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to rococo rot: an interview with the dusseldorf and berlin triosusanna glaser: Does it feel strange that something which began almost by accident is going from strength to strength six years on?
Robert: I think the most worthwhile things often start by accident. Where people don't have a vision, they develop quite readily. That's what I've found out through speaking to other artists and musicians or reading biographies. I think it's a very good way to just wait and see how things are going to happen and just follow the process. Or change the process.
susanna glaser: To Rococo Rot as a band started off as an exhibition, right?
Robert Lippok: Yeah that's true. It was in 1995. Ron and I did an exhibition in a small gallery in Berlin and the To Rococo Rot picture disc was actually not a part of the exhibition. But it came alongside the exhibition.
Ronald Lippok: The name of the exhibition was actually To Rococo Rot - and so the picture disk was named after the exhibition. And it had our names on it and people started saying are you To Rococo Rot and we'd say, erm, yeah right, that's somehow true. In the beginning we didn't have a plan to form a band or a project or anything, it just went so well when we worked together all the three of us for the very first time, we thought, it's worth going ahead with it.
susanna glaser: Were you artists first and foremost then?
Robert: No, we'd been making music for quite some time.
Ronald: Art and music are always two different things to us. We'd done some installation work and so on, but we always try and keep music and art separate. We'd done some exhibitions beforehand but we'd also done some proper records beforehand with other projects. And I think it was the same with Stefan - he started photography in Düsseldorf but he was always into music before he started. It's not like we're artists exploring music as a 'new' thing to express ourselves, we were always into music since our childhood onwards actually.
susanna glaser: Would you say, though, that you're basically artists who use different palettes, either sound or colour?
Robert: It's actually true. When I did art and I might do that in the future too I had that same procedure in how I put things together in the same way I might make music. There are similarities in the way of working with music as well as art. And it always gives a different input into music when you do visual stuff. I do stage design from time to time too, so that's another input into the music as well. But we're not interested in this multimedia thing. When we play live we always say to the venue, please don't use any visuals, because we just don't see the point. They're often not related to the music, they destroy that open situation where you hear music and you make your own pictures to it in your head, your own associations.
susanna glaser: Do you make art, Stefan?
Stefan Schneider: Yes, but when I finished studying art it was exactly when I was starting music - first with Kreidler, then with To Rococo Rot, also another natural progression. I became busy with music and there was not much time left to do art seriously. I think the main difference between doing art and music is that mostly art is something you do on your own and working on music is something, well definitely in our case, a group situation, so it's completely different.
susanna glaser: Do we see any of your art in the sleeves, is that all yours?
Stefan: Yes, but we'd probably have done that without having studied art. The sleeve is part of the product, part of the record and it's not necessary to let anyone else do it. Usually they'll come to some misunderstanding as we experienced when we did some attempts to make a video. We're not into film making and we tried to work with other people. Even if you speak about something and you have the impression the other people have understood what you want, it could be miles away, what comes out as a result, so it's quite tricky. We do have two videos we're happy with at the moment. One is for Telema and the other is for Cars.
susanna glaser: What about you, Ronald, do you still do your art?
Ronald: Through my work with Tarwater as well, I didn't have time to paint seriously in the last two years. Last year I painted two little pictures like a gentleman on a Summer vacation - on an easel. This year I've planned to paint again, I have some time in the Summer, six weeks or so, I really love to smell the colours and stuff.
susanna glaser: Smell the colours?
Ronald: Yes. Actually that's one of the main things I miss about painting, the smell!
susanna glaser: Do the colours smell differently?
Ronald: Between the colours? Yes, sure, it depends on what they're made of.
susanna glaser: How does the music come together?
Ronald: I think when we meet everyone has a little bit of an idea. Like a rhythm loop prepared and then we try out how it comes together and what happens. We don't make things out of nothing, there's always something.
Robert: But we don't have a rehearsal space so when we go to the studio we create the music there, we don't have the full tracks prepared. We only have parts and patterns prepared. And then it comes together.
Stefan: It's also different depending on what we're working on. Say, if it's a remix, it's usually sorting out who has what idea. We will discuss that before beginning work on it. Sometimes if we're really short on time, and have to really get something finished, like film music, or this music which we did for some architects recently, sometimes it's okay to work under pressure. For the recent album, however, we've spent the last two and a half years working on it. Quite gradually. So it's always quite different. But before we go into the studio I think there's always a brief idea of what we've been working on and what the result should be. And there's always some space left to surprise ourselves.
Ronald: Plus, we know each other quite well so we know who we can get what from.
Robert: A funky snare drum from me...
Ronald: Or a bit of bass from Stefan...
susanna glaser: What about when you're bringing in people from outside, like Alexander Balanescu (who appears on Music Is A Hungry Ghost)?
Ronald: There was one track From Dream To Daylight we sent to him and he prepared something and there's another track on the album and that was like an improvised thing he did in the studio.
Robert: We had an idea of what his violin sounded like through the ARS Electronica festival in Linz where we first met. We already knew what he sounded like, that's why we ended up working together. He asked us if we could imagine doing something more with him. And we said yes, we're working on the next album and we've a feeling we might want some violin on a couple of the tracks. But it was just his way of playing the violin that forced us to invite him to Berlin to record with us, it wasn't the fact that we thought 'oh this track needs some violin', it was the other way around. He did some excellent violin playing on From Dream To Daylight and it came out exactly how we imagined to come out like, it shouldn't have sounded orchestrated. It's a bit tricky when bands are trying to include orchestral bits, we didn't want it to sound like some solo thing which sits on top of the music, it should sound perfectly integrated and that's exactly how he sounded.
susanna glaser: So, tell me, how did you meet?
Stefan: He invited us to go there. The thing we'd been working with him in Linz on was an outdoor installation improvisation. We were playing together with him plus four other musicians, from Austria and Italy. The idea was to play live from 8 in the morning till 10 at night. And we organised different slots in different combinations over four or five days - overall it was something like 56 hours' worth of material. Through this process he asked if we'd imagine working with him in the future - and that's how we came to invite him.
susanna glaser: What about I-Sound, Craig Willingham? When did you first come across him and why make an album like this with him?
Ronald: We met him a few years ago, in New York where he was DJing, we were playing the same night in a club called The Cooler. His set was just excellent. He was using the turntables more like instruments, for creating certain sounds, mixing records from very different sources like music concréte, reggae, hip hop. But it wasn't like an eclectic thing, it was more like...
Robert: ...more like a vision of sound.
Ronald: And it was pretty intense and harsh and we liked it very much. He's the manager of Mondo Kim's - a record store in New York - and the other day we played an in-store gig at Kim's. Then we asked if he could imagine doing something together with us and he said yes. We invited him to come to Berlin and did a few sessions, five recordings sessions over two and a half years.
Stefan: Yes. We put out Amateur View in between - which is how one track we did with I-Sound appeared on that album - and then we got more and more material and we thought, let's do the next album together. Sometimes, with this album we had phases where we felt a bit disorientated, but that's also what makes it interesting force behind it, the fact we felt quite insecure about which direction the whole thing was going in. That's exactly what we wanted to do, open windows, doors. It was excellent to be working with him.
susanna glaser: What input does he have? Where does what he does meet with what To Rococo Rot does?
Robert: From the time of recording he was the fourth band member. It was not like, he put some scratches in or put some weird noises in. It was like mixing the tracks, we were talking about the tracks together. He was changing through his input the whole sound of To Rococo Rot, it was not just one additional thing to our sound or our music.
susanna glaser: What did he do to the To Rococo Rot sound?
Stefan: He brought a lot of harsh processed sounds with him, whereas our sounds were rather analogue, drums and bass, and sweeter. He brought a lot of tracks consisting of harsh noise and changed the whole balance of the rhythmic side. Ronald started to play rather percussive things to it, rather than making it polished, like some proper drumming on top, to keep it brittle. And yeah, as Robert said he did a lot of mixing and was also involved in the dynamics of some of the tracks, he brought a new openness to some of the tracks and it's something we've already appreciated in former times to not to decide a track to make it sound like proper dance track or an ambient track. Our approach is always to leave things open, leave the listener to make up his own mind. And he's pushed us even more in that direction.
susanna glaser: He's not playing live with you tonight though?
Ronald: Not this time, but he'll be with us in the Autumn. We did ten concerts in Germany and he was playing with us for those gigs. Which was really good. I mean, we already miss him, because it was really good to have him around. And now we have to fill the gap while he's away. And we can't, really, of course we can't. He will be with us for the England tour in the Autumn. He manages two record shops in the States and they're not too good with holidays there so he'll be doing the tour in his holiday.
susanna glaser: Do you have holidays?
Robert: We try to. I had my holidays already.
Ronald: I'm looking forward to my holidays in August.
Stefan: I'm not a holiday guy, so... I like to work, music is my thing. I can't really say this is free time, this is work. But now I'm starting to have holidays and I'm enjoying them.
susanna glaser: Are there any other people you'd like to collaborate with, whether 'in your dreams' or realistically?
Ronald: No, there's not really. With I-Sound and Alexander, we met these people, there wasn't really a dream about having Balanescu on the record first. I think the three of us don't have 'somebody' that we'd like to work with - we don't think 'we want this or this guy' to produce the next record.
Stefan: I think it's much more interesting to have fresh relationships and not work with heroes or something. We did some work on the St Etienne album and that was a bit like this band we knew very well beforehand and Ronald was a big fan and I certainly thought they were the best British pop band in the 90s, and they asked us if we could work together with them on their album 'Sound Of Water'. And it was okay, but it could have been much better. It wasn't a collaboration but they asked us to produce on their tracks. Some of the tracks came out quite fine but I think the end result could have been much finer. That gave us a feeling that we'd rather keep our heroes in our record collection and keep looking out new interesting ways. We've been asked quite often to play with certain bands which were too obvious. It'd be like an exact confirmation of what everybody thinks we should sound like or the other band should sound like so we said, no, we definitely don't want that. Our range of music is like 'this' and why always just confirm this bit. Let's open it more than just to make a safe way.
susanna glaser: What have you actually been up to in the last year?
Ronald: Each and every one of us is doing other things apart from To Rococo Rot. Robert released a solo album on Rasta Noton which is called 'open close open' and Stefan is working on a Mapstation solo project
Stefan: I also did some music for a theatre play
Ronald: I'm doing Tarwater stuff, starting to work on the new album. Doing some film music at the moment.
susanna glaser: Where would you place Music Is A Hungry Ghost in the To Rococo Rot repertoire?
Stefan: I think within the history of all the albums, I think each album is in reaction to the previous album. Except obviously the first one. After the first one Veiculo, which was a bit too much like a band playing, we wanted to go into this track like direction and in Amateur View we were quite into showing there is a pop side in our music. And that's been dissolved after Amateur View. And after that it was a natural step to think about new things. Plus it took us so long. And we felt insecure. I think this is the most compelling album we've made so far.
susanna glaser: When you make each album do you think of each of them as very much a self contained entity or more as chapters in a book. Do they follow on or jump?
Stefan: I think almost always a book. You can perceive them as chapters.
Ronald: Yeah, I think the music continues how we work with sound, or how we see sound, how we find sounds. That's been pretty the same through the years.
Robert: Although each album is also a work in its own right. You don't need the context of the other albums to enjoy one of them, or understand what is going on. They're not like a continuing series like Pole did for instance, where the context plays an important role and I think that's different in our case.
susanna glaser: You're quite influential, especially in the UK, as having brought German electronic music to the forefront of our listening habits...
Stefan: I don't know if we can estimate whether we're influential or not.
Ronald: It's just very nice and very good to go to certain places in Britain and meet people and see that people in Britain have a similar idea about music and they'll play us their music and give us tapes. I wouldn't say we are influential but we have been recognised all over Britain. And we have been recognised by people we like which is very nice. I don't think it's like we're influential, it's just that we make connections through the years and meet people. That's it.
susanna glaser: When I wrote a review of The Amateur View - I said "To Rococo Rot make things work, even when they really, really shouldn't". Would you agree?
Stefan: Yes, it's that 'surprise ourselves' effect. What we went through quite often during the production of Music Is A Hungry Ghost. It's very difficult to explain how in the end you can get a feeling for what you're doing. When you look into the past with your questions, you have a better understanding. Sometimes it's easier in an interview to talk about a previous album, than a recent one. Sometimes the music is one step ahead of your perception.
Ronald: One reason that we don't limit ourselves, that we're always open to new combinations - is that we always listen to a track rather than have a masterplan before we make it. We allow things like that to happen. I wouldn't call it experiments. Just things we've never done before.
susanna glaser: Some say Music Is A Hungry Ghost is your most accessible album to date. Was that a challenge you set yourselves?
Robert: It surprises me that they say it's the most accessible one. Although we didn't work on it being more difficult or more deep. To say that it's the most accessible, it makes me pretty happy, because I think it is accessible. I think you can listen to it, like Ronald said, without knowing the band, knowing the history, knowing anything about German electronica or German music at all.
susanna glaser: Maybe it's bolder, too?
Stefan: It was probably an attempt, with Craig there, to get more bold lines, because I've had problems in previous work - we were always a bit too modest - with Craig it was a help to bring in this noise or sound at the beginning and letting the listener understand - to push things more to the fore and not keep them quite so subtle. That's what we did in the past.
Also, there was so much subtle, sweet and nice electronic music around in the past one and a half years - it was quite boring to a certain degree - we wanted to get away from that.
susanna glaser: What about that kind of 'groove' feel?
Ronald: Well, we wanted it more in your face, straighter.
Stefan: Dance music has always been a big influence on us anyway. Certain sequences that are used in dance music, the way the bass drum functions. I often go to clubs and listen to two-step and stuff like that. That influences our music but we put it through our own personal filter. Dance music being more rhythmic was definitely part of the new album.
susanna glaser: When you play live, do you get carried away?
Ronald: What's good about playing live is you have a chance to open the music up a bit and to let things go free, so you don't know what's going to happen. Sometimes it can fail and sometimes it can be very good. I like this freedom, of going in different directions in the concerts and trying new things out and trying new intersections between tracks out or even new tracks.
Stefan: Audiences are important to us. In a place where it's already packed there is a tension which is really easy to pick up. You get immersed not just in the music but the place and all the people who are there. It's a very fine thing to do.
susanna glaser: What's next, for To Rococo Rot?
Stefan: Well, we have to call Alexander Balanescu right now, because he asked if we'd like his violin on stage...
susanna glaser: Just his violin?
Stefan: (Laughs) No himself also!
Ronald: I think Stefan mentioned, we've done some work on an architectural project which will not be out till autumn 02. And then we're in the studio to make a maxi single. And after that we start doing concerts in September, in the States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Siberia if we can make it. We're working on that...