December 1997 with Radio Goethe in English

Interview: December 1997, Radio Goethe

Question: In Germany, you play in the biggest venues and stadiums. And here in small clubs. What's that like for you?

Paul: Everyone looks at it differently. Me personally, I don't care about the size of the clubs. Whether you play in a massive stadium or in a small club has nothing to do with how fun it is. Playing in front of a small audience can be shitty too. Also if people like the concert, that doesn't technically mean the band liked it too. It's rare both things align.

Question: What are your experiences on this American tour?

Paul: Unbelievable. We would have came here much sooner. It's so easy. People here yell at things that wouldn't even raise eyebrows back in Germany. Strange enough, Americans are more open, a bit more naive like big children. They don't take everything so seriously and are somehow not as stressful as Germans.

Question: What do you mean by this now?

Paul: Well, Germans are a bit lazy... tell me, are many Germans reading this now...? Whatever, I will gripe just a bit more. Americans are quick to inspire. Perhaps quicker to also forget. But it's much easier to play here for us than we thought.

Question: You contributed two tracks to the David Lynch film Lost Highway. Have you felt that this has helped you?

Paul: We're more known than we thought thanks to those two songs on the soundtrack. No we're not known, but we're better known. We thought nobody here knew us at all. However, a few people to know us through the Lost Highway soundtrack and we're also on Mortal Kombat 2 but we don't know much about it.

Question: So it doesn't matter that you sing in German?

Paul: I don't believe anyone has a problem with that at all. It's the same in Germany. Nobody understands an English band live either unless you know the lyrics. You pay attention to other things. It isn't always the case that you have to be singing in English to be successful in the US. There's more going on here than in Germany.

Question: But there's wordplay in your lyrics and surely that's being lost here?

Paul: Some things will be lost here, surely, but you don't only lose - you also win. The emphasis on lyrics in our songs, and we do have good lyrics, is some toned down for the music. Apparently it doesn't detract enough. We're also on a European tour [now]. In Barcelona, they were jumping to the ceiling even though they didn't understand a word. They always sing along du hast du hast mich. We do that always with English bands too. For a long time, I didn't know what Smoke On the Water by Deep Purple was about either. I thought it was about smoking.

Question: When I first heard you, I thought you were listening to a lot of Laibach and a lot of Die Krupps.

Paul: That's usually what people first say. Laibach vocals. Krupp's music. We had to accept that. We didn't invent this music, but we never copied anyone. We like both groups, but we also like more [than this]. I also listen to ABBA. We come across differently on a stage than Krupps, and not as theoretical as Laibach. We're more of a band than any art project. There are bands that are successful without [relying on] the music, like Marilyn Manson. A good song, the remainder is all right, but image is vital. Today, you have to be brazen.

Question: A clarification question: are you from Die Skeptikern or the Inchtabokatables?

Paul: It's confusing with us. We were kind of like Skeptikern, we were called Feeling B. But we were a bit funnier than Skeptikern. They were a dead serious finger pointing punk band. Our bassist comes from the Inchties and there were a couple other bands in that circle. But none of us know them.

Question: You're always seen as a bit of an East-y band. Along the lines of the "East strikes back."

Paul: Good to hear, it's not so bad. If it's stuck to us I haven't noticed yet. But we don't have any problem being from the East. Rather, I'm truly proud then. We're not actually typical German, nor typical East. Even in the East itself, we were not typical Easterners.

Question: However, you stand out with your sound among East bands. Karat, City, Puhdys, and now Rammstein.

Paul: We are also a Western band on the contrary that were only formed three years after the East was invaded. Rammstein is a kind of answer to the West. It wasn't a conscious thought process, but we didn't know how good we were when we started out either. We're now slowly realizing how many bad bands there are, even in the US. Here you simply play with a blank expression, we wriggle around on stage a bit, light something on fire, and everyone has a good time about it. As you can see now I'm rambling insanity. I have to show you our bus. It looks like a mobile brothel with lights around the seats, ceiling chandeliers, and such non-sense.

Question: Why do you think your mixture of heavy metal and industrial is successful?

Paul: It's definitely not the fault of the music because there are bands that do this better and aren't successful. I talk with fans often and always ask them, "how did you find out about us?" Out of 100, 99 reply that they heard our CD at a friend's home and liked it. It's the music after all, I'm realizing. People aren't disappointed at our concerts either. Even when we're playing at half-force, no one on the outside can tell. We never have poor concerts, and always invest in the show. Even when we had little money, we we still messed around with rockets on stage. We've always attached a great importance towards you not being disappointed at our concerts. We figured to ourselves, that there's enough poor bands, let us make one people would enjoy going to.

Question: But you also have this "bad boys image" you cultivated?

Paul: We did that by mistake because at the start, we never dreamed of someone finding that good. It's like when you're drunkenly sitting with your friends telling filthy jokes, then you think about the night for starters. When you tell those same jokes on the radio a year later, it's all so different. We just wanted to make "trash" [written in English]. On top of it all, our women left us so at first it was like being reborn. We had the burdens off our shoulders. We met everyday for a year and had minced meat breakfast. It was a kind of birth.

Question: What's next for you?

Paul: We're just trying to continue performing our low-brow comedy. The same thing is happening to us in the US right now like what happened in Germany three years ago. I really don't know why, but it's like a lottery win. We don't have all the other stresses other bands have.