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Episode 13 – Between yearning and world-weariness

Swiss und Harms – Zwischen Tour und Angel

  

(translator’s note: in German you literally say, “between door and hinge” for “in passing,” they altered it to “between tour and hinge”)

 

Description of the episode:

Swiss and Chris have chosen a fun topic for episode 13. Think again. The two emo musicians immediately start complaining about their longing for the world, intellectuals hunted by the Nazis and their fear of flying. On the side, they plan vacations and podcast recordings in the “Pony” (It-bar) on Sylt. It's worth tuning in. Give us a good rating and recommend us to others!

 

*Intro playing*

Chris: Good morning, Werner.

Swiss: Yes, good morning, Christian.

Chris: Yes. *laughs* Hearty welcome to episode 13, with Werner and Christian, the Podcast.

Swiss: In your boudoir, Christian.

Chris: Yes, exactly.

Swiss: This is where you find me, lounging on the sofa.

Chris: Lounging.

Swiss: I’m sitting here like a rogue, with a waggish sense of humor (he uses words/phrases here that are mainly used in medieval stories and alike).

Chris: So, you already noticed, in the meantime I have become a big fan of “Lanz und Precht” (German Podcast with journalist and TV host Markus Lanz and Richard David Precht, an author and philosopher), and this has brought some calmness into the “Podcast game.”

Swiss: Yes, the hectic pace is no longer there.

Chris: Exactly.

Swiss: And rightfully so.

Chris: *laughs* This is now episode 13, and I think we need to start growing up a bit too.

Swiss: I think, that’s a very good thing, Christian.

Chris: Alright! We are here together today, back in St. Pauli, not on the phone as planned, but we met in person.

Swiss: We actually tried everything to get this over with by phone.

Chris: Exactly.

Swiss: And now—

Chris: You were always calling me, but—

Swiss: —if you also come forth with the joke about the DJ you called, but he hung up… then I’ll (in German the words for “to hang up the phone” and “to put on a record” are the same)—

Chris: I don’t make these kind of Dad jokes, I’m simply too young for them.

Swiss: And that was the next one already. Well, Christian, how are you doing?

Chris: I am ultra tired right now, at the moment. Yesterday I had a long music video shoot with Lord of the Lost, which I unfortunately may not talk about yet, I can tell you later on what it was for.

Swiss: Okay. I’m not interested… like, if you don’t need to say it here, you don’t need to tell me later either. It doesn’t really matter. So, you have been working, what else?

Chris: Right. And… I don’t even know why. You don't feel like you're doing much on a video shoot, but you're still just… I don't know if you know what it's like, you're just really tired afterwards.

Swiss: Do you know this interview with Philipp Lahm (former German Soccer player), where they asked him what he misses least from his active soccer career? And he replies, “All that waiting.” You wait for the training, you wait for lunch, you wait for the team bus to pick you up, you wait for the massage therapist to have time for you, so… you wait so much, and that is actually also the same with a musician’s career: you sit around the whole day at this festival, if you have a status like ours some random poorly paid people do the setup for you.

Chris: Poorly paid people set up poorly.

Swiss: They set up poorly for you, and then you enter the stage, you keep this “loop of poorliness” going by putting in some mediocre performance, and then you get back on that bus and wait again until you get there, you wait—

Chris: But “mediocre” is already outstanding compared to “bad.”

Swiss: Outstanding, right.

Chris: Right.

Swiss: Push it to mediocrity. This has always been our motto.

Chris: DJ Average feat. MC Mediocrity.

Swiss: Okay, so you have been working, you are tired.

Chris: I’m just really tired right now, I was—until you rang the doorbell, I was napping on the sofa for half an hour, but besides that I am doing totally fine, because it is warm. I love summer, and it is shortly before the summer holidays now, one and a half weeks to go.

Swiss: Right!

Chris: Then it’s summer holidays in Hamburg. There’s one more week of school to go, and then I simply go on holidays a lot, there’s only one set of festivals in between, and besides that… holidays. And that’s why I’m doing great, I’m totally happy.

Swiss: That sounds awesome.

Chris: And how about you? How are you doing?

Swiss: Concerning holidays—

Chris: You have just been on holiday.

Swiss: Christian, I have so many answers to this question. First, I have just been walking through the streets, and I hear two Swiss ladies walk past me. It always makes me laugh a bit, because people need to imagine—this street that we are at here in St. Pauli, behind the Reeperbahn, that’s not really the most prominent street to move through as a tourist.

Chris: Nope.

Swiss: It’s rather that the locals tend to live here I’d say, and I was very pleased to hear this Swiss German, because it always brings back memories of Solothurn (Swiss’ hometown in Switzerland) and this small baroque town for me so directly, and I thought to myself, “What are you doing here? You have lost your way sweeties. Quickly try to get”—

Chris: If you live here, you totally forget that this is a full-on tourist hot spot.

Swiss: Yeah. Seen in this light, this is number one. Number two: I was on holiday for a very long time and now I’ve come back, and there’s always this “Wow, now my battery is recharged!” And I think, “No.” I really—I was on vacation for four weeks in the end, one week hiking and three weeks in Turkey, and I realized—I didn't do anything either, I really didn't do anything, I just… I read an awful lot, I lay around, I swam in the sea, I chilled with my daughter, went out to eat and did sports. I didn't do anything else, and it felt like I was living again for the first time in many years without thinking about music in any way. You have your stuff that you have to work through a bit, so that's what I did—

Chris: I have already checked, your views on YouTube have also decreased.

Swiss: That’s why.

Chris: The figures have now gone into negative territory.

Swiss: They have become negative views, and I’m very proud of that, because it emphasizes the existentialism further, that my person wants to live and radiate in the near future. And I realized that I really haven't been living like this for many years. And that was so cool I noticed, I want to have much, much more of this. And I'm not in the mood for work at all; *laughs* my battery is charged? Maybe, yes. I'm like: Bro, I can only subscribe to what you're saying: I want to take a lot of vacations… I want to take MANY MORE vacations.

Chris: Because you have tasted blood and now you got the feeling that you want more, or did you come back from vacation stressed out and are now saying: “I need a vacation from my vacation first?”

Swiss: Zero stressed out.

Chris: Okay. But you want more now.

Swiss: Zero stressed out, but I have realized that I want more vacations now.

Chris: I see, okay.

Swiss: I want now… I already have a few things planned. I want to go hiking again with the boys, I want to go to Italy again, I want to go to Switzerland again, I want to go to the west coast of the USA, I have lots of plans! And then, of course, Pat (Pat Cash, Band Manager of Swiss und die Andern) comes and says: “Yes, what about the music now and when will it continue?” And I'm like: “Bro, I have no idea. Fuck that.” And that's really, really good, plus there's such a—

Chris: Yes, and you also have a podcast now. That's… that's enough!

Swiss: So, moneywise I don't have to worry anymore with this podcast anyway.

Chris: Not at all, no.

Swiss: And then… Exactly, but I have a kind of melancholy that has somehow resonated a little in the last few weeks, and I don't know, I'm sure you know those moments when you're sitting by the water and watching the sunset, for example, and… You know when things overwhelm you, everyday things that are so beautiful?

Chris: Yes, sure.

Swiss: And I… I had to think a little—I think I've mentioned this here before—about the book “Narcissus and Goldmund.”

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Swiss: Where Narcissus is the head man, Goldmund, the man driven more by his lusts and his life, then shortly before his death thinks about the birds and the trout in the stream and the chirping of the birds, the changing of the seasons and so on… that all of this will happen without him at some point when he goes.

Chris: Is that a bit of world-weariness?

Swiss: Well, it's more of a longing for the world, you know? And I've had that quite often recently, that I think: “Awesome, yeah. I don't know, how many more summers do you still have?” So, right? These are stories like that, you realize how finite they are, especially when you've somehow lost people in the last few years, and then I read a book at the same time called “Marseille 1940: the great escape of literature.”

Chris: I think you already talked about it last time. Was that the same one? Or…?

Swiss: I don’t know, could be. In any case, it's about how the Nazis really overran France, the tank war… they always thought: “Hey, they have to take a break too!” But the Nazis were the first to completely drug their soldiers. It was called Pervertin [he probably means Pervitin]. Pervertin also fits in with what they did.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: And they simply didn't take a break and overran France and then… then all the exiles, all the intellectuals and academics who took action against the Nazis, who published against them, who spoke against them, who all left Germany in 1939 when Hitler seized power and later from the Czech Republic and so on and so forth, they were in France. And then they tried to flee, to somehow make it overseas. And France was then divided, there was this quasi-unoccupied zone in the south, this Vichy regime, which also collaborated with the Nazis, and later also took action against Jews and so on and so forth, and then you had these world-famous poets and thinkers who somehow escaped from some internment camps with only the clothes they had… because the French also put them in internment camps to begin with—

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: They flee over country roads to Marseille, carrying their manuscripts, which are more important to them than their own person, and try by all means to somehow bring their lives and the lives of their loved ones to safety and that is… Man, I'm sitting over this book, and it's also incredibly well and excitingly written, and I get so emotional, and I also always find it amazing how the darkest times bring out the worst in people on the one hand, and the greatest on the other. And you just have people there—there's an American, I think his name is Varian Fry, who travels all the way from the USA to Marseille with a list of intellectuals. You have to imagine that in France, the… Man, the world's top intellectuals are on the run! A whole generation of the greatest intellectuals that Europe has produced at least is on the run and being persecuted, because that's what fascism does, it persecutes dissenters and intellectuals. Incidentally, this is also something that Russia is facing. How many intellectuals have fled and run away from there, it's madness! They're all on the run and he's going to Marseille—

Chris: This is also a form of demographic change, as it's not just about old and young, male and female, but also about different academic levels. So that a country is well mixed.

Swiss: And it's really incredible how he then tries to get these people out of there, who is super creative and wins people over to create such a structure in Marseille and what selfless, courageous people there still are in these times.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Swiss: And then there’s others who are the opposite, who become little denunciators and only think of themselves and that somehow always leads me to this time, when everyone hates each other, when everyone somehow gets their national flags out again. That's why I'll be glad when this shitty European Championship is over. And you know, we're in times like this, where nationalism and stupidity and people and toughness and power are so respected and valued again, and you actually think: “People, human life is worth so much and it's worth so much to make an effort together and look out for each other.” But it's not the time for that right now, and that's already… Yes, that really gets to me.

Chris: Yes, I have two thoughts on this. Firstly, where you mention that when you say you look at a sunset, and then you get this longing for the world, or you start to think more about the big picture. It always reminds me of that overview effect that astronauts describe when they see the Earth from the outside for the first time.

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: The Overview Effect says that at that moment, everyone who sees it actually realizes how small and unimportant we are, and that these problems we have, which seem so incredibly big here, for example the Cold War, which is now much warmer again and has never been over, and that if you look at it from the outside and think: Here is this little blue planet, somehow in the middle of nowhere, on which we are all allowed to live for a very, very small moment, as far as the cosmic calendar is concerned, not even the blink of an eye, so to speak, and then you get a feeling for what is really important. Of course, I wasn't in space and wasn’t allowed to look at the earth from the outside, but when I'm lying on the beach and watching the sunset—I'm not the “I lie on the beach during the day and fry” type, but I'm the sunset type and when it gets dark and I look at the stars or I look at a sunset like this… then I can sometimes sense what it means to feel this overview effect. Even if you look at the stars from the other side then.

Swiss: Yeah, yeah.

Chris: And that's why I can understand that feeling very well. And the other thought I just had when you said, “Marseille 1940, the book,” what such times—I would like to read it now, after you have recommended it to me—

Swiss: You have to… well, just very briefly: this is the absolute must-read. Because it also makes the reader a little aware, because that's… you know, 1940—that was only 80 years ago. That's NOTHING. That's nothing. That's the blink of an eye.

Chris: Yeah, right.

Swiss: And what was going on there. And that makes everything seem so much closer. And also, what is happening right now and how people are talking, how they interact with each other and what kind of governments are elected or not elected but come to power. 

Chris: What I just meant with “such times also always bring forth good things.” I just had to think about it now, where I thought, “Okay, but there are still people, even in the young generations, who grow up and want to learn about it.” The reason why I thought of it, was Mika's children's birthday… well, I have to say “teenage birthday” now.

Swiss: Oh yes, belated best wishes!

Chris: I believe you already congratulated him the other day.

Swiss: Ah, yes. Please give my congratulations to him again. You can't congratulate young people who are going in a good direction often enough.

Chris: Exactly. I’ll do it again. He celebrated it later because I was on tour at various festivals at the weekends, and so we did it now, and they just wanted a typical—with a few friends—“let's play some video games and watch movies and everyone stays overnight and can stay up as late as they want.”

Swiss: Yeah, yeah.

Chris: And then they put together a list of movies they wanted to watch, and on it there was a lot of entertaining nonsense and somehow also things that made me think, “Okay, maybe you're a bit too young for this,”—but also Schindler's List.

Swiss: What?! Dude!

Chris: Yes! At the birthday party of a 13-year-old. There I also asked myself—

Swiss: Who suggested this?

Chris: They came up with that together. Then I asked, “How did you come up with that?” And they went, they think it would somehow be… “It’s brutal, but also somehow important.” Then I replied: “Look, let's meet up for that with your friends again another time, if you like. Or we can watch the movie together. The movie is ultra-brutal, and I'm not talking about splatter violence and stuff like that, but it's emotionally brutal.”

Swiss: Yeah, it is emotionally—

Chris: That does incredibly much to you. And even if you think, “Oh, isn't that the one from Star Wars?”—you'll forget that quickly when you see this movie. And that's why I said, “It's still your kid's birthday party, and I'd like you to enjoy this weekend with ease. So, watch something with a bit of poof and bang and I don't know, or something animated—something you enjoy.” And then I thought, “Wow!”—because it's a film that shows horror, but also shows what good energy can achieve in those times, as a counterweight. And that's what Oskar Schindler is… one of those people who, who were incredibly important and saved… I don’t know how many lives. So, coming up on our program soon: watching Schindler's List. And it makes me proud to see a generation like this, not just because of my son, but to look at these kids and say: awesome, we're currently in a neighborhood where we and other parents somehow manage to convey values to kids that make them say, “We'd like to watch Schindler's List at the birthday party to learn something.”

Swiss: Hey, those credits at the end of Schindler's List, where the Schindler Jews are shown in the cemetery—

Chris: I no longer know, how many were they in total? I haven’t watched it for a long time.

Swiss: Bro, I now regularly look people up in the book as I read it to see what they looked like, what they… yes, sometimes you want to have spoilers: did they survive?

Chris: Yes, or like these stumbling blocks, I always read them: What does it say?

Swiss: Bro, and that's all someone’s fate too. And then at all these refugee points, wherever the exiles came through, they would hide notes in the walls, saying, “I'm so-and-so, and I'm going to such-and-such a place, and I'm looking for so-and-so.” Bro, it's so crazy, there's this phrase: “A destiny on a little fluttering piece of paper.”

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: And… yes, as I said, I think… I just look at this world and this society and think to myself: “In the end, the most important thing in the world is humanity, and not just thinking of yourself, and saving others and helping others,” and that's so… yes, and then you see this hatred of prosperity, you know, that somehow drives people apart in every nook and cranny and you think, “Guys!” It's like humanity needs this loop, you know? We're doing well, we're getting… we're getting bored, and we start to look for some kind of drama, enemy images and others who have more and whatever, and others who are too different and—I have no idea. And then it goes—because even the poorest of the poor are just doing better than the richest 100 years ago. Well, now, not the poorest of the poor, if you're a homeless person on the street, that's different, I don't mean that at all—but if you're a person who lives in more or less precarious circumstances, you usually still have a place to live, and running water and so on, and that's just not comparable to what it was like 100 years ago or 150 years ago. And I just have the feeling that people need this loop, you know? It's all just setting up again for the next big bang, which is already happening here and there, and then there will be incredible suffering again… that's how it feels to me right now.

Chris: I have a slight feeling that digitalization and globalization have increased the pace, because everything is simply faster. And I have the feeling that this up and down is somehow faster. This may just be a perception, but I have the feeling that things that used to build up and break down over decades are now doing it in weeks.

Swiss: The internet and the way we consume, the way our children consume, is now so dangerous, and I'll tell you why. So, there are always facts in the end. Today it's no longer about facts.

Chris: Or about alternative facts.

Swiss: Exactly, yes. What matters today is that a reel—even a political reel—clicks really well. Not because it has convincing facts, but because it is emotionally appealing.

Chris: It's sensational, that's the… TikTok is actually the “Bildzeitung” (German newspaper, of the “sensational” kind) of today.

Swiss: Exactly.

Chris: In other words, what the “Bildzeitung” did 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, is now on TikTok.

Swiss: Exactly. And people are just so quick to simply consume totally abbreviated truths and totally abbreviated facts in the now memorized time span of 30 seconds… “Ah, okay, wild!”

Chris: Above all, it seems to me that what you see first is what counts. So, if you see the catastrophic footage from Gaza first, then you'll take that side. If you see suffering children and some kind of disaster from Israel first, then you'll take that side. I have the feeling that this happens so incredibly fast because people no longer look by themselves—or that a lot of people no longer look and think, “Wait a minute, I have to shed some light on this!”

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: Research, look at different sides. What hits you first—

Swiss: Yes, and—

Chris: —you immediately take sides for that.

Swiss: The problems of the world have somehow become a matter of hype. Unfortunately, women and the situation of women in Afghanistan are not a matter of hype. Yet the situation is as terrible as it has been for a very long time. Women are not allowed to go to school, are not allowed to receive an education… nothing. And what always—

Chris: This is completely masked by other problems that just generate more clicks right now.

Swiss: Exactly! Yes! And that’s just—

Chris: And that was just a short flurry, but—

Swiss: Exactly. And when the Yanks pulled out, the planes that people were holding on to—now those were just impressive images.

Chris: But actually no one talks about it anymore. But it hasn't gotten better.

Swiss: But what has changed in the meantime? It has gotten worse!

Chris: Yes, right.

Swiss: And… yes, that's just… hey, what can you say, it's just really… everything is presented in such a shortened way and no longer dealt with objectively, and the best demagogues, the best liars and the best people who can sound things out, they're somehow… they're listened to. Like Donald Trump now in the discussion.

Chris: That’s actually a topic on my list. The US elections.

Swiss: He only has—he has so much—well, Biden aside, but a presidential candidate who simply lies blatantly?! And people sit there watching TV and think: “Well, that's just Donald Trump, he just lies sometimes.” And you think: “Hey, he wants to be president of the most powerful nation in the world, and everyone says: ‘He's just like that?!’”

Chris: Yes, and above all… well, what's so crazy is that the Supreme Court has actually now ruled that official acts by Trump are and will be placed under immunity from now on, and he—and from there on it becomes absurd—if he becomes president, he can pardon himself for the ongoing proceedings, which are now only being delayed. And that is the moment when democracy becomes autocracy, and democracy will have been abolished… is that the right tense?

Swiss: Exactly! Will have been abolished.

Chris: Will have been abolished. I think that's so crazy! And sure, Biden… different topic, four years ago I must say I also somehow said, “He still makes a pretty good impression.” Meanwhile, it's more of a concern to me because he… I'd rather take him by the hand and lead him across the street. No matter what he says, I feel that he… it sounds so disrespectful, and I don't want to disrespect an old person—

Swiss: You are already a bit older yourself.

Chris: —but you know what I mean. I look at him and see so much helplessness that I wonder: “Can he still be president?” And of course, I only have the media’s impression. I can't really get a picture of it. But the impression is not a good one.

Swiss: I definitely think that he should not actually be a presidential candidate. On the other hand, we have to be aware of one thing: in the end it's not just about the guy who is president, but about the people he has gathered around him.

Chris: Of course.

Swiss: Especially with the Bidenomics and alike.

Chris: Nevertheless, the president in America still has a different emotional impact than, for example, a German chancellor.

Swiss: Exactly. I just want to say that I still trust him a lot more—

Chris: You know, I didn't want to say, “I'd rather have Trump,” so that's not my point.

Swiss: Yes, sure. It is just simply… they've done some kind of survey about the probability of Trump being elected… I don't know if it was the Times or some other thing—

Chris: Right now, it’s alarmingly high, I think.

Swiss: Two-thirds. So, there's a two-thirds probability that he—

Chris: That’s madness. That’s total madness.

Swiss: And here too, one must ask: what has the world to expect? He is also currently rebuilding his apparatus. Last time, he fell into this old establishment and had to fall back on people who somehow see the bigger picture, so to speak. Now he and his people have been working for months or years to really turn the system upside down. They want to fire 50,000 officials. 

Chris: Yeah, I know.

Swiss: Wow, bro, it really is…

Chris: The abolition of democracy is being planned.

Swiss: And that is simply… that is also another piece of the puzzle that does not make the world situation any easier and in the end, I think we will end up with a big bang. That sounds very negative now. We need to talk about something positive also, I'm dragging myself down here too, you can tell from my posture.

Chris: However, I have to say now, and I have already read a few things about this, that many political experts assess the world situation, if we now talk about the classic West-East conflict, that is, the Cold War, or to put it bluntly, Russia-USA, that is, if we talk about it, that many think that the situation will be more stable with Trump.

Swiss: For real?

Chris: Yes, because Trump and Putin are getting along better and know that they have more to gain from each other if they work together.

Swiss: But what does that mean, so then in practice?

Chris: I don’t know what it means in practice, but—

Swiss: Yes, but—

Chris: Even back in the days… in the four years that Trump was in charge, Russia and the USA have grown closer than before.

Swiss: Well, but—

Chris: I don't want to say, “Come on guys, this is really a great solution,” but it is so absurd that, in addition to all the absurdities, many experts estimate that as far as this point is concerned, it would make the world a safer place.

Swiss: Well, hmm, what does that mean? That the two of them are getting along well. Trump comes to power and will probably ask Ukraine to accept some kind of peace terms that are just a fake peace. And will threaten to withdraw their support. I don't know—

Chris: I don’t know either…

Swiss: There are also different interests. You have American interests, of course you also have European interests—which have not been congruent, especially recently—and I have no idea whether it is cool for Europe if Putin then more or less—even if it took a long time, over two years, for him to be successful with his plan… I don't know! You don't always have to define good and evil so clearly. At the end of the day, these are upheavals that take place over many years. They eventually gain such momentum that you can no longer say who started it in the end and how.

Chris: To be honest, for me so many of these conflicts are “50 shades of evil!” I don't even differentiate between good and evil anymore! For me it's… *laughs slightly desperately* It's, as so often, a choice between two evils—which is the lesser? *Swiss agrees* But I'm really sorry if I'm bringing you down now!

Swiss: No, no, I started it!

Chris: I have to say, very briefly, about what you said about the Americans: it's not just the president. My final thought on that is very brief. What is so crazy about the USA is that they primarily want a strong leader with character. They primarily elect one person. Even if it is not just one person who is in power. And that's why I actually believe that if a Michelle Obama were to stand up, or even a Dwayne (“The Rock”) Johnson—*Swiss laughs slightly*—do you know what I mean?

Swiss: 100%!!

Chris: They want heroes.

Swiss: Yes, and it's a thing I'm also convinced of: If Michelle Obama were to say, “I'll do it!” she would win by a wide margin! *Chris agrees* That's Barack Obama's wife, that's just—

Chris: I just keep hoping that a miracle will happen, and she will do it.

Swiss: But she doesn’t want to!

Chris: I know she doesn't want to, but she has to! *laughs*

Swiss: Please, do it!

Chris: It’s so sad…

Swiss: Yes… She doesn't want to do that and that's a bit of a problem. For lack of alternatives. This Kamala Harris isn't that popular either, she hasn't made herself very popular. Biden has of course always let her work on the unpopular topics. I don't know! We'll see what awaits us…

Chris: Unfortunately, I am quite sure that Trump will do that.

*Swiss doesn't understand acoustically, asks and Chris repeats, Swiss agrees*

Swiss: And to a certain point, I had this last time, you think “Fuck it, ok, come on, I want to see that!”

Chris: I'm touring the USA for three weeks in September. And I think we'll hear a lot about the election campaign there, including from the people we work with. I'll stay out of discussions when I'm there, but I'll listen a lot.

Swiss: Bro, you should too! It's just like everywhere else in the USA, it's even more heated. You can't even discuss things anymore.

Chris: That's one thing I've actually learned when you're on tour with Americans, I avoid things like I don't discuss the death penalty with them. Not about God. Not about wars in the Orient and not about the presidential question either.

Swiss: Absolutely correct!

Chris: I just don’t do it.

Swiss: And that happens in some countries. I know what I'm talking about.

Chris: Because it doesn't help. I take the good side of people myself. I get along well with them and…

Swiss: You just do it… you burn bridges that are still there on a personal level. Yeah, bro, another real 'Swiss + Harms' emo start!

Chris: Yeah, it is episode 13!

Swiss: It is episode 13, uhm…

Chris: Are you superstitious? Let’s talk about the 13. Do you have any tics, or have you ever had them? Or things like that that make you say “If I don't do that, something bad will happen” or I have to say “touch wood” three times at this or that point and spit over my shoulder, otherwise the concert will be a mess. Or when I got up on my left foot, when a black cat crossed my path, etc. Do you have anything like that?

Swiss: As a child, I actually had a habit of always stepping on the cracks between the stones. Do you know what that means?

Chris: I know that you should NOT step on the cracks.

Swiss: I had to step on it.

Chris: Only dead fish swim against the current. No, with the current! *Swiss laughs* Sorry, sorry, I was wrong. I even messed up a proverb.

Swiss: That was back then, otherwise I try not to be very superstitious. Are you superstitious?

Chris: No. I'm not superstitious at all, but I sometimes catch myself doing things that make you think “Ah!” And as a child I had things like that, almost like tics. Where I had to turn the light switch on and off three times, otherwise something would happen.

Swiss: But I think that's normal.

Chris: Or things like when I took off my clothes and went to bed, I had to stack them in a certain way, otherwise I would have bad dreams or something. Stupid little tics. But I'm not superstitious, although I do things sometimes… Like for example… I don't know, they're really stupid things, like the parents always saying, “Be careful!” and I do that now too. My son gets on his bike, and I have the feeling that if I don't say “Drive carefully!”—

Swiss: You didn’t say it… I know—

Chris: As if I had to tell him that, because he'd fall if I didn't do it. You know, they're like that… Although I actually know it's nonsense! I don't believe that the god of superstition will somehow punish me if I don't say or do something.

Swiss: Bro, good that you brought him into play! The superstitious god. He shouldn't be considered heretical—

Chris: There is only one god: the superstition god!

Swiss: The superstitious god, yes. That's actually a nice word, because superstition contradicts belief itself. That's quite nice. Hey, no, I try to get away from that kind of thing too… There's this quote: “Problems are like a small, ugly, three-legged dog: they come to those who deal with them and pet the dog.”

Chris: I also know “Problems are like noodles: you always make yourself too many.”

Swiss: Yeah! *both laughing*

Chris: So, there are no active things where you say… Or you don't want to say? Your face is getting so red right now? *embarrassed laughter from Swiss*

Swiss: No… I think you have to train yourself away from that, you know. Of course, everyone has the “Oh, is this good today? I've got that feeling again…” feeling. Then you have to say to yourself, “Screw it, I'm just going to do it now!” Most of the time it's just like that, you forget that you had any concerns because everything just went well. What I've actually noticed, and I notice this again and again, is that I hate flying!

Chris: Oh boy…

Swiss: I hate flying and I'm flying—

Chris: Me too!

Swiss: —and I somehow have this strange thought—

Chris: Would you say you are afraid? Or—

Swiss: Yeah it’s…

Chris: Because I’m afraid!

Swiss: So, I have never missed a flight because I was afraid—

Chris: Me too, but I’m really afraid!

Swiss: —but I’m really—

Chris: I can't live without it, I don't take drugs, you know that, except for that. I can't—

Swiss: Ah, ok.

Chris: —I can't without throwing in some calming shit! I had them specially prescribed for me. (Anti-anxiety medications, most in the form of a pill are only available on prescription from a doctor. These drugs are often abused, people become addicted or use them as a substitute drug).

Swiss: What are you taking?

Chris: I don't want to say that here at this point, otherwise you'll quickly be labelled, and people will say, “Ah, here, look, this and that…” I'll tell you later. But I actually got myself a prescription, that I can fly, that I don't go crazy.

Swiss: Wow! I don't have that, but, and this is probably an absurd thought: when I fly overseas, for example, I'm like that the whole time…You see the plane on this little screen, as soon as it goes over the sea, I think “Oh my God!” I'm on extra alert because I think “If something happens now, severe turbulence or we have to make an emergency landing…” You usually fly over Greenland and then there's a stretch where you notice that the next mainland in every direction—

Chris: I feel better above water! Because I think the chance of survival is better than crashing over a city.

Swiss: Really!?

Chris: I think so! Of course, I don't know if that's true. I have no idea.

Swiss: I always think, “Hey, the next airport is in the middle of nowhere!” So, if something happens, you have to land on the water. Does that work? Land on the water? I only ever hear about planes that fall apart when they have to land on the water. But all I'm trying to say is that I'm definitely not very relaxed, even when there's turbulence. I recently read—

Chris: But that's not superstition. It's actually a legitimate fear, because these things can fall down.

Swiss: Exactly. But what, in comparison, if I now in my car—

Chris: Statistically, I know!

Swiss: —I get in my car, and I have been doing this for many years and I drive, and sometimes I really drive, even now in Turkey, I drive—

Chris: It's the illusion of control because you're behind the wheel yourself! *Swiss agrees* Even though someone could crash into you at any time.

Swiss: I'm sitting at the controls, and I feel like I have it under control and the probability is of course much higher than crashing the plane. But recently I saw some pictures of an airplane over the Atlantic… There are more and more of these clear weather turbulences now.

Chris: Yes exactly, like last week's turbulence.

Swiss: Woah, and then they landed at the first airport in Mexico and then you see this wrecked plane. And you—

Chris: Inside the seats torn apart…

Swiss: You've probably experienced turbulence yourself and you know how much the plane shakes! And then you see the plane torn apart and you think, “Hey, how much it must have shaken!”

Chris: During the worst turbulence I ever experienced, I asked a flight attendant who was standing there afterwards, “To be honest, I was scared to death! On a scale of 1 to 10, what was that?” And he said a 5. Because I thought… And then I asked him if he was scared and he said, “No, I know the planes can handle it. It's just uncomfortable for a moment.” And that's what my friend Johannes, my kindergarten friend, my oldest, best wishes at this point, says, he likes to hear it too. He became a pilot. A long-haul pilot. And he now flies cargo, and he says these things can handle so much! Turbulence: those are the winds that go from bottom to top a lot, and they're getting more frequent due to climate change. But yes, sorry, I interrupted you, but that's driving me crazy too, flying.

Swiss: It's simple, as soon as you notice it getting jerky, I'm not relaxed. For example, I can be watching a film completely relaxed and then it starts, I can't concentrate on the film anymore. I usually turn it off and think to myself: “I just have to sit through this somehow!”

Chris: Earplugs always help me. Because they make everything quieter. That means that I find the noises in the plane threatening and then when the turbulence comes and maybe someone reacts, it only takes a child screaming, that does something to me. Panic is also triggered by certain frequencies of cries for help. And that does something to your hormone levels. And if I put these earplugs really deep in, I wear them for the whole flight because you hear much less. You have to try it. I shield myself a bit with them.

Swiss: I actually did last year when I flew back from Turkey in January—the weather was great too, and this flight already… He says yes then and that is always annoying… We were still sitting in the plane for 1.5 hours—

Chris: Do you also check the weather before takeoff?

Swiss: No, I don’t do that.

Chris: I always check the weather! *laughs*

Swiss: Hey, we waited 1.5 hours in the flight loop, and he said, so annoyed—you could tell because he has to answer questions so often—“Yeah, it's going to be a bit of a bumpy flight!” Bro, and you always sit in the back with kids. All the kids always grab them… It's like, “Get on each other's nerves.” And then there was a lot of bumping.

Chris: The whole time or just takeoff and landing?

Swiss: No, there were two to three longer episodes of 15-20 minutes.

Chris: That’s such a long time…

Swiss: Things really got serious! And then all the children were screaming, my daughter wasn't screaming but she was complaining. Next to me was an older Turkish lady with a headscarf who started to pray.

Chris: Aaahhhhh… It does something to you! There are no atheists in the trenches.

Swiss: She’s like “Allah…” and I’m like “no, fuck, dude, she’s feeling it, too!” Like, you know, like…? And then there also was a guy who’s also fiddling around with his tesbih (chain of prayer beads used in Islam) And I’m thinking, like, “fuck, man!” And it’s exactly as you’re saying, there is a threatening atmosphere that’s something completely else. I always look—one thing that I always do is I always look to the flight attendants.

Chris: Yes, me too.

Swiss: Umm…

Chris: …Who actually get trained to—a good friend of mine is a flight attendant at Lufthansa, greetings to Tom—and they also get trained to sit there with this expression of a content Hinduist cow.

Swiss: Yes, but—

Chris: But I think I know.

Swiss: If you—if shit really hits the fan, you are still human in the end. If you think as a flight attendant: “dude, this shit here could go wrong”—

Chris: A bit of knowledge of human nature, yes.

Swiss: I remember, that was the worst flight of my life, I was 16, was in the USA, alone, and was—I don’t know, do you know the domestic airlines in the USA? You probably know them.

Chris: Yes, yes, also in South America, we often fly on them when we are on tour.

Swiss: Dude, what kind of scrappy machines you are entering there sometimes, and then we’re flying with United Airlines, I’m going from Washington to Seattle. Dude! And it was already night, a—

Chris: That’s completely across [the country], right?

Swiss: Yes.

Chris: From right to left, right?

Swiss: And it [missing word] SO strongly—Dude, it was crazy! Like: *makes loud rustling noises* like, up, down, like—really fell down multiple—20 meters, and I had to piss so hard dude, and, and at some point I'm thinking “I can't handle it anymore.” I stand up and want to go to the restroom, and suddenly there’s the flight attendant, a really tough African American woman, standing in the doorway, holding on tight and shouting at me, dude, “sit down! This is an emergency case!” And I’m like, “dude!” Yo, I was back in my seat SO fast!

Chris: Yeah, you’ll break all your bones quickly if you’re not strapped in.

Swiss: And I just thought this, “this is an emergency case…”

Chris: Yeah, you don’t want to hear that.

Swiss: And I was like… “Fuck.”

Chris: Things you don’t want to hear.

Swiss: That’s why I’m not superstitious, but I’m always happy when I get on the plane and the crew of stewards and stewardesses look nice and you get the feeling that they’re somewhat serious people.

Chris: You feel like you’re in good hands; that it’s like, I don’t know, you walk into the doctor’s office and the scrubs are white and clean and they look neat and there are no blood splatters and [no] people are drunk. I’m exaggerating now, right?

Swiss: Yes, yes.

Chris: You immediately get the feeling that you’re doing well here. And then you see, they’re a bit like demigods sometimes; you come—even them, when you’re afraid of a minor procedure at the doctor’s office and there’s just the young lady sitting at reception, still super young and somehow in her training, she always has a kind of demigod status for me, because she gives you a feeling of security.

Swiss: Exactly.

Chris: And then you have a procedure like that, you go out, I don’t know, remove a mole or something. You go out and then she stands with her friends just behind the doctor’s office in normal clothes and smokes and they talk really ghetto. Then you think “all right, okay, they’re only human.”

Swiss: Yes, yes, yes.

Chris: But at that moment, a safe flight attendant like, they give you a good feeling.

Swiss: Just like doctors who are shitty! Like, if doctors are talking negatively about the patient. I mean, you also have to understand that it’s always important to keep your distance. So, if you somehow cry along with every patient whom you have to treat, who has cancer that you have to treat, then of course your job will break you. But a basic understanding of the situation and the power imbalance, which of course, as you say: you’re the doctor and someone comes in who fears for their life or is afraid… and not having a certain sensitivity in dealing with them. Of course, you also experience that, umm… Yes dude, that…

Chris: Actually, there are rare moments when I find a very old doctor’s office, where things don’t go as you expect, funny. And that’s the St Pauli veterinary practice. There’s real know-how there, but it’s rock’n’roll. You come in and a little Chihuahua mutt dog of the doctor who’s looking after you, barks at you. So, first you have to work your way around it so that it lets you sit down. It smells like smoke in there and there’s smoke in the air because she smokes all the time.

Swiss: Ah, great, yes.

Chris: She’s a doctor herself and also works at reception. Then she comes in, speaks with a harsh Russian accent: *in a fake Russian accent* “Good morning, what can I do? Tomcat again today?” And with a cigarette in her hand.

Swiss: She’s like: “Hangover? I have one, too.” (The German word “Kater” can mean “tomcat”, but also “hangover.”)

Chris: Hangover, yes. With a cigarette in her hand. And I’m like, “Yeah, I wanted to make an appointment for neutering and stuff.”

Swiss: You have a cat, right?

Chris: Yes, three. Three tomcats. Rescued three Polish street tomcats.

Swiss: Aaah, oh my God, dude.

Chris: All neutered, always taken them to Dr. Vodka. She’s totally cool. So, but you have to get used to it first. Like, if I went there as a human, I’d say, “Dude, I’m not going to lie down there.” But she’s so cool with the animals and she gets it, she’s got all the know-how, but she just smokes her cigarettes. And the best situation: then I pick up our last cat, the youngest one, he’s jet black, his name is Batman, I pick him up after he’s been neutered. And then she says, “Do you want to take the balls with you?” And shows me a little jar. I’m like, “Nope!” “I’ve kept them. Some people want to put them [somewhere].” I’m like, “Nah, you can put them away.”

Swiss: You can bring them to me next time, it’s cool to have a few cat balls in the cupboard.

Chris: I was kind of annoyed too. I thought, “oh, actually it would have been funny,” but, well.

Swiss: So, bro, I have to address one thing quickly so that we can look a little into the future—you just mentioned a story, because I came in here and I caught you in a conspiratorial togetherness with your photographer!

Chris: Lennard, yes.

Swiss: He also grinned a little too much for me. What's going on?

Chris: Well… you know, I've often told you that I think we need to say goodbye to the idea that there is only relationship model “A” and “B” which is what we're taught. You're either married or divorced.

Swiss: Bourgeois!

Chris: Right! But Lennard and I… uhm… are in a… NO! Lennard is still here because we shot a Lord of the Lost video yesterday and he was involved in the shooting. Now he is still here, and we have a small photo studio here in the Lost Place. A mobile one where we put down a photo wall and I’ll take photos with Lennard later today. Because I have the feeling that I can finally do my solo album, which I have wanted to do for many years—or what does my solo album mean?!… There are various solo projects that I want to do. I want to do singer-songwriter stuff, I want to do this and something else… some English or German or something instrumental… But for the last 3 or 4 years I've actively had the dream of making a real 80’s album!

Swiss: Cool!

Chris: I want to make this like crazy!

Swiss: Synth 3000? (A type of Casio synthesizer from the ‘80s)

Chris: Exactly! Just synths, so somewhere between an 8-bit arcade gaming hall and the Stranger Things soundtrack—to explain that for the newer generation. Somewhere between original Depeche Mode, working with weird samples, Modern Talking (German pop duo originally active in the ‘80s)—

Swiss: But also produce everything yourself?

Chris: Yeah, right. Self means in this case I do it with Corvin (Bahn, he has been working with LOTL for many years, e.g. he writes and composes songs)

Swiss: Corvin! Best guy!

Chris: I do the mixing with Benny (Benjamin Lawrenz, music producer). But I do everything myself. I write and produce everything myself and without a guitar! Without a real instrument, apart from my voice—

Swiss: So… it will be like… ok, no, go on!

Chris: So, just bad!

Swiss: *Swiss pretends to cough* Authentic!

Chris: Right! I'm really up for it and want to do it! The thing is, we have a plan for the next few years with Lord of the Lost. Despite the live break, we know exactly what kind of stuff will be released and when. We've planned it all out until 2029. And there's actually no room. Lord of the Lost is mine too, I would be cannibalizing myself if I released something of my own during this Lord of the Lost phase.

Swiss: Of course!

Chris: That's why I actually want to do it beforehand. That means I want to finish writing and producing this album by the end of September. Then we can go into post-production so that it can be released at the end of January. That's the plan. I'm going to take some photos with Lennard. They will be completely destroyed later! Because I would like to have neon—

Swiss: Crushed look!?

Chris: —something between Hundertwasser and neon crushed look (Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist).

Swiss: Cool.

Chris: Exactly so. But of course, you do that on the basis of photos, and of course I also need a few press photos. Not that the press needs new photos of me again. There are too many, but you know how it is, everyone wants new photos.

Swiss: It’s good too, a fresh start.

Chris: Exactly. And I also don’t want to make a big deal out of it, I don’t even want it to be at MediaMarkt (German electronics and CD store chain) or something. Or on Amazon.

Swiss: *Sarcastically* Oh, it’s so important nowadays, that the albums are at MediaMarkt still, right.

Chris: Yeah, but you know what I mean, right? To some, it is important. I would actually like to… either I’ll actually do it myself and it’s only available in my own shop, I would do it through Hamburg Records then, where we also have the Lord-Shop.

Swiss: With this dubious manager guy, no, who does that, right?

Chris: That Flo. Flo Schwarz.

Swiss: Flo Schwarz, yes.

Chris: Greetings at this point.

Swiss: Slimy greetings to Flo. Yeah, awesome guy!

Chris: If I were to sign a contract with a record company: for an album, that’s it, without guaranteeing that I’ll play live. I want to do that for myself!

Swiss: Oh, you have to show me that, I’m very curious how it sounds.

Chris: I can do that from—I can do that next week, that’s currently—the week after next. It’s completely fresh right now, the idea has been there for a long time, but I’m going through with it now, for the next two months.

Swiss: Awesome!

Chris: As I said, all these song ideas that are laying around, I’m going to—

Swiss: Very, very good.

Chris: —I’m bringing them into reality. And I’m really up for it.

Swiss: Bombastic, dude. That makes me very happy, really. I did that too, and you always discover yourself in a completely new way and you somehow get to know yourself differently. You somehow take yourself off the beaten track a bit and that’s great.

Chris: And you can lower the bar again without a guilty conscience so that it’s easier to later—

Swiss: Ey, and it’s also great to make your first album of something new because you don’t have any expectations.

Chris: That’s great.

Swiss: Well, at some point you kind of have a feeling for your band or for the thing you’ve been doing for a while: “yeah okay, this and that is the sound and this is kind of—this is how we sound; this is like that, this is the world.” I think it’s pretty cool not to be sure what it is yet.

Chris: I’m actually sure now and I don’t even know if people will really like it. But I don’t care about that.

Swiss: The important thing is that you are having fun.

Chris: Because—exactly. I really enjoy it because I know that a lot of people expect a certain level of darkness from the stuff I do, which automatically comes in due to my voice, because of the way it sounds. But at the moment it’s actually… it’s really, like, wave.

Swiss: Awesome. I really want to hear something.

Chris: That could also be a Sandra ^[1] song.

Swiss: Oh, I love Sandra.

Chris: You know, something like that.

Swiss: Awesome.

Chris: And that’s just so much fun.

Swiss: Bro!

Chris: When will we see each other for the next time, by the way?

Swiss: I’m here now, I play every now and then—When are you actually going? You’ve got a week left and then whatsitcalled, and then you’re going away straight away?

Chris: I’m—The first place I’m going to is Sylt, because I’d like to pitch a few more songs at Pony (a Club on Sylt).

Swiss: Of course, dude!

Chris: Well, I’m leaving in a week, I’m quickly going to the Baltic Sea for the weekend, but that’s just a kind of warm-up for the summer holidays.

Swiss: Yes.

Chris: And then next Friday I’m going to Sylt for probably another 10 days. But there I have—where I am on Sylt, there is a small studio there.

Swiss: Yes, that’s great!

Chris: Then we’ll just call.

Swiss: I’ve got my setup, too.

Chris: Awesome.

Swiss: I’m looking forward to hearing about your Sylt experiences. The party you’re going to have there will be gigantic.

Chris: Yes, or you can come around for a day, and we can go to the Pony together.

Swiss: Maybe! We can also think about that.

Chris: No, seriously, if you’re up for it, I—

Swiss: Pony Podcast would be awesome.

Chris: That would be really funny.

Swiss: Dude!

Chris: Nah, but seriously.

Swiss: Pony on the outside, Sylt on the inside.

Chris: I’ll be there for 10 days, if you fancy coming around for a day, saying hello to the punks…

Swiss: Awesome.

Chris: Then you come round.

Swiss: Bombastic.

Chris: Awesome.

Swiss: Yes dude, have fun with the photos, Christian—

Chris: Awesome, thanks!

Swiss: —and we’ll be in touch. Bye!

Chris: See you then. Bye!

*Outro starts playing*

 Chris: If you’ve made it this far, you’ll get to enjoy this exclusive post credit scene, like in every good Marvel film. Let me tell you, as always, we’ll be happy about your comments, if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to hear eloquently explained by Werner and myself, write it into the comments, we’ll be happy about a good rating on Spotify and look forward to the next episode in two weeks. Take care, stay healthy, be kind to each other, take care of each other until then. Your Christian.

 

 

[1] German pop singer: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_(singer)

 

 

Translation: Margit Güttersberger, Jeany Fischer, Jari Witt

Proofreading: Helen Forsyth