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An Interview with Sascha Konietzko and Lucia Cifarelli of KMFDM
Posted: Saturday, September 08, 2007
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

What can be said about KMFDM that hasn't been said hundreds of times before? For 23 years, the industrial rock powerhouse has attracted audiences for their confrontational perspectives on the nature of politics and society while approaching every conceivable musical angle. They've dabbled in everything from funk to reggae to EBM to metal, creating an industrial rock sound that has inspired countless people over the course of their existence. Their latest album, named for a Hebrew word meaning "wild, without form," Tohuvabohu sees KMFDM continuing along the path set by their previous records, yet again combining genres but in a way that recalls their early '90s output, a time some fans consider to be their creative apex. As the third album in a row to feature the lineup of Sascha Konietzko, Lucia Cifarelli, Jules Hodgson, Steve White, and Andy Selway, Tohuvabohu presents a solid and cohesive set of songs that run the gamut from politics to the human condition, marrying the best elements that KMFDM has exhibited since their initial inception. While the band would normally be planning an extensive tour at this juncture, they've instead opted to take a break. Konietzko and Cifarelli took some time to explain to ReGen and their audience just what their plans are for the upcoming months, confirming the rumors of their impending relocation back to Europe, as well as offering some insight into their style of recording and making music in the days of being "wild, without form."

Do you have any plans for touring for the new album?

Konietzko: No, we don't actually. We're going to take a bit of a hiatus from touring right now. For the past six years, we've just been making records and touring non-stop. It's time to just take a little breather, and we've been around long enough that we don't have to do the whole routine.

KMFDM has maintained a rather rigorous schedule, especially since the reformation in 2002, releasing four albums, two EPs, the KGC side project, Lucia's solo album, multiple DVDs, remixes, re-releasing the back catalog, and touring. How do you manage to keep up such a productive pace going after so many years?

Cifarelli: I think it really didn't hurt that everybody was suddenly based in one place, and it just made it easier. We were all collaborating, hanging out, tossing ideas back and forth, coming up with touring scenarios, really thinking aloud a lot, and having the opportunity to make things happen by all of us being in the same place.

Konietzko: Well, the thing is we do basically what we've done and what we can. Right now, I'm moving to Germany, so I just need a little time to organize that and sort all that shit out to get my shit packed up and shipped, which takes awhile.

So this is a permanent move? You're relocating back to Germany?

Konietzko: Yeah, I wouldn't pack a 40-foot container if it wasn't permanent.

That's interesting, because in the past you'd once said that if the results of the last election didn't make you happy you'd move back to Europe.

Konietzko: Well, it's been a long time coming. The rigorous schedule was pushing the move back in the past, but now it seems like, 'Well, we've made this record, so it's time to move, now or never.' I'm sure it will go well. I don't really have a home in that sense. I'm away too long to still feel like a 'German' German, and I don't think I'll ever feel like an American. It's a sort of eternal limbo, and I've got nothing to lose at this point. I think it's going to be an interesting experience to start something else—well, not something else, but somewhere else—and put KMFDM into a new gear.

Cifarelli: I'm not trying to suggest that by Sascha and I moving that our working relationship with the rest of the band is going to change.

So Andy, Steve, and Jules won't be moving to Germany as well?

Cifarelli: They're not. Being in the same place creates a lot of momentum, just because you have access to each other on a regular basis, so it's going to be different now that we are relocating. The tension level is high and there are a lot of things to consider, but it just really feels like it's time for us to shake things up and change. We've got to go for it. We're already organizing festivals for next summer in Europe, so I don't perceive it to be a huge readjustment. I think the biggest adjustment has been the fact that we're not currently on tour right now, which is a first for many years. We've been really busy and active, and this is the first fall in a long time that we're not out there.

It's interesting to see a band like Blue Öyster Cult, who have been around for as long as they have, to be touring as often and as extensively as they do.

Cifarelli: The touring lifestyle is a very interesting beast. You're either made for it or you're not, and it really is just that way. There are very few people that tour the way that we do and come away from it saying, 'I love it! I can do this.' People either love it and do it well into their 50s, or they come to the realization that this isn't the life for them. The truth of the matter is we're road-ready. We've toured together for a very long time, and before that, separately for a very long time. We know how to exist on the road. It's very important to know how to live on the road so that it doesn't wear you down and tear you apart, and it will. It's rough out there! The road will eat you up and spit you out if you let it. Some people just fall into patterns of living while they're out there, and it's really hard. We live it pretty crazy too from time to time, but it's all in waves and you kind of figure out when to pull back and put your foot back on the gas, and you've got to do it in small doses so that it doesn't consume you and turn you into some kind of sick mess that can't even do your job. You have to view it as your job when you're on the road, because you're working every single day.

The title of your latest album, Tohuvabohu, comes from a biblical passage, Hebrew for 'without form and void,' though the band describes it as 'wild and chaotic.' How would you say this defines the sound of the new KMFDM album and the sound of the band as a whole, because this is the third album in a row that has been the same lineup?

Cifarelli: I think it's a loose interpretation of the record. Sascha came up with the title, and it evoked a feeling for him at the time that he was coming up with a lot of these ideas. I think that we go in many different directions on this record. It's all cohesive, but it's really stretching the boundaries a bit, going into the old-school KMFDM and marrying it with the current lineup. It is kind of wild and without form in the respect that it's reaching far and wide. It's the best of what we have to offer.

Konietzko: That's an interesting question, like 'How did the title Money affect the content of that album,' or maybe Angst would be the one word that would describe that one. But titles are titles and do not necessarily stand in any direct relationship with the content. There was a working title for this, the Einstein formula of E=mc2, which feels nice as a concept because it's almost formulaic in a *Symbols* type of way, but it never really convinced anyone. [Laughs.]

And I coincidentally stumbled over one of my favorite words, 'Tohuvabohu,' and I thought, 'That's it!' It does too have some sort of semblance and is somewhat reflected in the making of the record, because other than previous records, this was a real joint effort, where everybody was challenged to come up with stuff. Andy, our drummer, was woken out of his little sleepy pattern and put in front of a computer, and we said, 'Just come up with stuff.' In the end, it's pretty much a collaborative record. There's not a track where we all worked on per se, these are all collaborations, like Lucia and Jules, myself and Jules, me and Lucia, Andy and Lucia, Steve and Lucia, etc. It was a wide spectrum of collaborations between the band members, and that would kind of relate to the 'without form' part, because there wasn't a given format. It was just, 'Bring it on, whatever it is.' Obviously, there are some tracks that just don't work, and there were a couple of those that we tossed in the meantime.

On the subject of other tracks, on Tohuvabohu you cover Liaisons Dangereuses' 'Los Niños Del Parque.' On Hau Ruck, you did the cover of 'Mini Mini Mini,' and on Ruck Zuck, you covered DAF's 'Der Mussolini.' Because they are not obvious choices for covers (being somewhat obscure by today's standards in the American market), how do you feel the covers you've performed have contributed to the overall concepts of their respective albums?

Konietzko: I think the way I pick covers is that they're my favorite songs of all time, so to speak, and I just think that adding a cover to a 10-track record is a good way to create extra excitement and sort of give a nod to certain artists or certain times, certain eras of our development, or my own development. In fact, the early members of Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft later became Liaisons Dangereuses, and it was like a little cult project at the time in 1981. They put out one album that was pretty fucking interesting. This one track was often cited by, of all people, Detroit techno artists as a very seminal track that inspired them to do the techno thing. I think it has some relevance, and certainly the way that we polished it up makes it a really fun song on the record. It's one that I'm always looking forward to.

That track, and even more especially 'Superpower,' is very reminiscent of your older, more danceable stuff from the Naïve era.

Cifarelli: It's that classic Sascha tongue-in-cheek, 'wink wink.' But you'd have to be a longtime fan to get that. I think some people just don't understand the humor, because they haven't been around long enough to appreciate it, or they lack imagination.

Konietzko: It's kind of funny how people comment on that song, 'Superpower,' saying, 'Oh, it's so cliché' or 'The samples are so cheesy.' The song would not have come about had it not been for the samples. The fan phone thing inspired the whole track. And the lyrics are directly or indirectly taken from all the comments that people left. We had several hundred phone messages left by KMFDM fans saying, 'Well, this is what KMFDM does for me,' so that whole song came about in that way, and it's totally tongue-in-cheek. It's just another step in involving the fans, really, and eliminating the pedestal between bands and the people that support them.

While KMFDM has always had a juxtaposition of English and German, you've been exploring other languages in your more recent albums, going with French for 'Mini Mini Mini' on Hau Ruck, and now Spanish and even Hebrew on Tohuvabohu. What is the main reason for singing in these various languages on the new album?

Konietzko: There isn't really a reason for it. KMFDM started out as a very internationalist kind of thing, and the multitude of languages is a very interesting vehicle for me. Why does everything have to be in English? Why is all the pop music in the world in English or Spanish? There's a little bit of French and German, but this domination of one language over all others is always taken for granted, and I think it's cool to prove that other languages lend themselves just as well to be relevant.

Cifarelli: Sascha is very invested in the world as a whole, rather than just specific corners like America or Germany. He's always interested in reaching different people and he's fascinated by different languages, and he happens to be gifted with languages. It's just something that really interests him, and from one album to the next, he seems to find another language that sparks his interest and he goes for it. And he does it with wild abandon and enthusiasm, and it's something not a lot of people can get away with doing, because there are many people out there who just don't have this natural ability to pick up languages as he does. He's just having fun with it! To be realistic, incorporating different languages into your music is nothing new. People have been doing it since the dawn of time. Generally, they tend to be of European descent because Europe is a lot smaller, and it's kind of like the way we are here in America when we go to California or Texas. We use different vocal inflections to get the point across. If you're European, the state next door just happens to be Paris or Spain, so the influences are a little bit richer.

KMFDM has been associating with a number of newer industrial and electronic acts, touring with the likes of Black Japan, Caustic, and Combichrist, and being remixed by Angelspit, Aghast View, and members of Placid. Being 'ze father of industrial rock,' as you once put it, and having been making music for over 23 years, what are your thoughts on the new crop of industrial groups?

Konietzko: We were on our way to this radio show last night where we presented Tohuvabohu in its entirety and took some calls and drank a lot of beer. That was good fun, but on the way there, we were listening to the station, and somebody remarked, 'What is that?' I said, 'That's Front 242.' It was 'Headhunter.' I'm not sure if it was Andy or Steve or Jules, but one of them said, 'Oh man, that's pretty old, isn't it?' I said, 'Yeah. Nothing's changed.' It's pretty seamless in the way you can play 'Headhunter' next to What the Fuck is Wrong With You People?. It doesn't really seem like there's a huge time lag or gap. Obviously, production values have changed, and you can tell if something is old just by the sound of it. But in terms of evolution, I don't see that there's much been going on in that sense between the mid '80s and now.

Cifarelli: You know, some of them are crap, and some of them are great, just like music as a whole. There's always the new crop coming up, and I think Sascha is a lot more invested in investigating who these people are than I am. I am interested in new music, obviously, but I really have the attention span of a gnat. It's got to really hit me, and the things that I'm looking for in a group project are generally the things that don't mean much to anybody. I'm looking for a song that I can remember, or a cool sound or a really original sound. Sascha and I are different in that respect, where he could fall in love with a project based on a fucking sequencer. I love him to death and I mean no disrespect, but he is a real musician geek in a way, a gear geek, in ways that I'm not. He likes to listen to every nuance. We approach things totally differently, and we have so much respect for each other, but I think the things we look for in great music are totally different. He falls in love with projects that I really don't get, but he's just operating on a completely different level. He's more invested in a lot of the new stuff coming up. Obviously, some of the bands you've mentioned are close to my heart, such as Combichrist and Angelspit. We haven't toured extensively with Angelspit, but we played with them in Australia, and they've turned out to be very cool people, I wouldn't say close friends, but we have a growing relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future that we tour together. When it's the right time, I could totally see that happening. Combichrist, I think, are fucking great. I love them! I'm a huge fan of what they do on stage and on CD. I think it's a lot of fun. It's hit or miss with me. The information highway is filled with more bands and artists than anybody could have ever conceived of. I don't think just because a band has an opportunity to be on there or to put up some great pictures or put up a music player on their page that they should be getting a whole bunch of praise. That's not enough for me. If what I'm listening to doesn't hit me straight away, I usually can't be bothered to listen further. But it's hard to wade through all that.

Are there any particular groups that stand out in your mind as exemplary of where you feel the genre should be heading?

Konietzko: I don't think of it in terms of necessarily a genre. If you listen to a very specialized station or show like the one we were on yesterday, obviously it's very much limited to what the DJ believes is the genre. I don't know. I don't really think in terms of that. Is anything exemplary? No. I haven't heard it yet.

Cifarelli: I like individuality, so when I see trends and specific styles and lots of that, it makes me nervous. I like things that show originality. When we were on tour in Canada a while ago, and these guys aren't fresh news anymore, and they've done a lot since we played with them, but I think they're fantastic: The Birthday Massacre. I love their sound! They're a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I found out about them because they opened for us for several shows in Canada, and I just fell in love with them. Their show is fantastic, they were very cool people, and I love their sound. It was fresh and original to me. They gave me a CD that I listened to over and over again, and I still listen to it, and it's so much fun! That's what I like to hear in a project. I don't like to hear trends and bands that are just getting on a bandwagon and then hearing gluts of it. Everybody's influenced to a certain degree, but I think there are some people that are trailblazers rather than followers. I also think Emilie Autumn is really cute and cool. I've never seen her live, but I think she's great. She's a musician's musician, and she's got a beautiful voice, and she looks like she'd be great on stage, so hopefully we'll see that.

How do you feel the music you're making now reflects these new artists and their influence?

Cifarelli: It doesn't. I can't stress enough that I go through long stretches when I'm not listening to music at all, and in fact, when we make a record, I don't listen to anything. I'm not particularly looking to be influenced by anybody, and I'm not particularly interested in being influenced by trends. I'm only interested in being influenced by the people I'm making music with, and that inspiration that comes from hearing an initial idea and sitting along in a room with it for days on end is all the inspiration I need.

KMFDM has incorporated lots of different styles over the years from funk to reggae to obviously industrial and rock. What sort of music do you listen to these days?

Konietzko: The last records I bought were a couple of remastered Can albums, a German group from the late '70s. That's what I've been listening to lately. I'm not necessarily one that follows up on what's going on and that kind of stuff. I'm also not a huge record buyer. I basically just keep a little list of things that come to mind or stuff I want to check out, and once a month I place an order with an online retailer and get my package. There's one good record store here in town with two or three branches, called Sonic Boom. That's pretty much it. Sonic Boom is the only place worth going to, finding parking, walking inside, and spending time. Everywhere else is pretty shit. Where the Towers used to be, now it's just crap. The whole concept of the Mom-and-Pop store is going away, and that's why quite some time ago, we started the Mom-and-Pop KMFDM store online. It can't just disappear entirely. It's working out in a really good way for me, because I brought the idea of running the KMFDM store to actual KMFDM fans, so after a few years now, it's a small group of people that always stood out from the crowd, so to speak. I always met them at shows, and I said, 'Why don't you take this into your hands, and here's basically a business opportunity for you? It's completely in line with what KMFDM is all about, so you have a blanket license to print up merchandise and sell it and see if you can make a living off of it.' The experiment worked! Some months, there are a couple of hundred bucks left over for me, some months, nothing. It's not something that I get rich off of, and they don't live in luxury and splendor. But hey, it's just three boys that were KMFDM fans and now making it a business. They're really good about it. I talk to them every day and we devise the concepts and talk about what's coming out next and making release schedules. 2008's going to be chock full of more goodies, more back catalog shit, and maybe a remix thing a la Ruck Zuck. There's a lot of activity in the camp, and we're churning it out.

You just finished with the full albums, and you've been promising to release the old Wax Trax! singles and EPs. Is that on the horizon?

Konietzko: That's all happening in '08. DVDs, singles, extra stuff.

Is BeatByBeat going to be part of that as well?

Konietzko: It's probably not going to be in the form that it was. It will probably be disassembled and re-released in different formats. One plan is to put out a DVD with all the music videos just bundled together. Another plan is to reconstitute BeatByBeat with additional footage from that tour and make a DVD compilation with a lot of live stuff, bootlegs, earlier shows, and stuff that hasn't been around for years, like the '92 footage. We've got tapes and tapes and tapes full of stuff, and there are definitely some highlights. It's going to take some time to view everything and edit it all together. Our release schedule goes through mid-2009. It's all planned ahead.

Your last two albums, WWIII and Hau Ruck, were rather overt in their political themes. That's nothing new for KMFDM, though with Tohuvabohu, those themes have taken somewhat of a secondary position. What would you say are the primary subjects the band likes to explore in the new music besides politics?

Cifarelli: I'm always invested in the human condition and exploring what's going on in people's heads, the darker sides of people's nature. Sascha is a little more invested in world topics, and he's got his finger on the pulse of the world. I don't like to talk too specifically about what any one song is about, because I feel it takes away from the listener's experience, and I think it's pretty self-explanatory. I do use a lot of metaphors, but I think they're very easy to get. I try not to be too literal, because I want people to apply their own lives to it in some way. It wasn't a conscious decision to not incorporate the war and all things like that. I can tell you that from my perspective of things, I don't want to get to the point where I suddenly become one-dimensional to my audience and talk about only one thing. There are other things going on within my head besides politics, which are really important, but I'm also heavily invested in the human side of things. You know, Sascha had told me even before we started working on this record that he wanted to incorporate more of a dance feel into some of this stuff and not stick with strictly metal. He wanted to incorporate the 'Ultra Heavy Beat' a little bit more. I think that affected the way that I approached the writing on my end of things. When I listen to the ideas that come my way, I have a very specific reaction, just like anybody else. When I hear something, it hits me in a particular way, and it makes me feel either really aggressive or really sexy or really sad or depressed. I go from there. However, first there's an initial reaction, I try to decipher what it is that I'm feeling from this, and then I put an idea to it. I'm never consciously thinking about the subject matter I want to talk about until the music has bounced off of my soul.

Konietzko: Tohuvabohu is not a non-political album at all, but it is less overt, as you said, and it's tied less to the current regime in the USA. There's only so much you can say about this shit before you just start shaking your head in disbelief and you're sick of it. Obviously, the consequence of that lies somewhere else, and just relieving ourselves physically from this place for awhile so as not to pay taxes and fund the war machine any longer.

Would you say that's another reason for the move back to Germany?

Konietzko: Most definitely.

On the last tour, you performed '6 Ft. Below' from the KGC project. As Dirty Bomb was released in October, how pleased are you with its performance?

Konietzko: I don't really know. For a record that was just a little project, it's done pretty well. It's nowhere near the numbers that KMFDM has, but it's pretty good, and the people that have it seem to love it, so that's a success in itself.

Is there a chance of another KGC album in the future, or perhaps performing more KGC tracks on upcoming tours?

Konietzko: There is something in the works with Dean right now, but it's very early on, and I don't really know exactly what direction it's going in as of yet. Truth be told, we are working on something.

You also performed a new rendition of 'More and Faster' using the drum part from 'Intro,' and with the re-release of the back catalog now complete, as well as certain songs on Tohuvabohu possessing a vibe similar to older KMFDM, what sort of surprises do you think you'd have in store for future shows?

Konietzko: Well, it is really off the table right now because we don't have to think about it, so we haven't thought about it at all. There's only so much room on the radar for stuff that is actually about to happen, and since the necessity to think about that hasn't come up yet, I honestly don't have an answer to that one. But I would imagine that on the next tour we'll play tracks off of this album, and whatever's released in the meantime, and perhaps a couple of classics, and I'm sure we'll come up with little twists and turns and make some interesting medleys.

Cifarelli: Touring is not so easy as it looks, and people seem to think that if some people can do it, then everybody can do it. I never worry about touring, because Sascha's been organizing them for the past 20 years and he knows what he's doing. Our tours never turn out disastrously. Everybody always does well, and it's always somewhat of a success for everybody involved. I don't really worry about it, and I think the fact that we're taking a break is only going to make our next tour stronger.

You've been married since 2005. What is the working relationship like between the two of you versus working with the other musicians? There are a lot of bands that are a husband-and-wife team, so how would you say it affects the way you work together?

Konietzko: I think it has very little bearing on the way that we work together. It hasn't really changed that much over the years, because Lucia has a very particular way of writing. She takes material as it emerges and comes up with stuff, and parallel to the developing musical aspects of the track, she comes up with melodic and lyrical things. There are always tracks that she latches onto more than others, and there are always tracks that I come up with that I know exactly that Lucia should be having a shot at, and there are tracks that I know I want to reserve for myself.

Cifarelli: A lot really depends on how we feel at the time, and how he feels at the time. I never take it for granted that he wants me to collaborate to the extent that he does. I love it! I don't put any pressure on him, and far be it for a guy who has been in the business as long as he is to be pressured into doing anything he doesn't want to do. He's certainly not a pushover. I'm sure when he decides he's had enough of me, then he'll find someone else to take over my duties. But you know, it's a difficult situation to be in. I always tend to see an end to all things, and I guess that's just the way that I've been raised. I don't believe in 'happily ever after.' Whether it's a musical union or a love union, I don't look for the ending of it, but I'm definitely a realist in the respect that I think all good things come to an end. I'm not looking forward to that day, and I don't invite it, and I do everything in my power to make sure that it doesn't happen by contributing quality work to the mix and being a great partner, whatever that means: having a great sense of humor, just being fun, and enjoying each other's company, and living each day as if it was your last, whether it's as a member of KMFDM or the wife of Sascha Konietzko, because you never know. Shit happens. Somebody could drop dead. Somebody could fall in love with somebody else. Life is very strange. I don't take things for granted. I don't take for granted that I'm in KMFDM. I don't take for granted that I really fucking love my husband, because at the end of the day, he's not just Sascha from KMFDM. He's the man that I married. It's weird to imagine not being in KMFDM, but I also have to remember that because he's my husband, I will have to support whatever decision that he makes and encourage him to do whatever is going to mean growth for him.