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| Another World | |
| The Colour Of Love | |
Please introduce yourselves and tell us what you do in the band.
Michael: I am Michael and I play keyboards.
Stefan: I am Stefan. I sing and do lyrics.
Till: My name is Till and I play drums and keyboards and I do studio work as well.
Tell us a little bit about your history. How did you meet?
Stefan: I know Till from school - long ago - twenty years ago. We had similar interests in music like Flock of Seagulls from the 80s, stuff like that. We always had the dream of having a band but we couldn't afford the equipment. We kept dreaming and all of a sudden Till met Michael on vacation. At that moment, they seemed to have similar musical interests as well. At the time it was Front 242, Nitzer Ebb and all of this EBM stuff. We all three met at a party and they had already put up some demos and asked me if I would like to sing on that and I really liked it. That was in 1989.
What have you been up to between Ruckkehr zum Eisplaneten and your current album?
Stefan: What have we been doing? [laughs]
Till: We've had several activities. Like for this album we did some new versions of songs, we re-recorded 'Peach' and 'Poison'. I did a lot of remixes last year - for Apop I did a remix, I did a remix for Clan of Xymox which should be out now.
Stefan: Of course we always try to keep in contact with other artists to have our songs remixed by them. Funker Vogt did a remix on our new album and there's another song by cut.rate.box. It takes a lot of time to organize, contacting management, exchanging data and stuff like that.
Till: We had some concerts in Great Britain and Switzerland in the meantime. We look forward to playing here because it has been a long way! We had to prepare a lot.
Is Tales from Another World your first U.S. release?
Stefan: Yes, it is. Our European releases have been imported in small numbers. But yes, this is the first major release domestically on WTII Records.
Which tracks or remixes are completely new?
Stefan: Yes, we re-recorded all music and vocals for new version of 'Peach' and 'Poison' and 'The Edge of Wisdom,' a very old track from our first album. For the remixes, there is 'Dr. Channard' remixed by Funker Vogt, 'Peach' by cut.rate.box, 'Another World' by Francis Preve, some Russian remixers like Mingus and DJ Ram, club DJs that are really famous over there with MTV appearances and stuff.
How did you meet some of these remixers? Greg Rule remixed artists like Christina Aguilera, which is strange in my mind, so why do you get them to remix your songs?
Stefan: That was kind of strange to us, too. Our U.S. management knows a lot of people in the business like Greg Rule who also remixed KMFDM. We liked it so much hat we thought we'd give it a try and find out how satisfied we'd be.
How did you get signed to WTII Records?
Stefan: Our U.S. management knew people from the original Wax Trax! Label, who formed a new label, Wax Trax II. I met them in New York and Chicago and we were quite fond of each other and they were really nice people. They got in contact with our European label and got it licensed in the United States.
Do you have plans for any future releases here in the United States?
Stefan: Sure. We've been writing several new tracks in the last couple of months, but nothing completely finished right now. So, it's quite open in every direction. It's taking form and we hope very much that it will be released here.
I first heard you on a compilation released by Artoffact Records called Thin Edge of the Wedge and there is a song on there called 'Spawn.' What is it about?
Till: We made this in '96, so sometimes it's hard to remember. It's about coping through things again and again. We went through hard times and better times and I think you only know the good things if you know the bad things. Sometimes we struggled, but we always continued. When we did our first concert in 1989, and then ten years later we never thought we'd be playing in Washington. We played exactly ten years later and we had a great time, but we'd had a bad time before that. That kept us going because we had a bit of bad luck with our record company before that in Germany. So, we came on stage and played that - 'We're giving the stuff to the spawn, the show must go on.' We had goose bumps singing it.
Stefan: Believe in yourself. Don't let yourself be drawn back by little incidents. Keep on trying.
You seem to be very popular in the northeast portion of the United States. Does that surprise you?
Stefan: It surprises us that we're popular at all in America! But, we're quite fond of it.
Till: Now, we are releasing our first album here, whereas, in the past it all got imported, DJs copied it and keep playing it all the time. Last year, I was in New York in the Limelight club and suddenly they played stuff from us. I was like 'Oh, this is fun!' It's great.
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Stefan: We are very happy to have the opportunity to play in the States. It's a lot of fun having a show in front of an American audience. We've played in Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville so far and it was such great fun. The people and fans are so nice. We like you? we love you!
Till: If you want to check out more about us, go to www.bebornbeton.com . We've created a site for our U.S. fans.
Thank you!
All: Thank you!