We are wolves… are you? And if so, why?
Vincent: It’s a while ago, I don’t think we are wolves. It was more about the idea that wolves are hanging around in communities, like really tight communities. So yeah, that was the idea: Sharing a common goal with different people.
How did you get into music?
Alexander: Really by accident. We’ve been students in art school and we knew a little bit how to play our instruments, but not really and we started talking to each other and we were doing art anyway so we kinda tried to make art with instruments, without really knowing how to play, so it was very minimal, very primitive, very organic. And it kinda started to be just for fun, just like an escape from school.
Vincent: Yes, it was like a different kind of discipline, something more rough. You know in school, you always write stuff and think about stuff and music was a way for us, not to think that much and act more. Our friends were like: ‚Oh you have a band?! Cool, I will come to your show!‘ One of them said: ‚I think, you guys should do an album.‘ And that one became our manager and he is for 15 years now.
Alexander: And then you start touring from one album to the next album, that leads to more tours and than you realize, 15 years later, that you are still doing it.
Canadians are well-known for being very polite and friendly. You’re a band for about 16 years now. Is it always possible to live up this reputation?
Vincent: Yes, I think we really are, I mean we’ve seen a lot of bands on tour around the world and we are still the polite ones and we show up on time.
Alexander: Yes, we are good people, we are not rockstars. We don’t have that attitude. It’s really not important for us, that whole kind of lifestyle or glamour.
Like getting drunk and be rude?!
Alexander: Well, we like to get drunk but we are still very nice people when we are drunk. (laughs)
Vincent: We are not that kind of guys who destroy a hotel room just because it’s a punk rock attitude or lifestyle thing.
Your music is full of energy and rhythm, no chance to not bop your feet while listening to it. Is there also a calm and soft side inside of you?
Vincent: We have a new record coming out in Canada in a week and there are some softer songs on it but I wouldn’t say it’s a new thing for us; we always did that but those songs weren’t the most popular obviously. (laughs) We always listen to really soft music at home. Well, not always but I like to listen to ambient stuff, I like new wave music, I really like drums and I like long songs.
Alexander: Yeah, and people like Leonard Cohen, Spacemen 3 or Nick Cave. We also have another project which is called ‚CLAASS‘. That’s a band which is softer and more kinda new romantic.
Do you tour with this band too?
Vincent: Yes, we did.
Alexander: We did a tour in Germany, Belgium and France.
Vincent: But our singer moved to Boston so it’s hard to go on.
Do you speed up the tempo of your music to avoid freezing during the Canadian winter by dancing?
Vincent: (laughs) That’s a really good question, wow, that’s the first time we’ve been asked this! There are some songs that we play faster live than they are on the record. I never thought about a thing like temperature, but it might be an influence. (laughs)
When you create a song, what comes first – lyrics or melody?
Vincent: Oh, it depends. Sometimes it’s just the drums, since we don’t have training as musicians. We never had like proper modules to follow, so it just comes from anywhere, if it just feels good and if it catches our ears.
Alexander: It can be a simple sound that you just hear here, or a reputation that could be inspiring, so you would be like: ‚Ah, we should try this very psychic sound‘, like a drone and then you put in a bass line and then the vocals and…
Vincent: And that’s pretty much how we make art as well, you know. We make art out of nothing, just ideas and perceptions. And we have the same process with our music.
As Germans we have a huge tradition in building walls. Will you Canadians build up a wall when Donald Trump becomes President of the USA?
Vincent: (laughs) Wow! Okay, okay. I might build a wall around my house, I can’t talk for the country but… (laughs) that’s a tough question.
Alexander: Maybe there should be a wall around Donald Trump, just around him so he can enjoy the wall.
I asked my colleague if I can ask this question. She was like ‚of course, why not!‘
Alexander: Yeah, why not, Canadians are cool.
Vincent: Yeah, I really like the fact that you make some humour about the Berlin wall. At some point we have to make fun of it.
We are from the east side of Germany so…
Vincent: Ah, so the wall was especially an important thing for you and your family.
What does music mean to you?
Alexander: For me right now, because I have kids, music is very important, so my kids can focus on something and have their own fun while I can do something else. For that reason, I really love music cause they can leave me alone when they listen to their songs. (laughs)
Vincent: For me, I guess, music has become so tangled with what we do as production, so every time I hear music now I just… It’s hard for me to just enjoy music, I just break it down into little pieces and see what I can grab from it. So I always see a bunch of little bits of information, more than a big, fun balloon. But it’s still fun; I enjoy putting it under the microscope.
So you think about music in a different way than you did before you started to make music?
Alexander: Yes, yes. It’s hard not to listen to a song and kinda mentally breaking it down and understanding what the strong parts are and whether it does make sense and the reason why you like them. Sometimes there are songs where you know they are shit but, like it’s not made to be good, it’s just to shut down your throats, but you listen and listen to it. So that’s interesting to listen to those songs and kind of understand why it works, or why it doesn’t work.
Which German words do you know?
Alexander: What’s a…’große Pantoffel?‘
Große Pantoffel? (laughs) Normally, it’s a shoe – like a slipper.
Alexander: Yes, yes that’s the word I know. I can also say ‚kleine Pantoffel‘.
Vincent: Yes, I know some German words, basic stuff like ‚Wein‘ and ‚Käse‘. You see, I’m better with reading, than pronouncing it. That was it, I guess. I wish I knew more.
So, you normaly speak french, right? I learned it for like four years and now I don’t know that much, so don’t worry.
Vincent: But you can say ‚I dont speak French‘, right?! Because it’s really important. (laughs)
Alexander: What is ‚I don’t speak German?‘
‚Ich spreche kein Deutsch‘.
Both: (try and are pretty good at it)
What should or what shouldn’t you do on a festival?
Alexander: Get naked at Karaoke!
Vincent: Yeah, that’s fun!
Alexander: I’m not sure if you should or shouldn’t do this. It actually happend. (laughs) We went to a karaoke bar last night, me and my drummer and my drummer is… really intense, so he was singing and while he was singing he was getting naked and the guy from the karaoke bar didn’t like it at all and he was like: ‚No, no, you have to put your clothes back on!‘
Which song was it, that gave him the feeling to get naked to?
Alexander: It was a Phil Collins song: ‚Another Day In Paradise‘.
Vincent: Yeah, but our drummer likes to get naked so… (laughs). I would say, you should at least get a little bit of sleep, so otherwise you can’t last for the whole festival.
We’re huge fans of mix tapes and playlists. Tell us your favourite songs for…
…lovesong?
Alexander: The lovestory theme.
Vincent: The music from the movie.
(looks confused because of not knowing the movie)
Alexander: It’s a seventies movie and the song goes like… (humms the melody)
Yes, NOW I know!
Alexander: Yes, that theme song but with a band. In the soundtrack you have that theme song with a band and it’s nice.
Vincent: I don’t know if it qualifies as a love song but ‚So Long – MaryAnne‘ by Leonard Cohan. It’s not a song that you would think of, because it doesn’t end as a love story but the whole story in the song is super romantic, I think. And it’s kind of part of a past era, where that kind of story could have happend… peacefully… and I think that’s a beautiful song.
…nightly car drive?
Vincent: I keep forgetting the titles of the tracks…
Alexander: I think NEU!. It’s a German band from the seventies, there is a song called ‚Hallogallo‘ which is like twelve minutes long.
Vincent: And it’s a really good driving song!
…beach music?
Alexander: That ‚Tequila‘ song! (laughs)
(everybody starts to sing the melody of the song)
Alexander: And I think Leonard Cohan can be also good beach music, just to relax and just disconnect from everything at the beach.
…festival?
Alexander: We played a festival in Iceland a while ago and we went into a room and there was a band, I don’t remember the name but it was very, very weird. It was kind of electronic music and there was a dude singing in the middle, he was all dressed in silver and there were people just doing weight lifts and there were huge muscular man weighting lifts but they also lifted women like body builder. It was just very weird I don’t know who it is but this would be the song for a festival.
…heartache?
Alexander: Two songs: 1. ‚Henry Lee‘ by Nick Cave and 2. ‚I Can’t Escape Myself‘ by The Sound.
Which was the first record you ever bought?
Vincent: I bought by myself? I know it was Crass, the punk band from England, it was ‚Christ – The Album‘ and it was a cassette. Guess, they were pretty big back then. That was the first record I bought with my money. The other ones were gifts and they were good. I listened to them and then I probably bought vinyls of prog rock bands because they were cheap. Older parents who didn’t like them anymore were selling them for 25 cents.
Alexander: I think it’s a ‚Black Sabbath‘ album or ‚Led Zeppelin‘. I think I got them both at the same time.
Inspiration / idols?
Alexander: Musicians or artists?
Vincent: I don’t have a musical idol. I mean there are people I respect for what they do. I like Beck because I think his stuff always sounds amazing. I don’t know what part of it is, whether it’s him or just his engineer. But I think he always sounds amazing but I don’t constantly listen to him like a fanatic. I only own a record by him but I always respect it. There are visual artists or conceptional artists that we both respect or admire in the way how they do concepts for artwork. I like Bruce Nauman, he is really a profund but laid back guy. That would be one of mine.
Alexander: I have no specific one, I would name artists like Wolfgang Tillman. But as musicans… Everytime I see a movie or a documentary about Nick Cave I’m always impressed, the way he deals with everything in his life like his addiction of heroin and how he was afterwards.
Album of the year?
Vincent: I spent the whole year on working on our album so I didn’t have the time to listen to other artists and it would be pretentious to say it’s our album.
Which song is on continous loop in your current playlist?
Vincent: Again, I think I have to skip, because most of the time I listen to our songs. Let’s say 10 seconds of each song for hours and hours. That’s what I listen to.
Small gigs or big festivals?
Vincent: So for our personal fun: Smaller gigs, filled with people, are the best. But as a professional musician you need a balance of both, for us, to feel active as a band.
Is there a music genre that shouldn’t exist?
Vincent: No, I think they should all exist. They always have a purpose. If they exist, it’s for a reason, like canceling them afterwards doesn’t make any sense for me. They are all part of the whole. Well, which plant shoulnd’t exist? Who am I to say you shouldn’t exist!? Or it’s like ‚Which language shouldn’t exist?‘ They should all exist.
We have a genre that is called ‚Schlager‘, do you know that?
Alexander: Ah yes, Schlager, but if you skip obligatory that kind of music, then another kind of music would be ‚the worst‘.
Vincent: But people should know more about everything.
Alexander: Yes, I think the most important thing is to be open to any kind of music. And you know why you don’t like Schlager music for example. You know it’s bad, it really is, but maybe because of that you know why the opposite kind of music is better.
Vincent: Yes, like punk came from the opposite of something else. So if that other thing wouldn’t have existed, there wouldn’t be punk music.
Interview conducted by Julia
