Maerzfeld interview, English version

Maerzfeld interview English translation 

Original article in Swedish: http://www.slavestate.se/?e=2513

Maerzfeld were founded by the Rammstein tribute band Stahlzeit in 2009. The idea came from a lyric that the frontman Heli Reißenweber had written. The rest of the band are: Matthias Sitzmann (Guitar), Mike Sitzmann (Guitar), Thilo Weber ( Keyboards), Bora Öksuz (Bass) and Michael Frischbier (Drums). The name for the band comes from the expression, March field. In the mediaeval times you sowed your seeds in March for the summer and the harvests. It can mean hope and new times but the Romans also used the expression when they gathered their troups to discuss new strategies. The Nazis were inspired by the Romans and Hitler’s architect Albert Speer started to build a gigantic Maerzfeld for their parades outside Nürnberg. The band have absolutely nothing to do with the extreme right or neo-nazis. They invited Slavestate’s Maria Bergman to their tour bus to discuss the unfortunate associations, the Rammstein label and a lot more before one of their shows in Berlin. Heli the vocalist looks strikingly like Till in Rammstein. He doesn’t just resemble him but he also sounds like him. Because of this it is not so surprising that they formed a Rammstein cover band, Stahlzeit in 2005.

-       We had played with other cover bands before that, who played things like Metallica, says Matthias the guitarist. We got the idea for a Rammstein tribute because Heli’s voice is so similar to Till’s and then we started working on a show.

Stahlzeit are Germany’s most successful Rammstein cover band because they don’t just look and sound like them but they have also managed to recreate their spectacular show. Isn’t that expensive and also a bit dangerous?

-       We bulit everything ourselves and hired professional pyrotechnicians, explains Heli. It is not so easy to buy a flamethrower. You can’t just walk in to a shop and ask for one. On stage we have to be very careful and know exactly where to stand. So no heavy drinking is allowed before a show. It is ok to play their music but we had to ask for permission for the stage show. We have not met them but they know about us and approve of us. It’s not neccesary  to copy everything they do. It is our interpretation and I draw the line at dying my hair blond and wear a fluffy pink jacket.

The dream of playing music started early. Heli learned to play the accordeon and the organ in school.The accordeon played a prominent role in one of Maerzfeld’s songs, “Hübschlerein.

 But it is Thilo the keyboard player that plays it in that one.  

They might use the instrument again in the future. 

Before they could make a living of their music they did all kinds of jobs. 

Bora the bassist for example was washing up dishes but the dream of playing music was always there. Kurt Cobain and bands like Metallica and Guns n’ Roses inspired him.

Mike the other guitarist who is Matthias’ son and of course a lot younger than the others was inspired by Swedish In Flames and naturally his father.

Isn’t it a bit strange to play in the same band like your dad?

-       I don’t have any problems at all playing with him. My father is also my best friend who made my life. I wanted to play guitar at an early age and I started with him.

-       At the beginning we had three other musicians, explains Heli. The drummer Thomas Buchberger still plays with Stahlzeit. He also has a normal job so he is not availbale all the time. We divide our time so the tribute shows are on weekends and Maerzfeld takes up the rest. Michael is a professional musicician.

-       So, I don’t have a job and more time, adds Michael.

-       It was the same with our first guitarist, Roland Hagen, explains Matthias. He had other jobs and wanted to move to Mannheim near Karlsruhe.  Our Bassist, Samir Elflein had problems with his health and that is why he had to leave.

They released their first self produced album, “Tief” under the band name Maerzfeld in November 2011. I couldn’t help but to ask if they knew about the Nazi associations with the name.

-       Of course we knew about it, starts Heli, but we wanted to show that at some point there must be an end to the past. That time is interesting but we have absolutely nothing to do with it! The expression Maerzfeld dates back to the mediaeval times and before that. It is philosophical and means that you always have to sow new seeds and work on. Keep on moving and then you can enjoy your harvest. We thought that we have had enough of bad concious and guilt feelings. Time to move on! Everyone here, don’t want that time to return and have nothing to do with the far right.

-       It’s a pity that the theme even comes up, adds Thilo the Keyboard player. That time is gone and so it shall stay!

-       Sometimes Rammstein also plays a little bit with imagery from that time but that is just because they want to be provocative and I don’t think they have anything to with the right extremists, says Matthias.

-       The name did help with some attention and on the first album we have a song called “Vaterland”, continues Heli. It is not about what you think but the opposite.We want people to listen and think. The people at our concerts are definitely not right-wing! Bora our bassist is from Turkey so we can’t be!

-       Yes, and also from old Yugoslavia over Bulgaria. A bit mixed, says Bora.

At this the rest of the band reacts surprised and say they didn’t know that.

-       You could have found out if you asked but you don’t care do you? Nazis! Adds Bora jokingly.

Their second album “Fremdkörper” was released in March. This time produced by Simon Michael (Subway to Sally) and Fabio Trentini.

-       We do everything together and at the last stage some experienced sound technicians and producers will arrange our ideas, explains Thilo.

-       It varies with what the producers do, says Matthias. When you work as intensely as we do with the music, you need an outsider towards the end who objectively can do the fine tuning.

Heli writes all the lyrics. Does he have a special message?

-       We want to hold a mirror in front of everyone, so they can reflect over  their lives. Not point a finger but just show them what’s going on. Like for example, “Muttertag” is about holy wars and religious fanatics and how many people get involved in them. It is not really a political message more about making people aware. I wrote “Letzte Sommer” because one of my friends died and I never had a chance to say goodbye. So there is personal stuff in my lyrics as well. I started to wonder about when you die, who is it that really mourns you? Who is your real true friend that will  miss you? I staged my own funeral in my mind and realised that the only one was your own mother.

-       Heli writes down everything that happens and what he experiences on paper and interprets it, says Matthias.

-       Somewhere you read that a child has been raped, continues Heli. That urges me to write about how sick humanity can be. The first album “Tief” is more personal and the second album “Fremdkörper” is not so much about my private life but about subjects that deserves to be brought up.  The title song “Fremdkörper” is a good example which is about people that don’t feel comfortable in their own bodies, like trans sexuals. It can also be about individuals that don’t feel like they fit in to society, a relationship or their work. When we worked with the song though it was just about a man who became a woman.

-       Everyone sometimes feels like a stranger in their environment, says Bora. All this with selfies for example is a way to stage your life for a bit  of attention. Just so everyone can see that you fit in. You are not really yourself though but an “Alien Body” (Fremdkörper). Some things we only do to show how “cool” we are.

I wondered if the band had ever thought about fitting in to an international market with making songs in english?

-       No, that’s not neccesary, says Heli.

-       We could do a song in Turkish, adds Bora.

-       Or Spanish, continues Heli. It is a magical language. I don’t speak it but I like the way it sounds.

-       French as well, adds Matthias.

-       Yes, like in “La Petite Mort”, says Heli. The little death that means orgasm in French. The song is actually about a rape that ends with death. You don’t think of that because it has such a positive and happy melody. Like I said I want people to listen properly and think.  I was thinking about my daughter and that she is that age when you fall in love quickly. What could happen if she met some false betrayer?

With their next album they want to shake off the Rammstein label.  They have already taken a big step away from that with “Fremdkörper”. When their first video, “Hübschlerein” came out there were many who thought they were copying the industrial giants because it reminded them a bit of Rammstein’s “Sonne”, with oily men amongst smoke and fire.

-       That was not on purpose, says Heli. They presented the idea for us and it fit in with the theme of the song. Rammstein have already done everything from porn videos to film themes. How is it possible to do something new? We are not trying to imitate them! My voice is similar to Till’s and I am born with the rolling R:s. We are from Oberfranken and this is our natural accent. Am I not allowd to sing with my usual pronounciation without being accused of copying Rammstein? Till has to force those R:s. I always sound like this!

-       Next album, continues Heli, will be more traditional Rock n’roll or maybe something completely different.

-       We have to invent something for ourselves, interrupts Bora.

-       What we are doing at the moment is gathering material and ideas, says Heli. We want to do our own thing. A good example of a band that do their own thing are Knorkator but we are not going to go their way and we won’t play any more Neue Deutsche Härte! That is an expression I really dislike!  How long is something called new? It’s been around for over 25 years but it’s still called “The New German Hardness”!

-       The thing is that none of us are in to NDH, explains Bora We don’t go home and listen to Rammstein. Mike he  likes In Flames. Me and Thilo we listen to old funk and R&B. Heli, well, he listens to Neue Deutsche Welle (German New Wave) and Nazi-pop, he adds jokingly.

-       They all sound exactly the same, continues Heli, with heavy guitars and electronic rythms. It all started way before Rammstein with Die Krupps and Laibach. Have you heard of Goethe’s Erben? They invented the dark gothic scene. Everything was dark, bleak and about death. But we are not goth! All we want to do is to do our own thing and play German rock.

They continue with describing how their earlier ballads were quite deep and depressing but that they are very proud of them and will continue to make more of them since heavy rock bands make the best ballads, apart from AC/DC.

The band will concentrate on touring both with Maerzfeld and Stahlzeit, they will also support Eisbrecher next year  before they enter the studio to record their third album. Their latest “Fremdkörper” reached number one on the alternative Rock charts, so the future looks bright. They are not planning to release any more videos from this album but will wait until the next one. Something that have made the band stand out are their high budget videos. Matthias is happy that it shows how much money they have invested.  Making videos it’s not something they particularly enjoy. It’s a lot of waiting around just for a few seconds of film and it always seems to be cold. They would rather concentrate on making more music but it’s a good marketing tool.

So far it is Stahlzeit that pays for Maerzfeld but they hope that will change soon.

None of them have much time for a private life. They are all professional musicians and play for other bands. Heli also owns his own bar, Backstage in Kulmbach. When they have some time off , they just want to sleep and the only sport they can fit in is Ritter Sport chocolate. The sportiest is Heli because he eats the whole nut version of the square chocolate.

I ended with asking them about the future and if they will continue with music for the rest of their lives?

-       Yes as long as I can, answers Matthias.

-       It’s not that long for me, says Heli sadly because he is a bit older.

-       We will endure and in 10-15 years we can headline Wacken festival, says Michael. All the ancients like Maiden and Metallica will die out and then there will be no one to replace them apart from us.

-       To play in Sweden would be a dream. There are so many good bands from there and also Jacob Hellner Rammstein’s producer that we would really like to work with, finishes Heli.

Text & Photos: Maria Bergman

Interview with Knorkator, english translation.

Link to original article in swedish from Slavestate Magazine: http://www.slavestate.se/?e=2384

Knorkator are probably one of the world’s most original bands. The music the Germans create is a mix of Death Metal, Heavy Rock, medieval choral music, Bach, Monty Python and a lot more. On the 17th of January they released their 9^th studio album “We want Mohr”. The promotional posters showed the band in a big pot with a black cannibal and the band was accused of racism. Alf Ator, the creative force behind the band and also their singing keyboard player, invited me for a coffee and an interview. It ended up being almost a two hour long explanation and description of his life. Let’s start with political correctness and if Alf thinks it has gone too far.

-       Yes, I already thought that before and I hate that word. What does it actually mean? Politics is what governments do and we have always wanted to break all rules. They want to ban certain words but it won’t change the way people think. We have always tried to stay away from politics but when it comes to the far right and fascists we have a very clear opinion since I don’t think fascism is about politics. All parties have different opinions about taxes, social rights and so on, but the far right only wants to be arseholes. We made a little video sketch, “Nazis Raus” (Nazis out), where we were running around with swastikas as the last Nazi villains and the drummer was Adolf Hitler. It was fun to make and we got an enthusiastic positive response from everyone. So it was unexpected that the new album with “Struwwelpeter” (Shockheaded Peter) as a theme became so controversial.

“Struwwelpeter” was written in 1845 by Heinrich Hoffmann. It is a collection of moral tales about what could happen if children don’t behave. “Konrad” the first single is about the boy that won’t stop sucking his thumbs and then gets them cut off. The title “We Want Mohr” comes from the story of the three boys and the Mohr from the same book. In the story the three boys tease the black kid because he is so dark. As punishment they get dipped in black ink so they know what it feels like to be dark. Originally the promotion material showed the band in a big pot with a girl that had been made up darker to look like a cannibal laughing at them. That has now been changed after complaints from anti-racist organisations.

-       I thought it was worth bringing this story up. For me this is the first anti racism story published. 150 years ago it was already good manners not to laugh at other ethnic minorities. The ones who are protesting don’t seem to care about the meaning, just about the surface.

-       They should actually be happy that a rough band like us draws attention to this. I am not completely without self-criticism and I can also see how we insulted people. The poster for instance was a bit too much. If you don’t know us or the book, you only see a cannibal and I can understand that it is offensive. The discussion was also about a white person made up to be black. It all goes back to the old days in the theatre when white actors painted themselves black and made fun of themselves.

-       Because of these associations it is considered racism. I think the risk is that the word racism can lose its impact.  There weren’t actually that many who protested, but the ones that did have a big presence on the internet. We have changed our posters now. No cannibal but a magician instead. I don’t like all this since I am also against racism. All publicity is not good and I hope that I can clarify my opinions in this and other interviews though I really want to talk more about my music.

Alf Ator, the keyboard player and co-singer with the main vocalist Stumpen, is the creative force in the band. He writes almost all their material and it’s his special humour that makes the band so unique. The three main band members have very pronounced OTT characters on stage. Stumpen is a manic, tattooed little bald man that has a habit of performing in thongs and nothing else. You will be surprised by his beautiful tenor. Alf is bald and long-haired at the same time. When he performs in his robes he reminds me of a demented Hare Krishna. Buzz Dee has more jewellery and sunglasses than any other rock guitarist. The others call him the old lady. He reminds me more of a 70s pimp. Rajko Gohlke (bass) and Sebhead Emm (drums) accompany them but Knorkator really are the three main guys. Alf grew up in old East Germany in Schwerin, which is the same town that Till in Rammstein comes from. They have known each other since childhood. When Flake, Rammstein’s keyboard player was ill, Alf replaced him on stage. Till can also be seen in Knorkator’s “Du Nich” video. Check it out on youtube if you want to laugh. I asked Alf what it was like to grow up in a communist state.

-       When you are growing up you don’t think about being in a dictatorship. We could watch TV from the west so we were aware of it being completely different. So we weren’t depressed over it. The state chief always told us what to do and no one protested. We were used to it so it didn’t matter. Of course the west was always more tempting. It shined more and was more colourful. I didn’t actually have any really bad experiences in the east, apart from when I was arrested. We came too close to the border zone. They questioned us and checked our papers before they released us. It was not pleasant. We laughed over the whole thing afterwards but somewhere at the back of my mind there was a voice that said: I won’t stay here forever. I want to be a musician and famous. That is only possible if I can travel around.

-       Then everything changed when the wall fell and it was of course, party!

Alf was in hospital on the 9^th of November 1989 when the wall fell because he needed surgery on his hip. He heard the news on the radio and from his friends.

-       I was lying in bed and thought: Nice!

Alf started with music at an early age.

-       My parents played music so I grew up in a house with piano, guitar, accordion, flute and all kinds of instruments lying around. When I was a kid I used to play guitar by the camp fire. It wasn’t until I was 15 that I started to take real piano lessons and learned how to read notes. I studied for maybe one or two years but after that I didn’t have any time. Every one always like to tell you how much they studied, but not me.

Stumpen has a classical background. When he was a child he took singing lessons and because his voice was so high pitched, they put him in a girls choir.

-       They forced him to wear a skirt, so no one could see he was a boy. He was also in a staging of Tosca at the Berlin state opera where he played an angel. Then his voice broke and his opera career was over. He never really studied either. The only one of us that has studied is Buzz Dee. He went to the state music school in Berlin, but he also quit his studies after awhile.

In Knorkator’s music you can hear a lot of classical influences.

-       It is because it just interests me. I started to study it and who knows what could have happened if I continued. Maybe I would have started to play jazz instead.

Knorkator’s humour is very special. It is not necessary to understand what they sing about. It’s enough just to see them. Was Alf always so funny?

-       Yes, ever since I started to think. It’s not always a good thing. Can be a bit of a strain to be the one that always has to be funny.

Was there really a comedy scene in DDR?

-       Yes, in the east we had political cabaret. Which of course was a bit difficult during the DDR time. If you played music you had to be politically correct because the big public listened to you. In theatre you had a bit more freedom. The government assumed that not so many people went to see cabaret but just other artists and intellectuals who were in a minority. There were also politically correct comedians but they were not funny. You can’t be funny if you are politically correct.

Alf does not agree with the typical stereotype of Germans not having a sense of humour and compares it with a room full of different people. Most of them are in a good mood but a few will complain loudly. It will leave you with the impression that every one is in a bad mood.

When Alf was a kid he really wanted to be a stuntman. He was practicing by throwing himself from heights and landing in haystacks. Before that he wanted to become a monkey. When it comes to music it all started with AC/DC, even though he also liked Dixieland and Louis Armstrong. Then puberty started and he fell head over heels for disco diva Amanda Lear. Nothing to do with her music, just her looks.

It was Heavy Metal that really made him want to play music professionally. Bands like Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and the Scorpions. In the middle of the 80s he started to listen more to Peter Gabriel.

It was 1986 that he met Stumpen and they formed a band called “Funkreich”.

-       It was terrible! Really embarrassing! It was only for a couple of years but we stayed friends. Later on we formed another band “Beulshausen”.

-       It was the 90s and cross over bands like Living Colour started to mix funk and metal. Anthrax and Public Enemy added a bit of rap and then we had the ultimate heavy and hard with Pantera. We were inspired and wanted to do our own kind of cross over. I started with writing lyrics for the band. I thought it was funny to write silly lyrics in German to the heavy music. The band was dissolved but me and Stumpen still had all the songs. This was the beginning of Knorkator. Buzz Dee was already a big star in the old DDR. He was in a punk band called Keks that dared to criticise the government. It was Stumpen that suggested Buzz.

The name Knorkator comes from the old fashioned German word Knorke, which can be translated to great, amazing or swell and the ending ator like in dictator, terminator, vibrator etc. Alf describes the band as larger than life superheroes. They got their first proper record deal with Rodrigo Gonzales from the German punk band “Die Ärtzte” on his label Rod Rec. Knorkator used to arrange events at the Frannz Klub in Berlin where they invited other artists and between the performances they held silly competitions like meat darts. One person sticks his head through a dart board and the others throw meat at him. They also used to play klo tombola where they had a toilet bowl full of fake poo, which consisted of coffee grains, cocoa powder, pea soup and some carrots for extra texture. It was all mixed together with honey to give it the right shine. A member of the audience had to dig around in the gooey mess until they found a little egg with a prize inside.

-       That’s what we were like, just silly all the time. Rodrigo was there and he liked us.

Their first album came out in 1997, “The schlechtst of Knorkator” (The worst of Knorkator). It would be awhile before they could support themselves with the music. Before the wall came down, Alf worked in a cinema shovelling coal in to the boiler. After the fall of the wall he was unemployed and then he started working in a cinema again. This time he got to tear the tickets, run the projector and shovel coal in to the boiler.

In 2000 the band participated in the German pre-competitions for Eurovision with “Ick wer zum Schwein”. They performed in fluffy afghan outfits with gigantic platform shoes and ended it by trashing their instruments. The press and the TV audience wondered who the hell let those nutters appear on TV? They didn’t win,

-       For us the Eurovision competition was always like a freak show. You only watch it to have a laugh and you have to watch it between your fingers while you are biting the pillow because it is so embarrassing. Germany had only won once before with “Ein bisschen Frieden” in the 80s. One singer, Guildo Horn, who really wasn’t a typical representation, had made a parody that was so bad it was good, “Guildo hat euch lieb” (Guildo Loves You). He won the German competition and managed to get to 7^th place in the international. After that I knew that you could be funny in Eurovision as well.  We had just signed our first contract with a major label and they asked us if we would do it. No one remembers our song but everyone remembers our performance.

Their fourth CD “High Mud Leader” (with German pronunciation, Heimatlieder, Homeland Songs) was a crazy experiment with German folk music. It was the first album on their own label and was a flop. Alf admits that the production was bad, that the whole album was terrible and that no one in the band likes it. They had contracts with several big record labels like Universal, Nuclear Blast and Sanctuary before they started their own.

-       The big companies never really pushed to sell us internationally. We are big enough in Germany to be able to sell ourselves. A big international breakthrough now when we are almost 50 seems a bit strange and unlikely.

Of course they still want to play abroad and they played in Russia last year where they have a big fan base. They have just funded their last video “Konrad” with pledge money from their fans. Everyone got something special as a thank you for the money they donated, like personalized T-shirts, albums and even bed and breakfast without the bed with singer Stumpen. This is something they could imagine to do to raise money for a tour in the UK or USA, for example.

After years of touring and albums it all came as a bit of a shock when the band announced they were about to quit in 2008.

-       Our fans thought we were millionaires with Ferraris and big villas in Spain. The reality was completely different. The last but one tour was a big disappointment. We could hardly make it break even. In the music business, everyone said that Knorkator had had it. Stumpen was exhausted after all the work to try and sell the band. Then you just lose your strength and drive. We thought that this was probably our last chance to try something new. We decided to quit and arranged a big farewell tour. Then everything turned! It became a big success and we had loads of requests from journalists who said that Knorkator leaves a big hole behind themselves that no one else can fill.  All that praise was not just from a handful of devoted fans so we took the decision to try again. Since then things are going much better. Nowadays you don’t make the money off the record sales but on the concerts.

Alf is also an author and a cartoonist. There are several books published by Knorkator and himself with his funny drawings and puns. It is also him that writes almost all the music and lyrics.

-       Stumpen contributes a bit sometimes. Usually they just let me do everything. I am really not a dictator but I enjoy the status of them trusting me to get the job done.

He admits that it is starting to become harder to write new material than it was in the past. Especially after he started a family. Alf has two kids.

-       I used to get inspiration everywhere before, like at the breakfast table. Some think you get the ideas while you are on the toilet. Not me! Trains work well and my studio, although I have such a nice view there that it’s hard to write dark music. You have to organize and take the time. Sometimes the music will suffer and sometimes the family. It’s not just about me anymore.

On the new album there are three songs in English. A cover of Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” and two original songs, the beautiful duet “Time to Rise” and “Victorious”.

  -  When you write German music you realise how ugly the language is. English is   

      softer and flows better with more vowels and not so many… (guttural noises).

      German is good when you just sing one note. I had some beautiful melodies

      and tried to write some lyrics in English which is difficult when you are not a

      native English speaker. One of my neighbours is Jana Groß from the band

      Bell, Book and Candle. She wanted to do something different so she wrote a

      lyric and then I asked her if she also wanted to sing. These kinds of songs are

      not typical Knorkator. But why should you limit yourself?   

 The other English song “Victorious” is written together with English Katie White. He noticed on his Facebook page that she always commented with funny little rhymes. So he asked her if she wanted to collaborate with the lyrics. She also replaced Buzz Dee in a hilarious video interview that you can see on their page.

The lyrics of Knorkator are irrelevant, sick and very silly. On the other hand they can also be very thoughtful and philosophical like “Warum”. “Absolution” is a beautiful song in Latin but when you listen, you realise it is a song about sexual perversions. Listing things is something that amuses Alf and on the new album there is a song called “Fortschritt” (Progress) where he lists all the innovations of the modern world, like washing machines and toasters. Personally he thinks the most important innovation is insulating foam.

I was wondering how difficult it was to write the lyrics to an older song like “A” that just contains a long drawn out AAAAAAA…..

-       That one was very difficult, he says laughing. It was actually Stumpen that wrote that lyric, which he regretted when he had to sing it and it gave him a sore throat.

Tim Tom, Alf’s son, sometimes sings on their albums. Is this something he will continue with?

-       No, he is 12 now and his voice is breaking. He was interesting for Knorkator when he was a little puppy with a cute baby voice. It was funny when he sang complicated lyrics with difficult words. He doesn’t want to be the little cute kid anymore and has his own band. They are inspired by Slipknot, Stonesour and Linkin Park.

Alf has also invented his own concept for a comedy show that he calls: Alf Ator’s hyper-interactive multimedia show of the world. It is a one-man show where almost everything is playback. Alf mimes to it and drags people up from the audience to participate. They don’t have a clue of what they are supposed to say when they have to mime along. It might sound a bit weird but the result is hilarious. Next year he is planning to concentrate more on his solo show. This year is all about Knorkator. To finish I ask him about his future plans.

 - I want to rule the world! He answers with a laugh.

Text: Maria Bergman

Pictures: Maria Bergman