Interview с De/Vision : DARKSIDE.ru

How many sound samples did you use and in how many songs?

A lot of them. I mean, a lot of sounds were created with the samplers. Most of the sounds you can hear on our albums come either from the samplers or some kinds of synthesizers. Of course, there are many, many samples…

You wrote a German speaking song – “In Dir” – for this album. Why are songs in German so seldom from you?

Oh… Everything has to be perfect for a German song, you know… The song must be the right song, and the lyrics must be good as well. In the German language, with German lyrics you fail very easily, even if the song is catchy. That’s a problem many bands have. (laughs) I don’t wanna name any band but it’s really a big problem for many bands here in Germany. The lyrics shouldn’t be catchy, or… (thinking over) too mysterious or things like that. They should be straight and simple and good. Well, this time everything simply seems to fit perfectly together – the sound, the lyrics, the music; everything was just perfect this time. Yeah, that’s why it happened, 10 years after we did our previous song in German.

As the author of all the lyrics could you tell me what the song “My Own Worst Enemy” is about?

(a deep sigh) “My Own Worst Enemy”? (laughs) OK, let me think. The first thing I wanna say is I never liked talking much about the lyrics of the songs because it is important for each person who listens to them. They have their own thoughts about the lyrics because ten different people who listen to the same song will have ten different answers to what the song is about. It’s important and that’s why I don’t like talking too much about the lyrics. As to “My Own Worst Enemy”, it’s quite clear to me, but I think that everyone has had moments in his life when he or she felt that

you could be better in whatever you do… It could be better and like it’s saying in the song – you know you’re always flying on the wings of mediocracy. You know you can be better, and it’s in your own hands to get the best out of whatever you do. That’s what the song is about.

A lot of your songs are about love. What gives you inspiration for such a theme?

Yeah, I write a lot about love because it’s what makes us walk around, you know… Wherever we go and whatever we do, we always want to impress the girls (laughs) and the other way round – the girls want to impress the boys. That’s what really makes life, that’s really the most important thing – to find a part, to find someone to share the good and bad things. That’s why I prefer to talk about this kind of stuff. (laughs) I think, for example, writing lyrics about politics or something that some other bands and artists do, for me personally is quite boring.

You seem to be romantic.

I’m sure I’m a romantic person in a way, in my own way. (laughs) Like everything else in the world everyone has his own idea of romance. For some people romance means a candy life with your girl or woman, and for others romantce is something completely different… I would say I am a romantic person but with my very own romantic feelings… I don’t want to go into details, what exactly is romance for me. (laughs)

OK. Tell me then what usually appears first – lyrics or music?

First there is the music and after that the lyrics are written.

Are there any changes among the musicians who will go on tour with De/Vision?

The guitar player is the same guy who goes on tour with us for the last 10 years or something… His name is Lars, he’s a very nice guy and a ver

y good guitar player. On this tour we have for the first time a new drummer. The last guy who was beating the drums for us for the last two years left the band after the last tour, that’s why we had to look for a new drummer and we found a new one. His name is Marcus, he’s a very experienced drummer. We’re looking forward to play with these guys on tour. It would be much fun.

Steffen and you have been working together for many years now. Which sides of you both are similar and absolutely different?

Of course, all of us have our own sides, and at some points we are absolutely different. In many things we are much the same. When it comes to music, for example, we have the same ideas about the music, about De/Vision’s music, but of course everyone has his own mind and sometimes we fight with each other. That’s absolutely normal.

De/Vision’s music is like a journey. Do you often listen to your music when driving a car, for example?

Yes, sometimes I do. But I don’t drive a car very often because I don’t have a car. I really enjoy listening to our own songs when driving on the autobahn for example. Not only in the car, but also at home I like listening to our CDs every once in a while, and I really enjoy them, especially the last three albums. I like it very much. It’s always very relaxing when listening to these albums. But I don’t really like to listen to our first album (“World Without End”, 1994), that’s not what I enjoy today, not what I enjoy anymore. That’s a picture of the past that is too long gone. Now I prefer rather new stuff like “Two” (2001) or “Devolution” (2003) but not the old stuff.

Speaking about your fans’ preference, do you feel that your popularity now is much bigger than ten years ago?

For me, it feels like the level of popularity hasn’t

really changed a lot during the last… 7-9 years. For me, it feels like the level is quite the same… Maybe you could say “Monosex” (1998) probably was the most successful album and period of time. Probably. I remember that at that time we had lots of attention from the music video channels like “Viva II”. If you keep that in mind, probably “Monosex” is the most popular of our times, but I really have to say that even “Six Feet Underground” (2004) was very popular among our fans. I hope “Subkutan” will be as successful as “Six Feet Underground”, it would be great. So for me it still feels like not really much has changed.

It’s well-known that there are people who think that electronic music has no soul, so to say. What do you think about that?

That’s stupid of course. I think there’s soul in any kind of music, no matter if you use electronic instruments or true string instruments. Both kinds of instruments were created by human beings, and I think that’s the reason why both kinds of instruments – acoustic instruments as well as electronic instruments – can be used to create music that is full of soul. I think that’s a stupid opinion. I know there are many people believing that electronic music can’t have any soul. That is absolutely stupid. It depends on what kind of songs you like and you can create. With my electronic instrument I can also imitate a piano for example. If a piano has a soul, so I use a piano by means of my electronic keyboard. Then of course I also use an instrument that has a soul…

Once you said you were quite open in creating your music, but are there any limits in your creative experiments that you will never cross?

I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s a fact that De/Vision stands for a certain kind of music. I’m sure De/Vision will never become a rock band, for example. That is abso

lutely unimaginable. I think there is no chance for this can happen. Within the limits of electronic music I think everything can happen for De/Vision. Of course we are not only for electronic music, we also like rock music, guitar music and whatever. Maybe someday we will be involved in some kind of guitar project, for example, with a guitar band, but not as De/Vision, but ynder a different name for example. Maybe in the future we’ll found another band, even a rock band. Who knows, this can happen. So, I wouldn’t say it’s impossible for this to happen, but not as De/Vision. De/Vision is an electronic band and we also use acoustic instruments every once in a while, but De/Vision is basically an electronic band and that is what we will be in the future.

Does it matter for you how many people would come to a club to listen to you?

Of course, it matters. It’s very fine when you have an audience of about 1,000 people instead of 100, you know. It’s a better feeling of course. (laughs) But all we can do is make a tour and hope that many people would come to see the show. We have really a lot of fans. We played many concerts in our career in front of 100 people maybe or so, it happened many times in the past, but that’s the way it is…

Well, what do you expect from “Subkutan”?

Well, we both hope it will be at least as successful as “Six Feet Underground”. All I hope is it gives us a chance to go on with what we are doing right now. I don’t want to sell a million of copies, I’m quite happy when I can sell enough records to make my living. (laughs) We were able to do that for the last 15 years and I hope we can go on like that for the next 15 years and maybe even more. We wanna keep the stand we are in right now. That’s alright.

We are finishing our interview now, Tomas. It was nice talking to you. What would you like to say to your fans over here?

I would like to say ‘hello’ to our fans and readers and hopefully we meet in May because we have a plan to come to Russia and play some shows. I hope everything will work out in May the way we have planned, I hope to see the many of you.

Special thanks to Ina Reeg-Knittel (Absolut Promotion) for arranging this interview

Anna Babicheva
February 14, 2006
14 апр 2006 the End

De/Vision

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