KMFDM – Interview

One on one with Sascha from KMFDM

I know you’ve been busy.

What else is new? I’m always busy?

I was on the kmfdm.com website, how involved are you? Do you do any work on it?

No, I didn’t do shit at all. My web design reach is simple text and html.

I saw it’s pretty updated.

Were you on lately?

Yeah I saw the new design.

Right now we have just created the outline and content will follow.

I saw you have something new in the ‘News’ section everyday, is that something you try and update everyday?

When ever I feel like it. Mostly it’s pretty unserious stuff.

I got a laugh at the members’ thing where at the top the title reads ‘not available on ebay’. So what will be in that area?

We don’t know yet, but its pretty obvious there are vaults and vaults of stuff. It could go from remixes to unreleased stuff.

The internet is such a great tool because now you can bypass the middlemen and get all this stuff right to the fans.

Well when we first began in like 93 or 94 we thought we could cut out the middleman, mtv, the media and all the things we didn’t have dealings with. Our perspective on things like the media have changed a little bit because we have come to realize that some people are really our friends and we don’t have to fight the whole world all the time. There was definitely a ray of hope.

So do you see a lot of illegal KMFDM things on Ebay?

For the last month or two I’ve been canceling three to five average a day auctions where people were trying to sell off their promo copies of Boots. The fact that the stuff was weeks away from being released and it was fetching a hundred or more dollars. I mean its just not cool to abuse the privilege to being someone that gets and advance copy and then greedily sell it.

What was the deal with the switching the letters around?

It wasn’t the big departure that everyone made it out to be.

It seemed like universal made it a big deal.

Everyone had his or her reasons and ground on why to emphasis the change, but realistically what was the big difference? (Laughs) IT was still myself, Skold, Lucia. It was just a bunch of guys from the KMFDM camp.

Did you sign up with Universal for one record?

It was one of the most major of all major record deals. It was like for seven records. I just asked them ‘look, what do you want to do here. You said a few weeks ago while we were on the road that we shouldn’t expect anymore financial support.’ And they wanted us to make another record, but only if it was promised that it’d be commercially accessible. I told them they might as well let us go and save us the hassle of keeping us froze and inactive on the label forever. Obviously they couldn’t do that shit so I suggested we walk down the hall and sign the release papers, and they did it. That is how we actually stayed really good friends.

I wonder now if the new album, Attak, might be a punch in the stomach for them because it’s such a good album.

I think MDFMK was a more accessible record than this one. So who knows.

What motivates you to continue to do music everyday?

Shit if I know man. (We both laugh) I just wake up thinking ‘what am I going to do spend the rest of the day in bed?’ no way.

When you are creating song, what are the beginnings?

What typically spurs creativity is long, tedious weeks or months of what I call sound design, which ranges from sampling random stuff. So we create unique, untraceable sounds. Often it encompasses recording us walking around with portable recorders collecting sounds and then we organize and an archive them in categories. While doing all this you already develop your favorite new sounds like a new kick drum or whatever and then combine the sounds.

What do you use today in production? Pro Tools?

Pro Tools is the center. The entire recording, processing, and mixing all happen within Pro Tools.

What did you use in the beginning?

In 1984 it was a gradual thing. The first digital machines were really rudimentary stomp boxes. Then samplers started getting more affordable, but now you have hard disks and now it’s completely unlimited. The more hard drives you hang in your space the more you can have.

Does music get overwhelming because you can add almost endless amounts of layers?

No, it is a perception of music being ‘computer music’ and that people who make music like this is made by the computer, but that is crap. Only what you make is what comes out. Without skills nothing would happen. So is the approach overwhelming, no, because I personally begin things in the same fashion as I have in the beginning. Its’ just now things are less time consuming because you don’t have to make tape loops and run them through the building.

Music and the industry will change more and more as this becomes more accessible?

It has changed. The ’90’s were dominated by the homemade music revolution from the techno-drum-n-bass-jungle thing comes directly out of this development. Someone can buy a pc and assemble hit records.

I read a quote on the site a few weeks back that said ‘if we’d ever make a record that was instantly loved by everyone, we’d know the time has come to stop making ’em for good…” That sort of struck me only because it is the dream of almost anyone else to have just that.

It’s a reaction to the fact that whenever we put something out that our cult following through themselves on every note and second of music and review it and criticize it. So you get the ‘hey this is fucking great’ or ‘hey this is total shit’. No one ever says ‘this is okay’. We have more of the ‘this is extremely great’ or this is ‘shit’. So I think my post was in response to what a few emails that coincidently came in on the same day which asked things like ‘how come this is so great?’ or ‘how come this is so bad?’. Some People get angry and they say our new stuff is so much less than it was before and that its no longer KMFDM and that they aren’t going to buy our albums anymore. Then another guy said it was the greatest thing ever. So the sentiment behind it is that if we made a record that fell into a market and everyone instantly loved it and we became the new thing then I would know that I should stop making music. But since.

I think also the reason I asked is because “Superhero” and “Save Me” really stick out as songs that could possibly make it at Top 40 radio.

That is the funny thing. “Save Me” is the prime example of what I just said. There are only lovers and haters. No one says it is an okay song. It’s stuff like ‘oh my God, what the fucking shit is this?’ (We both laugh)

Do you think you’ve accomplished your mission when you get these extreme reactions from fans?

Of course. It’s almost insulting when someone says ‘do they not know this is cheesy?’ we did it, we know it, we hear it, yet we decided to put it on this record. The funny thing is that no one takes this less serious than us. We have the most fun and the hardest laughs when we make records. People wonder if we are serious and if that is how it’s going to be for now on. But they leave out the fact that each album changes so much.

I was wondering if you were serious too. That is funny.

Its hysterical to me that people get so riled up about a departure from a sound every single time a record comes out. It’s always a slight departure.

Do you think people just take things too seriously and they want everything you to do become a matter of such serious issues whatever they might be?

If there is this cult-ish obedience where you follow a band to that extent it is very hard for you to understand that maybe someone is taking the piss out of you. (Laughs)

How does it feel to know that you have these fans that have an insatiable urge to know everything about you guys?

It is funny and takes on strange guise. Someone out of the blue will shoot up to me and want an autograph, which is something I’m never quite prepared for. We’re very unaware of things like us being famous. So you get caught with your pants down at the market and you are like ‘how did you spot me with the baseball hat and the fake beard’. (We both laugh)

That would be scary.

Well actually I made the beard and hat up. (We both laugh)

What makes you angry?

When people think I’m stupid. For example, there is this little sweatshirt shop in New Jersey and they advertise all over the internet how they will make customized shirt and they blatantly use KMFDM designs. And shit like that makes me angry. Like I’m going to sit back and let them do that?

What makes you happy?

I don’t know. Probably that I get to do what I like to do best: sitting in my studio doing what I like and being left alone. (We both laugh)

+ charlie craine