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| | alexander hacke Alexander Hacke has besides his involvement with Einstürzende Neubauten, been a member of Crime and the City Solution, plus released a few solo-records, and been a session-musician and producer for a whole range of other bands. The Interview itself took place in Oslo Plaza’s Skybar between 12:00 and 12:30, the 19th of March 2004, but I have added a few details from memory, regarding things we discussed later that day and at the nachspiel after the concert. I was originally to interview Blixa Bargeld, but the deal was changed in the last moment, something I didn’t mind, as Blixa seemed to be in a rather foul mood this particular day... TØ:-You just started up a web-society where fans are invited to meet the band and participate in various activities. Did this work out as you planned? AH:-Well, it was a test-balloon basically, and it flew all right... and it worked out even more so, because when we started we weren’t planning to get involved with a regular music business company again, you know... we just wanted to do this on a very small basis, and it actually turned out much bigger than we thought it would. Because, you know, for us the Neubauten was more or less done after the 2000 tour and the 20th Anniversary. We were very tired of that ever going cycle of producing a record every three years, finding time for when we can meet and do something, promoting the record for the time over a year and so, and stuff like that... We were kind of tired of that, and this time we actually managed to produce two records within one year! One for the supporters and one for Mute. And, yea, we pretty much succeeded in what we were trying to do! TØ:-I was thinking about... how did it actually work out with the participation from the fans in the studio situation? AH:-Well... what we are offering -now we have just started phase two of the project, is pretty similar to what you get on a porn site on the internet, you know... because the basic thing that we are offering is intimacy. You don’t pay on a monthly basis like on a porn site, but you pay a one time donation, and you get to go one virtual step further towards us, meaning that you can watch us doing what we do and you can interact, you can chat and talk to us, and there’s forums on that page where all kinds of subjects are being discussed. And the contribution of the supporters besides the money they gave us, obviously is that there is a larger circle of eyes and ears that are observing what is being developed. So they would point out certain mistakes, you know, that might have been overlooked if it had been just the five of us. And also they would express their fondness towards certain pieces that we would have scrapped otherwise, you know... like, you would start writing something and you would spend a day working on it and then you’d think... well, this is not so great after all, let’s scrap it and do something else... and then you’d have a couple of hundred people going: NO NO NO! Keep this... TØ:-Were there ever strong disagreements between the band and the fans? AH:-Oh, no no, never. I mean... TØ:-...You would have the last word obviously... AH:-Yes! It’s not really a democracy! [Laughter] TØ:-...Yea, I’d be surprised... AH:-He he... But it certainly helped, and we do have some quite competent people out there! TØ:-Can you tell me anything more about the concept of the latest record? I mean, if there are certain themes being developed that you would like to point out. I don’t want you to say too much, because then you’d let the cat out of the bag and spoil all the fun of trying to solve the puzzle... but still, are there any clues you’d like to give us? AH:-Well... You know the dominant element in all previous Neubauten records’ lyrics were fire... TØ:-...I have noticed... AH:-...We have this reputation of setting fire to the stage, which we haven’t done now for many years... But, you know, there was always fire in the lyrics... and now, with the changes of our personal situations and our, he he, ripening process... it seems that there’s always, even when it’s not heard on the recordings or mentioned in the lyrics... on this record there’s always air... This record is a lot about storms, breath, certain winds... And we are using a lot of wind instruments this time, and we’re using air-compressors on stage... And we basically re-invented the pipe-organ using plastic tubes... So first of all that air thing, and also... because our ways of looking at things have changed, this record has a lot more of a bird’s perspective... This record also has a lot to do with the situation of being in transit, and it has a lot to do with migration, moving from A to B... and it’s not so much a description of an inner conflict, but rather looking on from above. This time it’s actually a lot more autobiographical than it was before, because... we used to live in a very elitist, very secluded environment, when West Berlin still existed... Neubauten was first of all a West Berlin band... West Berlin was like an island, like a pseudo-elitist community, and now West Berlin is gone! You know, now we have suburbs, we have influences from the outside, and this has scared a lot of the stupid people away, which is good... so the environment there has changed. And Blixa has also moved to the States now, I spend a lot of time travelling the world, and all of this has changed our point of view... things are much more open now... TØ:-You always use a lot of History Resonant Objects in your music, and objects with certain references to the themes you are developing, adding a whole dimension to the music, that you can’t necessarily hear... AH:-Oh, yes, that’s always been the case with Neubauten’s music, that the stories of how the sounds were produced is sometimes more interesting than the actual sounds. What we do pretty much is... we do research. We’ve been experimenting with different materials, different technologies... we did sampling and looping long before there were sampling technology or loop players as we know them today... We’ve been doing research in different fields and different areas, on different objects of resonance, different ways of approaching song writing... this is one thing that we do, and on the other hand we have to make everything we use as efficient and effective as possible, because if we start to travel we have to boil all our equipment down to some sort of guerrilla warfare outfit... you know, there’s no way we can bring instruments just to use them on one song, so we have to figure out ways to make our equipment portable. TØ:-On the last tour you seemed to have quite a lot of equipment, was some of this supplied by the venues or? AH:-No, we keep on trying that, but it never works. People never seem to have, eh... TØ:-...jet-turbines lying around... AH:-Ho ho, yea, we brought our own jet-turbines on the last tour... TØ:-Did you bring them this time as well? AH:-No. This time we’re using a lot more of light weight equipment, a lot of plastic instruments... and we play a lot of air. TØ:-In the old days I know you did a lot to create certain atmospheres in the studio, like, for instance you built a replica desert in the studio during the Gulf War, with lots of sand and burning oil... and at some point you had the rotten carcas of an ox lying around... these things cannot be heard, but you said that the atmosphered changed your mindsets and influenced the choises you made... Have you done anything like this lately? Or something similar? AH:-Hm, well, this time we did it rather differently... On this record we wanted to bypass not only the record industry, but we also wanted to bypass the basic studio setups that you’re forced to work in. We use a lot of our own equipment and our own devices now, and what we work in nowadays looks more like a... like a television studio! [Laughter] This is like the Super Information Age, you know, he he he... No, but actually I think you can hear that in the music, that there was all this communication going on... it opened up the atmosphere of the music. TØ:-Yea, I can see your point... And you also did some recordings at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin at some point? AH:-Yes, they were kind enough to lend us some cool rooms for a while, but it didn’t quite work out; there was a lot of restructuring going on in Berlin at the time, and we were bothered by the noise from the construction workers... TØ:-You also re-released remastered versions of some of your old records recently, with some bonus-material; will more archive material surface in the time to come? AH:-We are still struggling with, eh... TØ:-Some Bizzare? AH:-Yes, with Some Bizzare... you know, this has been going on for decades now... We just decided to go to the offence and re-release all of the records that Stevø of Some Bizzare is still making a living of [without paying Einstürzende Neubauten!]... This was also a nice thing to do because back then these records were mastered for vinyl, which means that the dynamic range is much smaller than it can be on a CD, and now you can do more extreme stereo pannings... It was quite enjoyable doing this. TØ:-They sound very good now! AH:-Yea, I think so too! I’m very happy with them. TØ:-But as to the archive material... will anything more surface? AH:-Oh, well, we just re-released the old "Kollaps" album, with quite a lot of bonus material from the pre-Kollaps era... That’s pretty much what we think is presentable, besides the "Strategies Against Architecture" compilations that we do... But of course there’s more, I mean... I actually think that we’re the best documented band ever, because from day one we have had what we call Studio Synchronity Tapes... In the beginning it was cassette tapes and now it is DAT tapes, that we put into the recorder as soon as we start working, that records everything... sound checks, arguments in the recording room, everything... So we’re a quite well documented band... There’s so much stuff, you know [Laughter], we can’t listen back to all that... TØ:-I can see that...Hm, but one other thing... It somehow seems like Einstürzende Neubauten just sprung into existence out of nothingness, there is nothing quite similar to what you’re doing, but there still has to be some kind of predecessors that you navigated out from, some music that you listened to or literature that influenced you... What kind of tradition do you see yourself as belonging to? AH:-Hm, many things that we thought that we had invented, we have later found out that have been done before, and that other people have worked in the same directions as us... But I don’t really see myself as belonging to any specific tradition... Still there’s some obvious influences... for instance I think there’s a strong connection to Can, you know, who did all kinds of stuff, like tape cut-ups, and endless sessions that they would edit... The title track of "Perpetuum Mobile" was done like that; we played that song a couple of dozen times, and I edited the version you hear now on the record in a four day session, out of -I think 22 different versions recorded in three different studios, so... this editing process I think is quite similar to how Can worked in the early days. TØ:-Ok... Are there specific roles within the band? I guess Blixa writes most of the lyrics... AH:-...Blixa writes all of the lyrics.. TØ:-...ok, and I have the impression that Andrew is kind of the Inventor... AH:-...Andrew invents a lot of the instruments, yes... Even though nowadays we have got the new kids, you know... we have had Rudolf Moser and Jochen Arbeit since ’97, and they contribute a lot too... particularly Rudolf... he has worked a lot with nu music outfits, different kinds of groups, like Ensemble Obscure and... yea, he has this kind of nu music background and is very experienced... TØ:-... And Jochen comes from Die Haut? AH:- Well, yea, but... Die Haut was just a gang of guys wearing good suits and playing their guitars, you know [Laughter]... that was basically what Die Haut was all about... But Rudolf has been working much more in the same direction as we have, and he’s very good at finding interesting objects and working with different technologies, so he already had the right approach when he joined... He found the jet-turbine that we used on the last tour, for instance! TØ:-Mhm!... There’s usually quite a few years between each record that you make, what do you all do in between? AH:-Einstürzende Neubauten wouldn’t exist today if we weren’t all doing things on the side, and living our respective artistic lives... There’s definitely music that you can just play with Neubauten, but there’s also music that you can definitely not play with Neubauten... and a lot of what we do on the side is commissioned work, which is important for us to survive financially, and it gives us interesting problems to work with... scoring for movies, for instance, that’s what I do a lot of on the side... and producing interesting new bands... right now I’m working on the second record of the Devastations, an Australian three-piece band... and I just finished my solo-record, which is pretty much like when a film director would do a road movie... I did a road record... that is, I didn’t have a script to start with, but for the last two years I’ve been travelling... I visited some friends in the States, and I brought some portable recording equipment, and recorded some stuff here and then carried it on to the next persons and had them contribute and so on... and in this way I was able to connect people that have never even met, you know, but are now playing on the same record together... TØ:-I once heard someone mention "the Neubauten Tick"... which is that everyone in the band gets this habit of knocking on everything to explore the sound quality of the material... AH:- ...It’s an occupational hazard, yes [Laughter]... TØ:-...and I also know that Blixa has this routine of photographing every hotel bathroom that he visits... Are there any other "games" you have invented or habitually do? AH:- Not that I can think of, no... but we all have a general fascination of room acoustics in common... we can all go through a room and just go waouw, listen to this!... Still, there’s all kinds of games you get into when you’re on tour, of course... Blixa, passing by:- It’s all lies! AH:- Jupp, everything I tell you is a lie, and even that is one [Laughter]... TØ:- Yea, I’ve guessed as much... Hm, before you played in Neubauten you had a project called Borsig Werke, is that right? AH:- Oh, he he, you see... my father used to work for a company named Borsig, but now he’s retired... uh, so that’s why I as a teenager took the name Alexander von Borsig... so I was mistaken for an aristocrat... my real name is Hacke, and actually there is no aristocratic family by the name of von Borsig, but I had some funny incidents with that name when I was younger [Laughter]... TØ:-Hum, what’s the time? I think my time’s up... AH looks at his wristwatch and says in a country and western drawl:- Time’s up, boy [Laughter]... Say, I would actually love to go to the Typical Norwegian Black Metal Store, he he he... do you know where I can find one? The Interview itself ends here, but I have chosen to add a few episodes that took place later on, which I found amusing. After the Interview I took Alexander Hacke around town to look for some Black Metal, and as far as I could judge, he bought the records that had the covers that made him laugh most. He was also very surprised by Norwegian traffic; as we were crossing a street he was staring in disbelief at a big bus that stopped politely in front of him in Pilestredet, and said: "The zebra crossings actually mean something in Norway?" On this tour Einstürzende Neubauten intended to record every concert, burn it on CDs, and sell it to the fans after the shows. But in Oslo they had some trouble with the equipment, so this recording was lost. Alex told me about a funny incident down on the continent, when they by accident burnt out some Cuban jazz instead of Neubauten, and got some rather strange response from the fans... 
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