|
Humo - Are you satisfied with the centenaire? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Surely. It was a very good and exciting
Tour. In Germany some newspapers and cycling magazines have called Jan Ullrich
'Die Mensch Maschine', after our song from 1978. Nice publicity for our
new record, and we didn't even have to pay them for it. The organisors of
the Tour had invited us to follow the stage that arrived on Alpe d'Huez.
from a helicopter and in a Tour car. I don't know if you are familiar with
the term "Tour car". |
| Humo
- Hey, I am a Belgian. |
| Ralf
Hütter - Right, sorry. The driver of our
car was the famous cyclist Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle. It was enjoying, all
the time he was giving inside information. In such a car you are very close
to the cyclists. (Enthusiastically) On a certain moment we drove along the
car of Leblanc! The Tour manager! I haven't been so enthusiastic since my
childhood. Of course you cannot follow the race as good as on television,
but you can smell and feel it. It was simply fan-tas-tic. |
| Humo
- Are you cycling a lot? |
| Ralf
Hütter - In the spring I cycled the Amstel
Gold Race for cycling amateurs. I also never skip Liège-Bastogne-Liège,
and each year there are some trips through the Pyrenées and Alpes on my
programme. |
| Humo
- So you climbed Alpe d'Huez yourselves by bike? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Oh yes, several times. The whole
ride: Col de Madeleine, Col de la Croix-de-Fer, Col de l'Alpe d'Huez, Luz
Dardiden also and the Tourmalet. |
| Humo
- So you are in a perfect condition then? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, but a cycling amateur can do
them in its own tempo, a little like in the music (little laugh). My condition
is not as good as I would like. We have worked constantly on the record,
and during the last winter we toured in Japan, Australia and New-Zealand.
When we returned, we have locked ourselves in the studio, made videoclips,
and finalised the cover … But we did not succeed in get the record ready
before the Tour, so we have stopped the recording: I don't want to miss
a second from the Tour. Within two weeks I will go the Alpes to do some
extra training. Watch out: I am not a professional, I am training like an
amateur - with attention for the nature and for my own body. The record
is also made from that point of view. The beat you hear in 'Elektro Kardiogramm',
is my heartbeat during cycling. You should see the record as a soundtrack
for the movie 'Tour de France'. You hear cycling noises, breathing, the
chain which slides almost unhearable over the gear. You know, when cycling
goes well, you hear almost nothing, only the environment, but on television
you always get these disturbing comments. You know what you should do? Watch
a ride through the mountains, switch off the sound and play our cd: you
will be amazed. |
| Humo
- What is your favourite cycling classic? |
| Ralf
Hütter - The oldest one: Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
I did Paris-Roubaix a few times, but for that you need an old bike, because
on these cobblestone strips you will break certainly something. I did also
the Tour of Flanders a few times: also very difficult. |
| Humo
- Do you have any idea why the Belgians have disappeared almost completely
from the Tour? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Ullrich is also only a single case:
look in the final classification for the next German. And you had at least
the biggest cyclist of all times. |
| Humo
- Did you listen to the original for the remake of 'Tour de France' on this
record? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, I still knew how it went, we
have always played it live. For the rest, there are on the record only new
compositions, and not only remixes of 'Tour de France', as some people seem
to think. New lyrics, new music, new vision. It remains of course Kraftwerk,
because just like the 'Tour de France' we are going in circles. (little
laugh) With the record there is a booklet of twenty pages in which we explain
what the Tour means for us. The Tour is like life: a form of trance. And
trance is based on repetition. Everybody is looking for trance in his life:
in sex, pleasure, music, everywhere. Machines are perfect to create trance.
|
| Humo
- Is Kraftwerk for you as important as fifteen years ago? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes. Someone asked me recently how
much time we are spending on music. Well: we still spend 160 hours a week
in the studio. And even when we are on our bikes, we are thinking about
our music. In fact I do not do anything else except making music and thinking
about music. |
| Humo
- Are there instruments from your starting period which you are still using? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We still have all the material from
1970. We have digitised it and stored in on laptops: these analog instruments
are simply too big for these times. The original Kling Klang studio still
exists - everything is in its place, connected and operational - but now
we have a pocket version which we can put in our rucksack and with which
we can travel the whole world. I am not nostalgic about old instruments.
We still have all the sounds, and the new material is much more handy to
work with. You sometimes hear that nowadays everything sounds the same because
everybody uses the same synthesisers, but that isn't completely true. Everything
sounds the same because everybody uses the same presets from the machines.
In our whole career we did not use one single preset. I am also glad that
nowadays it is cheaper than in our times. I remember that my first synthesiser
costed as much as my Volkswagen. (laughing) Studying and being in Kraftwerk,
was almost impossible. But still I did. I had to have that synthesiser,
and I wanted that Volkswagen - both meant freedom to me. |
| Humo
- Kraftwerk have invented a new musical language. Do you remember what motivated
you? |
| Ralf
Hütter - We were the first German post-war
generation, the children of West-Germany. We were obliged to rediscover
the sound of our everyday life, because it simply did not exist anymore.
We had to redefine our musical culture. Not only our musical culture however:
at the end of the sixties all German artists had the same problems. Writers,
directors, painters … all of them had invent a new language. |
| Humo
- Do you think that the influence of Kraftwerk is recognised enough? |
| Ralf
Hütter - Yes, after all it is. The black
Americans have recognised our value from the beginning. I remember that
I entered a New York night-club in 1976 or 1977. The dj played our 'Trans
Europe Express'. At first I didn't notice, but suddenly I noticed that the
song was playing for twenty minutes, while our version lasted only three
minutes. I went talking with the dj and saw that he was using two turntables,
he had two copies of 'Trans Europe Express' and so he could let last the
song as long as he liked. Those guys in New York took our record and worked
with it creatively. I found it an enormous honour. And nowadays … You have
to go to really faraway places to find someone who never heard of Kraftwerk.
And people which are influenced by us do not hide it, isn't it ? |
| Humo
- Last question: will Armstrong win the Tour also next year? |
| Ralf
Hütter - No, next year Ullrich will win.
And I will have the white shirt, for the best young cyclist (laughing). |
 |
| Interview
to Fred Durst |
| Translation
to english by Ivo Peeters - Leuven - Belgium |
|
