| What
Chuck Berry did for the electric guitar, the pioneering German band Kraftwerk
did for the synthesizer, defining and setting the standard for the instrument's
use in rock 'n' roll. The band's auteurs, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider,
met at the Düsseldorf Conservatory and began experimenting with electronic
sounds in 1968 as a band called Organisation. After adopting a new name
from the German word for power plant, they released a series of brilliant
albums through the '70s that remain hugely influential in the worlds of
alternative rock, dance music and hip-hop. For much of the last two decades,
Hütter and Schneider have shunned the limelight to indulge in two passions:
cross-country bicycling and converting their famous Kling Klang Studio from
analog to digital technology. Now they've re-emerged with "Tour de France
Soundtracks," their first album of new material since "Electric Cafe" in
1986, and a disc that's inspired by both of those pursuits. The musicians
have always shunned the trappings of celebrity: They send photos of their
robotic doppelgangers to the press rather than posing themselves, and they
almost never grant interviews. (When I tried to speak to them in 1998, before
a rare performance in Chicago, a friendly but stern female voice answered
the phone at Kling Klang: "There are no interviews, just the show. Thank
you." Click.) Hütter recently agreed to a rare talk with the Sun-Times to
talk about the new album and his band's impressive legacy. He also promises
an extensive American tour late this year or in early 2004. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: I understand that the album debuted
at No. 1 in Germany. Congratulations. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Well, that is amazing. In the Tour
de France, it's called the yellow jersey. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: And you didn't even have to fall off
the bike! |
| Ralf
Hütter: (Laughs) No. As you probably know,
we are riding a lot ourselves, for health. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: I know you're a serious biking aficionado.
I'm curious about the connection between this album and the original "Tour
de France" single in 1983. What made you go back to the race for the inspiration
for this music? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Twenty years ago, in 1983, my friend
Florian Schneider and me, we had the whole script for the album. The concept
was there, and we started working on it. We ended up finishing the single,
and then we went into other projects. Through that time, the script was
always there, kind of like sleeping with us, but we did other technical
things. Then last year, this came back when we played the concerts in Paris
for the very first time with our new, updated Kraftwerk. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: I saw the band perform here at the
Riviera Theatre a few years ago, and it was one of the most amazing shows
I've ever seen. What has changed? |
| Ralf
Hütter: That was 1998, when we brought the
Kling Klang Studio. It was still kind of like heavy concert equipment. We
had transformed everything into the digital format already, but there was
still also analog. Now it is all laptops. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: Wow. That means there's much less to
carry now. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes! We played in Paris for the very
first time at the Cité de la Musique. We had the screen projections
of the images synchronized with the music, and then the Tour de France idea
came back with the 100 years' anniversary of the Tour de France. It is also
the 33 years' anniversary of Kraftwerk! (Laughs) So then we started working
on this, and over the winter, we went to Japan and then Australia, and just
finished the album now. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: Was the goal to have the new music
evoke bicycling in the same way that "Autobahn" evoked the highway or "Trans-Europe
Express" evoked the railway? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes. You can imagine, basically when
we were planning, the script was there, but there was still a lot of work
to do to actually provide what it sounds like. Basically, it sounds like
nothing-silence, silence because when you're really cycling well, and your
bicycle is functioning well, you don't hear the chain, you don't hear the
wheels, you don't hear yourself, because you're in good shape and it's running
smoothly. That's one of the reasons we like it so much, to get away from
the studio, always the musical sounds. The complete silence leaves space
for concentration and imagination. When we worked on this album, we tried
to incorporate the idea of very smooth, rolling, gliding. That is the sound.e |
| Chicago
Sun Times: You can almost feel the wind in your
face. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes! And the breath, and kind of
like a humming. In German, it's called "fleischentonal" - space and soundscapes-landscapes,
very open, wide sounds. So we tried to work in this spirit. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: Your vocals have changed on this album:
They're much more computer-manipulated than the way you used to sing in
the old days. |
| Ralf
Hütter: I always used to do the voice, the
human voice, the speech in German, it's called "sprechsingen." I don't know
the English word. "Sprechsingen" means "speech-sing." It's like a form of
rap. This started with "Autobahn" ("Fahr'n, fahr'n, fahr'n on der autobahn")
and also humming, "Trans-Europe Express," and then incorporating all kinds
of electronic voices, synthetic voices. My friend Florian is of course a
great specialist in like singing typewriters; they have developed instruments
for him. He is very good at getting engineers from computer companies to
work after hours and long nights to develop speech synthesis and things
like that. So we are using a lot of synthetic voices and all kinds of intonations.
|
| Chicago
Sun Times: I miss your voice, though. I like the
way you sing. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes, but I am doing something on
"Tour de France" And "Elektro Kardiogramm" is a computer, but I am triggering
it off. Then on "Titanium," it is more of my speech. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: You mentioned Florian's role in developing
the electronics. You two have been together since 1968. What is so special
about that collaboration? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Well, it's like an electronic marriage
(Laughs). Mr. Kling and Mr. Klang. It's stereo, so it gives the music the
over all dimension. Yin yang, Kling Klang. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: So you can't imagine making a Kraftwerk
record without Florian? |
| Ralf
Hütter: No, no. This is not possible. That's
what Kraftwerk is all about. It's stereo. By the way, Henning Schmitz has
been working with us now for 20 years. He has been out touring with us and
working as a musical engineer in the studio actually since we began working
on the old "Tour de France" concept in '82 or '83. We have also a very long-term
relationship with Fritz Hilpert, our other musical computer engineer, and
that's what we bring onstage. That's what you saw in Chicago. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: Yes, but fans don't think of this band
the same way we thought of the lineup with former percussionists Wolfgang
Flür and Karl Bartos because the new group has produced much less music
in the last 20 years. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes. That has been the result of
making this transformation into the digital mobile age, with the whole history
and catalog of 33 years of Kraftwerk. But now we're here and it's functioning.
I remember in Tokyo we were playing in this huge complex and there was no
heat. It was like 3 degrees Celsius (37.4 degrees Fahrenheit), but everything
worked really well. And then we played in Melbourne, Australia, and it was
close to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), and everything was
still functioning very well. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: Having played a Mini-Moog myself, one
of the things that amazes me is the instrument's ability to surprise you.
Do you ever miss those old analog synthesizers? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Well, we use them! We have all the
Kraftwerk instruments available and working in different areas of our studio,
so it's like a little history of Kraftwerk. They are functioning, and we
use whatever sound is artistically relevant. We work in the sounds of the
bicycle, we work in the sounds of the human heart, the human breath... whatever
is available. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: I've always been curious about Kraftwerk's
roots in the psychedelic explosion of the late '60s. The band started as
part of what's been called the "Krautrock" movement German psychedelic bands
that treated the studio as an instrument for creating places that exist
only in the listeners' imaginations. |
| Ralf
Hütter: It was never called Krautrock; the
word was invented by the english press, and it was never used in Germany.
In Germany it was called "kosmische musik" (cosmic music). Kraftwerk was
closer to some kind of industrial sound from the Rhein-Ruhr area. You can
imagine, in the late '60s, we wouldn't even get a spot to perform. So we
sneaked into the art world. Within the music world, there were all these
rock bands, so we went into some of these happenings situations in the art
world, and we would use light shows or projections. The idea was the German
word "gesamtkunst", which is like a combination or a fusion of all the arts.
Right from the beginning of Kraftwerk, the imagination and the stimulation
had always been with us. We were doing little drawings and comics and album
covers; we were preparing projections; we worked on the lights; we worked
on the tunes; we built speaker cabinets. Everything around Kraftwerk was
part of our creative ideas. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: There was an effort to create a complete
package, a unique world? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Yes! And that has stayed with us
until today, I think. Now we have more tools, of course, with computer graphics
and synchronization. The equipment has been very helpful; it has developed
in our direction, so we are very, very happy. It is always fun to get new
toys, but we also keep some of the old ones, because we have the affinity
for tuning the motors, tuning the oscillators, finding robotic movements
and computer-generated sounds. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: When you performed "Pocket Calculator"
toward the end of that show in Chicago, you came out in front of the equipment,
and you were dancing and Florian was smiling widely. The image of Kraftwerk
has always been very austere, but I'll be damned if you guys weren't having
fun. |
| Ralf
Hütter: Of course! We call it black humor.
There is always that parallel, a little sense of a touch of humor to everything.
But at the same time we can do serious work and still have a little smile.
|
| Chicago
Sun Times: Do you still get the same kick playing
music that you got when you were 20? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Definitely, definitely! (Laughs)
These were great experiences, playing Chicago and Detroit... just amazing!
Especially the cultural context in Chicago, the electronic house, and in
Detroit, the electronic techno. It was our dream. |
| Chicago
Sun Times: For an entire generation of young electronic-oriented
musicians, Kraftwerk is more influential than the Beatles. Is that legacy
ever a burden? |
| Ralf
Hütter: No, not really, because it is giving
us all the energy and the encouragement to keep going. Because we started
in the late '60s, but we are still looking ahead. When we see the audience,
and it ranges from the young computer kids to the university electronics
or physics professor, we are very, very pleased. |
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Interview
to Jim Derogatis
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