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| Interview with Klaus Schulze |  |
Q: Please talk about the work you did in PSY FREE. Are there any
surviving recordings?
KS: No, there were no recordings made. Why should we, or someone
else? Nobody ever had the idea then. PSY FREE was a trio consisting of
guitar, organ and drums. I was the drummer. We did what the name
suggests: psychedelic, free music. Not "free jazz" -- which was in
common at this time, but our music was more rock orientated noise.
We played only in Berlin clubs.
Q: How did you come to work with TANGERINE DREAM? What was your,
Edgar's and Conrad's idea about the band and its music? What did
you think of its later music? And:
How was ASH RA TEMPEL? What was the idea behind this group?
KS: There was no "idea" behind. Please understand that we did it not
with today's retrospect view. We just did it. Then. And we had fun doing
it. This goes for both bands, TD as well as A.R.T. Tangerine Dream:
One evening their regular drummer was absent, and I joined instead.
And I kept the drum chair for the following eight months or so. During
this time we also recorded the first TD album. I told the following story
very often: At one of our concerts I tried to play some organ tapes that
I had recorded and treated in an uncommon way. Edgar didn't like that.
He wanted just a drummer for his guitar/bass/drums group, and no
"funny" experiments. Therefore, I left. Conrad Schnitzler followed soon.
In a friendly way, it was no big thing then. Nobody really cared. We
all were more or less amateurs, beginners, there was no big money
involved. Bands came and vanished. Young people founded groups,
joined groups, left groups, disbanded groups, members changed
constantly among groups...
Q: You are now a solo player. Do you enjoy working in bands?
KS: I'm a musician. I also like to play with others, sometimes more,
sometimes less. It happened a few years later that I played with Edgar
and Chris again, and with Manuel and Hartmut. There is nothing special
behind it or about it. Still today Manuel is a good friend. The others I see
rarely, but with Edgar I phone from time to time.
Q: What did you lead to go solo?
KS: I went solo because I could do much better what I wanted to do. I
didn't have to ask or discuss things and ideas that are already shaped
in my head.
Q: It's been suggested that John Cage, Terry Riley and Karlheinz
Stockhausen influenced your work. Is this fair?
KS: "Fair"? Neither fair nor unfair. Better words would be: nonsense,
absurd, false. Everytime a journalist cannot cope (pun intended) with a
certain music, he mentions "Stockhausen" as a kind of synonym. Have
you ever checked Stockhausen's output? About 5 (five) compositions
that could be called "electronic", and they were done 30 to 40 years
ago, made with an oscillator or something like this. He did over hundred
of other compositions that have no relation whatsoever to electronic
music. Besides, what I heard meanwhile, sounds awful to my ears and
to most other people's ears and hearts. Stockhausen is maybe a good
theorist. Who's listening voluntarily to his actual music, who "enjoys" it?
I also had and I have nothing to do with Cage or Riley. Neither with their
music nor with their theories and philosophies (if they have any...). I
have nothing against it, but this is simply not my world. When I started
to do my music, and before, I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and Pink
Floyd, before it was the Spotnicks and the Ventures, but not to the
names you mention. Nobody in my surrounding and in my age did. This
was a kind of "culture" that just did not exist among us. Only many
years after, and because every second journalist asked me about
"Stockhausen", I finally bought his theoretic books and I read them.
Interesting stuff, I must admit, but the musical results are still not my
cup of tea.
(From another interview, two years earlier:)
I'm really tired of hearing this name: "Stockhausen". Have you ever
checked how many "electronic" compositions he did? For the last 20
years not one. This friendly religious man does not even own a mixing
desk (Which is no crime, of course. But it shows some things), not to
mention that he never searched seriously for synthetic sounds. What
he did before, in the fifties and sixties, was not at all "electronic", in the
sense we understand it since Robert Moog and Walter Carlos' profound
works. I have nothing against Stockhausen and his theories, but his
music was and is of no big interest to me, not to mention: influence.
When Edgar (Froese) and I started 25 years ago with our wild and
weird sounds in the Berlin underground, we listened to Pink Floyd, to
some American West Coast bands, or to Jimi Hendrix - but not to any
dry "serious" German theoretic composer. Be it Henze, or
Stockhausen, or anybody else. There is no "myth" behind
Stockhausen. It's just that one inept writer copies from the other this
magical word: "Stockhausen". An Italian friend recently told me: There
are many journalists who don't know much about a certain music. If
those writers try to give a name to a kind of music which is beyond their
understanding, they call it "Stockhausen". There are many of these
writers.
Q: I've heard that you've done some work with music therapy?
KS: This was because I had a girlfriend then (circa 1973) who was
working in a mental hospital. Among other things they used musical
therapy, and because I was a musician (and the doctors were certainly
tired of always the same therapeutic music) I was asked to make some
tapes for them, which I did. It was an, h'm, "interesting" experience. A
totally different world.
Q: Could you talk about the 10-day concert you gave in April 1973, this
'sound environment'?
KS: You got all this little info from The Works, don't you? Yes, I was
invited, or better: hired, to do the sound environment at a booth of a
huge electronic company, during the international Hanover Industrial
Fair in 1973. It was a job. Slightly good paid. But not as much as my
producer then told the press. And many printed this hokum: "First
cosmic millionaire". Nonsense.
Q: Does the keyboard influence your music or is it vice-versa, that the
music dictated which keyboards to use?
KS: Indeed, there is a kind of reciprocal relation. Sometimes a new
instrument (keyboard or others) is very good or challenging and the
influence is large. Then I use the tool extensively. There are also new
instruments (keyboards or others) which are not so groundbreaking,
and they have no big influence on my playing. But isn't that normal?
With every instrumentalist? Should I mention Glenn Gould and his love
for a certain piano, even a very old chair...? Not to mention all those
guitar heros with their liking for a Gibson Les Paul, or a Fender
Stratocaster...
Q: Timewind was dedicated to RICHARD WAGNER. Was he of any
influence on you?
KS: I dig Wagner. But I also dig J.J. Cale.
Q: Could you talk about your collaborations with Stomu Yamashta
(Go)?
KS: Stomu was and is a fine man and an inspiration. I liked the hours
and days I worked and spoke with him. Also I met Michael Shrieve
during this collaboration. I also enjoyed work with him at later times.
Q: In 1977, you did shows at the London Planetarium. Do you feel this
is an ideal atmosphere for your music?
KS: After I had the idea to play there, I had to learn that it was the very
first time that a concert was given in a planetarium! I don't know if a
planetarium is the ideal place for each and every music. As most
musicians, I care for a good sound. Some concert places have a good
sound, some have not. A planetarium with its hemisphere shape is
difficult to play, if I remember well. There are echoes and shattering
from all sides, if you play too loud. In fact, I don't exactly remember
what it was like, then, twenty years ago, in London.
Q: There are a lot of 'electronic' and 'classical' elements to your work.
Do you combine the two?
KS: You cannot compare "electronics" and "classical music".
"Electronic" is the way I generate my melodies and rhythms (and not
"just a lot of it" but generally).
KS: Sorry to take away your naive believing: I did not start IC and
Inteam to have control over my music. I had control before and after. A
look at my discography shows this, because my albums were still with
another company when I started IC and after. I never had many
problems to do my music and to give it to a record company. Rarely
they try to argue with me about my music, probably because it's still too
far-out. Who wants to argue about a thing that he doesn't understand?
The problems were sometimes the journalists who also did not
understand much of my music but wrote about it.
Q: Audentity (1983) was a very interesting album. How did this
come about?
KS: I used the wonderful cello player before, and Michael Shrieve's
drumming, as well as Rainer Bloss' piano playing. It's nice to hear that
you seem to like this album. "How did this come about?" What should
I answer? It's some years ago. Doing music and albums is my
profession. I don't remember today how it "came about" Audentity.
Just another fine album...
KS: Could you talk about the meetings you had with ROBERT MOOG and
PINK FLOYD in 1995?
KS: These meetings were private. I was a fan of PINK FLOYD in the
sixties. And I always loved the Moog sound. It is legendary. I met
Robert Moog face to face first during an electronic festival in Austria in
1980. I did the opening concert there, and we were both in the jury to
choose which newly invented electronic music instrument gets a prize.
Later we phoned, and we met again on a music fair here in Germany.
My interest in his new toy, the Theremin, isn't as big as it was and still
is for his old Moogs. A Theramin simply does not fit into my way of
playing music. I do not want to fiddle around with my hands in the air.
Looks silly.
Q: You've been using sampling of music in the last few years. How has
that changed your work?
KS: Sampling is a much easier way to do what I did long ago with
tape loops. The sampling technique is faster, cleaner, anything you
want. It's the digital revolution.
Q: Were you surprised by the recent interest in your work by techno
and ambient musicians and DJs?
KS: First, yes. Now I'm used to it. It was in Paris in 1993 where I had to
give during two days many interviews, one after another. The first three
journalists' starting words were "Klaus what do you say that people call
you the Father of Techno?". Gladly the fourth journalist was an old
friend and I asked him about this and he explained to me a few things.
From then on I had not only an answer but peeked a bit into this
scenery.
Q: What kind of directions do you see your music taking in the
future?
KS: Nearly every interview closes with such a question. Which is okay,
but what should I say except: I don't know. It depends on so many
things. I hope never to get boring. If an artist cannot amaze people
anymore, that's the end. One piece on the coming Jubilee Edition
bears the title: Verblüffe sie! which in English is: Bewilder them! And
that's all that is necessary in art. You should not bore people.
Q: Could you tell us 5 or 10 albums/CDs that are your personal
favourites?
KS: As everybody else, I'm not much interested in other people's
record collection. Just because I'm a musician, people have an interest
in my record collection? I don't want to bother people with my
momentary personal taste. Besides, this changes. Old music, new
music... In fact, nothing special or outstanding. If I think about it, I must
admit that I don't even own something that could be called a record
collection...
"You Should Not Bore People"
Then I founded Ash Ra Tempel. The two guys, Manuel and Hartmut,
were playing a kind a fast blues rock when I met them. My fast
bassdrum style impressed them. From Blues we changed to "Space"
rock.
I also played with Stomu Yamash'ta and his "super groups" in 1976 and
1977. Besides, I played in bands before T.D. or Ash Ra Tempel. This was
in the sixties.
"Classical" is a given style in music. I don't interpret "classical"
music (there was one exception, where I did exactly this. But I think you
don't mean that).
I invent and play my own music, and I do this with electronic means.
This was sensational once, because it was unusual. Today it's normal
in most music, except in the "classical" field where they treat music like
a dusty fetish in a museum. Which is okay, and if I think about it for a
while: could be even good because music mustn't be always "new" and
in vogue.
Maybe some of my compositions remind you on some "classical"
music? Some of the Beatles' stuff reminds me on some classical
(baroque) music. That's the way the cookie crumbles.
Q: You started Innovative Communications and Inteam to control your
own music. Did you find the problems with these companies taught
you anything about the music business?
I think you fell into the usual trap laid out by parts of the press and other
writers, which is in the meantime a "given truth", yes, a myth: That the
poor musician has always to fight the evil companies and managers.
No, it isn't so easy. Because, also the world of showbiz is not just black
or white, good or bad.
Because I had these record companies, I could clearly see that 90% of
a success depends on the artist himself. It is him who has to get active,
to get across, to get in motion, to get the best of it. Not many are able
to do this. What I saw instead were musicians who just waited that the
company will make them famous over night.
I had to realize that the use of samples has its rules, too. If you use
"normal" sound samples, nobody takes notice because it's just not very
special. If you use sensational good and exotic samples, everybody will
notice: Ahhhh! Great! ...but very soon the same people get tired of it.
Extraordinary samples you can use only once, but never a second time,
except maybe for a quotation. Yes, sampling has changed not just my
way of playing and composing. For instance, I stored all the sounds of
my old instruments into a sampling archive, and could get rid of these
heavy, unstable tools. If I want to play a Mellotron, I use now the
sampled sound on a master keyboard ... instead of the old mellotron
keyboard with its unsteady mechanical tape loop cassettes.
