 |
| Rock&Folk
- Why did you make that trip to Los Angeles last
summer ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We made the final mix at the Record
Plant studio. But it's mostly because our album evokes the european culture,
it is spiritually european and it's a new conscience that we discovered
during our trip on the american continent in 75.Everybody asked us how was
life in Germany, in Paris. People wanted to know where was our culture at
that point. People used to say that we were not rock n' roll, then thanks
to these trans-atlantic trips we discovered our cultural identity as Europeans.
|
| Rock&Folk
- In your show, you played two new songs refering
to Europe : "Europe Endless" and "TEE". Do you really believe in this european
consciousness ? Aren't you german anymore ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - It's not a nationalist feeling...
The culture of the Rhine area is our cultural background. What amazed us
in the States, is that everyone shows his own background much more than
in Europe, although we have museums and a very rich history. In the States
however, there are only "blocks", then people are asked to show this background
on a psychological and individual level... |
| Florian
Schneider - When you are in an american studio,
there's a distance which allows you to see all this very clearly. |
| Ralf
Hütter - In Germany, the young guys play
american music, and we, in Hollywood, play germanic music... |
| Florian
Schneider - When I heard american musicians,
of course it had nothing to do with those young Germans who think they play
"american"... |
| Rock&Folk
- Don't you think you're in the same position
as Fritz Lang making some american product (thriller) in Hollywood, but
movies full of an expressionist german culture ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, in a sense. Distance allows
to see more clearly. To get conscious of things, you must go out and watch.
For us, the problem was to go outside ourselves, of our existence limited
by the same tours in Germany, to look at our own culture in a distance.
|
| Rock&Folk
- Could you explain your present success by this
consciousness ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - I don't have any rational explanation,
so much more so as people, in France for instance, buy our records but don't
really come to our concerts. |
| Rock&Folk
- So, how do you explain this difference between
the albums and the gigs ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - The album always starts from a
concept : "Radioactivity" came from an idea that fascinated us for a long
time, the concept of the radio and all the phenomenon of the airwaves, the
transmission of any radio-active material. We are thrilled by that stuff,
end the idea of that album was in our heads for at least three years. During
our first tour in the U.S., we have visited all the independant radios,
for we used to see ourselves as a radio station... but it's impossible to
start something like that in Germany, because of the state monopole. So,
the only way to do it is through records, and to use concerts to amplify
even more the "media record". But few people still come to our shows, because
it's difficult for them to imagine that it's a band who plays that music
and that it can be reproduced live. They thought it was only studio work...
like Sgt. Peppers, for instance, which the Beatles couldn't play live because
they knew three chords only. |
| Rock&Folk
- Some nasty people compared the success of "Radioactivity"
to the success of "Pop Corn"... |
| Ralf
Hütter - "Pop Corn" was only a "gimmick
composition". There was nobody behind it, whereas for "Radioactivity", it's
our duty (and perhaps even yours) to show what's behind it. It was indispensable
for us to produce that album and to go beyond it. It's a stage and the witness
of a moment. |
| Rock&Folk
- That record obviously fascinated such people
as Bowie or Iggy Pop... |
| Ralf
Hütter - It's normal. It's a little bit
like a snapshot, a diaphragm that puts light exactly on a mental and musical
aspect that nobody had considered before. Here, people have always taken
pictures of English and Americans, and we had to turn the camera and to
take a picture of ourselves, to expose ourselves to the media, because the
post-war german generation remained in the shadow : those who are older
than us had Elvis or the Beatles for idols... those are not bad options,
but if we completely forget our identity, it becomes quickly "empty" and
not consistent. There's a whole generation in Germany, between 30 and 50,
who has lost its own identity, and who even never had any. |
| Rock&Folk
- So
you pretend being able to help the german youth to find their own identity
? |
| Ralf
Hütter - The
living culture of Central Europe has been cut in the 30s, and all the intellectuals
went to the U.S. or to France, or they have been eliminated. We take back
that culture of the 30s at the point where it was left, and this on a spiritual
level... |
| Florian
Schneider - Electro-acoustic instruments have
been developped in Europe, in Germany, in France... |
| Rock&Folk
- So you make a connection between a culture
of the past, but using modern tools, and using the mass media in the american
way... |
| Ralf
Hütter - The tape recorder has been invented
in Germany! We also use microphones in Germany. But of course, there's no
question of a national cult... |
| Rock&Folk
- For some people, you're doing a primary music,
although your musical justifications are highly intellectual. |
| Ralf
Hütter - It is true that it's very hard
to compose something as simple as "Autobahn", hard to draw the shortest
line between two points... |
| Florian
Schneider - It's like in science : it can seem
very simple, atoms and radioactivity... once it's been discovered ! |
| Rock&Folk
- Is it because you need to feel close to the
audience that you have chosen the world of rock music and that you mention
the Beach Boys as your reference ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, in their songs they managed
to concentrate a maximum of fundamental ideas. In 100 years from now, when
people will want to know what California was like in the 60s, they only
had to listen a single by the Beach Boys. |
| Rock&Folk
- So, in the same way, when people will want
to know about Europe in 1976, they'll listen to Kraftwerk ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, I hope so. If our communication
system works really fine... |
| Rock&Folk
- So, in which direction are you working ? Towards
something even more "robotic" ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - The "movie" side of our work will
be extended. When you work with tapes, it spins, it becomes a film-media,
beyond music. I don't mean we are going to produce films - we already shot
a very short one - but we will rather, during the shows, include electronic
ballets in which we will be acting ourselves, making movements with our
bodies, movements that correspond to certain vibrations... some new concepts
on which we are working for our next tour. We have machines which allow
us to make our ideas come true, and while they are doing it, we can go even
further, to a next step... |
| Florian
Schneider - The other german bands, with the
help of their machines, are making a trip backwards, while we are rather
making a trip forward. |
| Rock&Folk
- As for the other german "spacey" bands, it
looks like they refuse to see the machines for what they are, and that they
propose meditation instead. For you, machines exhibit themselves and become
a form of provocation, of agression... |
| Ralf
Hütter - It's agression and agressive beauty.
|
| Florian
Schneider - We also have melodies, we try to
create a contrast between those two elements. |
| Ralf
Hütter - We compose our melodies as we hum
in the studio, and the rythm comes from the sounds of the machines. |
| Rock&Folk
- As for what people see on stage, is it a conscious
reference to the great german expressionist movies like "The Cabinet of
Doctor Caligari" ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, indeed, we worked on that...
|
| Florian
Schneider - Sometimes I'm scared by all that
stuff on stage, it's so hard. There's too much noise, but it works like
a sado-masochist fascination. |
| Ralf
Hütter - In electronic music, unlike people
think, psychology plays the greatest part. |
| Rock&Folk
- When we went together to the exhibition of
"Machines Celibataires", you looked fascinated by the most evil machines...
|
| Ralf
Hütter - We are also single (celibataires)
ourselves (laughs) ! |
| Rock&Folk
- Tell me about your meeting with Bowie and your
projects... |
| Ralf
Hütter - We should have worked together
already, but the success of the last album forced us to tour until october,
and our projects were postponed. But with Bowie, what makes us closed from
each other, it's mostly similar considerations about psychology. It's the
same with Iggy. By the way, we have dedicated a song of our new album to
them (TEE)... They're just like us, big fans of trains. No other band could
evoke the world of trains better than us, I think. The metallic music, metal
on metal... We are going to record with Bowie. He will come to Dusseldorf
pretty soon for that. We still don't know what we're gonna do together,
it's mostly an encounter... |
| Florian
Schneider - We have always been interested by
what Bowie is doing, especially in his last albums. He started from hard
rock, and he's now on the step of electro-acoustic music, while we went
the opposite way, from electronic music to rock music... So I think that
what will happen will be thrilling. |
| Ralf
Hütter - I think it's the same kind of research
for a synthetic man. We were fascinated by the creation of that concept
and we tried to develop it by ourselves, without the help of a producer.
Anyone who is working in show bizness wait for someone else to create their
specific image. We said to ourselves : we don't want to wait, we will discover
ourselves alone. |
| Florian
Schneider - Usually, behind the stars, there's
always some Colonel Parker... |
| Rock&Folk
- But do you think people are doing the equivalent
of your work in movies, painting, etc...? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Emil, who works with us, is a student
of Joseph Beuys, the most famous german master of visual art, one of the
creators of the Fluxus group, interested in actions and happenings. Emil
works on the visual side of our shows and writes some of the lyrics. In
Germany, for about 5 years, there's a great movement of parallel movie makers
from which we feel quite close. For instance, Fassbinder used our music
for his next movie "La Roulette Chinoise", and we will work with him again
in the future. All this paranoid consciousness is specific to german movies.
Every young german movie maker is scared by the camera... |
| Rock&Folk
- Just like in expressionist movies in which
there was always a poetic vision of reality... |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, exactly. |
| Rock&Folk
- What is the subject of "Europe Endless", this
new composition that you sing on stage ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We travelled all over Europe, and
especially after a tour in the States, we realized that Europe is mostly
parcs and old hotels... "promenades and avenues"... "real life"... real
life, but in a world of postcards. Europe, when back from the States, it's
only a succession of postcards... |
| Rock&Folk
- Did you go to some concerts during your trip
in the States ? Did you see the Beach Boys live ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, we have seen them in a big
stadium. It was gorgeous, like a rebirth. There's a wonderful and very poignant
song in their last album, "Once in my life". I'd like to dare to say once
in my life what Brian Wilson says in that song... |
| Rock&Folk
- Where does your passion for the Beach Boys
come from ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - The intelligence of their thoughts
regarding american reality put onto records. |
| Florian
Schneider - When we reached California and Hollywood,
we were able to say : yes, it's exactly like that, like in the songs of
the Beach Boys. |
| Rock&Folk
- And would you like people to say the same thing
about your music and Europe, and especially Germany ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - That's exactly what Bowie told
us : when he came to see us in Dusseldorf in his Mercedes, he took the highway
while listening to "Autobahn" on the car stereo. He said : it's exactly
like that, everything is in your tune. |
| Rock&Folk
- And with Iggy Pop ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We met him in a lift, and it's
been a true contact right away. I always liked what the Stooges were doing
: they "dared". With electronics, you can hide yourself behind the machines,
or you can expose yourself. There are various ways of exhibing oneself.
We are perhaps also interested in Iggy because of the Fluxus happenings
in which I was involved when I was student... "action, action baby !" With
electronic instruments, you can be alone, all alone on stage, like Iggy
: you don't even have a guitar to hide yourself. To some physical discoveries
of rock music can correspond some fundamental and terrible psychological
discoveries, like reading a book that changes the vision of the world you
had before. After that, you never walk quite the same way... |
| Rock&Folk
- Why
are you using this strange system in place of drums ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Iggy Pop, for instance, was a drummer
and he stopped to go even further. He became a singer. With drums, the drummer
hides himself behind an "action". Our purpose was to open, to go one step
beyond and to produce music for loud speakers. We couldn't achieve this
with a traditional drummer : with our two percussionists, we worked for
months to develop that system, and it changed our lives. |
| Rock&Folk
- What do these two drummers represent compared
to the duet of the two of you ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - They are part of Kraftwerk. Of
course, with Florian we play music for 10 years, while they work on our
side for 3 years only and they penetrate only slowly the Kraftwerk universe.
We couldn't play our music with anybody. It's important to be able to understand
each other, because electronic humour is not obvious for everybody. |
| Rock&Folk
- Please give an example of this electronic humour...
|
| Ralf
Hütter - Well, you can listen to "Autobahn"
and then drive on the highway. Then you'll realize that your car is a musical
instrument. So many things can be funny... It's a real philosophy of life
that comes from electronics. |
| Rock&Folk
- Same thing about your taste for costumes and
grey shoes, perhaps ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, everything comes from a consciousness
in front of tape machines, cameras, all those machines produced by electronics. |
| Rock&Folk
- What is exactly the role of Emil ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - He is our medium. He writes lyrics,
takes care of the lights. |
| Florian
Schneider - When I met Emil, and when he showed
his comics to me, I thought they looked like our music. |
| Rock&Folk
- Could you split up some day ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We already tried, but it didn't
work. Our understanding is too stimulating : we discovered lots of things
because we were together, and loneliness could never have taken us where
we are now. It's a necessary duality... kling - klang. |
| Rock&Folk
- And the new album ? |
| Ralf
Hütter - It will be released in january.
We still have a lot of work to do, because since we had the chance to play
the new songs live, we know what doesn't work. On one side, our music is
very simple, built around a story board, and at the same time very experimental.
The new songs are always born from the old ones, like the new branch growing
on top of the old one. In the name of the album, there will be of course
the word "Europe", and the sleeve will be made from a set of mirrors reflecting
our pictures. By the way, there is a song called "The Hall Of Mirrors" in
the album : the story of what we did since the beginning, our psychological
trip, in some ways the other side of the background. |
 |
| Interview
to Paul Alessandrini - 1976 |
|
