes, or visions. Anything that could help in
making society a better place to live in, you know? And we feel we're only
just starting to go in this direction, with the help of musical machines,
computers or whetever it takes to put ideas across to other people. Communication
between people in the technological society is what we are about. |
| Beacon
Radio : Finally, just before we lose you, is there
anything you can tell us about your next project, or are you keeping it
closely concealed in your databanks? |
| Ralf
Hütter: We have been working on this computer
concept for the last 3 years, it's only just finished. At one point we had
to say, "OK...", we could have gone on working for another 5 years,
but we had to say, "OK, this is now finished." It's as if we are
pregnant for 3 years and then when we gave birth to that thing it's still
very new to us. We have to see how everything is functioning and how the
ideas are floating around. We don't really know where it takes us, the idea
is just to be open and aware. And we mostly draw for our next step, our
experience from our future. I think that's what our next album will reflect. |
| Beacon
Radio : I'd like to thank you Ralf for taking
the time to talk to us, and to wish you all the best for the rest of the
tour. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Thank you very much. Now I must say
that for the first time we are going all around the world. We always used
to come from Düsseldorf, pack everything into the container, go somewhere
and come back. But now we're going everywhere we went: Rome, Barcelona,
England, then we're going over to America again, South America, then Japan,
back though the countries of Eastern Europe: Hungary, Yugoslavia, possibly
Russia. So we're going all around and coming back to Düsseldorf from
the other side. |
| |
Transcription
by Harvey Williams - England |
|
