Interviews //
The Big Half-Time Interview 2002

The Big Half-Time Interview - Part 2

??? The Best-Of DVD contains 28 video clips between 1982 and the present day. Campino, you said that in the early days it wasn't apparent that video clips would necessarily be a regular feature in your career...

Campino: Well, it was obvious that we would have to do videos to go with our songs, but we didn't make much of an effort early on. In the days of "Hier kommt Alex" we just turned out rubbish. It wasn't until the "Kauf MICH!" album and the song "Wuensch DIR was" that we managed to work with a director who was able to put the whole thing on a different level, so that the song was actually enhanced by the video. Everything that went before that possesses the nostalgic charm of bygone days... The fact that it's all so amateurish just makes you smile now.

??? What were the production budgets like then for video clips?

Breiti: The point was that we didn't have enough money for elaborate videos. We'd climb onto the roof of the office, film for the duration of the song, repeat it a couple more times and be finished within three hours. Doubtless it had it's own appeal, but couldn't be compared with the videos which were being run on the music channels then. It was only after we started selling more records that we were able to produce material which was in our eyes of genuine quality. It's a bit like a visiting card for those people who wouldn't necessarily come to one of our concerts. That's why we spend a lot of time and effort now picking the right director and the best idea for the song in question.

??? What problems do you encounter today with modern methods of video production?

Campino: The ridiculous fact of the matter is still that it costs as much to shoot a short video as it does to pay for the entire studio costs for recording an album. It's annoying every time. I suppose it has to be, but I'll never fall in love with this medium. I get fed up with video shoots. You place your complete trust is the hands of others. You are dependent on the director and the cameraman knowing what they're doing. I'm never totally happy about that. I'm not really at home with the whole idea to be honest.
Breiti: If you record a song and two days later you're not really happy about it, you can record it again. When you make a video, you have one shot at it. You can't repeat it, because it would involve too much time and effort. You can only judge what it's really like after it has been edited. After all my experiences involved with shooting videos I'd have to say that I wouldn't want to become a film director. You've got to deal with too many imponderables whilst shooting, things that can't be changed later.

??? Is it possible to divide the history of your collected video clips into three phases? The first would contain clips made before the advent of dedicated music channels, such as "Reisefieber", the next would contain clips made together with directors you knew from your own circle and finally, the the last would contain collaborations with such luminaries as Peter Lindbergh and Wim Wenders?

Videoclip zu
"Reisefieber"

Campino: I think that there's a greater value placed on videos now. When we started out, MTV and VIVA didn't even exist. The whole thing started to snowball a bit and we tried to keep up with the pace. "Wuensch DIR was" set a very high standard for us to emulate, but we'd like to maintain it if we can.

??? You have shot videos in New York, Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles. How important is the location of the shoot? What role do the things that happen around the shoot play in the shoot itself?

Campino: When you see the video first off, you remember how cold it was in the hall where you had to hang around naked and all covered in dirt. That was the case for "Nichts bleibt fuer die Ewigkeit" ("Nothing lasts for Ever"). On the other hand, the shoot we did with Ronnie Biggs in Rio was like being on holiday. Then there were others that were really hard physical work.

??? You didn't actually appear in the clips "Jaegermeister" and "Kein Alkohol (ist auch keine Loesung)!" and yet you received a few accolades for them...

Campino: You might say that it's because they are the drinking songs, or you might say it's because none of us are in them. If the latter were true, then we'd stop taking part immediately. That would be great! However, I suspect it is to do with something else... but it's also the case even if a video that we're actually in wins a prize, we're not the ones who deserve it. You receive the prize which by rights should go to the people who have done the work, the directors, the cameraman and the others who have helped.

??? Do you consider yourselves to be better actors now than you were twenty years ago?

Breiti: I've never been an actor and running across the picture from left to right whilst miming guitar to playback isn't going to turn me into one either!
Campino: The good thing from my point of view is the insight that I'm not any better. I had a phase in the early days when I used to think that I could get involved in all of it. My experience of doing things like the film "Langer Samstag" or an episode from "Fahnder" showed me that you need to have a lot of talent for this and you need to work at it. It doesn't just fall into you lap, it certainly didn't fall into mine. And yet I can honestly say that if a director came along, someone I respected, someone with a great script and if he thought I could cut it, then I'd be sorely tempted. It's actually not what you do but with whom that's important.

Videodreh "Warum
werde ich nicht
satt?"

??? How do you select the directors for your videos?

Campino: In the case of Wim Wenders it was our manager Jochen Huelder's idea to ask him to do "Warum werde ich nicht satt?" Jochen is totally mad on Wenders and has seen all his films and was convinced that he would like the song. So he simply sent him a copy. The reply was a twelve page letter in which Wenders outlined in precise detail just how he imagined the video. He never mentioned money, he just wanted to do it!
Breiti: For the "Bayern" video we knew that it had to have something with all the charm of the local footie pitch where the kids have their kick-abouts. We immediately thought of the feature film "Bang Bang Boom" and asked the director. And he was Peter Thorwarth.

??? What was the shoot of "Frauen dieser Welt" like?

Campino: We filmed it in St. Peter Ording in northern Germany and it turned out to be hard work! It was chucking it down with rain, the camera kept having to be dried off which took up a lot of time. And we had a hundred extras, all men. There isn't a single woman in the film, only briefly right at the end. It was bloody freezing, the coldest day of the year up there. Nobody enjoyed standing around for hours just waiting for things to happen. The shoot started at seven in the morning and went on until two the following morning. By then we'd all had enough anyway. I doubt whether this video will conjure up happy memories when we watch it in years to come.

??? What are your five favourite videos of all time?

Campino: "Pushed Again", "Wuensch DIR Was", Punk was" with Ronnie Biggs for sentimental reasons cos we had such a great time, "Steh auf", and "Kein Alkohol" just makes me want to laugh. The fact that it was nominated "video of the year" goes to show that people don't necessarily always want to see the musicians, but also that they've got a sense of humour too.
Breiti: For me "Warum werde ich nicht satt?" is definitely amongst them, because I love the song so much and because we were able to meet Wim Wenders and become good friends with him. His wife Donata accompanied us to Cuba last year and took all the photographs in the "Auswaertsspiel" booklet.

??? You must have spent hours rummaging in your photograph collection for the new book "Ewig waehrt am Laengsten - DTH in Farbe und Schwarz-weiss" ("Eternity last the longest - DTH in colour and Black & White"). Where did you get all those old photographs from?

Campino: Carmen and Carla did most of the work. All of a sudden my pigeon-hole had ten pages of photos all collaged together, photos I hadn't seen for years. And they looked really good too. The two of them did it for a laugh, but also indicated that they could imagine producing a book in this kind of format. So we said: why don't you try it then! For weeks they locked themselves in our cellar where keep all our boxes of photographs. As the book started to take shape, we were called down to look at the most recent pages.
Breiti: Of course, we were called upon to help sort which ones were which. For example, there's a really ancient photo in the book where we are all in our sleeping bags in a row. That was taken in 1982 in Kassel, we are all sitting in front of the TV because Germany was playing England. And little details like that helped us remember when and where things happened, even if we hadn't seen some of the photos for 15 years or more.
Campino: That's why I particularly like flicking through the book: "Do you remember that? Hey, look at this!" etc. The book is a cross between a collection of good photographs and a family album. We even had a good old rummaging through our own private hoards, more so than ever before."

??? The book is almost like the catalogue to an exhibition on "Twenty Years of 'Die Toten Hosen'"...

Breiti: I really like this method of relating our history. There's very little text and very little is explained. It bores me no end when everything has to be explained. When a new album is released, I think that the text and the music should be self-explanatory. To keep on retelling the same old stories gets tedious after a while. Another thing is that there's no chronological order in the book whatsoever, so that connections can been viewed in an altogether new light.
Campino: I think that the thing that makes it interesting is that it's a different approach. We've told and retold our stories until we are sick of hearing them; this way at least you get a clearer idea of how it must have stank, thus allowing you to savour the taste and smell of a young rock band on the road in Germany...

??? Did you deliberately refer to the photo taken in front of the Duesseldorf pawnbrokers in 1983 when you took the one with the cigars in Cuba in 2001?

Campino: That was pure chance. In Cuba, both men and women smoke a lot of cigars. You see on the streets everywhere. We paid a visit to a cigar factory and were all in the mood to smoke cigars. We were all sitting in a corner and Donata happened to snap it. It was a chance similarity which Carla and Carmen spotted when browsing through the boxes of photographs; so they simply juxtaposed the old photo and the new one on a double page.

??? The book manages to communicate the contradictory nature of Die Toten Hosen very well - on the one had playing in the annual Carnival procession in Duesseldorf and then on the other playing a gig at a demonstration against the transportation of nuclear waste. Is that part of the "Eternity last the longest" concept?

Campino: You've got to keep certain things together. I think there should have been something from ZK, because without ZK there wouldn't have been any Toten Hosen. It was pretty clear that this couldn't just appear in the middle of the book, but should be at the beginning. Ice hockey and Cuba were topics which were dealt with on double pages, because there was a lot of material to chose from. It was unimportant where this material appeared in the book. It was important to me that the section dealing with the 1,000th concert shouldn't have anything whimsical on the next page, but rather there should be a more serious transition.

??? What are your plans for 2003?

Campino: We intend to cut back radically, definitely as far as public appearances go. I think we've definitely pushed the boat out as far as it is possible to do so, and we've given everyone a good dose of our noise, right up to final whistle. Now it's time for both sides to take a break. Maybe one or two concerts to keep any withdrawal symptoms at bay, but definitely no tour and no album. It gives us the chance to take a breather. Each one of us will be able to go off and do his thing. Each one of us needs to recharge his batteries, listen to his inner voice, gather ideas for the next thing, whatever it may be. If that bears fruit, then you'll be hearing from us in the year after next.

Click here to read Part 1 of the interview.

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