NME:
When I saw the titles of your new record were to
be “Computer World” and “Pocket Calculator” my
first impressions were that Kraftwerk had slipped into self-parody. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Why did you think self parody? |
| NME:
The pursuit of new age themes from showroom dummies
through robots to computers… |
| Ralf
Hütter: Well,
I think that for us it was the only thing we could do at that moment because
we had spent three years breaking up our studio and re-building it with
computers. Just by looking around us – around our studio and outside-
it made us see that we were surrounded by computers, that our whole society
is computerised. And as we were working on the connection between numbers
and notes, computers seemed the closest subject for us to do. It was not
intended in a parodic way. To us seemed like the next step, from robots/physical
automation to programming of thoughts within Kraftwerk and within society.
Within Kraftwerk because everybody is programmed sociologically. And by
working over the years with reproductions on machines, tapes, photos and
videos we found out so much about our own programming of a long time ago,
a time when we were not aware of ourselves being programmed – in education,
by parents, or those other things. |
| NME:
The combination of studying computers and building
them in studio was almost a cleansing process of previous programming? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes, processing is the word to describe
the thing. Everything in our studio is now interconnected through the computers,
so we had to re-think the whole system and program ourselves into that.
Now everything is automatic, but we can always interfere as we have access
to the programming. It means that we can now play anything and that completely
changes our relationship with physical music. You can no longer say “that’s
good music, but we need three more trumpets”, because if we want sounds
we obviously just make the sounds ourselves. It’s going to create
new tensions and possibilities for us. |
| NME:
Does that frighten or excite you? |
| Ralf
Hütter: We are, uh, nervous, but we are also
fatalistic… |
| NME:
Why fatalistic? |
| Ralf
Hütter : Because we are German and there
is a fatalistic German quality of going all the way. There is never a question
of maybe using a little computer here and plugging it into the synthesizer
there and keeping the rest of the group as it was before. We close the door
for three years and don’t open it. We try to do it all the way, imposing
the process as a discipline on ourselves, really taking all the way and
then going out of the room to see where that takes us. I think that is very
Germanic. |
| NME:
Broadening the subject slightly, the title track “Computer
World” hints at international conspiracy in its lines: “Interpol
and Deutsche Bank, FBI and Scotland Yard”. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Well, now that it has been penetrated
by micro-electronics our whole society is computerised, and each one of
us is stored into some point of information by some company or organization,
all stored by numbers. When you get into Germany at a border, they place
your passport into a machine connected to the Bundeskriminalamt in Wiesbaden
so they can check whether you can enter or leave, for various reasons other
than whether your passport is correct. It goes much further than that, there’s
a whole philosophy of, er – it’s our 1981. |
| NME:
But the willingness of the people to accept something
like the Wiesbaden police computer complex seems to indicate that a majority
of the German people wants order or at least a regulated lifestyle. |
| Ralf
Hütter: If you are insecure about basic instincts
of yourself then you have to look and maybe listen to outside impulses to
tell you what to do. Which is not exactly what we are about, but certainly
what a lot of Germany is about and by living there, working there, we can’t
dissociate ourselves from it completely. We have certainly discovered that
those things are part of our programming. And working with computers all
the time you become very much aware of how the control thing works and could
be done – specially in Germany, where computerization of control organizations
is very big. There are stores and societies which control your financial
situation so the whole computerization gets more like a 1984 vision. Our
idea is to take computers out of context of those control functions and
use them creatively in an area where people do not expect to find them.
Like using pocket calculators to make music, for instance. Nobody knew you
could do that, we always try to do things to break the normal order –
and knowing it so well from Germany we know how to break it… possibly
(a slight smile). It’s about time technology was used in resistance,
it shouldn’t be shunned, reviled or glorified. Yes, we created a softer
attitude, going much more into the human behaviour of those type of things.
What we always try to do is to plug ourselves in and steal a little away
from those companies, using guerilla tactics to steal from the rich conglomerates…
like we got this mathematician into doing something he wouldn’t normally
do – help make music. And we communicate data to him by computer,
avoiding then the post office telephone monopoly on communications. |
| NME:
It’s ironic that Kraftwerk have a reputation
for being so distinctly German – in dress, observation of formalities,
eating cakes in cafes – when you obviously don’t like some aspects
of modern Germany. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Ja, that’s the war, we have
to go through this whole process because in England, or in America, you
have a living culture, but in Germany we don’t have that. In the war
Germany was finished, everything wipped out physically and also mentally.
We were nowhere. The only people we could relate to we had to go back 50
years into the ‘20s. On the other hand, we were brought up in the
British sector and that’s nothing we could relate to. There’s
no living musical thing other than the 50 years old musical thing or semi-academic
electronic music, meaning psychologically we had to get ourselves going.
And that has only been possible with our generation. You can see the generation
before ours that is ten years older and they could not do it. The only thing
they could do was get fat and drink. There was so much accumulated guilt
that it physically took another generation to be productive, to be willing
to say, “Okay, I’m doing a song called ‘Trans Europa Express’”
or something. That’s why we don’t have any contact with people
older than us. Its’ just impossible – its’ a real break.
But now with our generation it has begun again, with the films of Fassbinder,
Herzog and Wenders orthe writing of Peter Handke for instance. Our music
was used in the last section of Alexanderplatz (the famous ‘20s novel
of Alfred Doblin, recently subjected to a controversial TV serialisation
by Fassbinder). There was about 20 minutes of visions and horror sequences
with our music. |
| NME:
(A suitable link between generations). How about relations
with your parents? |
| Ralf
Hütter: It’s difficult, but they are
several years older, even pre-Nazi… we certainly represent the generation
with no fathers. We have nobody to listen to, no old wise men or anything.
We have to impose every question on ourselves and try to find the correct
answer. That we were completely alone was very hard to accept at first,
but after a few years we find that it is also in some ways encouraging because
it gives you possibilities of doing new things. |
| NME:
In England we’re partly encumbered by useless,
decaying traditions that are nevertheless difficult to cast off… |
| Ralf
Hütter: I think so, but that will crumble
away… |
| NME:
Getting back to your generation, weren’t the
RAF/Baader Meinhof Gang cited as reasons for the increased surveillance
that resulted in the Wiesbaden centre? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Maybe, but the people who created
Wiesbaden are just putting their minds on the table. I mean, they have that
in their heads for a long time, so if it were the Baader Meinhof Gang or
the weather that gave them the excuse they would have done it, because that
is the only thing they would think about doing. The people involved were
brought up in Nazi kindergartens, they always see things in terms of punishment,
guilt, restrictions, everybody in a role. And they can never find out what
they are like and they can’t go that far back into the programming
process to change their modules of behaviour. The guy responsible for Wiesbaden
is retired now but he probably imposes the same system of order in his house
– it’s so much part of his system. |
| NME:
Your generation had two choices – identify with
the foreign cultures of occupying powers or go back to the 20’s? |
| Ralf
Hütter: I think we are very anti-American
in a way because we were feeling so much how they came to Germany with Coca
Cola and chewing gum. As children we at first thought it was great, you
know, big uncle coming down the street with Coca Cola. I can still remember
when I was very young how they came through the streets on tanks giving
it out. We took it at the time but over the years you more and more doubt
what’s happening and where you stand. It has nothing to do with nationalistic
feelings, it’s more a cultural thing – it has to do with more
spiritual feelings, continental feelings… |
| NME:
Were you worried that your identification with Germany
would be misinterpreted abroad? |
| Ralf
Hütter: No. For us it was more an identity
thing. It was the process of finding out who we were. The whole thing of
Kraftwerk going through those different LPs… like “Autobahn”,
everybody in Germany said that singing German lyrics was crazy. Can you
imagine that 75 per cent of our radio programmes were in English. Naturally
we don’t want it all to be in German, but such a high percentage?
It is becoming better now – I’m really complaining about a few
years ago. |
| NME:
Having talked to younger German groups, like D.A.F.
and Der Plan, I’m always impressed by their sense of purpose and their
unselfconscious willingness to talk about their music – an area which
English groups often hedge around. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Well, it's so hard in Germany to
be productive that you have to discipline yourself very much and put yourself
through a lot of effort to get anywhere. When we first started it was impossible
to find anywhere to play. We built our own equipment, telephoned and arranged
anything ourselves... it was just little guerilla tactics in order to get
anywhere. And once you have decided to do it, then you have adopted it as
a lifestyle. But finally it has broken here and there is much activity in
German now. It is no longer the case of people completely denying their
identity and having to sing in English. |
| NME:
The intellectual process that has obviously gone into
the construction of your LPs manifests itself in a simple pop form. Do you
think it's getting so simple that people are missing the point? |
| Ralf
Hütter: No. We consider our music minimalist
to a point and that again maybe has something to do with our so-called classical
upbrighting, where one of the highest goals is to play very complicated
pieces. We would rather go for the meaning. If we wanted to play complicated
things with our equipment it would be just a matter of pressing one or two
more buttons. Besides, I never like practising because that is again part
of the system of order - you put the notes in order. The system imposes
itself in every aspect of human life, not just passports, but music, too.
Music must be in order, too. This created some very strange feelings in
myself at the time. Our music is very primitive - the German word is gerade
aus (straight ahead) and that is the best word for it. Simple means
a little stupid, minimalistic means reduced, but gerade aus means
- you know where you are going and you try to get there as fast as possible.
We oncecalled our music Industrielle Volksmusik. I think that'swhat we stand
for. We're very much involved with environment. Düsseldorf is called
"The Office of the Rühr" (the heavy industrial belt of Germany)
- it is all glass ans steel and concrete and blocks... |
| NME:
In England many so-called futurist groups took "The
Man Machine" idea the wrong way, take a simplistic view of extolling
machinery when they should have just used it. |
| Ralf
Hütter: "The Man Machine" is more
like establishing a balance between man and the machine, more a friendship,
otherwise we would have called the album "Machine". Also, in the
'70s everybody was calling their albums something like "Man",
everybody simplistically talked so much about human qualities - "I
love you baby, forever" for example. But we wanted to talk about the
relationship between man and machines and the Russian context of Rabotnik,
meaning worker. We always thought of ourselves as workers in sound, as studio
or musical workers, not musicians or musical artists. But as musical workers,
going into the studio to work. And the whole thing was to develop that.
Wehad so many problems in the '70s because nobody was attuned to it. |
| NME:
Coming back from last night's concert your collaborator
Emil Schult spoke of back to the land movements and a healthier, more natural
lifestyle. He said that Kraftwerk in a way represnted this. |
| Ralf
Hütter: That has to do with the second electronic
revolution. Wewent through the mechanical side three years ago and now it'sthe
electronic data and processing - we are getting more into software and organisms,
how organisms come about. There's a tendency to read bio-rhythms within
the group of people who live in our home. For us there's no longer a difference
between all those things - they've all benn part of the programming process.
One time we called our Kling Klang Studio the "Electronic Garden"
- we have bridged the gap between music and technology. |
| NME:
Kraftwerk's relationship to computers is more ambivalent
then? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Ambivalence is right - we're not
glorying anything. It's more like by living in West Germany you can see
how society can be manoeuvred with these electronic computers. What we are
trying to do is firstly make that transparent and then maybe try to expose
how you can do other things, because computers are like blank tapes: you
can cover them with bits or change their direction even thought they, too,
can change - they did change - our attitudes towards music... It's really
hard to express this in words because "Computer World" is still
so close that I haven't reflected upon everuthing in it. |
| NME:
Don't you get the urge to make more of this in your
lyrics, which are mainly plainly descriptive? |
| Ralf
Hütter: We always try to plant lyrics like
clues, use them as codes because otherwise lyrics tend to catch you intellectually
and only that. That would disturb our Ganzheit (wholeness) principle. Also,
it'spart of our Germanic thing, the little symphonic thing, where words
are there, but voices aren't mixed very high. Our main thing was mainly
sound and the words just slipped into our music. |
| NME:
The music was more extreme once, a system of contrasts
and opposites: loud/quiet, soft/hard, melodic/cacophonous. It's become more
unified, easier on the ear. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes, but we have gone more radical
synthetic. Everything we do now is completely produced by computerizing
the whole thing. Even the rhythms are horizontally and vertically organized. |
| NME:
The Kraftwerk personnel seem strongly integrated into
the Kraftwerk persona, is there a difference between your stage and private
persona? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Our personal life is our stage life,
sometimes we get confused and sometimes I get mixed up. It'sjust a level
of awareness, a feeling for the moment. There is really nothing else we
do apart from Kraftwerk and related things. Wehave no other choice than
going totally into that thing. |
| NME:
It's strange that you haunt the discos, enjoying the
physical activity of dancing, perhaps? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes (with a sly grin) but we are
dancing very mechanical. To us it'sall part of... we are situationists.
It's hard to express, maybe we should write some more songs about it. Like
“Showroom Dummies”, which says “It’s two o’clock,
we start to dance, we are showroom dummies” coming to life. We are
also living in the streets, in the cities, everywhere. We can’t separate
this life from that. It’s all one life and at the end we are dead. |
| NME:
Do you see Kraftwerk as a comedy of manners? |
| Ralf
Hütter: That’s behaviour? Certainly
there’s some degree of black humour in us – we are mostly wearing
black! There’s a certain tradition of humour where we live, that has
become part of us. |
| NME:
There seems to be a gleeful hapiness about you during
the performance of "Pocket Calculator" when you all leave your
keyboards to perform a dance routine at the front of the stage. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes, because mostly we are physically
bound to elaborate equipment. Florian bought a (musical) pocket calculator
last Christmas in the department store, brought it to the studio where we
started playing around with it. It was a new thing for us. It was a minimalistic
liberation for us. I think that mini electronics are very interesting. |
| NME:
Being so interested in video and automated beings,
why have you taken to the road yourselves instead of sending out visual/mechanical
aids as stand-ins? |
| Ralf
Hütter: We did that before, a couple of years
ago. In New York we played a press show with dummies. And one time in Paris
to launch “The Man Machine”. What we wanted to do this time
was put ourselves through the whole new situation of going out with our
entire studio, because we had been locked in for three years to make this
new album and concept, for the first time we would be able to go out, make
some little excursions, walk around and come back the other way. It’s
a really open thing because we don’t know how it’ll turn out.
It will reflect in our music because we always draw our ideas from the work
we do, puttingour mujsic and machinery through this whole process. |
| NME:
Do you take a fatalistic interest in things at the
point of crisis, when things arein the balance? |
| Ralf
Hütter: (After a long pause) Maybe, because
that's the point where changes come about and maybe, subconsciously at least,
we are very easily bored by a stable situation. Electronic music is a very
liquid situation, not like rock and roll, which is a very stable format.
We're not in a box like that, we're not afraid, we're attracted by certain
things in motion... |
| |
Interview
to Chris Bohn |
Transcribed
by Louise Bell - USA |
|
