|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Interviews // |
|
|
|
|||
"Every song has a grain of truth in it"(Photos: Slavica) ??? The title, “Zurück zum Glück” (back to joy) makes one suspect that the new album might have a central motif... Campino: Although we do like a central thread and for example we had arranged the album “Horrorschau” and the Rote Rosen album as concept records, that's not the case with “Zurück zum Glück”. This time we rather wanted to hit a larger scope, going in several possible directions. We wanted to prove to ourselves that we can still do tough music. But at the same time we wanted to break up the limits and venture into new fields that we would never have trodden years before. But it's not supposed to have a central message or work like a landmark. I'm already happy when people say about some songs: the way you describe that is the way I feel too, I can identify. And if people started laughing when listening to “Walkampf” (whale fight) and wondered how anyone could do such crap, then I would be happy, too. ??? You once said about the title track for the “Auswärtsspiel” album that you were inspired by Social Distortion. Are there any tracks on the new album that evolved in a similar way? Campino: There are always songs like that. Whether conscious or subconscious, you are always a mirror of what you like to listen to at the time. I don't want to claim that our music comes anywhere close to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but we really do like their music. And with some tracks you realise where Kuddel gets his inspiration, and that he listened to the Audioslave album a lot and that we like the Foo Fighters. But it has to be said that Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters are geniuses. It would be silly and presumptuous to try and match ourselves against them. But you can listen to them without even thinking of competing. By the way, the new album by Social Distortion is fabulous. I could try for a 1000 years to imitate the voice of Mike Ness and wouldn't manage to sound like him. And yet, I can say, Let us be inspired by the impact and energy they transmit! ??? Let's talk about the various titles on the new album: At the beginning of the year it was “Friss oder stirb” (eat or die), now one song is called “Kopf oder Zahl” (head or cipher – the two sides of a coin) – does this mean to say that the Hosen won't be making any compromises in 2004 either?  Campino: Indeed, “Kopf oder Zahl” tells a “take it or leave it” story. I thought it fascinating to say “we come in peace,” but to say it in a tone that doesn't really sound very peaceful. You might as well say “kiss my arse” but this way we put it a little more nicely. It says further down “Du hast die Wahl” (the choice is yours), so everyone can decide. What we mean is: you are welcome, but if you don't feel like coming we couldn't really care less. We don't need to toady to anyone or lick anybody's boots. ??? The track “Wir sind der Weg” (we are the way) could be understood as a hymn to your lives, which is determined by always being on tour... Campino: If we had written any credits for this song, it would have been for the guys who always come with us and stand up for us, no matter where we play. The guys who fly to Buenos Aires, or turn up in Sofia, but who also drive to the remotest districts of Cologne if need be. And the song is about having experienced and seen a lot but still never being bored, and always going on. After all, there are still plenty of towns we haven't played yet and plenty of reasons why a new adventure awaits for us to tackle together. ??? The first single release is “Ich bin die Sehnsucht in Dir” (I am the yearning within you) and the video clip was staged by Philipp Stölzl. Did he hit the heart of the matter with his images?  Campino: I liked the clip very much. It hasn't happened very often in the history of our band that I have the feeling that the person who made the video understood the song exactly the way I had meant it. And Philipp Stölzl brought things even further. Ralf Schmerberg managed the same thing with “Pushed Again”. I like the fact that with “Ich bin die Sehnsucht in Dir” video and song are one entity. What I wanted to say with the lyrics is that everyone talks about his or her yearnings, plans and dreams, but everyone means something different. And yet yearning is the engine that keeps everyone going. And this is exactly what Philipp Stölzl saw in the song. ??? Is working with other writers an enrichment for you? Campino: I always think that in this field I can learn a lot by working with other people. Writing lyrics for a song is also something rather intimate. But everyone has his system and works according to his or her strategies, I'm afraid I do, too. And this is also infringing, because I have certain barriers. And when I can watch somebody else, see how he works with ideas, then sometimes I'm very impressed. It's always good and rewarding to see how others cook their soup. ??? Who do you meet to improve in this field?  Campino: The other day, for example, I met a guy from the Berlin-based Reggae band Die Ohrboten. They haven't released a record yet, but they write really good lyrics. This guy just took out his writing pad, put down one word and then everything he associated with this word. He was so fast that I simply stood there, flabbergasted. He could have written six songs about the one topic! He learnt this method at a writer's school. I have never used such a system when writing songs. But I was really enthusiastic about the results. ??? Instead of “Zurück zum Glück” or “zurück ins Licht” (back into the light, on “Wunder”, wonder) it says “zurück zu dir” (back to you) in “Weißes Rauschen” (white noise). You once compared writing lyrics with looking into a rear-view mirror – is it a tool once more? Campino: I doesn't harm to sum things up. If you want to know the way forward you have to check where you come from. As concerns “Weißes Rauschen”, I wanted to leave it open whether the song is about someone who has a drug problem or someone who can't find his way back to his relationship. I have been living with white noise for 25 years, because that's the test pitch on every one of our recording tapes. ??? “Alles wird vorübergehen” (everything will pass) and “Herz brennt” (heart burns) are the down-beat tracks on the album. As with “Nur zu Besuch” (only visiting) it seems as if you started from an autobiographical point...  Campino: You can never repeat a text like “Nur zu Besuch”, and I never tried to do so, either. They are both down-beat songs, but the topics are very different. “Alles wird vorübergehen” says that you cannot hold on to anything, and that you shouldn't try to do so. If times are bad, you can say, it will pass. And if times are good you simply can't pickle them in a jar. Take life as is comes and try to honour the happy moments. ??? What is the other track about? Campino: “Herz brennt” is about a relationship that is not broken up yet, but where so much poison has been mixed into the primal love that you simply can't take it. To be really lovesick, to absolutely suffer from love, must be among the most intense feelings of pain that there are. And there's nothing you can do about it, just hope that time will heal. It's amazing how badly you can suffer from love, and it doesn't count how old you are or what you have already experienced. There is no cure against lovesickness. ??? God and belief is a regular topic in your songs, as we know since “Opium für's Volk” (opium for the people), and now there's a track called “Beten” (praying)...  Campino: God, believing, religion, morals, society – these are things that you can't make your mind up about once and then that's it. It's a continuous dialogue and a continuous attempt to come to terms with these issues, and it goes on that way until you die. “Beten” is about the fact that you can live and pretend you have nothing to do with the church, but when it comes to a complete catastrophe, this is always the last place remaining where everybody gets together. Then you sit there on the bench and expect to be comforted although you haven't shown up in a church for years and you can't explain rationally where this sudden desire originates. We often don't realise how much Christian culture influences our everyday life. ??? Is it per chance that this track goes on into the next, “Wunder” (miracle) without a pause? Campino: I would like to explain it with the content, but I only thought that it shouldn't have a break here to keep up the power. Sometimes I meet up with Funny van Dannen (German singer songwriter) we grab our pads and then the ideas simply fly across the table. And in the end each of us can take home what he deems useful. Funny helped me once again with the lyrics for this track. I had written down the chorus before. ??? In Germany, the term “Wunder” always reminds one of the war-time hit “Wunder gibt es immer wieder”, but the Ramones also had a song about the topic, called “I believe in miracles”...  Campino: ...and it's one of their best songs. Miracle is a big word although it really concerns very small things. The essence is that you are never too old or fucked up to expect anything anymore in life. We have already experienced quite a lot of things, but I still believe that things will happen that we don't have the slightest notion of now. ??? The title track, “Zurück zum Glück” (back to joy) can well be described as your comment on the current situation in Germany. What is your opinion on Germany between reforms that don't get along and demonstrations against social cut-backs? Campino: Well, things have gotten slightly sharper after the federal election in Saxony: “Pass the elections, pass a few nazis”. Everybody is afraid of what tomorrow might bring. Everyone is clinging on to the good old days. And this seems like a motto in our country, an unspoken battle-cry: “back to the happy old times”. It's a very ironic idiom to me. There is no way that leads us back to these old days, you simply have to accept that. ??? What is your opinion about the election results in Saxony and Brandenburg?  Campino: I guess there has always been a hidden sympathy for nazi theories. Now some of them had a coming out and they aren't even ashamed of themselves. In a way that's good because it means that nobody is playing hide and seek. It's better that way than when they put their x on the CDU list but in their heads they remain the same right-wing arseholes. The enemy has partly lifted his visor. It's easier to fight back that way than with this socially accepted drawing room fascism. I prefer an arsehole who publicly stands up to his opinions to an undercover arsehole. ??? “Die Behauptung” (the claim) is a song that attracts attention, amongst others because of the classical instrumentation. What was the idea behind it? Campino: This song was developed in a phase where we had rented a house in Spain. Once a day we had band rehearsals with everyone. But sometimes we would say, it's better for everyone to work on their own this afternoon. You can concentrate more, you can pick up an idea and follow along, see where it gets you - the others might be too impatient for this idea and throw it. This time the first draft was made by Kuddel and I immediately loved the music. I think it has something paranoid, it's threatening and it increases to sheer madness. I came up with the lyrics relatively fast. It's not an easy track, and we placed it in the middle of the album on purpose, for irritation's sake. It's not something you can have playing in the background while eating your breakfast. ??? The only English song on the album is “How do you feel?” Why don't you do more English songs? After all, what with Vom and yourself, there are one and a half Brits in the band...  Campino: I'm very happy if we can afford this from time to time. It's great fun for us and the tracks are always much acclaimed in Argentina and Poland, because the lyrics are easier to understand. But it's pure chance that there's only one English track on the new album. I'd love to do more, especially with Vom. This song I wrote once again with T.V. Smith, and since he doesn't speak any German, the lyrics had to be English, it's as simple as that. But I always feel he knows exactly what I mean when he helps me express things in English. ??? The track “Freunde” (friends) tempts one to think that you are describing the relationship within the band. But you wrote in the booklet that it's not about you...  Campino: Of course you can see a lot of parallels, simply because we have been together for such a long time, but I didn't want it to sound as if we were gloating about ourselves. It's a song about treating each other nicely when you are friends, even if it implies one or the other lie, like saying, “hey, you're looking great” when in reality you think that the other person looks absolutely shattered. That's what I wanted to write about and then things just sort of developed by themselves. People keep saying that this must be a song about us. But that's not what I had in mind. I would feel better if someone told me that he knows the feeling, has been in a similar situation. ??? “Walkampf” (whale fight, a pun concerning Wahlkampf, i.e., election campaign) is not at all a political song, but it's the booze- and senseless party track on the album... Campino: It's the first ever drinking bout song that doesn't mention any alcohol (laughs). It was important for us to have this on the album because the other songs on the album tend to be rather dry stuff, very thoughtful. We needed a counterpart just to show that we can still laugh about ourselves and don't take everything so terribly serious. Otherwise, it's simply gaga – and I like to ponder about what people might think when they first hear it. But I have to admit that we had some disputes in the band whether such crap should be on the album or not. But we always did that kind of thing. And “Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder” (ice-cold schnapps) in the meantime leads a life of its own. But when we first sang it, we only did so because the lyrics were so incredibly stupid. Even “Opel-Gang” was an absolutely ironic song at the beginning. In the end it turned our heads so that we ended up liking Opel cars. But while we were writing the song, we thought Opels were extremely ridiculous. ??? “Goldener Westen” (golden West) is about the self-confidence of the Western hemisphere and the meaning of the term freedom. Is this an address to George W. Bush?  Campino: Of course he's the flag-bearer in this whole thing, but the song is intended to reach much further. On the one hand it's about how America is trying to sell us its life philosophy as the only relevant one. And that in truth we are much more Americanised than we believe. On the other hand I mean all Western countries, Europe too, with its self-satisfied and smug babbling about democracy and all that. ??? Now for the final track, “Am Ende” (at the end). Is this your contribution to the search for a sense in life? Campino: These were a few thoughts that came up pretty fast. It again treats the problem that we tend not to honour the here and now sufficiently. It's about how much time we spend in our lives fretting about some everyday shit. Worrying about some petty details because in the middle of the battle we have lost orientation, don't know what sense our life makes or what we really want in life. ??? In the booklet you dedicate the song to Kuddel's father, who died recently. Why? Campino: With his death, Kuddel's father was released from an illness that he had suffered for many, many years. And Kuddel felt that he would like to dedicate this song to him. ??? In December, you will go on tour with the new album. What can the people expect on your Friss oder Stirb-Tour? Campino: Once again, we're planning to go the whole distance in December, play an offensive football match for our audience, not close up too much in the rear, but play forward, hoping for an early goal (laughs). Most of all we hope that people will relate to the new songs, too, that they will enjoy them as much as the old stuff. If I see that people really love the new songs, then it's also devilish fun to rummage in the past and dig up some old pearls. I don't want to sound like a petty version of Suzy Quattro and keep playing “Alex” and “Bommerlunder” again and again. I would be happy if I see people sweat and say, “I've seen the Hosen play twelve times already and next year I'm coming again!” Click here to read Part 1 of the Interview.
|
||||
