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Interviews // |
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The Big Half-Time Interview 2002 - Part 1??? You're half way through the "Auswaertsspiel" tour: What's the half-time cuppa like? Campino: The half-time cuppa tastes great, because everything has gone smoothly so far. The venues were packed, we've had a great time and there haven't been any injuries... I reckon we're 3-1 up, but we shouldn't put too many men behind the ball, but keep playing the attacking football people expect from us. That way we should finish up 4-1 or 5-1 winners by the end of December. ??? What will you remember most from this tour? Breiti: Once again there were plenty of highlights, above all the concerts themselves, some of which took place in odd places. The concerts on the Zugspitze, in Rottweil, on Heligoland and the island of Sylt spring immediately to mind, not to mention the big festivals in Poland and Hungary. What sticks in my mind is the beach party we organized on Sylt for all the people who got stranded there and couldn't make it to the mainland and had no place to stay. It was such a brilliant atmosphere. Equally hilarious were the few days we spent at Loreley, where we actually slept on the campsite. It's a nice feeling to know that you can also have a good time with people who come to the concerts when you're not on stage. ??? Over sixty concerts in six different countries during 2002 - why do you put yourselves through this stress?
Breiti: It has never occurred to us, in fact quite the reverse is true:
Everybody was really excited about playing live again. That's always been the
main reason we like being in the band. It's not just the two hours on stage
either, but it's the time spent with the people working on the tour, some of
whom have been with us for years. It's always great fun hanging out with these
people, travelling from place to place, et cetera. ??? Is it possible to recognise something like a dynamic development during the course of a tour? 
DTH Live
Campino: Right from the off you try a new set, without really knowing how well
it's going to go down with the audience. After a few concerts however, you know
which songs don't work and which spots in the concerts are bad for particular songs.
By the end of the tour you can structure the set much better. It order to avoid this,
we decided to rework the set radically for the autumn season, so that people coming
to see us for the second, third or even fourth time wont get bored. We're going to
be playing a lot of songs we didn't play in the spring. ??? The "Last Minute Tour" was included at short notice during the summer as a sort of holiday-substitute. How did the concept come about? Campino: It's true, the venues do sound a bit like holiday destinations: Zugspitze, Rottweil, Sylt and Heligoland. Well, it was all pretty strenuous and a bit intense, but all in all it was a brilliant trip. It had nothing to do with relaxation, I can tell you, but I'd rather be playing the gigs than lying bored as a stiff on a beach somewhere. ??? What local differences did you notice on your brief trip through the Republic?
Campino: Well, at first there was tons of water and then there was tons
of scree (laughs). The people were the same, at least the people in the audience were.
There was a kind of clique that came along to just about all the concerts. They
turn up absolutely everywhere on the tour! We managed to leave most of them behind
inbetween Sylt and Heligoland - that's where the going got really tough. You needed
to board the ferry at half five in the morning, and there were a good number who just
couldn't take it. This year there were one or two sections that were just too much. We
only came across a few of the hardcore fans in Poland, and the trip from Finland to
Stralsund even nearly finished us off (no pun intended!).
Loreley
Towards the end of the tour's first half you invited your support bands, friends and fans to a barbecue at the Loreley. Was this a summer alternative to the Christmas concert? Campino: We consider the barbecue idea to be something that we could easily repeat. We all thought it was a good thing to do a camping weekend and not just let it be a routine concert. Everybody had a great time at the Loreley. And that's why we could envisage turning it into a kind of tradition, like the Christmas concerts. ??? What was it about the barbecue that you particularly liked? Breiti: Well, first off we'd already had a great time with the other bands that we'd been touring with. It seemed like the obvious thing to do was to invite them all to a beautiful place in the summer to play a festival. We also tried to incorporate a number of our friends into the programme of entertainment. The chef Stefan Marquardt and the "Red Gourmet Faction" had a stall each where they could prepare their food. I also thought it was good that we extended it over the two days, so that we could invite TV Smith and The Boys on the Friday evening for all the people on the camp site. And we played two entirely different sets on both days. I counted a total of over sixty different songs over the two concerts. I wouldn't really fancy repeating the whole thing next year, as it would be difficult to out-barbie that particular barbie! ??? You camped on the site too... 
Campino on the
Campsite Campino: It was a bit of an experiment, to what extent you could simulate a family atmosphere at such a gathering. To what extent can it be in any way personal? Will it always be a mass of people which is simply too big. I was really surprised that it all went so well and that the potentially anonymous nature of it all didn't dominate. These chance encounters made the event what it was. On one night Andi and I went for a stroll around the site, homing in on anywhere where there was a fire burning. Sometimes we stayed and talked for five minutes sometimes for half an hour, and then simply moved on to the next one. We went to take a piss and then couldn't find our way back again (laughs). It was all incredibly friendly, and I never imagined it could be as easy as that. It had something to do with the fact that people didn't take us over; if we dropped by, they'd chat to us and it was cool, if we went on our way, that was cool too. It was all incredibly relaxed. ??? You made some comments about Edmund Stoiber during the tour - are you pleased with the election results?
Campino: I don't really have any belief in our government's competence to deal
with the problems here. There definitely isn't any sign of a
"let's-roll-our-sleeves-up-and-get-on-with-it!" kind of sentiment in this country.
We're really happy that Stoiber didn't get it, but it seems that the room for
manoeuvre for such a chancellor-combination is smaller than we imagine. Power
resides in the economy. Even if the Christian Democrats and their coalition partners
had got in, we probably wouldn't really notice that much difference, apart from
sick stuff like the tightening up of the immigration laws. The difference between
the parties and their manifestos is actually quite minimal now. ??? Why do you think that the lines that divide the parties are becoming so blurred? Campino: It's my feeling that we are having to put up with a generation of politicians, who are primarily interested in furthering their own careers and beyond that, nothing else. There was a time after the war when people experienced things, which enabled them to put ideas before personalities. They were passionately committed to doing things for their country and couldn't really care less for what position they held. And this generation is either no longer in office or has died out completely. It's the exception today to come across a politician, whom you really believe is body and soul into what he's doing. Brandt, Wehner and even some of those on the other side of the political divide, had more bite, more edge to what they were doing. Nowadays you get the feeling that ministerial posts are merely stopping-off points on the way to something better. If the conservative coalition had had somebody in their ranks who stood out as a personality, then the Social Democrats wouldn't have made it. It wasn't the case that people were thinking that the SPD has got everything under control, but rather something along the lines of "best of a bad lot". 
The Busters
??? Back to the concert stage. What criteria did you use when choosing the Bones, The Busters and 3 Colours Red as support for the second half of the tour?
Campino: The Busters have been in line for a long time now. It's just really
tricky getting them altogether at one time, as there's so many of them. We've enjoyed
many a fine evening with them and have known individual members for a good many years
now. And we've always had a penchant for taking such party animals on tour with us! ??? Have you also had an opportunity to be a part of the audience anywhere this year?
Breiti: Well, there wasn't much chance this year, as we've been pretty busy.
I always like watching the support bands whenever we are on tour. It's the best
way to get in the mood for a concert. That's why we choose bands whose music we're
into. I watch them every night from beginning to end. That way you can gauge what
the audience's mood is like and thus get the right feel for the concert to follow. ??? Is there a special band you'd really like to tour with? Campino: There are loads of bands that I really like. Taking them on tour with us is a bit of a double-edged sword though. It works at a festival; if somebody goes on three hours before, you get a chance to concentrate totally on their show. But unlike Breiti, I hardly ever get a chance to see the band that's on stage immediately before us. During that time I'm backstage getting limbered up and ready to do my job. I'd rather catch my favourite band on a night when I'm not actually performing. I'd much prefer to watch Joe Strummer on my own, as a fan. If he were performing on stage and at the same time I had to be back-stage warming my voice up, well that just wouldn't work, would it? ??? You've been on the road for six months with songs from the album "Auswaertsspiel". What do you think of the album now with the benefit of hindsight?
Auswärtsspiel
Campino: I'm still really, really pleased with the album. And that's not the
case with every album, I can tell you! I think we put every last drop of what we
had into the album and consider it to be one of the better records we've made. I
can't really think of anything there that we'd do differently. And I get the
feeling that people value the album in a similar way. ??? With the previous single "Nur zu Besuch" you evidently wrote a song which struck a chord with a great many people... Campino: There was a whole host of reactions. I read all of them very carefully. I didn't answer any of them though, because I didn't quite know what to say. I felt embarrassed. Scores of people told me why this song meant so much to them. In virtually every letter there was mention made of a close relative or dear friend who had passed away and that the song had help with the sense of bereavement. This shows you just how much people get wrapped up in it, just how much they take our songs to heart. ??? Was this realisation a positive one for you? Campino: I was very happy, but at the same time very confused, because we are not, thank Christ, always aware what the knock-on effect of a particular song can be. We write the songs, we put out the album, and if the audience goes wild, then that's the kind of reaction you can easily deal with. But when you read letters that really affect you, letters that transcend music, touching upon life and philosophy, well, that can really get to you. One woman wrote about her husband who had been on board one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Centre; about the fact that this song had helped her get through a devastatingly sad period in her life. In this way you get to develop a different take on events around you. She met her husband at a Toten Hosen concert. Weird sometimes, isn't it... ??? The song has also been played at several of funerals... Campino: It's not easy for me do deal with this. It makes you aware that you shouldn't treat people's feelings superficially. On the one hand I consider it important precisely that one shouldn't be aware of the effects of the lyrics you are writing, in order that your mind can be free, that there's no internal censorship going on. If I were to retain all these reactions in my mind, then I'd be afraid to put pen to paper for the next song. I wouldn't have the courage to say something superficial or tell a joke for fear of not doing justice to the subject in hand. ??? In a less serious vein, you decided to cover one of Funny van Dannen's tunes... Campino: This is a conscious effort to go in the opposite direction. It's a song by a friend of ours who one day picked up his guitar and busked it right there in front of us cos of the Rottweil thing. I think our fans will take it in the spirit it is intended and have a laugh. It has nothing to do with further development or the state of things to be. We simply recorded a song with a funny side because a lot of people had asked at gigs, why it wasn't available on record. ??? 11th November sees the release of a Best-Of CD, Best-Of DVD and a Best-Of book. What decisions surrounded the choice of songs for the Best-Of CD?  Campino: For "Rich & Sexy, Part II" there wasn't really much debate. We took the singles and the most popular songs from the last decade. The song " Niemals einer Meinung" ("Never the same opinion") became a live hit over the years and was a song that the audiences always wanted to hear. The song totally deserves its selection. In the same way "Schoenen Gruss, Aufwiedersehen" ("Hello, Goodbye") has become a Hosen classic, without it ever having been released as a single. That's why we've included them, whereas not every single was guaranteed an automatic place in the line up. "Kein Alkohol" wasn't included for instance. We wanted to have a party vibe going on, but not to overdo it. And in that regard "Jaegermeister" was the better choice. It wasn't just meant to be a compendium of old singles, it is supposed to sound homogeneous. I hope we have managed to get a running order together that will be interesting and fun for someone who doesn't know us that well. ??? What's the bonus CD all about?
Breiti: Well, first off there are the B sides to single releases, songs that
have never been released before or simply things which not many people have heard.
It was also our intention to put together an album which sounds good on its own and
doesn't just interest the 500 anoraks who are going to subject it to a musical acid
test. It is often the case that songs that don't make it onto an album disappear
without trace or at most end up as a B-side. After a while these songs on a single
can develop hitherto completely unsuspected qualities. And that's why we had such
a great time putting this album together. ??? How many songs are there in the archives which still remain unpublished? Campino: Well there are still quite a few, but those that didn't make it onto this CD hardly merit it anyway. You could smoke a joint, drink a bottle of wine, listen to everything once and then have a good laugh about it, particularly if you were one of the guilty parties responsible for it. But you wouldn't want to inflict it upon the rest of humanity (laughs). The things that are on the CD are a sort of mixture of favourite melodies and rather obscure episodes. There's an excerpt from an interview with Breiti speaking with Walter November. You get a good idea of what must have been going on in his head at the time and what a laugh it was being in a band with him. "Entenhausen bleibt stabil" is one of those songs which we always liked, but which didn't suit the concept of "Opium fuers Volk" at the time. ??? The photo on the cover is a direct reference to the cover of the first best-of CD from 1992, but the number of women on the cover has increased dramatically... Campino: All in all there were over seventy photographic models, it was totally over the top. The first cover was a pastiche of a Jimi Hendrix cover, so this time you might say it's a pastiche of our own cover. We were confronted with the question: "Rich & Sexy - The Years of Plenty" - how do you depict that? One possibility might have been that we'd all got fatter. But that hasn't really happened. The cover had to represent this bloating effect somehow, so that's why there are more girls. The slogan "If you're rich, you're sexy" remains a completely ironic image for us. ??? How did the photo shoot with Andreas Gursky go? Doubtless you all had a ball... Campino: When you're face to face stark naked, you don't just nonchalantly ask: "Excuse me, do you mind giving me your number?" The mood was more businesslike (laughs). There were at least ten other people in the room: Andreas Gursky did the cover with his wife Nina Pohl and they were solely responsible for giving all the directions. In addition there were lighting technicians, stylists and make-up-artists in attendance to make sure everything went according to plan. ??? How long did it take to complete the photograph? Breiti: Two whole days, from morning till night. It takes a lot of time to get all those people standing and sitting in the right place. They had to put make-up on about eighty people for the shoot. ??? How did the collaboration with Andreas Gursky come about?
Breiti: We've known Andreas Gursky for some time now, but certainly knew him
by the time he took a photograph of our audience at a concert in Dortmund. That
photograph is now hanging in huge format in a number of large museums. He showed
it at his exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and we had a laugh travelling
to Paris to look at it. Since then we've been meeting up with Gursky regularly. And
because he thinks large scale, we thought of him straight away. We were convinced that
he was the man to transform our idea into reality. ??? What are you going to do if you are forced to release a third Best-Of CD sometime in the future?
Breiti: When we're even richer (laughs). Well then perhaps we 'll just have our
photograph taken with five poodles... Click here to read Part 2 of the interview.
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