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 Das Schwarze System interview: This inteview was conducted back in the fall of 2002, but Falk of Das Schwarze System was busy working on their debut album, which is way cooler than an interview. But true to his word, he answered the questions, and made a great interview. Thanks Falk!-Nick Diak 5/03 *Questions about the Band ND: So specifically what's your role in Das Schwarze System? FALK: My role is to write and produce the songs and I'm also the singer. Marco plays the live keyboards and makes some sound design and production work too. Further I do the management and web design. ND: If you had just met a person who had never heard of Das Schwarze System before, but were curious about the band, how would you describe Das Schwarze System to them? FALK: It's a symbiosis of groovy and modern electro club sound with typical German vocals and influences of synthpop/80's, ebm/dark music, techno/house/electroclash. Just german electro, but with a lot of identity. Every listener should know after hearing the first few beats - yeah, that´s a DSS Song. ND: Why the name "Das Schwarze System"? Is there a story behind this name? FALK: It means "The Black System". The name was already chosen in 1993. It should sound momentous, important and easy to keep in mind for everybody with a little self-mockery. Further it is an allusion to "Blue System", a former project by Dieter Bohlen, member of one of the most successful German bands "Modern Talking" ;-) NPD: Many German synthie/electro bands, (such as De/Vision, Camouflage, Wolfsheim), sing a majority, if not all, of their songs in the English language. Yet Das Schwarze System does all their songs in their native tongue. Any particular reason for this? FALK: Is there any American band singing in German language? I don't know ... and you forget the most important German electro band in your list - Kraftwerk. Surely, they released their tracks in foreign languages too, but their main work was done in German. I consider it natural to present my music in my native tongue so the German fans can easier understand the content and message of the songs, especially during live gigs. Further the German language is strong, incisive and sounds hard. It is more suitable for our music style. ND: It's been almost a decade since Das Schwarze System started, and since then, things all over the world have changed. Over the years, how have you seen Das Schwarze System evolve, mature, or change? FALK: I have always been trying to express my feelings and to produce the music I like and miss at the market and to work with new techniques to produce a very modern electro style. That's the same aim since over 10 years and everything else is the result of experiences, learning and working on the sound. In the first years (1990-1993) we hadn't the technical possibilities to produce good music and it sounded very primitive. The style was something like synthpop. After the foundation of DSS in 1993 we started to work in studios to produce our demos professionally, to release tapes and to apply for a record deal at the labels. But it was expensive and we hadn't enough money to produce regularly new songs. So it took some years to advance and we got no support. We started to play live shows and to use every promotion possibility we got (on radio, tv, scene magazines). In 1997 we thought it would be a good idea to release a maxi cd and so we produced the songs "Neuland" and "Kein Entrinnen" in a studio. It was very expensive because the whole production I financed myself including the pressing. The other tracks taken for this maxi were older studio mixes. Our hope was to get finally a record deal and we got it after the release of the maxi cd in 1998. Our label wanted to release an album full of songs in the same quality and the same style like "Neuland" but they gave us no money to produce it. We had a deal but no album. That's why I decided to produce myself and I invested a lot of money to build my own studio. This was cheaper than producing in a studio again and again. But the first production results weren't satisfying, it took some years of learning the production job. It was a very frustrating time, we lost our concept, I missed the support by the label and by my partner . The label wasn't content with the work and I had to separate from my former partner and singer Andreas, because of personal dissentions made a common work impossible. The price was the loss of the hard-earned record deal, but it was the only chance to get back to the primal concept of DSS. After the split in 1998 I worked for some years alone and the sound became more significant and better with more industrial/ebm influences. Good examples for this chapter of DSS are "Blinder Passagier (electro club mix)" and "In meinen Träumen (technophrenic mix), which you can download free at http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/37/das_schwarze_system.html. I got some good feedback of scene magazines and fans, but still no new record deal yet. In 2001 I got Marco to know in the German Depeche Mode forum. We found out that we have the same ideals and planned to work together, tried to find a style which combines our wishes. Actually we have a lot of new songs and the sound became more modern, groovy und electronic, changed to club music with techno/house/minimal electro and electroclash influences and agrees with the sound I ever wanted. Since the beginning of 2002 we have been working on the completation of our debut album and I spend a lot of time doing the production job to advance and become successful, I nearly everyday work on the tracks. This has been the most productive time in the history of DSS and the reward is that we actually - 10 years after the foundation of the project - talk with a good label about the release of our debut album called "Electrobeat", which will be distributed worldwide. It has been taken a long time of development with lots of troubles, but I think it was necessary and the long experiences in business are useful for the future of DSS. *Questions about Das Schwarze System in concert ND: Some bands use pyrotechnics, lasers, costumes, or smoke machines while in concert for added extra effects. What sort of gimmick does Das Schwarze System use, if any, during concert? FALK: Great special effects are too expensive for us. We try to entertain the people, that's all for the moment and the used effects depends on the possibilities of the location of course. But the entertainment factor is very important especially for live performances of electro bands and so I try to do my best as front man. The other important thing is that Marco attempts to play a lot of synthesizers live in combination with backing tracks and this is not understood in our scene, a lot of electro/synth bands perform with a half playback and this is boring for the crowd. ND: In your opinion, what's the best concert you have performed in so far? FALK: I think mostly the last concert is the best one, because we always try to advance our live show. And so I have to say, our last show in March 2003 in Langewahl (near Berlin) was the best one and successful too. But in 1998 during the time of our first record deal we already did a Germany tour as support of the Swedish electro band Cat Rapes Dog and it was impressive. ND: Just recently, you performed at a concert with the German bands Equatronic and Reflected Image on their "Back to the 80ies Tour". How well did that go? FALK: It was a nice gig in a very small club in Berlin (parKHaus) in March 2002. Equatronic asked me if I had an idea which club they could take in Berlin for their tour und if I could help them to promote the gig and it was a good idea to perform ourselves to get some more people to the location. ND: You have an upcoming show for the Electromotion 2002 festival. From what I gather, Das Schwarze System along with NewVember are the two bands that created this festival back in 2000. Is this correct? FALK: Yes, we created the idea of Electromotion in 2000 . but Wave In Head and Mike Bätz from the electro scene label Firecracker (Human Decay) are involved in Electromotion too. Since then we have been organised one or more festivals every year. ND: How successful have the Electromotion festivals been? FALK: It's not easy to get people for concerts in our scene and particularly with nearly unknown bands and newcomer acts. But this is the Electromotion concept. We had between 30 and 300 guests. To get the festival cost-covering it is necessary to work very econimal. *Questions about the music ND: It been almost 10 years since Das Schwarze System was founded, yet there doesn't appear to be any album releases. Some of your material has graced compilations and even a single was made, yet no album to this date. Why is this? FALK: I already talked detailed about the reasons of having no album on the market yet, but I think we will finally release our debut album "Electrobeat" in the next months. The only official releases have been the "Neuland" maxi cd in the beginning of 1998 and some compilation releases since 1997. Further on some tracks and demos are available in the internet. ND: It says that the Electromotion festival will be the last concert for Das Schwarze System for a while as you will be concentrating on song writing. Do you think afterwards, we will see the release of the debut album? FALK:We will see the release of the debut album, if it is ready and we use all the time we have to produce the style we want. It is important that we are completely satisfied with the production work. And the second point was to get a good label to get the desired rewards for our work and better distribution possibilities. And that's why we decided to focus on the studio production. Playing live is great but takes a lot of lead time.. ND: When an album is released, will it be mostly new compositions, or will we be able to see a lot of the older favorites on it? FALK: It will contain only new productions, but we have reworked and reproduced some of the old goodies with the help of our new production experiences to complement the real new songs. ND: Will we possibly see a re-release of the Neuland single? FALK: I don't know yet if we will get the possibility to release a single. But "Neuland" in a reworked version definitively will be included in our debut album. ND: Any thoughts about making a music video for one of your songs? FALK: Not yet .. it's too expensive. ND: Aside from the Depeche Mode remix of "I Feel Loved", what other bands and songs have you remixed? FALK: It is the only remix yet. Actually I am producing a polish electro band with a good female vocalist in such modern electroclash/80's style like Ladytron e.g. But this is a production and no remix job. ND: Have you ever done any covers of any other bands? FALK: Yes, last year we did a cover of Hubert Kah's "Engel 07", a known song in Germany from the 80's (New German Wave). The demo version you can download at our homepage at mp3.com. And we produced a cover version of "Everything Counts" by Depeche Mode in the typical DSS style. Look at http://www.indietective.de/produkt.php4?code=33153 for details about this compilation. But these are only avocations for us to get experiences and have some fun with it. ND: Have any bands ever done a Das Schwarze System cover that you know of? FALK: I don't think so, but I have no idea . *Questions about Falk ND: Personally, what are your favorite bands? What have you been listening to lately? FALK: The most important band for my musical and personal development has been Depeche Mode since nearly 18 years . Other bands I like are Böhse Onkelz (german punk/rock), Kraftwerk of course, Rammstein and some of the new electroclash/house stuff like Felix da Housecat, Miss Kittin and others and of course I listen to nearly all releases in the electro scene to get know what the others are doing. ND: Before being in Das Schwarze System, what other bands, if any, were you a part of? FALK: Before working on DSS I tried to become part of some other bands at school as a keyboarder and I got some years piano lessons. Marco was already part of a synthpop band in the 80's. ND: What is your favorite Das Schwarze System song? FALK: It changes. Sctually it is "Electrobeat" and we are very proud of it. It has such typical sounds and groove and represents the whole album style at best. ND: What has been the most positive thing that has happened to you that being a part of Das Schwarze System has brought? FALK: There are some positive things. I got the chance to express my feelings with music and music is my life, especially the electronic one. I obtained appreciation with it and I have a lot of fun in producing music and experimenting with sounds and last but not least I like to perform on stage. I got self-confidence and the ability to assert myself with a difficult thing. ND: What's probably the most difficult trial you had to over come or deal with? FALK: DSS has dominated my life in the years since the beginning. It has been taken a lot of time and money and strained the relationships to other people like friends or partners. ND: When not working with music, what do you do? What are your hobbies or pastimes? FALK: I sometimes work as a software engineer to earn money, because I can't live from the music yet. Other hobbies are computer, internet, sports .. ND: What do you think about the present state of the music scene in Germany? I notice a lot of crappy American bands and boy-groups like O-town doing chart topping success over there. What are your opinions about it all? FALK: The commercial music scene mostly isn't interesting for me, I only observe the electro scene and do my own thing. The industry simply affects the market/people and gives them what they want. But the main changing in the last years is that the labels as a result of the loss of sales and profits aren't motivated to invest money in unknown bands, in styles beyond the mainstream, in experiments and so they prefer realizing safe and boring concepts like boygroups, cover productions and so on. This is a big problem for new bands to start a career and to get a record deal. And it is difficult in the independent scene too. ND: In the next few years, were do you see yourself and the band? FALK: I'm hopeful because of the development of the things in the last years. Actually it is important to release our debut album and I hope that we get more publicity with it. Greetings to all of you ... Falk More at: |
