Interviewer: Oliver Kube 

At the beginning of 2017 a new album of the Dark-Rock-Celebrities MONO INC. will come out onto the market. As a pretaste the Hamburger release the Single “Children Of The Dark” with an impressive squad of guest-celebrities. We met Frontman Martin Engler and his friends Joachim Witt, Chris Harms and Tilo Wolff in St.Pauli.

“As I wrote the song, it was my goal, to create a kind of tribute to our scene”, says Engler. “Dark- and dismal-Rocker are a very special kind of people. I wanted to immortalize this life-feeling in a song.”

“Children Of The Dark” arose during the works on the new, ninth MONO-INC.-album. “I knew it at the beginning, that this song was something special”, he reported. The idea, to make a summit of a few of the most successful and inspirational voices of the genre, he had distinct later. First MONO INC. recorded the piece normally, with only him at the microphone. “I was very satisfied with the finished song”, Martin confesses, “But then I realized that I was singing 'We are the children of the dark'. We- therefore plural. Instantly the wish in me came up to take a few of my colleagues. But it shouldn't be a “Live-Aid”-thing, in which every Hans and Franz sings a line. I wanted to have people in it, that are really important to me and whose work and whose friendship are important to me...” And on the same day he sent the record to the three men, he first thought of and the only ones he thought of to make this idea real.

The speech is about Chris Harms, the frontman of the bloody young, in the last few years successful Lord Of The Lost, Tilo Wolff, the mastermind of Lacrimosa and the legendary Joachim Witt. The, promoted dark-rock-godfather, former NDW-Icon watched a Champions-League-livestream as Engler's message reached him: “I pressed on the playbutton and after a few beats I turned of soccer to fully listen to the song. What means a lot when I do so”, he laughs. Harms was, according to himself, busy with “accounting stuff”: “First I was thankful for the distraction”, he rejoice about it, “Then I was spontaneous

excited about it. As I read that Martin wanted me to be a part of it, my evening was saved.” Tilo Wolff lives in Switzerland and he also was instantly calculated as he listened to “Children Of The Dark” on his computer: “The song combines everything what I like about music. It has the power but also a lot of true emotions. Since Martin and I knew each other for quiet a while and are okay with each other I wanted to be involved. But of course I had to knew who was involved too. There are people with who I don't want to be heard on the same disk”, the Lacrimosa-chef confessed smirking, “As Martin told me the names of the other two, I instantly said yes.” Wolff and Harms recorded their parts in their own studio, while Witt traveled from his adopted country Potsdam to Engler to the Hansestadt. At the beginning of November it finally happened that the four, that worked in all different kinds of combinations together, met all together in a room, in a burlesque-club in the middle of the Hamburger red-light district in the heart of St.Pauli. Here they recorded the video to the single and give this interview. But most of all they spend a good time together. “Since today this project means a lot more to me”, says Witt, who is adored by his three younger colleagues, but who also gives them during the talk some gestures and looks to show them that he appreciates them just as much. “We four all are on the same wavelength”, he realizes. “This is the reason why our song works so well.”

“It makes me damn proud, that the guys are on our plate”, summarizes the initiator of the thoughtful cooperation. Engler can be really happy. With Witt, who became really popular in the 80s, the in the 90s celebrity Wolff, his own, at the beginning of the new millennium important being band and the shortly succeeded Harms he brought style-defining artists of the all beloved sounds of all four generations under one hat. Thus “Children Of The Dark” is more than only an excellent song. It is a statement to the longevity of the genre.

Translation: Sarah Schwindling