| Der
Spiegel: Mr.Hütter, due to classic electropop-hits
like "Autobahn" and "The Robots", Kraftwerk is the most influential german
band. Is it possible, that glory paralysed you so much, needing 16 years
to releases a new album, whose titel just remembers to an old Kraftwerk
track? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Do you believe, we're gonna walk
the whole day around, and gonna knock us fill with enthusiasm on our shoulders?
Nonsense - we are quiet normal music workers and are full employed with
Kraftwerk in our little studio in Düsseldorf. And there is no 4 year or
20 year plan. The last time we released less, but if necessary, we could
increase our speed every time. |
| Der
Spiegel: Your new album's titel is "Tour the France
Soundtracks", your famous older composition "Tour de France" is one of the
basics of this album. What are the sources of your passion for cycling? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Everyone of us four (-funny!-) is
cycling and drove some stages. Cycling is movement and freedom, sitting
an a bicycle you feel free, a little bit autonomic. Like our music it is
related to concentration and speed, and our yearning to reach new limits.
Also cycling gives us a long respiration and helps us, to fight against
the destroying power of the music business. Dont forget: we are here for
33 years now. |
| Der
Spiegel: Were you influenced by the 100th Tour
de France anniversary, to release your new work just now? |
| Ralf
Hütter: The idea for the album came to us
20 years ago. At that time, we wrote it as a script for a film. But it didn't
click for us until last year, when we gave the concerts in Paris and when
our robots were exhibited in the museum there. Then could we bring our plans
to an end. |
| Der
Spiegel: Are you gonna watch the Tour live? |
| Ralf
Hütter: The organzation of Societé
du Tour de France, invited us to view from helicopter and car. |
| Der
Spiegel: Are you disturb, that Kraftwerk musicians
such as sport athlets are described as human machines? |
| Ralf
Hütter: The important is: we are talking
about man machines and not about machine man. It is the harmony which is
necessary for a lithely sense of being. The frenchman claim, then you can't
feel the pedals. |
| Der
Spiegel: You play your songs always live in concerts.
Are you angry, that a lot of people think, electronic music just tootles
simply with a push on a button out of the machines? |
| Ralf
Hütter: I hope that this mistaken belief
now is enlightened. In the seventies, we had our first first big success,
there were a lot of reproaches like: Kraftwerk is existing of primitively
button pusher. We disputed this in our scripts: In "Pocket Calculator" we
said: "Und wenn ich diese Taste drück, spielt er ein kleines Musikstück."
The supporter of such named "handmade" music always forget, that the handmade
music too is a result of creative constructed instruments and most needs
electricity. |
| Der
Spiegel: What is fascinating in technique? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Machines always are seemed badly.
We never thought so. Together, we work with machines. Between the machines
and us there is a fellowship. |
| Der
Spiegel: A companionship with machines? |
| Ralf
Hütter: We play the machines and the machines
play us. That is real. When we leave the concertstage, the machines continue.
That thought inspired us to develop the robots. We wanted fungibility, division
of labor, reproduction, automatism and similar ideas. |
| Der
Spiegel: Is it a victory for you that today successfully
musicians play electronics which you have done in the seventhies? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Today you have much possibilities
which we dreamed once upon a time when we started. Then, computers were
big cabinets. Today everything fits in a laptop, you can comfortably travel
the world with. |
| Der
Spiegel: How can we imagine the work in the legendary
"Kling Klang Studio", which is rumoured, that there is no telephon and no
fax? |
| Ralf
Hütter: It's now for 33 years our electronic
laboratory, our work needs concentration. We are seven days a week in the
studio. We start late in the afternoon and end late in the evening. We introduced
a 168 hour week for us. |
| Der
Spiegel: And do you spend the whole time in your
studio just for music? |
| Ralf
Hütter: No. We develop concepts, formuls
and thinking models. We don't spend our time on making 20 versions of a
song only to leave 19 in the closet. We work target related. What we are
starting we release. Our storage is empty. |
| Der
Spiegel: Despite of full respect, in foreign countries,
Kraftwerk is seemed as a typical german band, dissociate, cold, perfectly
and very effectively. What is typical german for Kraftwerk in your opinion? |
| Ralf
Hütter: Of course we are a result of Federal
Republic of Germany and the post-war- culture, but it is more related to
european identity. When we started at the end of the sixties, our abandonment
was to create a new language. European writers and picturemakers tried similar. |
| Der
Spiegel: With the album "Autobahn" in 1975 you
arrived in the front rows of USA billboard. Are you surprised, that from
the beginning the USA black music scene were very excited for the sounds
of Kraftwerk? |
| Ralf
Hütter: No. We have always believed that
machines have a spirit, and that has a lot to do with soul and black music
. But we was astonished, as we met in the middle of the seventies in America´s
discotheques and clubs black DJs who mixed with two record players neverending
tracks of "Trans Europe Express". |
| Der
Spiegel: How have you handled the magic art, to
be famous with Kraftwerk, but to be namelessly as a person? |
| Ralf
Hütter: We never be compatible with a scenery.
I think we are respected like scientists, dentist and clerks. For that what
we are: music workers. |
|
|
|
Interview
to Christoph Dallach
|
| Translation
to english by Reiner Röbisch - Bobingen - Germany |
|
