Talking Kaput (a podcast by Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop)

Nadine Moser: „I realized for myself that I need to do something else as well, something that is m ore into creating space in arts and culture for other people and to support emerging artists“

Talking Kaput Part I Goethe Talents at Pop-Kultur Berlin

The name Nadine Moser is – at least in the kaput universe – elementarily connected with her dj imprint Resom under which she is part of the almighty :// about blank resident crew and a long time traveling dj on the floors of clubs like Golden Pudel in Hamburg, Bassiani in Tbilisi or Institut Fuer Zukunft Leipzig. Since a few years she also represents here and then the German techno community on behalf of the Goethe-Institut in as different countries as Mexico, China, Singapore or Phillipines; since 2019 Nadine Moser is taking care of the Goethe Talents program as part of the Pop-Kultur Berlin festival. All in all more than enough reasons for a kaput talk.

Thomas Venker: Hi Nadine, thanks so much for taking the time to do this. We gonna talk of course about the Goethe Talents program, but also a little bit about your own artistic happenings. So, how does it come that you as a dj and cultural very active person are now working together with the Goethe-Institut on the Goethe Talents? 

Nadine Moser: It's actually pretty funny. In the past years I have been pretty active with djing, but I also studied for a long time in Leipzig Cultural Sciences and Philosophy. And I realized for myself that I don't feel comfortable with only touring and playing music, because I felt like I become a bit stupid in my brain, because the traveling is physically so exhausting for my body that I just needed to calm down a little bit more and be able to read a book and listen to music in a different way. 

And since I'm also a pretty social person, I realised for myself that I need to do something else aswell, something that is more into creating space in arts and culture for other people and to support emerging artists.

And then there was the application on the website of Musicboard Berlin. And since I already had a pretty good connection to the Musicboard, and I was working with Goethe-Institut as well before for my own travels and workshops that I was doing, I applied and they invited me half an hour later – and then I got the job. So it was really like go go go. 

Thomas Venker: Berlin is so fast. 

Nadine Moser: Yes, so fast. Compared to New York (lol). I mean, who do you wanna tell ?

Yeah, so this is actually how it started, For me, everything was pretty new, because I wasn't involved with let's say tax money and all the structures in public culture too much in Berlin. I mean, I organised a lot of events myself, but it is a different thing when you have to have like two offers, no three offers for a job – and you then have to decide which is the cheapest one to the best conditions … and this you have to order then.

Which of course is in the idea behind really clever, but of course, then you just look for more. Anyways. 

Thomas Venker: But in a way it's not so far away from what we do on DIY organised cultural events too, cause you obviously don't wanna pay more than you have to and you are looking into the field and try to find like where's the good spot, that is the also working financially. So in a way … but I know what you mean: the paperwork is more there. 

Nadine Moser: It's way more paperwork. But I also think it's sometimes difficult, because if I as let's say curator or programer or whatever, when I have a certain idea and I know that I can work with this and this person or this and this company – but when this company is too expensive, then it becomes a thing, You know what I mean?

So it all works out right now and it's all good. And I learned so much in the last years that I'm actually really happy to be part of this team – but not being in the team is also important for me, because I'm happy to just take care on this own project and to do it the way I do it. And not to have like 15 or 20 other people who …

Thomas Venker: I wanna talk with you about the artistic perspective of the project. And therefore, I guess it's helpful that you (…) yourself being an artist who travelled with Goethe-Institut to other countries. You know on eye level what these artists are experiencing and feeling and what their expectations are, and maybe what their problems are – because you remember your problems on some of those trips to the corners of our world; and now you can help them, like not going into the same mistakes.

First I would be interested in … I mean, there were ten awesome musicians yesterday on stage at the Goethe Talents showcase. They played together for the second time – I was super impressed. They built this set from the scratch.

So: How did you find those ten people? Because there must be a lot of applications and the composing of who to choose is…

Nadine Moser: Well, it's actually not that I find them. They actually apply. We have a public application that´s been sent to all Goethe-Instituts worldwide in the so-called Global South, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the African continent. We also have other networks that we send the application to – and then they apply. 

I actually changed the application process a little bit, because before I started it was also open to people who were in a music network but didn't really produce music, like journalists or like networkers or whatever. But in the first year I realised that this is not going to work out because you need to have people on eye level. So what we actually did is to change it and close it and to make it only accessible for musicians. Because then we could have like a result that's also beneficial for those who participate.

So after the first experiences in 2019, I realized that my job is actually …

Okay, let’s have some sound impressions. 

Thomas Venker: Now we are listening to somebody staubsaugen on the balcony. Whats the english word for staubsaugen? 

Nadine Moser: Vacuum cleaning. 

Thomas Venker: Yeah. It´s the one thing in the world I really hate. Cause my mother always cleaned the house on Saturdays.

I'm really traumatized by the sound of the vacuum cleaner going against the door of my child room. Boom.

Nadine Moser: Oh yes.

Thomas Venker: Every Saturday. And it was like, my mother was not cleaning in that moment, it was like educating. Like, boom, boom.

Nadine Moser: Get up! Get Up! 

Thomas Venker: Like, boom, boom, boom, boom. So I really hate the sound – thats why I never use it, you can see it in my place.

Nadine Moser: Maybe I should come one day and clean for you. I actually like it. 

Thomas Venker: Is this a fetish of yours? 

Nadine Moser: No, it's not. I don't really think I have fetishes. 

Thomas Venker: We don't have to go there. 

Nadine Moser: Okay. Thanks.

So, okay, going back to Goethe Talents: I'm actually doing the selection of the people together with the colleagues from Goethe-Institut, with Katie and Ghazaleh this year. And we are actually trying to form a band. 

Thomas Venker: That´s what I thought. It worked too good last night, like that's magic.

Nadine Moser: The magic for me is, when I run through the applications and there's „this thing“ and you're like: „wow“. It's not perfect, but there is something, this is the magic for me. Like when I discover a certain character or a certain expression triggers me; to bring all of them together, there were a couple of others that I really wish I would have be able to invite too, but it's only for ten people. Like for example, there's this collective from Ghana. They do pretty weird stuff. I forgot the name, unfortunately, but, I can find out later. (Die heissen: Super Jazz Club - check mal: https://obedworld.bandcamp.com / https://soundcloud.com/ansahlive / https://superjazzclub.bandcamp.com/track/mad

They actually applied as single musicians and as a group. I really would've loved to invite them, but it was four people of them. So it was too much. Yeah. But I hope that Pop-Kultur curator Pamela Owusu-Brenyah is going to invite them one day.

Yeah. So for me personally the outcome of this year is absolutely mindblowing. I wouldn't have expected that. Like when I saw and heard them for first time playing together in the rehearsals – I had to take a deep breath in and then out and exhale and really let this just sink in: „This is like absolutely mad. It's great.“

Thomas Venker: Yeah. It's rare to find people who are talented and socially so open that they can step back with their own position. Because there was no egocentrics feelings in the room. Everybody had his own moments, they all could show „that's my signatures style“. 

But then they opened for like a group jam which was quite far away from their own discipline sometimes. And there was so much happiness visible.

We are both coming from a German electronic music background, a field where you find a lot of stupidity, like people that would never play like for example an African inspired pop song about a beach cause it feels uncool. But you didn't feel that at all in room, it was all about the vibe and the music and the togetherness. And that was very impressive. 

Nadine Moser: Yeah, it was definitely. We had a first gathering on the arrival day at „Frannz Biergarten“ at Kulturbrauerei. And there was like a swing dance, a public swing dance. People could just come and dance; there was a jazz band playing. And I remember that when JOJO (Jo.Clio) arrived, she gave me the luggage and run there and was like „oh yeah, cool.“ It was actually the reaction of everyone. In that moment I could really see that everyone arriving there was so much into the acoustics and sound and music sphere, I felt that I did a good job. That was actually the initial moment where I felt like, „wow, cool“.

I also have to say that two of them – Fawzy and Santiago– were former good Goethe talents in 2020 and 2021, when we had to focus on the digital editions, unfortunately. So I know them for quite a while already. Because we told everyone from the past years that they can apply again, but that they have to run through the whole selection process again, and that we cannot guarantee them to make it. But then we decided all together that they are fitting in perfectly. So yeah, now they're finally here.

They also meet with the former participants, alumni. For example, we have Marcioz playing on Saturday as a dj, he just released this new album and he now is connected with Janat Sohail aka, Wooly and the Uke from Pakistan who were alumni in 2020 and 2021 as well. She now lives in Berlin as well, as well as Gugulethu Duma from South Afrika.

They all kind of like connected now, which is great, because the acoustic influence they have on each other is very important for their own developments as well. 

Thomas Venker: Besides bringing them together to get to know each other, to make music together, you also arrange workshops and meetings with people from the industry and stuff like that.

Nadine Moser: I changed the perspective to their perspective. I realized I have to see Berlin as a music industry center as well. For example this time we went to Funkhaus, we got a tour. They could experience MONOM with the spatial sound system. We examined the historical past of the city. We went to Kraftwerk Berlin, we saw the exhibition about Tresor, which was awesome and highly influential for them to see how important the history of Berlin itself is with the wall coming down and all the spaces that came up by that, and the influence the electronic music had on this city as well.

And then we went to the Museum of Instruments, which was also really interesting, because you get like a completely different perspective with all those antique instruments. We saw a Stradivari and we were listening to the mindblowing Wurlitzer Organ, which is actually like ten square meters or like actually bigger, it’s insanely big. Everyone should go to the Museum of Instruments. Book a tour – it is actually cheap. Just do it. You will get your minds blown. I mean, there's the trautonium, things like that, you know, instruments that you won't see anywhere else, because they're not existing anymore. So it's really cool. 

Thomas Venker: It´s good that the exhibition at Tresor points out the connection between the city and the music scene. 

Cause that's what I always think about, like when you have people from so many different countries, you're bringing together cities, like each of that represents a community – and the community is the base of where things are happening. It is not just about attracting people to move to Berlin, or move to somewhere else, its also about giving them the engagement that you can build things in your community. You have perspectives there too. That´s the storylines there too, right? 

Nadine Moser: Yeah. Very important point. Thank you.

So what I also try to do is to bring everyone in contact with like a company or with a certain artist. I think about this myself, but I also ask people like Evyvonne who is taking care of the international residents at the Musicboard, or people like Zuri Maria Daiß from CTM, she’s always like super inspirational for me, she knows really everyone in the city. She's a good friend. We talk about it and I ask her what she thinks? I present her my ideas for connecting them. 

We connected for example Anaparn with KMRU – I think that was a perfect fit. And I connected Anushka and Santiago with the people from Moog, so they could go to their European office here in Berlin and just have like rehearsals with certain instrument.

I connected Jojo with Musicpool, because she wants to create this creative hub in Ulaan Bataar. And yeah, Fawzy was doing stuff with DJ Scotch Egg from Waqwaq Kingdom. Things like that.

For everyone it was super interesting, just to see, okay, when you come to Berlin, you need to find your own Berlin – you have to create things for yourself, but you can also just take the inspiration of the community aspect and bring it back and create something new at home. Like, for example, we just had this discussion at the breakfast about how open and accessible a festival like Pop-Kultur is for people with disabilities. I have never seen a festival which actually builds kind of streets for people in wheelchairs or having performances enjoyable for deaf people.

This is an aspect that I also try to include in the project. I highly wanna recommend people with disabilities to join the program and to apply next year for Goethe Talents.

Thomas Venker: Which makes totally sense in music projects anyway, because I mean like blind people have such a different way of hearing.

I only know it from second word, like from reading about it or, or speaking about it, but this definitely opens new perspectives for a lot of musicians to work together. 

Nadine Moser: Yeah. It is also important for me to give them space to do their rehearsals. It was actually the main point for me, because there are not that many places in Berlin left that are accessible, where you can just go and practice and it's payable; and that are like connected in the cultural scene.

I am really happy that we chad the chance to bring them to ACUD MACHT NEU. I talked with Julie a lot about it in the past years, and now they have this shared room between them and Goethe-Institute for a couple of days where they can just go and rehearse. And that's why actually the whole program is going so well.

Thomas Venker: You mentioned before that maybe the people that you did not choose, or you could not choose will in the future be booked by Pam or other curators of the Pop-Kultur festival.

I'm of course also interested in how the Goethe Talents and the Pop-Kultur team communicate and work together. Do you have the feeling that what you're doing here is also like a talent base for the festival? That they are listening to the Goethe Talents – and maybe these people come in two, three or four years back for performances at the festival? 

Nadine Moser: I wish it would be like that. For the moment I can see that there's a development. For example, like Pam was at the performance yesterday – and she was like: „Wow, they are really cute. It's amazing. It's really good. Thank you for doing that.“ And also Katja Lucker – the festival director of Pop-Kultur – was completely mind blown. I just hope that the importance of this program is being recognized a little bit more. That they all understand how great those musicians are. These are not just young people, who are still on a low level and have to develop. They are on a top level already in everything they're doing. And I'm so fucking proud of them. I have to say that, whoa.

Thomas Venker: There is also a changes visible over the last decade. Like if you look back on a lot of these talent contest and stuff like that – to be honest, nobody took them really serious, even an institution like the Red Bull Music Academy got a lot of critical comments in the beginning, like „these amateurs are sending in music, get selected and then listen to the big name musicians telling them blah, blah, blah.“

And then suddenly people realized, oh, wait a second, there’s a pattern. These are the talented people. And yes, two years later, Hudson Mohawk is on a big stage. Or Nina Kravitz is one year a participant and the next year already an established artist. And suddenly people understand. Yeah, of course, that’s how it is. Like young people start off, they don't know anybody. They take every contact possibility and then they are going somewhere. And from there they go to the next point. So I think that mindset changed.

In a way it's the early adapter thing. You should be there. You should see the ones which are coming. 

Nadine Moser: I mean, you're right. Things like Red Bull Music Academy did a really good job, because actually it was one of the few events where you could actually apply for and get funding.

What I realised for myself, it was not taken serious from the regular music scenes. There was no school for electronic music or there was no University where you could study those things. But now we have those options and we have the possibility to apply to certain things. And it’s kind of a DIY structure in here as well – just to gather together and share experiences, it's literally like going to school together. We created education – to share knowledge, to make it accessible to other people as well. 

Thomas Venker: It was about changing the climate. Cause I remember when I got into culture – same goes for you I guess – it was quite uncool to go to a Music Academy Or Music School. But why was it uncool? Cause the teachers were of course so far away from us, that was not our world. And now you see like a lot of people who run labels, who are musicians, who are publishers teach, people who are active in diy independent structures. All these people are involved in teaching. And then it's like talking within the same cultural community and it's not like, „oh, I have to go to this person who has nothing to do with me and who wants to tell me how to learn to play notes or whatever.“ 

Nadine Moser: That was also a very important point for me. And we created it actually in the digital years, in the past two years. I tried to push every participant in the program to create their own workshops for each other. Because I felt like, okay, I don't need to tell them what to do, they can create it themself because they're the experts here.

For example: we did a super nice session online where Santiago (Glitch.Bird) from Mexico actually introduced everyone to the „Deep Listening“ concept of Pauline Oliveros. We focused on what we realised and we exchanged about that. We were like in ten different time zones. And then we used an online tool and started to jam together without latency – that was so intense that people started to remix each other from that sound. We started to create rooms for each other to learn from each other. And that's why I try to push everyone to share their expertise and not being shy, because that's what we need, we need to share our experiences and knowledge and get to create something new by that. 

Thomas Venker: Nadine, do you have the feeling – coming from the past editions and from the developments you see here in Berlin – that they gonna keep cooperating together?

Nadine Moser: Totally. We gonna create … like, I have so many ideas right now. The name of the band is: WOW! I'm going to copyright that.

I really would like to find someone who, or a place where they can go and record songs. Just to have like ten days where they simply can record the songs they were creating here and focus on that. Like a good recording studio and a good sound engineer who is going to record them. That would be actually the best next step for them. But they definitely gonna work together, like Anaparn and Anushka, they bounded totally. 

Thomas Venker: That said, is your involvement in Goethe Talents all year long with a more intense time the closer the festival comes? Do you also have the ability to work on the projects, like in October, November, December… ? 

Nadine Moser: I have a contract, which runs normally from let’s say April to end of September.

It's a project based contract. But let's say my personal involvement of course is a bit deeper, because I really admire everyone in the program and I just want to support and help them with my experiences and my contacts.

Thomas Venker: So there might be even also a collaboration with you artistically? Or more in the sense of an inspiration?

Nadine Moser: Inspiration. I take my own creative process out of it normally, because I don't want to be in the central position there. I'm more like in the process of becoming from mama to becoming the sister, crossing the auntie status. Right now I feel pretty good with being the sister for the next days and supporting them with the things that they need.

Thomas Venker: Last very open question for today: You have like one free wish for the Goethe Talents programing, what will it be? 

Nadine Moser: As already said, I wish that all of them could come back together and we could have like a professional sound recording studio session. That would be great.

And for the group program itself that it would be a little bit more highlighted in the Pop-Kultur festival program – so that they actually could perform on a bigger stage.

And also like to maybe intensify the corporation with Goethe-Institut a little bit, because I really like working with them; most of them are really humble people and I really like working with humble people.

Thomas Venker: Thank you, Nadine so much for this conversation. I know how scheduled you are. Today even more than usual. 

Nadine Moser: I think you're more scheduled than me today. 

Thomas Venker: And now we listen to a part of last nights Goethe Talents concert.

Concert excerpt

Anushka Chkheidze: „It's so strange that already in my childhood, I was thinking that I want to be a composer“

Talking Kaput Part II Goethe Talents at Pop-Kultur Berlin 

You may not have heard yet from Georgian artist Anushka Chkheidze, but not long from now and she will be an household name in the field of experimental music and way beyond. Obviously cause she is super talented, but also as she does not bother at all about genre categories and sound expectations. Her so far published albums „Halfie“ and „Move 20-21“ are very different journeys into the world of sounds, united by the signature style of their creator, who loves significant patterns as much as irritating sound holes. Curious? Well, here she is, please welcome Anushka Chkheidze, one of the ten participants of this years edition of Goethe Talents at Pop-Kultur Berlin and as said one of the promising talents out there.

Thomas Venker: Hello Anushka. I guess this is not your first time in Berlin, right? 

Anushka Chkheidze: No, it's not. It's my third time. But this stay is longer as the ones before. The first time I came with my friends to see the city – and it was my first traveling actually. This was maybe 2018 or 2017. 

Thomas Venker: And you remember what you saw back then?

Anushka Chkheidze: It was in October. It was quit cold already. We saw the modern art museum, because we were living close to it. My first feeling was: „Oh, some really interesting stuff is happening here“; every people could find something for themselves. I mean, there's place for everyone, every kind of people. And I liked it. 

Thomas Venker: That´'s true. I live in Cologne for 20 years, the city is much smaller, so I'm always jealous what you can organize in Berlin. It's like 300 people coming here, and in Cologne maybe 30 people are coming to the same thing. 

Anushka Chkheidze: We also realized this within our travel group here. We are from ten different countries, you know, but all of us, we are really comfortable here. We have fun. We are working. I mean, no one has problems, there is a place for different cultures.

Thomas Venker: You are talking about your colleagues, the other Goethe Talents. Before I follow that lead, let me ask you something else before: You are originally from a small town in Georgia: Kharagauli, did you still live there when you visit Berlin first or have you already moved to Tbilisi? 

Anushka Chkheidze: When I was going to school, I was living with my grandmother and with my brother and sister, because my parents were young and they were working in the city. It may sound strange that I had to live with my grand, but I think it was a good decision, because we had really free space. I mean, that's a place where you don't need car, you are walking or use the bicycle. You have mountains outside and you walk to the teachers and classes , everything is really like hundred steps away. This was giving us freedom. And later when I started my bachelor, of course I moved to Tbilisi, because there was no option to stay there. 

Thomas Venker: This small city was Kharagauli? 

Anushka Chkheidze: It's difficult to pronounce, but it’s: Kharagauli.

Thomas Venker: How many people are living there? Just to get like an idea?

Anushka Chkheidze: Actually, it's a big region, but the city itself is maybe 2000 or something like that. 

Thomas Venker: Wow. So it's really small. That also means – as you started quite early – that your relationship with music was rather influenced by your grand mother than your parents? 

Anushka Chkheidze: No one is really a musician in my family, but they have good ears. All of them I can say. And in Georgia, every people sing. Every people could sing.

Thomas Venker: Really? 

Anushka Chkheidze: Yeah. How could I say, they love singing and they have good ears. My grandma was someone who was playing the piano; I cannot say that she had influence on me, – I started playing on our piano when I was three, just by myself, I was interested in it.

I have a really old interview from my city town paper – I was like six and I was saying: „I want to be composer!“ It's so strange that already in my childhood I was thinking that I want to be a composer. 

Thomas Venker: What did your parents say back then? 

Anushka Chkheidze: I remember that when they were coming to Kharagauli, I wanted to show to them my pieces, but no one was like interested or something like that. Just my grandfather realized though. He said: „Maybe she wants to go to piano classes.“ And honestly, I did not like these piano classes. I was just going. They were strict, like pushing on your hands. I did not like these rules. I just loved to play myself, but I have finished these classes.still I am happy , because I saved some skills. For six years I was going to these classes. 

Thomas Venker: I know what you mean, I was always lying that the teacher was not there

when I was supposed to go to my classes. I didnt een ring the bell. 

Anushka Chkheidze: Because in earlier times they were really strict. Yeah, all the people have these kind of stories that they hate piano classes. Classical music habits. 

Thomas Venker: But later on your parents understand your talent for music? 

Anushka Chkheidze: I stopped my piano classes at the age of 15. Also cause I was interested in other things in art, and also cause I needed to concentrate on my Bachelor. A lot of stupid thoughts, my mind was like, I need to do something professional.

But later, when I was 18 and started my Bachelor, I realized I don´t want this kind of things. I learned the Social Science, Psychology and Philosophy, but I am not so interested in it anymore. So when I started college I made my first two piece – and my parents listened to them and recognized tt „it´s something“.

My parents are more clubbing interested than me – it's really funny, because they're saying, „oh, you must do something more dance orientated“. And I'm saying, „no, I'm not so dance, I don't know how to do this.“ We have different perspectives on music, but now they follow me and believe in it. Because they see that I'm happy and that's most important for them.

Thomas Venker: Also they get older. They are now maybe listening to more diverse music. Are they still going out? Are they still like culturally seeking and active your parents or they more settled now? 

Anushka Chkheidze: They are really active. But it's not in common in Georgia.I mean people after 40 years –they are 45, 46 – are not going out. They are not trying to express themselves. It´s a problem in my country. 

Thomas Venker: That´s interesting, cause you mentioned earlier that everybody sings in the country. So it's a very musical country. It's very cultural country, but still…

Anushka Chkheidze: They just sing within the families. 

My parents are really open. They’re still going out, going to the clubs and meeting their friends. They're more open, but some people are staying at home. The 90s have been a really difficult time in Georgia, people there are really reserved, they can not express themselves. 

Most females are just staying at home. Like housekeeping. I mean, they don´t have their own things to do – it’s changing now. 

Thomas Venker: That’s what I wanted to say. There's was the political system inside the ocial block, like everything was under pressure, there were this classical ideas of neighbors watching what you're doing.

Anushka Chkheidze:Yeah. It's of course from the politic and social system. 

Thomas Venker: From what I hear it is obvious that you have musical talent. I already knew that before, but how you described your way into music sounds so reflective. So many people I talk to and also my own way into culture was rather diy. I'm a writer now for 25 years – but I would not say I was super talented when I was starting. I was just doing it. And the same goes for a lot of musicians. They just made it and that's how they built up the career. But in your case it is obvious from the beginning on that you are vey talented. Did you reflect about that?

Anushka Chkheidze: I don't know. 

Thomas Venker: It’s an embarrassing question, I know. 

Anushka Chkheidze: It is really a tricky one. From the beginning it was just about me getting pleasure. Now I can realize that from my childhood on I really had a good perspective. I just wanted to play back then. And still my music is like that for me. I still think that I'm a much better listener than musician or composer, because I'm a really good listener.

Like as a musician, I’m not too talented. I know really talented people. They are my friends and I know how it works.

I am more likely someone who really wants to do something. And I had not too much interest in other fields – music was something that was catching me and I was following it. Maybe I was just lucky, I don´t know. I found it well. 

Thomas Venker: But within the field of music, you are quite interested in a lot of different sound corners. Like yesterday on the stage with the other Goethe Talents. What I really liked when you all played together – especially with that „Beach“ song, which was like a nice pop song –, everybody seemed so happy. A lot of musicians stick to their own genre and are more likely, „I will never go into the territory of a song like that.“ You seem to be very openminded when it comes to music, even tho you have many more avantgarde ideas yourself. 

Anushka Chkheidze: That's right. Because even tho I was from the beginning making electronic music and digital music, I had always this feeling that I will not just go in one direction, I always try to find more, because this is something that I'm interested in. I have a whole life waiting for me in the future, I can´t just go in one direction, I want to try different kind things.

I like these kind of artists who are trying different kind of things in their work. Of course, I love the sound of them who chose one direction – they reflect on me. Like, for example, my favorites: Boards of Canada – they always have like something melancholic about them they have their signature sound. So maybe in the future someone can´t really tell it´s Anushka or not because I make all these different things – but I like it that way. 

Thomas Venker: Well, yes, maybe they don´t bring it together as these things happen in different fields, like for a theater play or for a soundtrack. Cause, I mean, look at Radiohead, like what Colin Greenwood is doing, he does so many projects – and a lot of people just knew him from Radiohead.

Do you have the feeling that for you working in those different fields, they have influences on each other? Are the theater ideas or the film ideas have an impact on your music and solo albums? Or do you have different sound pools for each field? 

Anushka Chkheidze: I always feel the direction, like this is theater music, or it's for my solo album, or it's for a collaboration with other people. Still you could realize that it's my sound, but I'm trying to work differently for them. When I work for theater, there are people from different kind of perspectives and it's not like just musicians – you have really open space to work on music because no one is into music, they are into different kind of thing. You are part of one big piece with your music. With collaborations – you must sometimes step back, because someone else is making something good and you do not need to bring something in on top. You must respect others music as well.

When it's my own album, I can do everything! But it doesn't mean that it's better than others. It's just mean that you work differently. 

Thomas Venker: To change topic a bit from the creative artistic process to the economic situation. Is it easier to handle the economics by acting in many fields? Because obviously theater is sometimes better paid and it helps you like working on the album to be also active in that field. Are you also strategically going in different fields or is it always the artistic perspective that makes you make decisions? 

Anushka Chkheidze: Honestly, in Georgia you are not well paid in the theater at all. It's economically bullshit – no one is well paid, neither artists or actors. It is a group of people who really wants to do something creative. And I was always interested in theater from my childhood on. Some people are watching theater and feel that the music is like a background for it – but it’s not a background. Music is really important for theater. That what interest me, that´s why I started working in theater, I wanted to put more music in the theater, to have some accents or something to make some picks in some parts and not just like a background.

Regards the artistic way, I am just interested to try lots of things. Not like I must do it, because I want to be well paid. But maybe later I will need it, because … I’m still like young and aline and trying to have everything. I just have to care for myself right now with this jobs – if I call them jobs –, but later I don't know what I will need. 

Thomas Venker: Is being a musician a full time job for you right now? 

Anushka Chkheidze: Yeah. I’m focused on it. Sometimes I think, maybe I need to try to have like a job – but no, it's better like this for me. I´m more focused on it that way. 

Thomas Venker: While researching I found this info that you work right now in Basel on a project combining architecture and music. Whats that about? 

Anushka Chkheidze: That's really a crazy project. It's will lead to my third album. I am working on it right now.

I was traveling to Basel; and there is this new building in the centre, a Research Institut – they needed ten years to renovate it. They invited me to see the building and make some field recordings there to make some pieces for it. That was quite interesting for me, like working with architects –and some workers that were painting there. I was really alone in this building for two or three weeks making field recordings. I recorded piano as well inside the building. And I recorded a little choir, just three or four people in some rooms.

It was like research for me to make field recordings. And after that to build like songs. The material is already mastered and will hopefully be out soon – a new album by me. Yeah. It’s really great. It is quite different than my other albums. It's more experimental, I can say so, because it was field recordings. It's more classical, sometimes choir, some digital, but really noisy sounds.

To me it feels like traveling through the building. The album is like traveling up and down through the building. 

Thomas Venker: It's nice to have this real world going into the imaginary world and then coming back to the real world that way.

I also read that you are about to study sound studies in Utrecht. To me it is impressive that a person who has already so much laid out, so many projects and albums, is starting a study. So what's that about? Is your curiosity so huge for learning? 

Anushka Chkheidze: I can't say that I have academic knowledge, like I played piano, but I was not so good with scores and notes. After the piano lessons I went to college and started making things myself. I have realized that, okay, I have not had opportunity to study because in Tbilisi you just have one conservatory, and it´s still new. I wanted to to try these things in another country, I am curious how they handle this.

For example, now I'm Berlin, and I saw in the last ten days more things than maybe in one year in Tbilisi. I mean, in Tbilisi, there are lots of things happening and I'm working on lots of projects be honest, but still in Berlin you have … how could I say …. in other countries I am just interested how they do things there. 

People who are like me. I mean, they're making much more things. They are much more professional. I feel that I must start something new to get education. I don't think that every artist need to get knowledge or so, maybe I don’t need it – we´ll see. If I will feel that I will loose inspiration or something is going like in an angle and I could not move, I will stop it. I, I don't have this kind of like, I must do a master degree as a musician or something. 

Thomas Venker: The last days must have been a learning process too, because you met people from nine other regions in the world – you have talks and you make music together. In a short period of time you wrote songs from scratch for the performances. This is like a quick learning process from each other – others study like two years for some experience like that.

Anushka Chkheidze: Yeah. That's right. Sometimes you could learn more in five days than in two years. It's dependents… But yeah, I just wanted to try it. 

Thomas Venker: Let´s talk about the music I heard yesterday at the concert. How do I have to imagine it? Like, you all get introduced, you talk a little bit small talk and then suddenly you're in a room together making music together? 

Anushka Chkheidze: It started with us listening to music, because we were in XX Sans XXXIDK 😆 room. It was like just sharing with each other what we like, what we listen. It was really good that we met on the first day for a group presentation – showing each other our pieces; so we know what the others work on. After that happened we hired like two studios and we just randomly separated and started jamming – afterwards we realized, okay, everything works. 

It was my first show having so much fun. I'm almost for every concert just alone on stage. „So, what is a band?“ – I realized just now. And everyone had this feeling. Some of the others didn't know how electronic stuff is working – and afterwards they said, „now I understand what is happening behind the laptop or synthesizer and drum machine.“Yeah, it happened surprisingly really easily. I dunno how it happened. Cause, yeah, it was really in three days that we wrote five songs, and I like them, that’s really crazy. 

Thomas Venker: I guess it was good that everybody knew before that this is the concept – „we have to be in a way quick“. It's also that people maybe are not as egocentric as they are normally in a real band when it is about a long time territory definition: „I have to make sure I get my grounds here“, and stuff like that. It looked more likely everybody had a moment to show „that's my thing“ – but then also go into the play with the others. It looked very smooth how it all came together. 

Anushka Chkheidze: That´s the way I'm always looking for. That if I like artist, I like person as well. I'm this kind of person.

Because, okay, some people are really crazy and maybe they don't have good personality, but they have crazy music. But still I'm this kind of person – and these people are really good. I mean, they have really good souls. If you find people well, everything runs well after hat,. 

If someone is trying things with too much pressure or they're trying to be egocentric, they are not going to step back when something is coming confronting. I don´t know how it works. 

Thomas Venker: Yeah. It's difficult to find people who are generous to each other.

Did you also find time to talk a little bit about your backgrounds? Are they also like from smaller towns in their countries? 

Anushka Chkheidze: Most of them are from the centers in their countries. I mean, no one is like from a real village. Maybe someone is, but I don't know. 

Thomas Venker: Can you say what you are searching for in music? I know , a very open question, but is there something you would say, like that’s the thing music gives me and only music is able to give me that.

Anushka Chkheidze: From the beginning I was and I'm still like a bit shy – and music is a way I can express myself. It started like that. And still it’s like that. I like being alone sometimes. When I'm playing I'm really free. And so it's just freedom for me. 

Thomas Venker: Nice. So next up is the album you just finished and the studies – and then? Are you working with longer plans? Do you have like two, three years ahead in your mind? 

Anushka Chkheidze: As said, the album is finished and mastered and now the vinyl needs to be cut. It's working well, and I have some concerts ahead.

And I start working with an artist manager. I found this really good woman. I hope it will work well, because I was making everything myself so far. 

Thomas Venker: You found a manger? That´s great. 

Anushka Chkheidze: Yeah. We will see, I want to work more with choirs  and acoustic instruments, because it's something that I'm really interested in.

I think electronic music composers must start and try to be more … how can I say this? Computer music is really easy now for everyone and everyone could make something, so we must work harder to express that it's really something which has value. 

Thomas Venker: That's an interesting sentence. Cause in a way, at the end, it’s the music that speaks, right. Even with the most simple equipment, and yeah, it's easy to make, but then it works and sometimes you have all that instruments and no feelings are transported.

To come to my last question, and to circle back to the beginning of our conversation. I guess you will for now move to your studies to Utrecht, but we also talked about the situation in your home country … do you plan to live in Georgia in the more longer perspective? 

Anushka Chkheidze: I am inspired by my country – so I want to come back. I don't like it when people are trying to leave their places, because there's some artists they want to go and study and move to another place, but still if you are showing something, your background is the most important. And I want to show my country and city – because it's me. I always think that I'm like a world citizen and not like a Georgian citizen, but still it's show I grew up.

I want to go back. I want to research and continue working, be reborn but intonational, something like that. 

Thomas Venker: Thanks so much for your time. 

Anushka Chkheidze: Bye.

–

This episode von „Talking Kaput“ is proudly presented by HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, kaputs favorite Berlin theatre and beyond, the place to be for theater, dance, performance, discourse, music and

visual arts.

Diese Folge von "Talking Kaput" wird präsentiert vom HAU - Hebbel am Ufer, kaputs Lieblingstheater in Berlin und darüber hinaus, the place to be für Theater, Tanz, Performance, Diskurs, Musik und bildende Kunst.

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So oder so, unser Dank ist Euch gewiss.

There are two ways of supporting us, either you paypal us a single contribution: paypal.me/kaputmagazin or you become a monthly supporter of Kaput via our Steady page: https://steadyhq.com/de/kaput-magazin

One way or another, our gratitude is assured to you

Love from Cologne, Köln,

Linus Volkmann und Thomas Venker für das Team hinter Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop

Patrick Wagner kennt die Popbranche so gut wie andere die Sesamstraße. Er war selbst Labelgründer, A&R und hat einst Acts wie Peaches oder Chilly Gonzales überhaupt erst entdeckt. Heute ist er vornehmlich Musiker bei der dringlichen Noise-Band Gewalt. 

Auf dem Ehrenhof Open Air sprach er mit Linus Volkmann vom Kaput-Magazin darüber, wie schwer sich die Veranstaltungsbranche tut, nach Corona wieder in Tritt zu kommen. Aktuell kommen auf ein ausverkauftes Riesen-Event von Helene Fischer oder Rammstein zehn absagte kleinere oder mittlere Gigs. 

So richtig mitbekommen hat das Publikum das dabei noch nicht. Auch das war ein Anlass, den Talk in Düsseldorf aufzustellen. Patrick und Linus saßen dafür am heißesten Tag des Jahres auf einem Busdach und versuchten, sich diesem wichtigen Thema zu nähern.

Dieser Podcast wird präsentiert vom LINA - Landesverband der Veranstalter und Clubbetreiber sowie vom HAU - Hebbel am Ufer.

Stephan Rehm-Rozanes ist eine der Schlüsselfiguren des deutschsprachigen Musikjournalismus. Seit über zwei Dekaden domptiert der Wahlberliner mit Bavaria-Hintergrund die hiesigen Pop-Szenerie. Sei es als Redakteur, Podcaster oder Radiomacher. 

Sein aktuelles Buch ist eine Biographie über Queen. "The Show Must Go On" erscheint im Reclam Verlag und spürt dem Geheimnis einer Band zwischen Queerness und Stadionrock nach. Mit Kaput-Autor Linus Volkmann spricht er hier nun über genau dieses Spannungsfeld. 

Originally it was only planned to talk to Masha whom we know for some years now through her cultural activities in Los Angeles, organizing parties under imprints like Dusk Camp and Dig Deeper with shared friends like Lena Willikens and Jennifer Cardini. But as her partner Angel came along to the Westend of Los Angeles from their home on the East side, it kinda made sense to spontaneously open up the round.

Masha is one of the most promising djs in the USA right now; she recently also started producing her own music – so watch out.

Photo: Thomas Venker

Become a Kaput Supporter:

There are two ways of supporting us, either you paypal us a single contribution: paypal.me/kaputmagazin or you become a monthly supporter of Kaput via our Steady page: https://steadyhq.com/de/kaput-magazin

One way or another, our gratiude is assured to you.

Love from Cologne, Köln,

Linus Volkmann, Thomas Venker and the team behind Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop

„Nullerjahre“ ist sein Debütwerk. Hendrik Bolz auch bekannt als Testo von dem Rap-Duo Zugezogen Maskulin hat ein Buch über’s Aufwachsen in „blühenden Landschaften“ geschrieben. Genauer gesagt über seine Jugend in den Nullern in der Plattenbausiedlung Knieper-West in Stralsund. Meck-Pomm represent. Seine Post-Wende-Erinnerungen sind dabei nichts für schwache Nerven, Gewalt, Frust, Rausch, Faschos, Perspektivlosigkeit. Warum dieses Buch soviel Aufmerksamkeit erhält, wundert nicht. Der Autor ist bestürzend bis schmerzhaft ehrlich mit sich und den Ereignissen. Und erzählt im Kleinen ein Kapitel der deutsch/deutschen Geschichte, das bis dahin so noch keine Beleuchtung fand. 

Auf seiner Lese-Tour hat Hendrik Bolz unseren Autoren Linus Volkmann eingeladen, bei seinem Frankfurt-Termin mit ihm auf der Bühne zu diskutieren. Das hören wir hier nun, am Anfang und am Schluss findet sich jeweils auch noch eine kleine Lesepassage aus „Nullerjahre“. Da bekommt ihr direkt auch noch einen Eindruck von dem Buch. Na, dann. Gib uns, Testo...

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So oder so, unser Dank ist Euch gewiss.

Linus Volkmann und Thomas Venker für das Team hinter Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop

Los Angeles ist der Sehnsuchtsort von Friedrich Kunath, genährt durch seine frühe Faszination für das Skateboarden und die Musik aus dem Laurel Canyon und natürlich auch die lang gedehnten Sonnenuntergänge Kaliforniens, die sich so nachhaltig vibrierend in seine Bilder eingeschrieben haben.

Neben der Kunst geht es in unserem Gespräch mindestens genauso viel um Musik, die gefühlt noch größere Leidenschaft im Leben von Friedrich, die sich schon immer auch in seinen Bildern eingeschrieben hat über die von ihm dort platzierten Silver-Jews- und Oasis-Textzeilen. 

Mit David Berman von Silver Jews kollaborierte Kunath in den letzten Jahren vor dessen viel zu frühen Tod intensiv – posthum erschien das gemeinsame Buch „Soccer Club Club – Friedrich Kunath „Songs Build Little Rooms in Time“ bei Drag City und im März 2022 erschien „Everything’s Electric“ die neue Single von Liam Gallagher, zu der Friedrich Kunath überraschenderweise den Text beigesteuert hat. Wie es dazu kam, soll er aber lieber selbst erzählen.

Die heutige Episode des „Talking Kaput“ Podcasts wird von Thomas Venker moderiert. Er hat Friedrich Kunath im Dezember 2021 in seinem Haus in Pasadena besucht. 

Die Folge wird präsentiert vom HAU - Hebbel am Ufer, kaputs Lieblingstheater in Berlin und darüber hinaus, the place to be für Theater, Tanz, Performance, Diskurs, Musik und bildende Kunst.

Werdet Kaput-Supporter:

Ihr könnt uns einmalig einen Betrag Eurer Wahl paypalen: paypal.me/kaputmagazin oder über unsere Steady Seite zu monatlichen Supporter_innen werden: https://steadyhq.com/de/kaput-magazin

So oder so, unser Dank ist Euch gewiss.

Linus Volkmann und Thomas Venker für das Team hinter Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop

(Photo: Michael Schmelling)

Kritik an toxischer Männlichkeit – aber mit Pfiff! Schwesta Ebras Clips auf TikTok und Instagram haben ganz schön viel Staub aufgewirbelt. Oft gemeinsam mit ihrer Freundin persifliert sie Testosteron-Rapper, bekommt ganz viele Liebe und Likes von den queeren Community zurück – und hält den unweigerlichen Shitstorms der Dullis Stand. Respekt. 

Also, ihr Gastgeber Linus Volkmann sagt: „Hello Vienna Calling!“ Okay, sorry, für so eine Boomer-Überleitung, aber seht es ihm nach, in Hundejahren gerechnet wäre Linus Volkmann mittlerweile längst tot.

PS: Und wir müssen uns vorauseilend entschuldigen für die Soundqualität. Eure Power-Ohren haben Besseres verdient, aber wir wollen Schwesta Ebra unbedingt in unserer Interviewreihe hier drin haben. Nehmt es uns den Klang also bitte nicht übel.

(Foto: Andrea Huber)

Diese Folge von "Talking Kaput" wird präsentiert vom HAU - Hebbel am Ufer, kaputs Lieblingstheater in Berlin und darüber hinaus, the place to be für Theater, Tanz, Performance, Diskurs, Musik und bildende Kunst.

Werdet Kaput-Supporter / Become a Kaput Supporter:

Ihr könnt uns einmalig einen Betrag Eurer Wahl paypalen: paypal.me/kaputmagazin oder über unsere Steady Seite zu monatlichen Supporter_innen werden: https://steadyhq.com/de/kaput-magazin

So oder so, unser Dank ist Euch gewiss.

Linus Volkmann und Thomas Venker für das Team hinter Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop

Juan MacLean, today‘s guest on the kaput podcast is an old companion. In the 90s he was guitarist of the highly influential post-hardcore band Six Finger Satellite who released a string of remarkable records on Seattle’s Sub Pop label. The band was not always fortunate and struggled often with tragedy – but as is often the case, when one thing recedes another takes hold; and somehow James Murphy became the sound engineer of the band and nicknamed his PA position: Death From Above. And when Six Finger Satellite were history, the name stuck, with Murphy then naming his new label imprint: DFA. It did not take long and soon Juan MacLean released his first dance music productions. And the rest is history as they say.

Today Juan MacLean is still going strong as a DJ and producer, but also challenging himself with a new path. Together with Ross Ellenhorn, Dimitri Mugianis and Julie Holland he has created Cardea, a Ketamine space in NYC, that in addition offers psilocybin retreats in Jamaica’s, Treasure Beach. The four offer a century of experience in the artistic, psychedelic, ceremonial, and therapeutic worlds. Their mission is: „to offer an alternative to the emerging co opting of psychedelic healing by the pharmaceutical industry. We seek to honor the sacred and a rediscovery of the sacred originality that we believe can be the basis of transformation.“

Todays episode is moderated by Thomas Venker. He met Juan MacLean at the end of March at 1 OR 8, a lovely small Japanese restaurant in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Clinton Hill, just a few days before the big DFA records birthday party.

This episode von „Talking Kaput“ is proudly presented by HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, kaputs favorite Berlin theatre and beyond, the place to be for theater, dance, performance, discourse, music and

visual arts.

Diese Folge von "Talking Kaput" wird präsentiert vom HAU - Hebbel am Ufer, kaputs Lieblingstheater in Berlin und darüber hinaus, the place to be für Theater, Tanz, Performance, Diskurs, Musik und bildende Kunst.

Werdet Kaput-Supporter / Become a Kaput Supporter:

Ihr könnt uns einmalig einen Betrag Eurer Wahl paypalen: paypal.me/kaputmagazin oder über unsere Steady Seite zu monatlichen Supporter_innen werden: https://steadyhq.com/de/kaput-magazin

So oder so, unser Dank ist Euch gewiss.

There are two ways of supporting us, either you paypal us a single contribution: paypal.me/kaputmagazin or you become a monthly supporter of Kaput via our Steady page: https://steadyhq.com/de/kaput-magazin

One way or another, our gratitude is assured to you

Love from Cologne, Köln,

Linus Volkmann und Thomas Venker für das Team hinter Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop

_______________________________________________________

TRANSCRIPT: Kaput x Juan MacLean

Juan Mac Lean „ I turned down this gig, I'm going to end up living under a bridge. “

Juan MacLean, today‘s guest on the kaput podcast is an old companion. In the 90s he was guitarist of the highly influential post-hardcore band Six Finger Satellite who released a string  of remarkable records on Seatle’s Sub Pop label. The band was not always fortunate and struggled often with tragedy – but but as is often the case, when one thing recedes another takes hold; and somehow James Murphy became the sound engineer of the band and nicknamed his PA position: Death From Above. And when Six Finger Satellite were history, the name stuck, with Murphy then naming his new label imprint: DFA. It did not take long and soon Juan MacLean released his first dance music productions. And the rest is history as they say.

Today Juan MacLean is still going strong as a DJ and producer, but also challenging himself with a new path. Together with Ross Ellenhorn, Dimitri Mugianis and Julie Holland Cardea, has created a Ketamine space in NYC, that in addition offers psilocybin retreats in Jamaica’s, Treasure Beach. The four offer a century of experience in the artistic, psychedelic, ceremonial, and therapeutic worlds. Their mission is: „to offer an alternative to the emerging co opting of psychedelic healing by the pharmaceutical industry. We seek to honor the sacred and a rediscovery of the sacred originality that we believe can be the basis of transformation.“

We met Juan MacLean at the end of March at 1 OR 8, a lovely small Japanese restaurant in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Clinton Hill, just a few days before the big DFA records birthday party.

www.cardea.net

Juan, nice to have you today on the podcast. 

Thank you for having me. 

I follow your career for a long time, from Six Finger Satellite to the stuff you do for DFA – but recently I also follow your posts regards your new company Cardea. Maybe you can roll out what it is all about. 

It is not entirely unrelated to my music career. The shortest explanation: Cardea is a legal psychedelics company that I started after doing underground, illegal psychedelic ceremonial stuff for years. – And now that I say that, should I be saying this? Because I still do with the illegal underground psychedelic stuff… – We’re opening a ketamine clinic in Manhattan and doing legal psilocybin retreats in Jamaica. We have our first retreat, April 21st in Jamaica. 

And who is we?

It´s me – now I'm thinking, do I want to name names? 

It is a company 

It is a company, it is a legal enterprise.

Ross Ellenhorn, one of the founders is a therapist. He’s written a couple of books and he has these mental health facilities that he's been really successful with, like an alternative model to working with people in crisis, some kind of psychological distress. 

His thinking is pretty outside the mainstream medical sort of thinking in treating psychological disorders.

The other guy is Dimitri Mugianis. He for many years worked with Ibogaine. Do you know what that is? 

No.

It is like the African Ayahuasca. It’s a very intense psychedelic, made from a root, it’s like sawdust from Africa. What he was doing with it is: they figured out that you could interrupt opiate addiction with it. So you take someone who's addicted to heroin, you have them stop doing heroin. And when they start going into withdrawal, you give them a Iboga or Ibogaine, and it stops the withdrawal process. And it goes on for like three days. And at the end of the three days, you're no longer addicted to heroin. 

All right.

But it's quite an ordeal. It's like three days of like tripping. You are totally gone. But when you come out of it, you're kind of miraculously not addicted to heroin anymore. And Dimitri is the one ..

But do you want more experiences of this? Like, are you addicted to something new? 

No. No. Okay. Absolutely nothing. If anything, it's the opposite, it's something you would not think to ever do again. You might be like, I'm never doing this again all. And that's not to say that it keeps people off of heroin. That's up to them. But Dimitri is the one, like for at least a decade, he's probably done thousands of Ibogaine or Iboga sessions with people. And then he got busted by the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration – and that ended that. 

And how did you get connected to that?

I was just into psychedelics in general from a very young age. Maybe the time when people typically get into them, you know, like as a teenager. I also was a heroin addict when I was very young.

I know.

And then after, you know, years of being clean and doing all the right things, got super into yoga, which I'm still into, and meditation, all of these things, I was like still incredibly depressed. I mean, like suicidally depressed. And then kind out of desperation went to the jungle in Peru to do Ayahuasca, because I heard it was good for depression. I had tried everything else, nothing worked. So I went down there, it just totally changed my mind. Went down that road of ceremonial psychedelics and knew I wanted to be a part of it.

I don't know how much you want to get into this now, but so much of it is about sound, an Ayahuasca ceremony is all singing, and generally these traditional psychedelic ceremonies are about sound. So for me,I was already doing it in a way. Even as a DJ, I'm like, oh, I'm in a space with lots of people on drugs. They kind of are entrusting you as a DJ to guide them through the night with sound. And that's what any psychedelic ceremony is. So it was like really easy to me to make that transition. And I just throw myself into it and had teachers that guided me.

But was it difficult? Cause I mean, you just said that you had a drug problem, you were addicted for some years, then you were like off it. Did you ask yourself: Am I doing the right thing? Am I playing with the fire? I maybe don't see this in the beginning, but it can be there.

Yeah, a little bit. Like in the very beginning I had that thought, but I was so desperate that it was worth it to me at the time. If I'm throwing my life away right now, that's a chance I'm willing to take, because life sucks so much for so long. Like I'm just not interested in being alive anymore. 

We are talking about like a decade or something, which you were like sober, drug free. and depressed.

Yeah. I drank that first cup of Ayahuasca many years ago. And as I was drinking it I was thinking: „This could be the worst decision I´ve ever made in my life.“

Take it and see.

It was incredible, totally life-changing. I don’t like to put out there too much that my experience that the first time totally changed my life – that's not an expectation that people should have, you know, it's more a path, it's a process. But that did set me off in that process and it was kind of like things I had been doing since I was very young anyway, which was like this intersection of like sound with psychedelic. Which I was always interested in, but I didn't know there was this kind of like therapeutic benefit to it.

And how fast did this idea grow that you are not just like benefiting as an individual from that, that you also bring it together with your art and you combine it and then you actually do it for other people to help them. Cause what you're doing now is the next step.

That took a little while because it was a coming together of a whole bunch of things. At the time I was in school for a psychology, cause I thought I was going to be a therapist. And I had studied yoga in India, I lived in India for a little while. I I had worked at drug treatment centers as a counselor. I've been doing all these other things. So I felt like I had a pretty good training in kind of like just how to hold space for people and how to manage people in psychological distress, basically.

But would you say, like when you do the sessions – they are long sessions –, that you also do them for you? Are there two paths at the same time in the sense that you also cure yourself? 

Totally. Yeah. I mean, you always have to be there for the person that you're doing the ceremony for, or the group –sometimes it's group ceremonies – , but at the same time it's a ceremony for me too.

You mention it to the persons that they understand you are part of the ceremony? You're not like a doctor or like a psychologist in a classical sense.

Yeah. When someone comes in and we're doing a mushroom ceremony for them, to be clear, it is mushorooms, we spend a lot of time like talking about it beforehand, explaining what they're getting into. And part of it is explaining, like what it is that we're doing with sound basically. It's an experience that's about energy. And in that sense, it's very different than the Western, like doctor / patients – like there's the doctor, who's the authority, the patient comes in and then the doctor's going to cure the patients. This is more like a an interactive thing, like where you're in it together – I always take a little bit of mushrooms with them so that we can be in that same space together. And it's learning how to navigate those spaces, which then gets into like a little bit heady kind of heavy territory of what is happening when people are under the influence of psychedelics. 

That would have been my next question. These journeys are not always smooth and they're not only just happiness. There's also coming sadness out and a lot of like troubled stuff up. That's not your part in the sessions, cause you do the music. That's the part of your partner that he talks and interacts with the patients.

We're both kind of doing the same thing. There's no talking.

There´s no talking? 

Unless someone wants to talk, like if they're having a hard time, then we'll talk. But it's a thing that transcends language. Like a lot of people come to us because they've been frustrated with talk therapy, which I'm an advocate of. I think it's really helpful. But I think we've run up against a wall where talking doesn't really put a dent, like in your depression and anxiety, for example, these are real emotional things. And when people have really difficult experiences, usually that's the most beneficial, because usually that's like something emerging. That's not.. that's been repressed, pushed down and now it's coming out. From our perspective with what we do, that's actually a really good thing. That's what we want. 

When somebody has like drastic emotionally things happening, cries or shakes and stuff like that – you always talk to the person. So is it sometimes hard for you to just like, let it go and just look at the person and see what's going on there.

It's very hard. I mean, I do it all the time. You know, a few days a week. That's what I'm doing. The impulse when you see someone having a hard time, the impulse is to go in and somehow change things so that they're not having a hard time anymore, but that actually is usually not beneficial. I always think of it as like, if you're in a restaurant and you talk about something very upsetting, like „oh my, my friend just died“ or something. I usually have a really strong impulse to cry. Like I really want to cry, but I stop myself from doing that because we're in a restaurant and around other people. And you just don't, you know, you're ashamed of crying. So we do a lot of like repressing these things, but they don't go anywhere.

Like now that you've stopped yourself from crying, like it's in your body, basically like living in your body and that come that stress and all of that, like just accumulates and accumulates. Where I think in other cultures like indigenous cultures, if someone wants to cry, they just cry and they like weep and wail and then people might come around them and support them, cry with them and that kind of thing. But here, and in Western European cultures, especially when someone cries, mainly like people get embarrassed and like might walk away. It's kind of shameful thing. And yeah, so what I see all the time and the ceremonies are something like that, where someone will be wailing, crying, just crying, crying, and you, the impulse is to go and comfort them to get them to not cry anymore. But really what you want is to encourage the crying because after usually you feel amazing, you feel great. 

It's part of our society. You see and hear people screaming very loud when they make a deal or something positive on the phone. But you don't really see people … having negative feelings, it's always something people are ashamed of. People will look at you like, „well, he lost it“.

Right. It's a sign of weakness. There's a lot of things about capitalism rolled up in this. If you did something and you've just made a lot of money, you can like scream and people are like: „what happened?“ You'd be like, „I just made a million dollars“ – and everyone's screaming. But yeah, if something sad happens, then maybe someone says like, „are you okay?“ Maybe. But really we're just embarrassed. 

If you say the word capitalism. You are reducing your market value in that sense: „Oh, no, maybe he's week now“. Or: „What’s going on now? Can we hire him? Can he get a job done? Cause you see, he is not stabile anymore, he's crying. He's not there anymore…“ As if that's really true – cause as you said, sometimes the cleaning factory is important.

But do you after the sessions talk to the person? 

Yeah, a long time. And then in the days after too, and weeks, months, if not years. Yeah. 

You mind me asking: how expensive are sessions like that?

Cause, I mean, you are there for a full working day or like a half day, your partner is there, there are talks before, there are talks after.

I mean it's expensive. Well, but what we do, we have a sliding scale. So people basically pay what they want. Homeless people can pay nothing, we do free ones too. People who legitimately can't pay, then we do it anyway. We don't turn anyone away because of their ability to pay. And that's how we frame it. When we talk to people about it, we say, „you know, it's this much money. If you can pay the full fee, we're happy that you can do that. And just know that you're paying for someone else who can't afford to do this.“ Usually that really inspires people to pay, but people are pretty good about it. I think it's pretty fair generally. 

People also understand that this is an ongoing thing. It's not like, you go in for half an hour and that's the thing. Like, you can't expect things to be for free.

When you mentioned you have things you're doing in New York and you have to, things you're doing in other countries, is this only because of the legal part of it – versus the illegal?

Yeah. There's no other reason for that. In Jamaica Psilocybin mushrooms are legal. This is a legal company, so that's where we have to do it. And I mean, it'll be legal in the United States, I think within a few years, within five years, maybe, but yeah.

Are you part of lobbyists in the sense that you go and speak out at meetings or political conventions to change things? Or are you concentrating on just what you're doing. 

I'm not too concerned with the legal part, because I'm also a little ambivalent about legalization, because generally the push for legalization … the approach is almost like thinking about it, like a new form of antidepressant, and already there's lots of venture capital pouring into this. And the way they look at it is like mushrooms could be like the new Prozac or something. And I'm pretty against that. Like this idea that really big money will pour into this.

It's always depression and anxiety, that’s what people are always talking about, that’s why they're always coming in. They're like, „I'm depressed, really I'm depressed.“

The depression rate is like now over 50%. And my perspective is like, if the depression rate is over 50%, then something's wrong. Something is fucked up. Like something is definitely wrong with our environment that we've created. And this idea of using these things as like an antidepressant to sort of patch people up just to go back to work and like go back into the system is insane. I'm more like, I want to tear down the whole system. 

It´s also expected to go fast and quick – and that is an illusion. What you were describing, what we all knew: if you want to heal things, you have to invest time.You have to change a lot of stuff. And in a way you have to change society. Because we talked before we started recording here, we talked about rent and gentrification, the costs of living in a city like New York and the pressure happening – all that is part of the problem. As long as we don't solve that for everybody, not just like for some folks. How should you not be stressed if you are hustling, if you have to spend 70% of your income just for rent and then you still have not done other stuff.

People work now more now than they ever have in human history. Even in like hunter gatherer societies, that like we lived as human beings, it was not like, you woke up and then your whole day was filled with figuring out ways to survive. It is just not true. Like people generally worked a few hours to do whatever they needed to do. And they had a totally different life. I don't understand why are people working like 12 hour days? 

Well, there is a need to make enough income, I guess. I mean, there's other reasons too. There's addiction, there´s ambition. There's a lot of stuff. If you take the regular people who are on the buses to work every day, they are working to get the hustle done – and that's a pretty brutal realization.

And what kind of wife is that, you know. Like you realize, you spent your whole life just going to work. I mean, that's depressing, it's depressing. 

It is. But most people don't have the choices even to think about that. I was watching this interview with a person from the Ukraine on CNN yesterday who got a blog going, and that's why he was invited suddenly to CNN to talk about it.

Besides that the moderator asked these open questions, which are overwhelming for somebody who is not used to talk on TV and open up in public – but in the he stripped it down to what changed and what he realized within a few weeks: „I had a happy life because I shared my life with my friends and eeverything was like connected to like meeting other people, having my home, my family and everything, and suddenly it's gone.“ I think with all the noise of our societies, we forget that the most important thing is hanging with our friends.

It is the most important thing!

Having a good time together, exchanging our ideas on the world and what we see. That's something that during the pandemic got a little bit better, because I see a lot of my friends who are not going to an office anymore – I am not going to an office anyway, I run the magazine and everything else from home, except of the university teaching part. So I realized seeing the stress level going down with friend's not having to go to the office is such a big one. Because you lose so much time on the way, you lose energy. 

Yeah. But that to me is the most … I think isolation is the number one problem. Number one. Like the lack of community – and like just social isolation. It's incredibly depressing. There's these intersections to me with dance music: you go out with your friends, take some kind of mind altering substance, you're dancing all night in the middle of the night in the dark, hours and hours – and you have these really like transcendent experiences.I mean that to me is incredibly powerful. That's a great antidepressant.

Absolutely. There’s nothing more cleaning than 12 hours on a dance floor with friends.

But still you mentioned you had ongoing depressions as a DJ being on parties. 

Yeah. It's funny. All of this stuff just reignited my relationship to clubs and djing and music in general. Yeah, but it's really about that kind of community, being with people. 

Are you saying you select the clubs more careful, you select the people you work with. Cause, I mean, a lot of electronic dance music is also an industry – and it's a lot of bullshit going on, there are a lot of bad places. 

I was always taking gigs out of scarcity, I would be out on the road and more offers would come in. I just never go home. I just take everything. And it was really because of this fear of: what if you turn down gigs? I'll end up homeless, like on the street. Like, I turn down this gig, I'm going to end up living under a bridge. 

Did your father go bankrupt or your family at one point or where's this coming from? 

They actually did. 

Cause I have the same thing. My father got bankrupt and I always think I will end up on the street if I don't hustle.

I grew up with this economic scarcity – it used to drive just about everything. I would take these gigs and they'd be terrible. Like, especially like, for example, at some point I just decided: I don't want to play to a lot of people. I told my European booking agent. I had signed to this really big booking agency, which was a mistake. It was just a mistake. I was just flattered that they wanted to sign me, whatever. And then pretty quickly they were like, you know, here's what we'll do. And they had this whole plan of like, let's get you to this level. And then this level – and then it was like: let's get you at the level of Blessed Madonna. I mean, Maria, she's a friend. I love her. She's great. 

That level of like Peggy Gou or these people. I was like, if I were honest with myself, I said, I don't want to do that. Like, I just don't want to do it. Like, it's not fun to me. Like, it's not fun to me to stand in front of anything more than like 500, 700 people in a club and dj. It just starts to feel like you lose that connection with what's going on. And then I start to feel like I'm playing some kind of weird game, like a DJ game.

What I love – I love playing to like 200 people, you know.

Share a connection.

Yeah. And have that connection. And then I told that agent that: „Look, I'm not even interested in that. I don't want to do that.“ And they were like, „thank you for telling us, we should probably not have this relationship.“ They were very nice about it. They're just like, „you know, that's not what we do. And it doesn't make sense, it's not worth it to us, cause we won't make it up.“ And they're kind of like, „you really want to live that way.“ And I said, „yeah, I kind of do.“

It is a different way of measuring things, like as if money is the only system – of course it's not, happiness is very valuable.

Well, that was the thing. I had this period of time when I was out on the road more than I was home and I was absolutely miserable, because I was just playing so many gigs. And so many of them weren´t meaningful. And I'm sure I did a good job and all that. But for me personally, there was just a point where I was like, why am I doing this with my life? What's the point? 

Well, there's this question I asked … I stopped doing it a certain time because I knew the answer. I was asking all these artists: how many out of 10 gigs are you happy, like really happening? There was never more than two, maximum three, if you really have the most perfect set up in a world. The others were like compromises for the good ones or however you come to your decisions. And everybody said like, „well, that's how it has to be. It's the deal, it’s a job.“ But then again, I don't think it has to be that way, but you have to make your decision. You have to say like, this is more valuable than the other thing.

And now I would say – I just got back from this three week, tour of Europe and the UK –: every gig was amazing.

Wow.

I could've made more money if I played bigger places or something, but I came home from that trip, like every gig was amazing. And people just got it. Before I walked in here I got this Instagram message from someone who was like, „hey, you know, did you record your set in Madrid? Because that was one of the best sets I've ever heard in my life.“ You know, it's in this like basement club with like 300 people maybe, all packed in there, you know, all night. And it was amazing. But to me getting those messages is worth whatever, the other, the extra $2,000 I could've made that night or something. It takes a lot to say that though, you know? 

Is it coming easy now? Cause you described like how hard it was to not make those other decisions at that time. Would you say this is like deeply connected to being in a new state? 

Yeah. Totally. Because as long as I was operating in that place of scarcity, I will be: it's like existential annihilation if I don't make enough money. Like I'll just not exist anymore, basically. Like you're just in fear the whole time and you can never be happy. 

That's how capitalism is functioning.

That's how it functions

Capitalism always wants you to get the next job, do the next thing. 

Yeah.

But you also generate income now with the new field, like doing these sound therapies. Which is part of doing the right gigs. It comes from the same idea of measuring: „that is worth doing it.“

Exactly. And I would say the same for for producing music. Like, I've never released a lot of music very much, but every time I do, it's like something I really put l a lot of time into and effort and that I care about a lot. It's the same thing. Like, otherwise: what’s the point really? 

Is there like a master plan that you want to do like 4 dj sets a month and the rest of time you do the sound therapy… do you think in these kind of categories.

Yeah, that's always been the goal really. It's like: Dennis Ferrer, the house dj from New York. One time he told me: „just decide on a fee.“ His point was basically like, instead of playing eight gigs a month, play two gigs a month. But because you're asking for enough money for all those gigs.

Yeah. But then the tricky thing is: you have these nice organizers in whatever Hamburg, Germany, who run a small club and you want to play with them and then you do…

And that´s the problem. Yeah, and I'm the person that wants to play for those people. I mean, that's generally who I play for. I like playing for people I have this personal connection with, you go and have dinner and your friends, and then it's an amazing experience. And then you come back and you have this relationship. 

Do we have to feeling that – to change a little bit direction of our conversation – the people who come for the sound therapy … are some of those people knowing you as a DJ and want you to be the guardian angel? 

Yeah, a little bit. 

Which is nice. Cause they trust in your sound, and they trust that your sound also can work on the other narrative, not the dance floor – on the inner journey. 

It's the same kind of thing though, because in the sound ceremony, it's not really about musicianship. Like you're playing these vibrational instruments, and it's not about, like, how well you can play them. It's about how well you can tap into what's going on in the room and really feel like where people are at and guide them with sound. And to me, that's what a DJ does. 

But as a DJ, the dance floor also has a certain anonymity, like, in general, you need to love your crowd. But there might be characters you don't like, but they have a corner or whatever.

How often does it happen that you would say like, „oh wow, the energies of this person are not working together with my energies, but now I'm a professional in this room and I have to deliver that.“ It's this like getting a problem. Is that happening? 

Yeah, that happens. And then it's about, you know, this isn't about me. Like, it's always about them. I mean, sometimes it boils down to this equation of like, „oh, this person is a Trump supporter sitting in front of me, like a racist Trump supporter“ – and this has happened. And then it's like, my belief is that I'm there basically to love every one, like the Trump person is not going to end up in a better place by fighting with them.

No, no. I think we as a society are having a lot of our problems because we have a very clear perspective of whats is good and what is not good. And then we are like, excluding the others. At the moment you open a dialogue, you are also trying to change some things. So in a way it's like, we all have to trust our instincts, but then again, we also have to readjust them. It's a tough call.

It is, and you're right. I think right now we're in this phase where it's really easy to think of people as good and bad, especially when you're not sitting in front of them. And the fact is, when you're sitting in front of like these Trump people, these Americans that you think are just the most awful people – when you're in the room with them, usually I like them. I'm like, you know what? They're all right. They like some things, they’r e into some things I think are really fucked up, but there's this other side to them. And I think that's most people.

They have reasons, like, we maybe are afraid of living on the street and get bankrupt. They all have their reasons why they build certain walls and things.

It´s mostly fear. In New York, I feel like it's pretty hard to be… you’re going to have a hard time if you're a racist. Because you're always going to be around people that are not of your skin color or your ethnicity, your whatever. So your life is going to be pretty hard here.

So, it is really these people that are like out in the middle of the country, surrounded by white people, surrounded by people they think are heterosexual people – that they think, little do they know. And then that's when it's easy to like become afraid of like brown people or whatever. Yeah, but it's all out of fear. It's really fear. 

How does your close community react on this new path in your life? Are some of them trying it too, not with you, but like maybe in other constellations. Are they also into that? 

Like my close friends? I've been doing this for a long time, so they're all pretty involved. But yeah, recently, like in the last couple of years as I've become like more public with it, it's definitely been interesting. Yeah. It's bringing in people that I think normally wouldn't be exposed to that kind of thing. 

To circle. As we also hear in the week of the DPA anniversary, there's a party on Saturday: 20 years of DFA records. What would the 20 year younger Juan MacLean think of what your are doing right now. 

It's so interesting. I mean, 20 years ago? Yeah, that would be in that phase where I was really depressed. That was like the peak of my … that´s the thing, when I made my first DFA records, I'd say that was probably the worst period for me, like in terms of just depression and that kind of thing.

And if I saw myself now, I'd be like: „I think it is terrible.“ Like, „what the fuck?“ I had such an aversion to like, even being happy. I thought it was bullshit. I was like, oh, if you're happy, then you're just delusional. Yeah. I was like pretty negative, pretty universally negative about everything. Yeah. 

Was that your reputation back then. Did everybody tell you like, „oh man, you're so negative.“

Yeah, that was kind of, … well, people around me, like James (Murphy) would say: I was the guy that was kind of a mean jerk that just wanted to fight people.

We make fun a lot of what we would call hippie stuff. So we'd call all of this like hippie stuff, both of us back then. 

But at the same time these were euphoric times. So many DFA records were party anthems, the world was enjoying it. Everybody had like a great time. You must have been really miserable with seeing everybody having a great time. 

Yeah, I was. 

Did you try to bring in like the negative records on the label?

Yeah. That's kinda like what I gravitated towards. I was just into things that were super dark and I am now, like, darkness has a place, you know, it needs to be there.

Darkness has a beauty to it.

Definately. 

In those moments when we are sad, we are feeling very deep what life is all about. And then hopefully we are creating a lighter space from that.

What I wonder, like, as you said: you had this drug experiences while you were in – let’s call it a rock band, even tho Six Finger Satellite were much more than a rock band, krautrocky… but still it was like on Sub Pop Records, it was coming from a rock era. And then you decided to go into electronic music, you started to dj. Maybe it was not a decision, it was a transition, but still it's a culture that was always connected with hedonism and – and at least on the facade – happiness. How did you do this decision back then?

That´s the weird thing. Even like when I was in Six Finger Satellite, I hated ecstasy. Because all of us were like: „That's bullshit, that just makes people like happy.“ Which is so funny to think of now. And it's also funny because. Like, DFA, ecstasy was very pivotal in the start of DFA. Like all the cliche things about ecstasy, like taking ecstasy and being like … except for us, it was like, instead of taking ecstasy and going to a rave, it was like taking ecstasy and djing post-punk records or something. It gave this perspective of: oh no, this music is really like, you can dance to this music too. Like Gang of Four is almost like a kind of like dance music, you know? And that's what we did. But even at that time, yeah, those days … the idea of just being happy was bullshit to me.

So what was your most miserable DFA moment in the history of the label and you being part of that? 

Oh, man, I don't know. The thing is, I was just miserable in private. When we do parties and stuff, it was great, but then I'd go home and just my day-to-day life, like, you know, it was like literally suicidal. I didn't want to be alive. That was the thing, which kind of makes me sad in hindsight, because being a part of this like iconic, groundbreaking thing and then I absolutely did not appreciate it. I was like, whatever, I just didn't care. And that's the sad part to me. 

Well, you grew from that and learned from the experiences. I think this is not so rare. I see so many people who are like this – if I can judge from the outside objectively. There are so many aspects which make their life happy: You have a family, you even have a home, you have a safe job — but still these people are not happy. So there must be a reason. Right? So, going through a phase, a long phase like that, you also learn to understand there's not this objective with you. It's only what you feel. And somehow we have to learn to moderate and get like the perspective on the positive things to understand what is good in our lives, because in the end, nothing is more horrible than to say after 20 years of great stuff, when the shit really hits the van, like, „oh man, I had good times. I didn't see them. And now I have shitty times.“

Yeah. No, it's the opposite for me. Luckily. Like it just keeps getting better basically. 

That is nice. I like stories with happyends.

It is super nice and it's still going, it is still going – to throw in another DFA reference.

And James too; recently we were just kind of laughing about it, you know, he was like, „I just want to say, like, we've been friends for like 30 years. I'm just so happy to see … look, where we ended up. 

He has the same storyline here. He was always a lot like …

Kinda. All the LCD successes of everything, he was just like, „man, we're just doing cool shit. So nice.“ We're just in a good place.

I think that's the most rewarding thing – same goes for me with writing about music. I never saw it as a professional even tho it is. But being able to share music, culture for so long with friends and somehow having the same path. Because it's like, you're going to see that on Saturday, and I see that on Saturday … so many gatherings, how many people you have that your share like 20, 30, 40 years of cultural exchange now. And that's the biggest reward. Cause, I mean, if somebody would have told me as a 15 year old that the guy I'm standing with at a straight edge concert will drink a gin tonic with me like 40 years later. It’s amazing. Cause these are stories of friendships.

That to me is the most important thing. I mean, truly, nobody really believes this, but it's way more important than money. Like, no one wants to hear this, but money really does not make you happy. Like a certain amount allows you to be happier. Just the basic of like not being stressed out about if you can eat or not, when you get to that level, after that, it’s all kind of bullshit, like trading in your life for, you know, I have a lot of money, I can get a lot of stuff, I have a nice apartment – whatever, but you work all day and night, and then on the weekend, you're too tired to really do anything. And now like 20 years of your life is gone by. And you're like, „what have I done with my life?“

To me, this whole thing that you're talking about, like doing this stuff where you're really offering something contributing to the culture, makes it so that, you know, you can just sit here in a restaurant and are like: „I have a good life. And I feel good about it.“ I'd rather have that, you know, than a million dollars. I mean, that's true. That's true. Yeah. 

I could keep talking to you for a long time, but these words were so perfect to be the last words. Thanks so much for opening up here. And I'm curious what is coming up next.

Yeah, me too. Thank you. Ah, that was good, right?

It was really, really nice. 

Er ist ein Guru elektronischer Tanzmusik. An der Geschichte von Techno, an der hat dieser freundliche DJ mit Hessenhintergrund auf jeden Fall mitgeschrieben. Jeder und jede weiß das. Für Linus Volkmann vom Kaput-Magazin ist dieses Gespräch allerdings auch noch aus anderen Gründen etwas Besonders. Es stellte nämlich sein erstes Künstler*innengespräch mal wieder „in echt“ dar - seit sehr langer Zeit. Den Ort, an dem die Begegnung stattfindet, hat Sven Väth ausgewählt. Die Villa Kennedy. Ein Luxus-Hotel in Frankfurt, das seine Pforten schließen muss – und Guru Väth bekommt daher heute noch mal die Präsidentensuite. Ein spektakulärer Ort, der sich im Niedergang befindet und so gleichzeitig auch für einen Neuanfang zu stehen scheint. 

Sven Väth veröffentlicht dabei erstes Artist-Album seit fast 20 Jahren. „Catharsis“, heißt es. Na, dann, betreten wir doch mal die Suite...

Diese Folge von "Talking Kaput" wird präsentiert vom HAU - Hebbel am Ufer, kaputs Lieblingstheater in Berlin und darüber hinaus, the place to be für Theater, Tanz, Performance, Diskurs, Musik und bildende Kunst.

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Love from Cologne, Köln,

Linus Volkmann und Thomas Venker für das Team hinter Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop

Ramesh Srivastava: „My biggest wish is to keep moving forward with what I'm doing.“

Today’s episode of the Kaput podcast is a very personal one. I’ve known Ramesh for around 20 years now. We met through shared friends when he was part of the indie pop-rock band Voxtrot. Voxtrot split up in 2010 – and ever since Ramesh has been releasing beautiful music under his own name, most recently the brand new album „Eternal Spring“. While in Austin for the first installment of South by Southwest since the pandemic hit the world, Ramesh was so kind to open up for a long conversation about his musical career, including very honest insights of what happens in band that dissolves and is dropped by their label after not fulfilling the big dreams, and talking about current songwriting side paths for other artists like HAIM. We also talk about the heavy gentrification processes of Austin, his personal relationship with SXSW, and many other topics. I could keep raving about it here, but just listen yourself. And make sure to check out the new album by Ramesh and, spoiler, try to see Voxtrot on stage as the band is about to go on a little reunion tour.

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TRANSCRIPT: Kaput x Ramesh

Hello Ramesh. So nice to be finally back in Austin back for South by Southwest.  There are so many things I want to talk to about, like music of course, and all your paths through those kinds of dimensions. But first of all, I'm interested in – as we are in Austin and this is the first SXSW after the pandemic and also an unusual South by in that sense as there were not so many people in town, like normally … do you remember what was your first SXSW?

Ramesh: You mean the first time performing? 

The first time you realized, „oh, there's a thing going on, there’s people coming in from all over the world.

I think I always knew about it because people talk about it in Austin a lot. So I knew before I went, I knew about it. But then when I was maybe 15 is when I was starting to get really into music.And I remember going to see – was it Mark Kozelek? I can't remember who it was., it was a singer songwriter showcase of somebody that was in a sort of big indie band that I didn't really know the music, but the clerk at Waterloo Records had told me like, „oh, you should…“ I think I was buying ta Kings of Convenience record and he was like:  „oh, if you like this, then you should check this out.“ And so I went with a couple of friends and I think like stood in a really long line to get in to see this person. And that's my first memory of SXSW. 

What year could that have been?  

Well, I was born in 83, so it have to be 1998. 

Kings of Convenience were already around in 1998? 

Well, it must not. Oh, I do remember buying if not in high school but shortly after … it might not have been the Kings of Convenience record I was buying, but I was buying something, maybe it was Belle and Sebastian, I was buying something and the guy Waterloo said, „oh, you would like [this].“

And you were still buying it a record store, which is like, maybe still not so unusual for Austin because you still have a really nice record store scene, but in a lot of like areas and for a lot of people that changed traumatically, and I always have to filling, it's just like the, the older guys still doing the vinyl thing and the young people are looking at you, like, „what the fuck is this?“ They only do Spotify and Itunes these days.

Right. But I think really young people do buy vinyl again. I think it's made a resurgence, but even back then, I would think like … I guess now because of disappearing record stores, it's lucky we still have them here, but back then in 1998, I feel other than the biggest cities there are probably not a lot of places where people in high school could go to buy Belle and Sebastian on vinyl. I think it's pretty unique, right? 

Yeah. Especially also that the people are talking nicely to them. Cause I remember being based Stuttgart, Germany – I was always afraid to go to the record store. Cause the guys were like handling us young boys as like we have no clue. You would ask for the new Flaming Lips record and they would laugh: „Dude, this was sold out three months ago, how can you come now?“ And then you go away again feeling like somebody put water over you. Did you have  one store you always went to and you would say that was really important for your music socialization.

Yes. I mean, Waterloo records is the one for sure. Okay. And it's still there. It's still, which is amazing and surprising to me just in terms of how prime the real estate is and how few people buy records, but it's still there. 

Are there some of the same people still working there? 

There are.

That's, that's kinda awesome. Cause that's how you like it, some changes are not changing; and they have like all the wisdom in the world. 

There used to be also another one, very close to the university that was called 33 Degrees, which now this is moved down south - i's called End of an Ear. Probably lots of people know it, I think it's pretty, pretty popular. 33 Degrees was where James Minor – who became our manager and who now of course is running the music part of South by Southwest – used to work at. 

I always think like when I was working in a record store, that were the best years for really listening to music and discovering new stuff. Cause it's the only job where you have really nothing else to do than listen to the music and talk about it. While working as an editor, everybody seems like you have all the time in the world, but then you have like tons of meetings, communication, writing takes a lot of time and suddenly you feel like, „oh, my ass, so many new records I have to listen to – but when I do that? 

It becomes not so organic.I think it is a different thing too. It can be exciting to feel like, „oh, now I'm in the music industry and there's all this new stuff I know about and I want to know about all of it“ – but it's a very shallow investigation of each thing versus I think like, when you, especially before streaming, like back then 1998, like if somebody tells you, „oh, you should buy this Belle and Sebastian record“ and you spend, you know, $16 on this thing, and then you take it home, you listen to it many, many, many times and so it becomes like a very deep investigation. 

That's a very good point too, that you listen to some records like 50, 100 times in your life. How many new records do you have time to listen to that often? Like,  even if you really love it, you maybe have listened to them like three, four times. 

That's a primary change too. With all this charty 80s music having its revival, you recognize, you know all the lyrics, because they were so present in your youth and you were listening to this so much. It’s just really weird that I can probably tell you better Phil Collins lyrics, or George Michael lyrics than any Flaming Lips ones – because they were so significantly present in those years. What was the first music which made you feel like, okay, I want to do music myself.?

I think the first is probably the Beatles, which is like everybody's first – maybe not anymore. I think that's the first thing, cause I do remember, I mean, I can remember being 12 years old and having whole concepts about albums, like even like just starting to write songs, but having like whole concepts of albums that I would make one day, with the cover art and the title, and kind of planning it out from start to finish. And I think that started with my, like, getting very into the Beatles and then other like 60s and 70s music and stuff. I like this idea of bands like the Beatles or Pink Floyd and then the modern version would be Radiohead or something, I liked the idea of these bands that put tons and tons of musical work into making this thing; that with the music – which is usually made on a pretty grand scale – and with the cover art and even with the promotional campaign it becomes this big universe, you know what I'm saying It's almost like a museum exhibition or something. And I like that idea of, of treating each album as this event. 

Who introduced you to the Beatles? I guess not the guy in the record store. 

No, that would be very uncool of him. Well, we have one cassette tape that my parents probably like most parents, back then would make for the car, they would make cassette tapes from their vinyl, you know, from the record player. So we had a sort of a mix tape of stuff that we always drove around on car trips. I remember that it had some Beatles songs like „Blackbird“, and some Elvis Costello. So it would be my parents. But then when I was 12 – at 12 you are in Middle School in the United States – I met this friend who became my Middle School best friend and she really ensured – she was obsessed with the Beatles. She really started giving me books and it kind of kicked off my whole music career. Because it really started the fire.

You still have contact with her? 

Yeah, for sure. I don't see her often. She went a different … she has children, she lives a different life. But yeah.

So at that point you were already like, imagining like doing albums. You were maybe for yourself, like writing songs, but at which point did this get more ambitious? 

I started playing, I mean, the first things I did were playing little, like open mics at coffee houses basically. Cause I was at that time, by the time I was, yeah, 16 years old, I was then obsessed with Bob Dylan. I transferred many times in my life. I transfer it from the Beatles to Bob Dylan. So then I was really, really obsessed with writing tons of songs and wanting to be a solo folk performer. I went to the Kerrville Folk Festival, which is out in the hill country here and stayed for two weeks. But I didn't ever play with a live band until Voxtrot. 

Did you always feel comfortable on stage? Was it easy for you to just like go on and do that? 

It was pretty easy. I mean, I don't know if, actually “easy” is the word, because I would feel nervous sometimes, but I always felt that it was worth it. With fear, there's the difference between a fear that you feel when it's something, you know, you should do, but it's difficult. Like you walk into a room and think I'm afraid to talk to that person, like I feel nervous, but I can feel that it's something I should do. And then it becomes like a good professional or otherwise relationship, you know? And that's like a good fear. And then there's the fear,  something's telling you this is actively dangerous. But for me, like performing, even when it was fear, it felt like that's something I should do.

Well, I think I never told you that – and we know [each other] for a long time –: I find you're fascinating as a character because you have a shyness and you're very gentle, but then also you have a self-confidence. This is a rare combination: shy and self-confident. 

In that sense, it's kind of fitting the way you perform. There's still this boyishness, but there's also – like when I saw you on stage at South by this week – that feeling that you are there, the performance could also be in a stadium, you had like this presence.

Oh, wow, thank you. 

Which maybe leads me back to SXSW.  You performed here this week with your band and the new  album „Eternal Spring“. To me it felt like a miracle SXSW is happening. Cause I was coming to the States anyway, I wanted to see you in Austin – and then I see, „oh, South by is really happening. I remember I've been here a few years ago, the last time and I felt like, okay, this is not the South by I used to love, which was smaller, you could walk in and out of the venues, you were able to see tons of bands. You also run into unexpected stuff, it was so convenient to just do or you follow other people.

And then it got this big thing where like all the big brands had massive stages and everything was so loud and you just feel like, okay, and I'm in a constant advertisement. How does it feel for you a) to see it coming back? And b) do you feel this might also be a restart for the whole thing?

That would be lovely. Yeah. I think it could be like that. I mean, gosh, the last part of the question, it's really hard for me to know. If it is like a different phase or if it's just a nice serendipitous break, because it's in the end of coronavirus, I don't really know. But I agree. I liked the feeling.
And the first part of the question  I will say that because my previous band Voxtrot ascended at the same time as it was sort of really becoming a big thing – when we were ascending, it was great to be a part of that big thing. Because also I was 22, I went to everything and I played six shows a week and partied every night and just went to the best parties and it was so fun. But then after that, when it probably got the most, the biggest, it did feel overwhelming to me, but it also felt overwhelming probably because Voxtrot had fallen apart. So I had no purpose there anymore – I was just at this huge festival; I felt like, what am I doing here?

My own personal narrative is intermixed into it. It's hard for me to know if I had still been in a band that people wanted to see, even at the height, when it was the most crowded, if I'd still been in a band, people wanted to see, I probably would perceive it differently, but because my career was in such a dead point through that time, it felt twice as difficult.

Yeah, totally understand that.  So Voxtrot was mentioned a few times, so maybe we have to introduce the band properly. This was your first band –you got signed, you got international touring, you got like everything a young band is asking for. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the process of like, like how did that happen? 

The last three years of it felt like a whirlwind, but Voxtrot actually existed for probably five years before all of it happened. It just wasn't on. I started the band when I was 18 and we were signed when I was 22. 

Signed to whom? 

To Beggars Group. It was a really kind of slow burn. I experienced it like a slow burn, but I guess — once we started getting attention, like blog attention, that did happen fast. Within one year we were signed. And within one year after that the album came out. And within one year after that we were dropped. That part is very, very fast. But the other part, the build up was very, very organic. 

How did the signing happen? Do you know what was the major moment the A&R saw you or heard about you?

At SXSW. 

You were a SXSW signing? 

That´s right. That was the greatest year for me of South by Southwest, because we played so many fun shows. We had a lot of buzz around us, and at the end of it Simon Ashcroft … our A&R guy who ended up signing us … he ended up staying with us for the whole week and partied with us.
And he came on tour with us after that. It was a proper old school A&R-ing, it wasn't like we had decided, yes, we're signing with this label. It was like, we met him and Martin Mills and a couple of other people in Austin and it was an ongoing talk and this really classic thing where like, you're getting to know the, A&R person. Like I went and lived with him at the Tribeca Grand hotel in New York for two weeks. It's like a courtship and you learn to trust the mutual vision. And I think that probably is not very common these days.

Also Simon Ashcroft is an one of a kind A&R – well, he was, now he is a manager and looks after Digitalism for example. Who else does he manage? He comes from a family who was involved in the Beatles, you know that, right? 

His dad, yeah. 

That's kind of nice that the storylines of you and your A&R kind of like brought things together. Have you thought about it before? 

Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s like a, a thing that feels almost … what's the word? Destiny.

Yeah, absolutely. 

Feels karmic, feels cosmic, basically. 

Did you talk with him about his dad and the Beatles? 

Yeah, I did. I mean, yeah. I talked to him a lot about that and, you know, Simon also worked – very, very, very young, like 16 years old Simon – for Tony Wilson.

Oh, I didn't know that. What did he do for him? 

He was at Factory 2. They had the second incarnation of Factory Records. Simon and I are very similar, we have both been very intrepid in music from a very young age. And weirdly, because I lived in the UK – I've been to college in Glasgow, but I'd never went to college, I went to [music] education in Glasgow, I went to Optimo –, I knew like all these club promoters across the UK and some in Europe. Plastic People, like this whole thing, because I partied and hung out with all those people. So when Simon came to the United States to meet Voxtrot – because we had a lot of internet buzz – and started talking to me about his world, which is all the same people. And I was saying, „oh yeah, I lived in Glasgow.“ And he's like, „oh, do you know Keith and Jonnie from Optimo“? I said, „yeah, they're really good friends of mine“. And it was like mind blowing, how close our worlds already were. So it made it a very natural thing that Voxtrot, when we start first toured in the UK, played all of those cool club nights. Because the network was already there.

As planets gravitate towards each other or around each other, same goes for humans.

Absolutely.

You already mentioned the dropping. How did that happen? How did you experience that? Cause, I mean, there's a phase when everybody tells you that your are great, that you are fantastic. You see this here at SXSW all the time. I just saw Wet Leg – everybody tells that they are the greatest band in the world right now. If the record does not work – what I do not think as it is a great record, but you never know –, nobody will shake their hand next year. So, how did it feel for you when the whole thing collapsed? 

It felt bad. You feel the tide change at a certain point. I mean, Beggars Group, I still love those people and they were very, very good to us. They gave us complete artistic freedom, even when the debut album did not sell as well as they hoped for, they still gave us complete artistic freedom. So I have a lot of respect for Martin and for everybody there. But you do feel the tide turn. Like when we were no longer on the up, I would feel it, like the way the interactions would be, just like with most people in my life. And that, actually is the biggest test of your desire to really be doing this. You have to be the same person when you're being glorified – and you have to continue to be the same person when you are not, when the coin is flipped and you're being ignored and forgotten about. This is like when you were finding out, do you really, really love this thing? Music – is this really what you want to do in life? That is the truth. I'm not Hindu, but this is the whole premise of the Bhagavad Gita, they talk constantly about how you have to always remember the true self. Whether in fame, or in infamy, or in pleasure, or in pain – that all of those things are different states of being, but the true self is the one that's always there observing everything. So it's like my identity at that time was very, very tied, of course, to being this singer of a band that was signed to a big record label and was kind of famous,  that was my identity.

And least here in Austin, you must have been like really a status. 

Yeah, for sure. And even other places I would go, like a lot of doors opened for me. But then when you find out that stuff is temporary, then it's like, I think oftentimes the impulse is to say, „okay, well I've had a good run, it didn't work out, now I'll find something else to do with my life“. But I think if you're really committed to whatever your art form is – or even if it's not art, whatever your thing is that you do in life, your profession, your calling –, if you're really committed to it, I think life tests, you, and you have to keep showing up for it. And then there's more to life than what you think is the end. 

Did you have somebody like, telling you stuff and being on your side, or this is wisdom coming from the street and your self? 

I would say that I have had many people telling me stuff, but only because I was forced to start searching for answers.  First I felt like I lost whatever amount of fame I had. So I felt like I lost that, even though we know that fame is not really what is the important part, but it feels important when you have it. Right. And then I felt like, I mean, I lost, financially, I didn't have the money coming in anymore, so I was working regular jobs. And I felt like people didn't look at me anymore as a talented person, which is important to me as part of my identity that they think of me as a talented artist. So I felt like all of the ways that other people see me, I lost all of them. And so then I was really depressed for a long time, but eventually started to meet people who turned me on to things like, like meditation, Ayahuasca and different forms of therapy, different ways of trying to understand myself. And this is what has led me out of the woods a little bit. 

It's a tough call. Cause you realize at one point that for most people artistic capacity is like connected to the market value.
Who did tell you that you're dropped? I'm curious. 

So, at the end of the cycle for the self-titled Beggars Group album I went to live for eight months in Berlin and was supposed to be writing the next record – which didn't really happen. Later that year we did put together some demos of new songs that we submit, and then they decide whether there should be another record – and they just said „no“. Back then James was still our manager. So the communication came through him. Actually the American office did offer us the option, they actually said, „it won't be a worldwide deal that, you know, the worldwide says no.“ But anyway, that option was there just to sign with the US. We waited so long on it that eventually they dropped that too. But it makes sense that, I mean, I think it was right in a way that they did, because the band really wasn't in a place to make another record for anybody.That's the thing. It's not that talent or whatever. Well, the magic wasn't there. The people are still there, so whatever abilities you have as a musician or technically are still there, but the magic of the band had gone. So if I were a record label, I also would not have invested in one at that time, you know, „maybe like in a few years, we see the potential for another one.“

But at that exact time there, the chemistry was so gone, like it makes sense to me that it disappeared at that time.  A lot of bands – if they have a decent fan base – do keep making records because there is still a vibe, you can still make a living,. But we just weren't in the place to keep doing that. 

I know exactly which kind of bands you're talking about. Like you always feel like, yeah, but the fire is gone now, it is a job now – fair enough, because a lot of things are jobs. But with arts, we feel like it should be more, it should be the fire, and sure, also the income. So for you as a band, it was clear that it is over, or did you try to write new stuff and get the fire back? 

Well, we did write some new stuff. The last song that we did together is my favorite Voxtrot song: „Berlin without return“.

An excellent song. I love that song.

After that, it just felt like, sad. Like there was so much sadness about how much hope there had been, and then how much hope had gone away. There was just so much sadness. Looking back, I'm glad that I then went away and have had this whole other adventure of life. 

Have there been other bands at the same time around which you would say were kind of similar and they made it and you always looked on their careers. This could have been us.

I mean, I would say a band that shares probably a lot of fans who I'm friends with, who definitely made it is Vampire Weekend.

Yes. They made it.

It's interesting to see how it works. You know, with Voxtrot I used to think, oh, if somebody had signed us right when the first EP came out, when the magic was … when the whole band was still … everything was like … then it would have just gone up like that. But I don't know. I mean, I do believe there is some element that things happen the way they're supposed to happen. Because weirdly over the years – I just know this from watching the Spotify numbers –Voxtrot  music has ended up having this constant slow growth.

What I consider like a Belle and Sebastian effect; that's a band that over the years, especially, rom the mid 90s to the mid 2000s, the word of mouth advertising of that band was just still this constant thing. It kind of defies time. Like the number of years going by doesn't really matter. The love of the music is so organic, is so related to people's emotional attachment to it, that new people, very young people will find it. It kind of doesn't matter what year it is. It just keeps growing slowly all the time. And I found that to be the case a little bit with Voxtrot, you know, messages I receive from young fans on Instagram and, yeah, just seeing the Spotify numbers go up, which is pleasantly surprising to me because I didn't know until recently that that was happening.

So seeing the numbers increasing on Spotify, had that an impact on you making the decision to do a little reunion?

Yeah. You know, it’s an idea that has come up every year for probably the last ten year. It's usually me that says no, because I just felt like it was over. I felt like even though I'm 38, I felt too young to do the reunion thing. It seems silly to me, but probably one year ago. I had a dream that I'm playing on stage with Voxtrot, which I've had dreams about this all the time, and it's always an anxiety dream. Like we've forgotten all the songs, nobody cares about the music or something, but, actually this time it was like a really good dream. I woke up and I still had the feeling of how much I loved that experience. And it was like really positive. And I thought, huh, I think I'm thinking about this wrong. It would be nice to do the shows, because there's still so many people that love it and it doesn't make sense to not do it again for all of these new listeners, like just do one, just do a few shows. Also because those old songs, like the most popular ones exist only online or are hard to find as they only exist on some seven inches or cds, but there's no really good product, there’s no great archive anywhere. It's all like scattered. 

So. It just, I, all of a sudden, like that morning, it just made sense to me that we should do that. And I was like going through Instagram and seeing like how many people of like many age groups were covering Voxtrot songs and had Voxtrot tattoos and stuff. Let's do it one more time!

Wow. That's nuts. How many records – if you mind asking – did you sell back in the day, like artifacts.

Well, we sold of the two most popular EPs which were releases as CD-EPs, like this is just from shows and mail order, we sold somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand of each of those. The album sold 30.000. 

That's enough to spread it out over time and make sure they are still in the collections, like in mine. So people constantly keep playing them and others are listening. 

Jason, our bass player, his job is that he is a rare record collector. And he sees the Voxtrot self-titled record … even if the have them used at Waterloo, when one appears, they go for about a hundred dollars, it's crazy how it works out.

So you were always in close contact with the other guys in the band?  So it was easy to reconnect? Or was it more likely: Okay, we have to call in a meeting here and see if the vibe is there.

Well, for a long time, we were not in close contact, but in the last, probably five years, it's softened a lot. And then we started hanging out a little bit, and now I see him a lot and now it's really good. Now I feel close again. But for a long time: no – I mean, there's a lot of, tension that comes with the collapse of a band. Always, I think. 

Yeah. Cause I mean, there must be a lot of complaining about each other, like, like: „if you would not have fucked up that gig, which was so important..“

I think everybody – at least at Voxtrot – sees that some decisions are so adamant. You don't always know exactly, like maybe sometimes you should listen to other people who you're working with. Sometimes it's good to stick to your guns. So this is like, how life is, you don't know anything until you see it in hindsight. 

And also so too many people, as you mentioned said: „you’re great, you’re fantastic, you are awesome.“ At that stage you are pumped up, you believe it. And then somebody tells you like, „maybe you should do that“ – like why? No, I know it better. Cause I'm great. I'm fantastic. And awesome. You know, where your first gig gonna be? Do you have a special place for it? Or do you play the first one in a garage in Tennessee, in case things don’t work out. 

Well, definitely not in the garage in Tennessee. It's at Webster Hall in New York City.

Hello. That's a nice venue for a comeback show.

Yeah, I'm trying to get them to this… So this town that Jason lives in  – a little town called Lockhart – is really cute. Anyway, I want to do one secret show there before. So I guess it wouldn't be a secret now…

Pssst, nobody heard it. 

Nobody from Germany will come to that show.

You never know, people are traveling again. 

It would be amazing.

To jump back in the in-between years, which are obviously also still happening, because you're working on your solo career – how easy was it just to be restart as a solo performer?

Not easy at first. I mean, there's the expectation that it will be easy because, because Voxtrot has a big following. There's the expectation that that will just naturally transfer over, but you find out very fast that that’s … I think I read it a Clive Davis book when he's talking, telling Paul Simon – when Simon & Garfunkel stopped – that it is almost impossible to break the power of the institution. Like if the institution is Simon &  Garfunkel, it's very hard, no matter what art you produce to break the love of the institution in the public's mind. It often doesn't work. But sometimes it works, like a Michael Jackson is a pretty good example. George Michael is a pretty good example. 

I was thinking of him too. But you should not forget: he was pretty young, e. So I think you have to break it early enough because otherwise you're right when the institution is already like a legacy, then it's, it's harder. If you have like three, four, five records in, because then people are, they have too much of their lives spent with you – and then a change? No, a change feels weird. 

Yeah, totally. So it's not easy at first and can be very demoralizing because you expect so much and, and you feel like you're not receiving it, but in the long run, actually, I feel good about it because it has challenged me to go back to the starting point of like wanting to really become a better and better musician. The more simple I make the relationship between me and music, the more it works. I find that if I'm really dedicated to working on my singing voice and to working on my songwriting and my playing, then it creates – when I'm working with other people on my solo stuff and I'm not thinking about the past, and I'm not thinking about whether it's difficult or easy for me to be a solo artist, – lots of good stuff. And it's like the potential for it to grow and grow and grow is actually there. I know from history, from a Clive Davis book that it's hard, you know what I'm saying? Like the potential is actually there. It's just that we're so used to thinking of life in what we know about it from the past.

If you talk to younger people who started at point zero, as you said: there are still so many possibilities out there, and they build up the same careers. To come back to Wet Leg as I saw them yesterday here at SXSW. I don't have the feeling that they think like, nothing is possible. They were standing on stage with the same big eyes as you maybe, or Franz Ferdinand in 2004 or Block Party, and are thinking: „What the fuck is going on? It's crazy. So much is happening.“ And of course, it's possible. It's just like, like you should have, you should think about the the the banks from yesterday.

Yeah. And, and it continues to be possible even after the initial buzz goes away. It continues to be possible, but I think it's a growth relationship. If you're staying with music for a lifetime, you're always you're growing with it, you know? I think it's challenging you to constantly go deeper into yourself.
It can sometimes feel incredibly difficult because I feel spread ,so stretched, so thin, you know, but, yeah, it makes life very clear because I feel very committed to something. And it's obvious to me, like, I feel very, very committed to it, and it's extremely empowering, because I see what I am capable of doing, which is a lot, like, I see that.
For example, like the video for „Eternal Spring“, which is the title track of the album, which is made at a pretty professional level, you know. I came up with the idea for the video, I went to new Orleans to scout the locations and then said, „okay, I have four months to put together $5,000 to make this video“ – which for me is a lot of money, because I work in a restaurant, you know, so: how am I going to do this?
I had the restaurant job and I was teaching at a private school during the day. What did you teach?  First I was teaching for reading disabilities, like dyslexia, but I was also teaching math and different subjects. So I was teaching during the day, and then on the weekends, I was catering weddings, like setting up and serving the food and stuff. I knew that I had to have these three jobs to create this video and just didn't have a day off basically for five months, but worked constantly through it and then went down there with this film crew and the choreographers and everything. It was like, everything just barely worked, but still, you know, was able to make this thing that normally in the past I would have thought, „oh, I must have the help of a record label. I must have other people to help me with the ideas.“ I mean, other people helped, like the cinematographer was like, incredible. I’m not saying I did everything by myself, but I'm saying the grand vision is actually achievable through individual hard work and then working with other people, you don't always need somebody who quote / unquote knows more than you do to make this possible.
And it is that way with the album too, it took a long time, but in the end I was able to create something utilizing orchestra players, like all this stuff that's that is difficult to figure out logistically how to make it happen. But I learned that you could do it by yourself.

Also one thing you just described: you learn over the years, like how much you can put in one day or one week or one month as well. I remember when I started writing, like writing a review was a day thing, or doing an article for a big newspaper was like something the week was dominated with.
And now like over the years you learn how much you can put in and still you get the quality out of it, because you're more experienced, but also you have a different approach of looking at things, maybe you are more professional you could say, or more experienced, you bring things together.
The one thing I recognized this week you played a big South by Southwest show. You work the day before, you worked the day after, you went to Houston for another gig and you worked the day after. I mean, this is like, if you compare that to the Voxtrot days, you would have partied after the gig and would have been totally destroyed and then you would have played the next gig and keep going and going partying. So it's a very different approach, but it's working too, right. 

This to me is the difference between treating it as a lifetime career versus something that's just part of my youth. For me it's a life – this is what I'm doing with my life. That is a division that becomes very clear when you go into your 30s. All the artists you know, you see a lot of people, they say, „okay, that was part of my past. And now I'm on this different part of life.“ But if it's really your life and that's really what you're doing, you would adjust your life so that it's possible, you know, so that you make sure that it is possible for you to keep doing this thing that you love so much and you organize everything else around it.

To paint the picture correctly. You also do other things on the side, to make money: you write for other people songs, you write sometimes for advertisement, but you choose very carefully. And that's what I also admire – the restaurant shop is also part of a process of making sure you don't do bad stuff or stuff you don't feel like … cause the music has a certain holiness for you, it is not just about the pay check. 

Well, to be honest, I've tried to work on some less holy projects, like I always wanted to get – when I was in LA,  seeing people making money with licensing for  advertising – these gigs and earn $30,000.

I see, you are not the angel I thought. 

Sadly not. But actually, so far it never happened like that. When I've tried to go out of integrity, it hasn't really worked. There's some weird thing about it. 

It is not made for everybody. 

I was thinking writing songs with another band, like that's not really who I am.

Like, I do my own thing, but then it's humbling to see that actually some songs that I've written with other bands ended up keeping me paying the rent for a few months. Now I see it differently. Even if I write a song with another artist and it's not a song that is like coming from my heart, it's actually still a good use of my musical knowledge. Like as long as I'm having fun doing it, then it's a good thing. I just see it differently now. 

How do I have to imagine the process of writing with another artist? Because obviously it's not like with a band, where you meet every week, like two or three times, and there's a closer connection – you are meeting for one weekend session or like even one day only. Can you describe like maybe a significant one?

Yeah. Like, with the HAIM song … ..

so you co-wrote a song of HAIM? From the current album? 

The song is titled „Now I´m in it“. Yeah, I wrote … my friend Rostam Batmanglij who was in Vampire Weekend as a writer, producer etc … I remember I have been to the movies to see „Crazy Rich Asians“ and leaving the movies, it was like 9:30 or something.

Quality cinema.

I was leaving the theater and he called me and said, „oh, like we're writing the song and we're stuck on the lyrics. Like, can you come help us with the lyrics?“ And I went over there that night and, yeah, it was interesting, because it's kind of scary just, well, it's also funny because that’s a band of three sisters, you know. You are not walking into a room with one artist, It’s me walking into the room with my friend and three Haim sisters that are, they're all trying to write this song. And I'm thinking like, well, I'm one person, like how much will I be able to add to this already group of four people to write this song? They had the backing track, they had a kind of idea for the melody: And then I, I listened to her, you know, like not sing, cause they didn't have words yet, but like kind of mouth the syllables, how it should be. The first suggestion is like the scariest, because you really don't know if people will like this – it is so dumb or, this is so cool. It's like, you know, they're a popular band. So I'm kind of feeling like, I really want this to work. So the first thing that came into my head ended up being the first line of the song. Like it came into my head and I was like, here we go. They were like, „yeah, that seems good.“ And then from there it felt pretty … I don't know if easy is the word, you still hit these like roadblocks every hour or so. And then no one can think of anything; and then somebody will come up with something, but once it started going, then it made sense to me how it happens.

So you wrote that song lyrics in one night after you have been to the cinema, which will maybe was nice, cause you were not like the whole day thinking I'm going to the studio. 

Well, we wrote a lot of it that night and then we went back the next afternoon to finish it. 

Just to understand it right: This is kind of a linear writing process. You start in the beginning of the song and then you go on and on and on. And then you do loops again where you fix little things and change little things or?

Yeah, pretty much. And then they ended up doing the bridge like months later – the bridge is nice, very like short dreamy passage, but they ended up doing that months afterward before it came out. But, yeah, it's a weird thing because you're kind of always looking for continuity. You need it to make sense and stay in the theme and you don't want to repeat yourself. I mean, it's like that anyway when I work by myself, writing my own songs, it is like that also. But I would say: my songs tend to take, probably more poetic license, are like less bound to … I don't know how to explain it. Like, I give myself more freedom to work with poetic imagery without it being directly like within, like, this is what the song is about, you know? And also I think like my lyrics tend to be more like heart on your sleeve. Like big emotional statements, you know what I'm saying? So it's a different feeling working with them or working with Rostam is a different feeling, but it's interesting how it still works.

Did you leave the room after that session and have the feeling like, okay, that song is going to be for sure on the record, I made a great job here! And is one expecting that this will lead to a second song? Or does it more likely feel like „I´m the fix doctor“, my friend knows that I'm the right person to call in that moment, which is like genius as a producer. You are stuck and you call somebody and it works out and the song is there. Which is of course the best case and I am sure there are situations where it does not work out. „Whom did you bring in here?“ And there is another lost night. 

I felt like it was good. I’m not saying just because of me. Actually, even before I added anything to it, when they played the track to me, which at that point had only the chorus, I already found it was good.

So then by the time that we finished writing the verses and stuff I was like, oh yeah, this seems really good to me. And the song was stuck in my head for like a year. Like it never left my head. So I felt obvious to me. Eight months later or something, when I was in LA again, and I saw Rostam, he was like, „oh yeah, Columbia wants to make that song a single“. I was really happy, but also I had felt like that. It seemed clear to me that that was a single – even without having heard all of the record.

Have you seen them perform that song live?

No.

So now when they're touring you will …

Yeah. But I love the video by Paul Thomas Anderson, I thought it was really sweet. This is something I already know from my own career, but it’s nice to be reminded of this thing I once read this in a Fran Healy interview, and I think it's a very good, true statement: „All big songs start as little ones.“ Once you have success, it's easy to forget that, like you go into every new songwriting thing thinking: I have to make a big song. But you forget, it doesn't really happen like that. It actually happens from like very small moments of inspiration. It's like a weird psychological trick. 

The  same goes for writing, each time at a start you're like: how should I fill like four pages now? And then, when it's done, it's like, oh yeah. Cause somehow I got it in me, but every time in the beginning, you're like doubting it. Is this really working? Do I have enough material here? Did I do my research? Can I really kick it off? And then at the end you write too much .. But it's surprising because that's also a part of, like accepting the magic of the process, I guess, because this is magic: there is nothing and suddenly there is something there. 

Yes.

You mentioned Glasgow, you mentioned Los Angeles, you mentioned Berlin. So you've been living in three other significant cities. And now you're back in Austin, where you were also born. I would be interested in like, how does it feel to be back here?

As somebody who was saw Austin in the early 2000s for the first time when the Eastside was still like a no-go area, or some parts of it were like a nice neighborhood and now you would go back to neighborhoods and the houses are destroyed for big skyscrapers and everywhere there a signs saying „I buy houses cash“ – which is pretty much like taking advantage of people, try to get their houses. So what I wanted to say is like, this city is dominated by a very fast, very heavy gentrification.  At the same time it's one of the cultural hubs off of the United States of America. Here is so much music, here is a great university. How does all that feel for somebody who is not just like coming by here once a year for a week for south by, someone who is living here and who knows the history of the town? How do you feel about it and how do you feel being back after all the years in different cities? 

You take, like what is known about Austin, which is like that it is so physically naturally beautiful, and that it has this hippie ethos, you know, that Willie Nelson is the patron saint of Austin, you know, from this time in the early seventies when it was a very cheap, very relaxed, really liberal place with cowboys and hippies, this magic thing that people love so much. That is the spirit. The spirit is actually a really humble thing. The spirit of Austin I think is really sweet and humble. I don't know if the word is problem, but the reality now is that when people are attracted to something like that, and it starts to be seen … because I overhear conversations all the time where people are just talking about the city, as I'm sure they do with every city, as an investment.

Let's go back for the last question on your turf. There was developments the city's going through, what's the impact on the music scene? Do you have the feeling it's harder to establish here as a musician now? As everything is more expensive. Do you also have the feeling that less artists are coming to town from outside to live here?

I think that the days of people coming here to live a true artist’s life – that can be either sleeping on the floor or in a five-star hotel –, people coming here to live that like where they're really just in it for their art is probably a lot less. Because the promise of a cheap life in exchange for the freedom to make art is essentially nonexistent. The idea that an artist should be careerist is like, just considered to be the truth now. Like the idea that the artists should be thinking about Spotify numbers. And should be thinking about getting a manager. And a booking agent. And should be thinking about their brand quote, unquote, this is like considered to just obviously be true. Whereas I feel like in the past, I remember reading I think it was Noel Gallagher that was talking about how, like, in the early days of Oasis, he was like, „we were never thinking about our career. We were in what we were doing, we were like into being in a rock band and like really living that life.“ And then the career comes as a structure that supports that. And so, yeah, in a really expensive city, you can't move there and decide that you're just going to kind of solely be thinking about your art and not being materially oriented. It's impossible. Like you cannot survive.

So what's your biggest wish for 2022 from now on if you have one free? 

My biggest wishes is to keep moving forward with what I'm doing. You know, I finally feel like I'm back in life, I’m back in the world doing the thing that I love the most; and my wishes for that is to become a stable reality so that I can just live that life.

All best of the luck for that. Thanks for talking so long to me. 

Thank you.