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gothtronic interview 2004
1. You’ve been performing at a
lot on different locations the past year. Where does your
heart lie; on a great stage in front of thousands of people
or on the small stage in a club in front of few people? Have
you grown in what you present live?
Rasc: Performing live is my main personal
motivation for making music. It is also very important for
developing my vocals and performance. Before our first record
was released we had been playing live for a few months. I
like small clubs a lot. During a club promo tour we were playing
just a few songs in small dance clubs -mostly even without
a stage or PA/Monitor system - dancing and singing on the
dancefloor together with the audience. That was a great experience.
I like to be as close as possible to the audience, I like
to look into people’s eyes, smell them and feel them.
Sometimes I think people get a little intimidated by a 2-meter
guy that suddenly stands before them, shouting and dancing.
But don´t be afraid "he just wants to play"
maybe sometimes he might accidentally bite your nose. Big
stages certainly have their own magic, you have so much space
to move and express yourself but I don´t like being
so far from the audience and from Gun and Krisch.
2. Given that ‘truth is fanatic’,
what is your personal view of the world around you and what
does the future have in store for mankind? What does the name
‘’Rotersand’’ stand for?
Gun: I hope you don’t expect a satisfactory
answer to that future-of-mankind question. To be honest, if
I knew I most probably wouldn’t tell anyone. But well,
the world around us… hm… it changes. While the
changes most probably are just as numerous and significant
as they were throughout the centuries, they seem to happen
much quicker these days. And they’re more noticeable
to everyone. I don’t mean to say: "the world is
as it always was – alright then", quite on the
contrary, we’re not safe and clean and cool, because
we are exposed to developments and changes that may have the
same relentless impact on us as those of the past. The quality
of one’s outlook on the world and life appears to be
a more or less psychological matter rather than anything else
and it obviously is somehow connected to vast quantity of
information available. As you might have guessed already:
I don’t really know.
The name Rotersand is derived from an old offshore lighthouse
in the North Sea that year in year out defies nature’s
powers in solitude and dignity. How pathetic. No, seriously,
we somehow liked the image of that old building in the open
sea, strong, upright and sublime. And when Rasc had to spend
some time in the hospital last year, guess what hung on the
wall - a photograph of that very lighthouse. If that is not
an omen, what is?
Rasc: This lighthouse a very inspiring building in a lot of
ways. The waves crashing onto its body of steel reflect the
eternal natural rhythm of the sea and even of live itself.
Out there in the middle of nowhere its view is clear and deep
with only the horizon as the limit. It is a landmark (or a
"seamark" rather) that leads the way to ships on
their journey to foreign shores or the safe harbour of home.
I like all this very much. Whatever a great future is made
of, it takes minds that look a bit further and deeper in order
to conceive and forge it. The whole founding of ROTERSAND
is a bit pathetic and mystical. As Gun has already mentioned,
in a way I came back to life in that room in a Cologne hospital,
and we both had some discussions before that incident about
ROTERSAND being a good band name. I thought it was and therefore
it was not by accident that this picture hung over me.
3. Could you give us a glimpse of the birth of a Rotersand
song? Who has which part in the creation of a new song?
Gun: There is no standard procedure in bringing
a Rotersand song to life. It sometimes starts with a sound,
a lick or a beat and some other time it is a melody, a chord
progression or a text fragment that kicks it off. In any case
a song is the result of collaboration. – Which takes
us to the second question…
Since all of us have spent a substantial portion of their
lives composing, producing and performing, each one of us
has developed sufficient skills to produce a song on its own.
But we don’t. Instead we use our experience and our
common background to communicate on musical issues. Rasc,
being a singer, mostly develops the vocal lines and gives
some of the text hooks. He is - also in a figurative sense
- the voice of Rotersand. Krishan is the "producer in
charge". All of our music bears his unmistakable signature,
in the sounds, in the beats, in the mix (maybe "in your
face" even :-). Being the "musician" of the
band, I mostly work on harmonic structures, the words and
the "instrumental" parts. And by merging our individual
experience and skills, they’re not only added, they
somehow multiply. That way the music of Rotersand is literally
more than the sum of its components – it’s the
product.
4. With the recent success of the Truth is Fanatic album,
and especially the remix excursions; how are things going
with the other projects of the Rotersand members?
Rasc: At the moment there are no other projects
I am involved in the way I am in ROTERSAND. Gun and Krisch
work as producers and sound designers for other selected artists
and companies, I work with Myk on some TFS material from time
to time but not as a real band member. It is for the sake
of my personal relation to this great person and artist. ROTERSAND
is my band that I work for.
5. Are there people or even musical styles
that inspire you in creating music? Some parts of Rotersand
remind me of Underworld or Syntax, are these dance projects
since the 90’s of any inspiration to what you’re
doing?
Krischan: Yes, they are. Due of my work as
a DJ in the techno and house scene during the 90ies, I`m very
familiar with these styles and I haven’t lost contact
since. So it comes as no surprise that we integrate portions
of the sound-design, structure, beat programming from the
music of underworld, chemical brothers on the one hand and
more underground stuff on the other, e.g. Detroit Techno,
like the stuff from Robert Hood, Kenny Larkin, or on labels
like Underground Resistance, ai records, basic channel…(would
be too long a list…)
Rasc: I always like this question. I think it is a great honour
to be linked to references like these. Although I have my
EBM and 80s electronic roots I share Krischan’s love
for those advanced electronics he mentioned - although he
knows much more about it than I do. In the early 90s I discoverd
some of this Detroit, Warp and R&S stuff but there is
still so much left to discover in Krischans vinyl collection...
Underworld is one of my favourite bands since the early 90s
and for sure an influence we can refer to. Pink Floyd is another
one.
Gun: But there’s more than dance music from the 90ies
resonating in our music. My musical background for example
has also roots in classical, jazz, funk and pop music. I am
a conventionally trained musician who has adapted the wide
range of creative options provided by modern production tools
and the musical structures they yield. The musical facets
that I contribute to the music of Rotersand may sometimes
not even be identifiable as "electronic" or "electro",
still they are vital to our artistic appearance. It is the
variety of our influences that makes our music distinctively
ROTERSAND
6. A lot of bands remix each other’s
music. Do you have an all-time favourite song that you would
like to remix and if you do, what song is it and what things
would you change? What was the most fun thing to do yourselves
regarding remixing tracks of other artists?
Krischan: My favourite song changes from
time to time depending on my mood. But if I like a song so
much that I would call it a "favourite" I wouldn’t
remix or cover it, cause I’d consider it nearly perfect
then. Remixing a track is a challenge when I think its not
as good as it could be, or contains certain aspects or a potential
worth stretching (like when we remixed our own stuff on "electronic
world transmission – excursions on truth is fanatic).
If we receive a CD with music from artists who ask for a Rotersand-Remix
and we can choose the track, we usually don`t go for the "best"
or "most functional" tune. We listen carefully if
we can find a track with a not so obvious potential and then
try to bring it out. We did so with the pzychobitch tune,
which we felt to make a cool rock/drum&bass crossover,
or - most recently - the remix we did from aiboforcen`s "not
unique"
7. What are your plans for the remaining
part of 2004? Any ideas about a new album already? What more
can we expect? Can we expect more cool crossovers with rock
structures like you did with the Pzychobitch track on their
EP and Electronic Rock Transmission on yours?
Krischan: Maybe there won’t be more
rock-structures, but rather some sounds you would expect in
a drum&bass or bigbeat context and yes, definitely more
"audible" guitars than on truth is fanatic. But
don`t be afraid, Rotersand will not transform into something
new, neither into a hip-hop nor into a goth-rock-band. I think
the next album will still be about electronic music - maybe
even more "open-minded" than the last one already
was.
8. What will the live performance in
Amstelveen, The Netherlands bring this autumn? What can we
expect? Are you using any visuals on stage?
Krischan: Up to known we are no big fans
of beamer-shows, cause they draw the attention of the audience
away from the band. To me it feels like the some bands want
to simulate action on stage by starting this stuff and then
hide behind it. It looks more like a showcase than a live-band
to me. Nonethelesswe will work on some stage-background-things,
but we don`t know if we will be finished ‘til Amstelveen
9. What are your views on the current state of affairs
in the goth-electro scene? Is there much going on or do you
notice any stagnation? Do you have any personal favs?
Krischan: Besides the omnipresent "everything
was cooler in the past…": I really feel some stagnation
in dark-electro-music, there is not so much really exciting
new stuff, which could be called experimental, revolutionary
or just kicking the thing forward. Sometimes I think that
many producers try to sound "hard" by using a lot
of distortion and compression (esp. on voices). That’s
boring and merely a "being hardcore" fake. Most
new releases try to sound like someone else. Though Rotersand
may not be the "crown of creation" in electro-music,
many people sense the range of different influences and the
musical vocabulary. Apart from that, I sometimes miss a kind
of DJ-Culture, with every DJ trying to know and play the latest
and hottest stuff, the rarest and freakiest remixes, bootlegs,
mash-ups, etc. to develop his individual profile.
Personal favs? Some of the rhythm&noize-tunes are quite
cool and inspiring (e.g. mono-no-aware…) and Covenant
is always exciting for me as listening to their stuff reveals
some of the inspirations and music-styles they listen to.These
guys seem to be very open-minded indeed. Music I am listening
to at the moment:
"claro intelecto – neurofibro"
"kenny larkin – the narcissist"
"prince – musicology"
Rasc: I totally agree. From a mid-90s perspective bands like
Covenant, VNV and some progressive DJs have opened the doors
for that scene but just a few artists seem to be able to walk
through them in their own shoes. I sometimes can´t believe
how much uninspired epigonic stuff is played in some clubs.
It seems to follow a simple recipe: Switch on your arpeggiator,
choose a 95-style trance sound, press any key, add heavily
distorted vocals - please don´t care for the lyrics
and – for a real suspenseful beginning of the track
– dash in a noisy speech sample ripped from a c-movie
(the creepier the better). And voilà, there’s
your guaranteed dark club hit!
10. Is there anything you would like
to share with the Dutch readers?
Velen dank aan de nederlandse fans en djs
voor de vriendelijke ondersteuning en support. Misschien zouden
wij ons beter Oranjesand kunnen noemen ;-)
interviewed by Anti & TekNoir http://www.gothtronic.com
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