Listen to the Podcast HERE!

 

Episode 4 – About Survival and Death

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 had actually planned to talk about funny things for episode 4, but somehow the two emo rockers drifted back into the depths of melancholy. It’s about the death of one’s own parents and surviving bomb attacks. Insane episode! Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star rating!

 

Chris: A warm welcome at Swiss und Harms episode 4, today we only see each other via video and we’re talking on the phone, it’s very exciting today—

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: —as I am in Hamburg, in St. Pauli, and you are… where?

Swiss: Why do you always have to use that St. Pauli “card” like that, bud? “I am in St. Pauli!”

Chris: Because… I dunno. I’m at an age where I have to adorn myself with borrowed plumes.

Swiss: Okay.

Chris: Because my own are falling out.

Swiss: I’m in Friedrichskoog (village in Northern Germany), I don’t know, if that rings any bell, it’s on the North Sea and there’s a seal sanctuary. We, as a band, try to do something good every year, now we are here and we have already rescued some baby seals.

Chris: You already picked up/caught some seals (the German word for “sanctuary” is “Auffangstation”, which literally translates to “pick up/catching station”).

Swiss: Exactly, we have already “picked up” some seals and they now live here with us, we live in a house that we’re renting, with a jacuzzi with […] floating in it.

Chris: Bought it, right? You bought it.

Swiss: Nope. No, Christian, we cannot afford that. You don’t always need to give people these superstar illusions. We cannot afford that, but we saved money, rented [the house], and once per year we want to do something good with it also for the seals.

Chris: What I find a bit sick, is that you talk about Friedrichskoog or -koop or whatever… and I know for sure that you’re on Sylt (German island in the North Sea, considered rather sophisticated), I can spot that particular lighthouse in the background!

Swiss: *laughs* Right, you are a real Sylt resident, aren’t you?

Chris: Yes, exactly.

Swiss: I must admit, I could not afford that. I remember a totally horrible camping vacation with my parents, in the rain, between the dunes, surrounded by a group of young people who were having a techno party. My father sat in the car the whole time and smoked one cigarette after the other, and since then, whenever people ask me, “Should we go camping?”, I say, “Please, please, no”. I am like—I can maybe imagine glamping, I am thinking about going to Slovenia for a hiking trip with some friends…

Chris: That’s called “glamping”?

Swiss: Don’t you know about glamping?

Chris: I now understand the term, but I didn’t know it before, no.

Swiss: Yeah, yeah, of course.

Chris: It’s cool.

Swiss: That’s for people, who… joke aside, we are here in Friedrichskoog, we do that once a year, us as a band, we rent a house with a sauna, with a jacuzzi, with everything, with all the trimmings, and we make music there. We set up everything, we hang out a lot, too. We sleep in, we do sports, we do…

Chris: But do you also rehearse? It’s mainly about songwriting, isn’t it, mainly for a new…?

Swiss: We don’t do rehearsals. We’re doing songwriting. We create songs. We do sketches, and it’s that time of the year again, Wizzy (DJ Da Wizard) actually played [a show] in Switzerland with Ferris last weekend, he now comes…

Chris: I persuaded him to.

Swiss: He now—exactly, I’ve already heard about that. He will arrive right now at the station in Michaelisbronn or Michaelsbronn (he probably means “Sankt Michaelisdonn”), Tobi (drummer in Swiss und die Andern) will pick him up—

Chris: Westerland (town on the island Sylt), it’s called Westerland!

Swiss: —and then Wizzy will be here, too, and we’ll go on for two more days. To cut a long story short, enough about me now. Christian, how are you doing?

Chris: I’ll tell you about that in a moment, I was just about to get back to…

Swiss: I can’t hear you well right now.

Chris: You can’t hear me well?

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: How is it now? Is it better?
Swiss: Yeah, that’s better.

Chris: On Sylt I was—for the first time… when even was that? It was in 2022, when all the punks went there and stayed in the park, I think[1]. I walked in there with my son, and I got recognized, but not as the singer of Lord Of The Lost, but as Swiss’ producer.

Swiss: Seriously?

Chris: “You are Swiss’ producer, dude!” I went, “Yeah, cool”. I then sat down with them and Mika, and I sat there for half an hour, we had cool conversations with various people with “Missglückte Welt” sweaters, then we walked on, my son and I, we went for, I dunno, ice cream or something, I was wearing an Avengers shirt with an “A” in the front. Then I got stopped by the cops, and they asked me if I knew what this “A” stands for, so I said, “Yes, it stands for ‘Avengers’”… Are you still here?

Swiss: Wait a minute—has the recording stopped now, Jakob (guitarist in Swiss und die Andern)? Yeah, okay, it had briefly stopped. I have no idea, but I think you have been talking anyway. Yeah, people, you see, that’s technique. I’m sorry, tell us more!

Chris: Yeah, after all, internet is a new field for us. So I said, “Yeah, I know what that ‘A’ stands for, it’s for ‘Avengers’”, and then they were on about anarchy and antifa and blah, and they didn’t want to let us go, they told me that I had no business being here in this spot on the island, and that I should go back to my friends in the park. One of them googled it then though and—let me exaggerate that a bit—“It’s true. The man is right. That’s really an Avengers shirt.” That was so awkward for them. That was nice. That was a nice lesson, also for my son, where I said, “See? Even your friend and helper can be wrong sometimes” (in German speaking regions, the police likes to be referred to as “your friend and helper”). Yeah, that was very nice.

Swiss: Yeah. For us—we are from this generation that’s obedient to authority—if a police officer says something, then that’s how it is.

Chris: Yeah. Getting back to the question: how am I doing? I am doing fine, I am actually also currently busy writing songs, but I’m doing it here in Hamburg, in St. Pauli, so I can totally relate to that, collecting ideas, it’s really fun. I even have a few questions about songwriting, but… how are you doing? Are you well?

Swiss: I’m doing really well, are we still recording, Jakob? We are—I’d be lost without Jakob.

Chris: Today we kind of also have Jakob as a guest in the background.

Swiss: Exactly! There’s Jakob in the background, Matze (bassist in Swiss und die Andern) is also here, he’s gambling on his high-end computer through the gaming world. I’m doing pretty fine, I am actually… I have something to say. I don’t know if you know that; I always wake up between 6 and 7 a.m. here, and while in Hamburg, with the family hustle and bustle, you just get up. Here’s one thing I do: I wake up at 6:30-7:00am, and in the morning I always have—

Chris: As your body clock kind of wakes you up.

Swiss: Of course. And in the morning, I always… when I sleep, my tinnitus is quite loud, so I wake up and I have…

Chris: What do you mean by “quite loud” though, do you always have it and it is simply louder then, or…?

Swiss: I have… during the day it decreases. When I get up—I think it also has got something to do with circulation.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, of course. You really should get that checked, [and maybe get] blood dilution, because you’re always close to a sudden hearing loss then!

Swiss: No. I’ve had that for a thousand years, dude. Thank you for the tip, but… *laughs*

Chris: Okay. I just meant as that can be really nasty.

Swiss: Absolutely. Anyhow, I don’t know exactly what’s the problem, but in the morning, when I sleep, I wake up and then I put on these headphones, and I listen to some binaural beats. And then I simply sleep two more hours and get up at 9, and that’s amazing, I have to say. I have just been for a walk, there’s always a bit of—there is a spit here that leads into the sea—

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: —and I walked there, and… I don’t know, if you know that [feeling]: sometimes, when I am out in nature, I’m overcome with some kind of melancholy. I don’t know if you can understand that. I somehow feel so connected with the world, with nature, and, I dunno, that somehow touches some synapses in me, I think of my dad a lot then, and—yeah, that often happens to me when I’m outside, if I expose myself to the forces of nature in any way.

Chris: That happens to me too, but it depends on the weather actually, I don’t get it when the sun’s burning down, but especially on the North Sea, where there’s wind and rain most of the time, and where the forces of nature really ARE Forces of Nature, and not just a gentle breeze on some turquoise sea; I get these kinds of thoughts too. But I have to admit that I enjoy these, even if it is sad sometimes. I enjoy it, because it opens a door within me, which is normally held shut by the city life most of the time.

Swiss: Hey bro, I’ll tell you one thing, I am so happy about melancholic moments, you know?

That sounds very much… a bit pseudo-poetical. For as long as I can remember, melancholy has been a faithful companion in my life. Do you know that [feeling]? That it somehow—

Chris: You are a goth after all!

Swiss: Yeah? A little bit, yes. I’m sitting here all dressed in black, and when I get to think of my dad in some sad moments, on the other hand, I feel so close to him then, you know. It’s just as you said, you get so numb from city life, from all the stuff that you do, and then somehow a kind of gate opens. Another thing I’m realizing right now when I’m writing music: for example, in the past two years so many bad things have happened in my life—

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: I sometimes notice, it’s like a natural reaction of the psyche or mind, that the mind closes up the tracks to the soul, to your own feelings, and I sometimes notice that I have somehow totally hardened emotionally over the past 2–3 years. And that it’s very challenging for me now to find access to those feelings again, to find images for them, because I have somehow locked them in to be able to make it through these times.

Chris: I always wonder, how much of this is done on purpose? I know that, too, I sometimes notice that some things don’t touch me as much as they should, and I ask myself, is that really due to external influences, or are they just an excuse and you actually do it on purpose, for self-protection; you have the feeling that you need to close up somehow, to take the time, until you are able to open up the door again; at least I have the feeling that I close up on purpose for a particular amount of time, because it is so hard to bear when it always weighs so heavily on you. I prefer to allow it in phases, then I really let myself be carried away by it, and I can also creatively draw from it differently than when you get into some kind of “overall melancholy”, which lies upon your life like some shadow.

Swiss: Yeah, totally. I manage that quite well meanwhile, you know, I don’t go through the whole day feeling down or anything, but I think that the things that happen to you, that’s very—well, I think it’s like some self-protection of the soul, you know. Like for example, the Stockholm syndrome; you know, you’re kidnapped by someone and you’re in their power, and it’s somehow a coping mechanism that your mind tells you, “Hey, you love him!”, or that you identify with that person.

Chris: Creating a positive dependency suddenly.

Swiss: Exactly! You somehow tell yourself that this is self-chosen, and I have to say that I somehow realize that my mind, in order to function, during the last 2–3 years there was no time for—especially when you have a child or a family…

Chris: You have to be strong for others! You have to be strong for others and you take yourself out of the equation.

Swiss: Yeah, there’s also my mom, who is on her own now, to a certain extent, you have risen to—this sounds stupid— but to a certain extent, you have risen to be the head of the family, even if the word “rise” feels strange, but… do you know what I mean? And you just can’t really take that time somehow and in moments like that I realize how much it still hurts and how weak I sometimes feel about it, and what a loss it has been. But I don’t want to…

Chris: My parents—

Swiss: Yes?

Chris: Sorry. Go on.

Swiss: No, you keep on talking.

Chris: Luckily my parents are still alive, but they are really old by now, my father is 83, my mother is 80, and my mother had to defeat breast cancer twice in the past 13–14 years.

Swiss: Wow, that’s tough.

Chris: She really went through hell there. I always had to deal with the question of what would happen if she left—and she made a very clear announcement. She said that if it happened again, she wouldn’t do chemotherapy again.

Swiss: Oh no, she had to undergo chemotherapy?

Chris: Twice! She had chemotherapy twice.

Swiss: That’s tough.

Chris: And it really killed her, she said she won’t do it again. Concerning this “head of the family” thing, I know, it sounds so stupid, but I know what you mean. I also notice that in everyday life I am the big one now. I take care of my parents now. They used to take care of me, now I take care of them. Whether it’s going there and setting up the internet again or doing the shopping, carrying the crates of drinks or just being there; I can totally understand that. I have to say—what you’ve just described about your mother being left alone now—without wanting to open a can of worms, but it’s already a bit opened anyway, that I thought to myself the other day that the pain of losing one of them is probably smaller than having to bear the fact that one of them is left alone.

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: And I recently wondered which would be worse… like, which of them would cope better. That’s a really difficult discussion for me, because I know that time isn’t on their side.

Swiss: But I have to say I saw your parents at your end-of-year concert; they both definitely made a very cheerful impression on me and I think it also has something to do with it— without going into it too deeply—my father wasn’t that attached to life anymore either.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: He also said from the outset that if there was anything, he wouldn’t do chemotherapy. He said, “I won’t do that. It’s okay, I’ve lived a full life, I’ve been ‘kissed by happiness’, I’ve had an incredibly long run of good luck.” He said it’s okay. In hindsight, that was one of the most glaring lessons I learned from my father, how much equanimity, humility and dignity he showed when he went to his death. Without—I didn’t once hear him moan, I didn’t once hear him say, “Why me?” and so on and so forth, but… when it became clear, he said, “That’s just the way it is”, and that comforted us, you know? That gave us comfort.

Chris: That’s crazy, huh?

Swiss: And it was amazing. It was so… That time, no… It still feels like a big dream, you know? So, I also played during that time and he also said, “Just watch…”, he was already in hospice, “Make sure you play all your shows”, and I was always on the road at the weekend and then I just kept coming back. My mother slept in his room at the hospice and everything. Hey, that was so cool. Watching him do that… So, you know, the indigenous populations of our planet, they have this transition between life, between this world and the hereafter, you know? And I could really see him going into the afterlife. And that was amazing. He then had so many moments, I don’t know, he was given very strong morphine, whether it was because of that, he hallucinated so much, you know? And then he also told me about such vivid pictures. And then sometimes he was completely lucid. And I remember the last clear thing he said to me and it was so extreme, he was lying there, he was very, very absent and suddenly he looked at me with such clear eyes, took my hand and said to me, “We’ll stay true to each other.” Bro, that was sooo… And I said, “Yes, dad, we’ll stay true to each other.” That was so cool, you know? Really, I get goosebumps when I think about it, and with all the bad things or all the sad things that come with it, it’s also given me such beauty, you know? It has also, I would say, improved my relationship with my mother again, and this life is just an incredible gift and a huge happiness and you always forget that. Being allowed to be here is so incredible. And you worry about so much nonsense and—

Chris: Yeah, just luxury problems…

Swiss: Yes, and then you realize, “Hey, that’s so…”, especially when you see the parents, that’s the constant. This person has been there for as long as I can remember… He’s gone now! And I’ll be gone too. And that gave me peace of mind, for example, because I thought that’s completely okay. It will be the same for me and you don’t have to worry, because we’re all going to go there at some point and that’s really cool. So, it really is an amazing experience.

Chris: I know that things like that—I’ve also been confronted with death more often, in fact, I have myself, but that’s another story, but—

Swiss: Oh, true!

Chris: I mean, it does something to you artistically and that sounds so stupid now, because it sounds like you’re taking advantage of the situation, but it’s actually adding fuel to the creative fire. And I know, for example, a song of yours that really moved me, I think it was on your solo record, “Hotel zu den Sternen”—

Swiss: Yeah, it wasn’t on the record, it was just an extra.

Chris: It was just extra. What’s it like when you say that you have moments like that, to build a bridge back to music, to songwriting, to a songwriting camp, so to speak? Is it the case that such themes or such feelings flow more into the things you’re doing right now or is the opposite happening to you right now? That you’re now saying, “Fuck it, now you’re going to do ‘feel good’ and ‘in your face’”, or is there a certain direction in Swiss und die Andern songs that are currently being created because that has opened a door for you in which you want to go through, also artistically? 

Swiss: Yes, it’s with topics like that… Of course, I’ve already poured out a lot on “Hotel zu den Sternen”, but the things we’ve done here now, some of them are really, really cool songs that actually have more of a cool feeling, but for example we did one song as a sketch… Last time I was with Rosa, we went to Switzerland… So, my daughter, you know that, but for the other fans, my daughter’s name is Rosa.

Chris: Yes, and she is so cute.

Swiss: Quite sassy, let’s be honest. *Both are laughing lightly* And she’s sitting at the back and suddenly out of nowhere she says, “The clouds live in the sky, don’t they?”, and I’m like, “Yes, that’s right." And I thought that was so cool, you know? So, the image of “The clouds live in heaven”, and we’ve now started a song and it’s like, “The clouds live in heaven and hopefully you do too, you’re just up there because the good Lord needs you”. You know what I mean? So, these are like… I always have the feeling with these songs that so many moments come together and also the right images. You don’t have an infinite number of shots in one song. Do you know what I mean? 

Chris: Yes, and even such topics are over at some point, right?

Swiss: Exactly.

Chris: At least for yourself.

Swiss: How many songs do you want to write about it? And, yeah, I don’t know.

Chris: That’s why I’m sometimes so grateful when I write songs for others, that you’re in a position where you’ve actually already covered a topic three times for yourself, but you just want to say something else about it, because it’s no longer possible for your own band, that you can actually write a song with the same content again for someone else in other words. That’s actually really cool.

Swiss: Yes, 100%. But one thing, I don’t know if it makes you uncomfortable, but I think your story on how you really were on the brink of death is something you should just tell now, don’t you?

Chris: I like to talk about it, I can… or what does “I like to” mean? But—

Swiss: It’s quite spectacular.

Chris: — but maybe it’s time, if we’re talking about death now anyway. I’d like to finish off very briefly with the song thing, because I actually have a question about it.

Swiss: Of course.

Chris: Because, regardless of what you’ve just said, I made notes beforehand with the questions I had for you. And that is, can you, maybe it’s already “Hotel zu den Sternen”, but what are the most emotionally important songs that you’ve made? Are there any that you say hit you the most, your top 3 from Swiss/Swiss und die Andern or whatever? 

Swiss: I think for what it is, the sickest song I’ve written to date is “Asche zu Saub”. That’s also a song that comes up regularly, where people come up and say: “Hey, ‘Asche zu Staub’, why don’t you write something like that again?”.  

Chris: That’s the one you always do acoustically with Jakob, alone most of the time? In the Sporthalle last year…

Swiss: Yes, exactly. And the song is just… It starts with “I’m driving through the night, at 4 in the morning, pumped full of pills, looking for myself”, and that was exactly the situation. That was a time when I couldn’t sleep, when I just got in the car at night and drove around the neighborhood to somehow find peace. Driving calms me down. And then this song came to me and I wrote it down in 20 minutes, somewhere back then in Farmsen-Berne (a district of Hamburg) in my living room and there it was. And these are songs like that… Some songs you only write once.

Chris: Yes, and often in such a short period of time. The core is usually finished with such important songs.

Swiss: Exactly, and that’s kind of, I don’t know, you shouldn’t have the ambition to top that either, you know? It’s kind of… For me, this song is kind of unique. And I don’t know. That’s definitely… For me, I’ve never been able to say, “Wow, the song, it’s cooler right now.”, but the song, it hits the nail on the head. What about you?

Chris: There are two/three situations, one is actually when my son, Mika, had just been born and he had to go back to the intensive care unit for a day or two straight after the birth, simply because he was somehow hypothermic, whatever, and it was just a precaution. There was nothing wrong, it was just a precaution. And that immediately triggered panic in me, because I was in intensive care for several weeks after my birth; I had staphylococcus as a baby, that almost killed me. So, it was some kind of bacterial problem. And then during that time, because I couldn’t cope with myself at all, I wrote a Lord Of The Lost song, but the one that got to me even more… At the time, I was writing an album for a German project that I did for one album. It’s called Harms & Kapelle. It’s a kind of dark country rock’n’roll singer-songwriter… Like a Bela record. And the song is called “Von der Liebe bis zur Bahre” and it’s written from the point of view of a child who dies right after birth, a few hours after birth, and speaks to their mother from the afterlife and says, “It’s okay. I was only there for a short time, but I had a good life. I had a perfect life because I was with you and I never needed anything other than you. I didn’t see the suffering of the world.” and to comfort the mother from the afterlife, that’s what I needed at that moment, to deal with the feeling of… So, to somehow tell myself that if something bad happens to my child who has just been born, it’s okay, although, of course, it’s not okay at all.   

Swiss: It’s a very intense thought. It’s also, by the way, we’re back to Yellowstone, sorry to harp on about it all the time, but there’s also the one who says to a woman who has lost her child, it goes like this, “Look, this child has experienced nothing but your love for 9 months.”

Chris: Wow, that’s exactly the same topic, yes.

Swiss: “You were… it was only loved. The whole time it spent on this earth, more or less, it was loved by you and nourished by you and then it went back the same way,” and I think that’s a beautiful image and without that now… That’s the most terrible thing you can imagine, losing your child. 

Chris: Yeah, well, “beautiful” is… I know what you mean.

Swiss: I don’t even want to imagine that. But please, tell people, because, of course, I know the story and I really have to… I’ve already told you about the connection I have to the story, indirectly…

Chris: Ah, yes. Okay…

Swiss: The signal isn’t very good. Can you hear me?

Chris: Should I call your phone number? Yes, I can hear you.

Swiss: Yes, call normally on the phone.

Chris: Yeah, I call you on your phone… Wait a moment.

Swiss: See you in a moment.

Chris: So…Werner… Here… It rings.

Swiss: Say something.

Chris: Yes. Hello, hello. Check, check?

Swiss: Yes, now it’s…yes, perfect.

Chris: So, we leave out the video.

Swiss: Since I don’t see you, somehow…

Chris: Yes, kind of…

Swiss: I am somehow free from this stranglehold, Christian…

Chris: Nah, it’s like that with me, now that I don’t see you, the excitement just dies down a bit. It’s quite pleasant…

Swiss: The excitement subsides. Yes, I saw that, you were fumbling and fiddling around so frantically the whole time. I was about to ask, “What is he doing?”

Chris: Like a five-year-old, exactly.

Swiss: Please tell—

Chris: Exactly, the story.

Swiss: Did I tell you… I told you once about my indirect connection to it, didn’t I?

Chris: I think you have, but most of the time when you speak, I just wait my turn and don’t really listen to you.

Swiss: Okay, then I’ll do that right away, that works for me, I’ll do it again right away. Please, Christian…

Chris: So, the story has a backstory, for those who don’t know, it was in the year 2000, I think it was in May, I was 20 years old then, I was out at night in a Hamburg club called Jay’s back then, nowadays it’s called Übel und gefährlich (“bad and dangerous”), it’s in a war bunker outside on the Heiligengeistfeld, some of you might know it, it’s now a concert venue, and a hand grenade went off that night, and that kind of… I was injured then, I was in hospital for a while, I still have grenade pellets in my body, little lead pellets, that fucked me mentally. Then, in order to somehow cope and because of all the paranoia I had, in order to somehow be able to go out and go to clubs or play in bars or concerts, to be able to go out with people in general… I hadn’t really had any contact with drugs or similar things before, including alcohol, and then this one good friend came along and said, “Come here, take some amphetamines, they’ll loosen you up and stuff…” I was like, “Amphetamines? What’s that?” “That’s what people in advertising agencies take” I was 20, I thought, “Well, what people in advertising agencies take must be good stuff” and I just didn’t know that it was speed, and then I slipped into a spiral for a year and a half where I took pretty much everything except heroin and crack to somehow kill myself, to somehow… well, not to kill myself, but to kill this fear of being around people, and then there was this legendary New Year’s Eve in 2001 in the Hafenklang (club in Hamburg), with some drum-and-bass party, and then liquid ecstasy was passed around, liquid MDMA, and then I asked, “How do I take this?” And then the guy who gave it to me said, “Just pour a portion of it in your drink!” And then I took the vial and poured it into my Coke and drank it, and when I closed the vial again, I noticed that there was a pipette on the inside of the lid. Then I realized… “Okay, one portion would probably have been one drop.”

Swiss: Oh! *laughs*

Chris: And everything else that happened that evening I only know from stories, with the defibrillator and so on… Well, I didn’t see any white light, I didn’t see anything… and that was the end of my drug career, I actually never took anything again. Nothing at all.

Swiss: But it’s so crazy… Maybe you have to tell people again: Jay’s was actually the It club back then, right, Dieter Bohlen (German musician and producer) used to go partying there, and it was always a bit of this—

Chris: Exactly, Til Schweiger (German actor), Jenny Elvers (German actress)…

Swiss: So the trashy stars have been in and out of there too, and um…

Chris: Those were the Michael Ammer (German event manager) parties; many know him as Michael Ammer, the party king from the Bild Magazine (German yellow press magazine).

Swiss: Exactly. Exactly. The wild thing is—before I get to it—it was the older brother of a very old friend of mine, with whom I had played soccer for many years, who placed that bomb there. 

Chris: Exactly, that was a Yugoslavian hand grenade.

Swiss: He got caught then, because…

Chris: Very briefly for general understanding, because I was talking about lead pellets: it wasn’t a high-velocity grenade, because with a high velocity grenade parts of your body fly off when it hits you.

Swiss: Then life is over.

Chris: That was a ball grenade, there are 2,500 small lead balls in it, they have a diameter of one and a half to two millimeters, and they fly very quickly through muscle tissues, and the shock then paralyzes the muscles, that is, they are there to incapacitate as many soldiers as possible, but not to kill; otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here now.

Swiss: And do you still—

Chris: Exactly. Just a side info.

Swiss: —and you still have them in your body. Are they picked up by the machines at the airport?

Chris: I still have a few in my body and they were picked up at certain international airports until a few years ago; I have a slip where it’s written, and I would even be entitled to a war veteran’s certificate and be allowed to park in disabled parking spaces *laughs*, but I don’t want that. Nowadays, it no longer beeps at airports because they now screen differently, but… yes.

Swiss: Wow. A wild story.

Chris: Okay, sorry, now about the connection.

Swiss: No, that was already it; it was the older brother of a friend of mine who did it. That was very intense at the time, and I know—

Chris: But surely he was just a henchman back then, wasn’t he?

Swiss: Yeah, yeah. I don’t even know exactly, what it all was about, I can only speculate.

Chris: I do know, though.

Swiss: Yeah? I think it was… I know it was—

Chris: So very, very roughly: I don’t want to name the group because it doesn’t matter, but that was just… There were two bouncers, two security companies run by two, let’s say, red-light district powers, and they were at war with each other.

Swiss: Aah, okay.

Chris: And that was just collateral damage, it was just about damaging the one club, the one party, the one company. It was a neighborhood war that had been building up since the mid-90s. Those ultimately responsible, who told the guy, “Throw the hand grenade in there!”, we still don’t know who they are, we only know about the henchman and he served a long sentence.

Swiss: Yeah, yeah. Ultra crazy. For real. Yeah, man, we’ve really had a tough start today somehow.

Chris: Topic: death!

Swiss: Seriously, Christian, we are moving from the topic of melancholy to death to your hand grenade attack, which you survived; is there perhaps something nice you can tell us about, something positive?

Chris: I’d like to make a quick connection to songwriting, because that’s what we’re doing at the moment and at least for us it’s really the case that with all the songs, and that brings me back to you, where you say that melancholy is also a nice “place” for you, that’s actually a central theme for me right now, because after we did ESC and with Blood and Glitter, it was all red and gold and glam rock and lots of fast “feel-good” songs, I’m longing for that pleasant melancholy that you describe, and I want to make an album that’s dark. Not necessarily heavy, but that is dark and that… the beauty of darkness… oh, that sounds so pathetic, so cheesy, doesn’t it? But that also celebrates a bit of the beauty in this darkness.

Swiss: Okay. Are you working on a new Lord Of The Lost album or what?

Chris: Well, for summer next year.

Swiss: I see.

Chris: We are starting the songwriting now. I don’t know—when are you planning to do that? I know that you are writing, but do you want to give it away already? Are you allowed to say it already?

Swiss: I don’t know at all yet. We do it like this every year, we still have cool stuff lying around from last year, it’s for a bit about being together, to have a look at what we like, there’s the Best of now… we’ll see.

Chris: I’m envious! For this Best of, I saw you shot a video with Mehnersmoos (German band).

Swiss: Of course.

Chris: And I got to know Mehnersmoos because of you, we were at a studio session, where we recorded vocals for you, and you went, “Hey, do you know ‘Hey John’ by Mehnersmoos” and I went, “Nope”. Since you showed me that, whenever we are on tour… we used to listen to a lot of Deichkind and Scooter while we were putting on makeup on tour, now when we put makeup on we listen to Mehnersmoos, “Hurensohn, Hurensohn, Hurensohn, Hurensohn” (son of a bitch), and it is our soundtrack right now.

Swiss: See? But you’re not the only ones. I have to say, this is actually a band that a lot of people who also make music and are creative themselves listen to.

Chris: But it’s also musically great. It’s not just nonsense.

Swiss: Exactly!

Chris: It’s musically awesome.

Swiss: Exactly, they are really good musicians, they have both studied music and that’s noticeable, and it’s very, very funny. The whole Best of record—we have a lot of cool people on it, that’s why… finish that one first, and then…

Chris: And then have a look.

Swiss: —and then we look further. Aside from that…

Chris: As we are talking about creativity; we still wanted to do a jingle for the podcast, and I always wanted to introduce something, but I haven’t had time so far. That’s why I briefly want to ask you, in order to introduce some purposely moronic ideas to you as a jingle: what kind of ideas do you have for a Swiss and Harms podcast jingle?

Swiss: Well, I have…

Chris: Regarding the length, should there be something spoken in it or not, just music, which style… so I can purposely do something that is exactly what you don’t want.

Swiss: Okay, then I will describe very precisely… I have actually already said that, Christian, you just didn’t listen to me again. I said I would like to have…

Chris: You only said something about an Eastern European woman who pronounces it.

Swiss: A woman with an Eastern Bloc accent who says things with Eastern Bloc charm, like: “Swiss and Harms-the podcast” *mimicks a heavy Eastern European accent^*

Chris: But with music? With something that would have formerly been called “Gipsy music”?

Swiss: Heyyy, you can’t say that! Um… yes, yes maybe, I’ll leave this—

Chris: Balkans music.

Swiss: Yes, I’ll really give you a free hand there, but that’s what I would want to hear. Otherwise, I’ve gotten used to the fact that we don’t have one.

Chris: But how long does such a thing have to be? 20 seconds? I have to admit something now, sorry, I have to admit something now. The only podcast I’ve ever really listened to in my life is our own. *laughs* I’m not a podcast listener.

Swiss: Really? I actually really listen to…

Chris: No, that was exaggerated, but I very rarely listen to podcasts. That’s why I’m not so familiar with this.

Swiss: No, there’s actually always this jingle that plays, and then every time they talk over it, you know, what Markus Lanz (German TV host) and… I think they have one. I have no idea. But that’s not supposed to be our role model, but—

Chris: It’s not?

Swiss: —really, just be creative! I know you sometimes feel like Markus Lanz, I notice that.

Chris: Yeah. Absolutely.

Swiss: But be creative.

Chris: I’ve just adopted the same attitude, I’ve got my hand on my mouth.

Swiss: I was just thinking about, how Brecht (German theater practitioner, playwright, and poet, 1898–1956) says, “[You] meet me in the bower”. Since he said that he is in a bower, the idea that I need a bower has taken root in my mind. Do you understand that? A small room like that with lots of books in it, just highfalutin literature, Foucault, Kant, you name it, an old Atari that I still type on, or a typewriter, all these sorts of things, you know?

Chris: That’s a so-called expert’s room. Whenever in a documentary, no matter if it is Spiegel TV (German documentary program) or whatever, as soon as an expert gets invited and says something, he is always sat in front of a bookshelf. I don’t know if that is done as some kind of running gag; I’ve decided that the next time we do a making-of documentary for an album, I’ll just sit everyone in front of a bookshelf for interviews and always write “music expert” or something like that underneath. “Music expert for drums”, “Music expert for bass”.

Swiss: That’s very good. If I did that, I would put everyone in these fast-food chains, including the vegans, we have quite a few vegans among us, I would let them give interviews in these fast-food chains. It’s all about contrasts, Christian, contrasts. So, you’ll be banging out a jingle…

Chris: But you’ve got your ideas already, I will nevertheless do what I want to do, and I try to… Do you have an Eastern European… I have a few, who can actually do that and also come from there…

Swiss: Yes, go get them! Go get them. I think someone also wrote to us.

Chris: Yes, someone did. Aside from that: does Ukraine count as Eastern Europe? It does, right?

Swiss: Yes, of course. That’s New Europe.

Chris: *in a heavy Eastern European accent* I’d have someone from there.

Swiss: It is FINALLY Europe. Yep. That’s cool. That’s how we do it. Exactly. Besides that, I have just been thinking, which is actually one thing that has been a lot of fun here—not fun in a positive sense, but it’s just been very funny for the last two or three days—do you know these low carb noodles, I think they’re available at Budni (German drugstore), I don’t know, are they made from… Jakob, are they made from edame or edamame?

Chris: Yeah, these pea-based noodles.

Swiss: No, it’s not peas, it’s tofu, right.

Jakob *from the background*: Soybeans.

Swiss: Soybeans.

Chris: What are they called?

Swiss: Eeeerrrmm, I dunno. Low carb, 80% less carbs. At home, we have eaten them sometimes, and at home, the theory has emerged that you fart a lot from these noodles.

Chris: *laughs*

Swiss: And we bought these and I said, “Boys, check this. We get the feeling that you fart a lot from that stuff!”

Chris: So, you are doing field tests there? *laughs*

Swiss: Bro, if we had been outside in the field, it would definitely have been more pleasant for everyone, this has been pure Armageddon here for two days. Yesterday we sat in front of the TV *laughs*, we watched Bullet Train with Brad Pitt.

Chris: That movie’s cool!

Swiss: And we had… there was always someone farting, and then we fetched this scented air freshener spray from the bathroom to the living room, which we had bought for the bathroom, such a big spray bottle, and every time when someone farted, someone else hysterically stood up and completely sprayed him with that scented air freshener spray.

Chris: *laughs*

Swiss: In any case, it was very, very funny, the thesis was definitely confirmed, these noodles…

Chris: I need to test that, so I can tell you about it.

Swiss: Do it!

Chris: What we did once—at some point on tour we did this—especially at night in the nightliner, because a) it smells less and b)—not in bed, but when you’re sitting downstairs—b) it’s entertaining for everyone when you light farts. I dunno, maybe you should start doing that.

Swiss: Lighting farts?

Chris: Exactly. Each of us has a lighter with him, which you put into this thing… do you know that thing into which you used to put your skiing pass, with this extendable part?

Swiss: Yeah, yeah.

Chris: So that you kind of always have an expendable lighter with you, to save the others from the stench and also to entertain.

Swiss: That’s what you do on tour.

Chris: I have read somewhere that it can be dangerous to light farts, but so far nothing has happened.

Swiss: Yes, but I have wondered why all of you in Lord Of The Lost have got your asses bleached.

Chris: Yep.

Swiss: Now I’ve realized that there are just a lot of years on the tour bus and lighting farts behind it.

Chris: The problem is that lighting the farts naturally chars the anus, and bleaching is therefore more important, exactly.  

Swiss: That’s what I’m saying. But hey, that’s what your success is for, so that you can simply pay for an ass bleaching with petty cash. Did I tell you that—did we talk about that last time already, that…

Chris: About ass bleaching?

Swiss: No, about botox. Have we already tackled that botox topic?

Chris: I don’t know, but I got here on my… you just spoke about two things that I have generally wanted to talk about at some point: tour stories and also plastic surgery, for me that’s actually an interesting topic, but maybe this will lead too far now. But I don’t know, you didn’t talk about that.

Swiss: Look, with botox, it has been proven that people who have botox in their forehead are less prone to depression, because the soul is ultimately also a mirror of our facial expressions and gestures.

Chris: Wow, amazing.

Swiss: And because you simply can’t frown anymore, this signal of “ugh, I’m in a bad mood, I’m sad” is also not sent to be reflected in your soul, so to speak. Isn’t that fascinating? So, I think I am going to…

Chris: It’s like with these little stickers with a smiley face, which some people stick onto their mirror, to remind themselves to smile at themselves. My mom had that while she underwent chemotherapy, and the doctors told her, “The most important thing to get through the day is that happiness hormones are produced from within—

Swiss: Awesome!

Chris: —and that it can start in the morning in front of the mirror”—and ever since there are these little yellow smiley faces on every mirror in my parents’ house, which are placed at face height, because that does something to you.

Swiss: What an awesome doctor!

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: Right? Well, there are these doctors that are saying, “Well, then you have to increase the dosage a bit” and all that jazz, and that there is someone who also just says, “Hey, you, yourself, are very important for your healing process! And the manner in which you handle it. And the hormones that you can produce yourself.” I find that very, very—

Chris: The drugs produced by your own body are the most extreme ones.

Swiss: I find that very, very, very fascinating, I have to say. That—

Chris: But botox, another acquaintance of mine, she recently—she’s been a pain patient for many years now, for migraines; since our end-of-year concert, we also have our experiences with our bass player about how extreme that can be—

Swiss: Right, right…

Chris: —and for a bit we have, because it—for those who don’t know: it incapacitated him before the show; one of our backliners then played the bass during the show, and your Jakob played a few songs—

Swiss: Exactly!

Chris: —because he was there. And since then, we’ve researched it ourselves a bit, and I got the tip from an acquaintance of mine: she’s doing a long-term therapy for migraines with botox now. Because the inability to move the forehead that much, and to cramp her face and allegedly certain areas of the brain, plus a chemical effect of botox, is supposed to lessen migraines or to delay them or to slow down their evolution, so you can take some migraine medicine earlier—

Swiss: Crazy.

Chris: —so actually botox is currently a topic in migraine research, which is completely crazy.

Swiss: One has to say, neither of us are sponsored by botox, right—

Chris: Not yet.

Swiss: —that’s really out of our own free will, out of our own free will what we’re saying this here, but I just wanted to say, who knows? And hey, you can be completely relaxed there, it’s just a nerve poison that—right, like, you don’t have to make a big deal out of it. Umm…

Chris: Nope.

Swiss: Nope, that is—hey, come on, you can—

Chris: What’s your stance on cosmetic surgery, or also on this kind of treatment in general?

Swiss: Look Christian, I’m telling you honestly, if one is as beautiful, right...?

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: … as I feel…

Chris: M-hm.

Swiss: … then it’s completely out of the question! *laughs* Matze is just looking over, he hasn’t looked once, suddenly he’s looking over, like “what?”… No, look. For example, my nose, right? My nose has been broken many, many times, and I can barely breathe through one nostril.

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: I never had it—

Chris: It’s shitty when doing coke, right?

Swiss: Bro, it’s so annoying, right? You’re thinking, like, “Hey, come on, I’m gonna indulge myself”, the evening is getting better and better, and then it doesn’t work. That is just… In winter, when the air comes out of the heaters, I don’t know if you know, the nose is blocked then, anyway—

Chris: I find stuff like that awesome, air from heaters, but I know everyone else find it shitty and the nose is blocked.

Swiss: Hey, for me, my nose is ALWAYS completely blocked on one side and I have trouble breathing and also one ear is blocked. So, I always have under pressure, overpressure, and so on and so forth.

Chris: It cracks when you’re yawning, right?

Swiss: Yes, and you just have a muffled feeling in one ear. Right?

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: Because it’s closed, the—I believe it’s called the Eustachian tube. And that is— so people often told me, “Hey, get surgery for your nose!” And I also know a few boxers who did it, and they all were unsatisfied as hell, they said that it did nothing and it’s a shitty surgery, you know? Your nose gets broken there—

Chris: Yes, they’re really chiseling there and stuff, partially.

Swiss: Yes, and you wake up, have, like, O.B.s (German tampon brand) in your nostrils, and then they also scrape out your sinuses and—I don’t know, but I actually also know a few people who did it and are totally satisfied. And despite all of that, for me it’s really—messing around with my body like that, for me it’s—I have great inhibitions there.

Chris: Mhm.

Swiss: And when I imagine then, just for my forehead to look smooth, so, to look even, to punch a nerve poison into it… whoa, dude, I don’t know, that is really… umm… no! What’s your stance on it? Like, I don’t know!

Chris: Um… Well, generally the thing is that everything I’m going to say now, I’m aware that much of it is just utter nonsense. Because there are people who due to accidents or due to, I don’t know, lifelong obesity, oftentimes not even self-inflicted, but due to hormonal imbalances and so on; there are people who have such incredible problems and have so many reasons to say, “I would like to have something done to increase my self-confidence” and the like, and I don’t have to deal with these things, that’s why it’s actually totally crazy; but, of course, I’m bothered by several things and there are absolutely a few things where I’m thinking, “Pff, maybe I’ll do that at some point”, I have this… I have this fat underneath my chin that I really quickly—even though I don’t weigh much, I’m not chubby, but in pictures, I look 20 kilograms fatter very fast.

Swiss: The double chin, right? Yes, yes, I know that!

Chris: Especially when I sing deep—due to this deep singing you’re tilting your head like… *makes low-pitched sounds*

Swiss: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Chris: And then someone takes photos from the side and I’m thinking, “Whoa”. There I’m contemplating it; I don’t have a problem with baldness, but I have a relatively high forehead and it doesn’t get lower over the years, and I’m also thinking: “Hmm, you can get things done there”, but the only important thing, like what would be important for ME, if I get something like that done, I would be totally open about it, I would just say, “Yes-man, friends, that bothers me, this double chin annoyed me, I got it liposuctioned, injected, I don’t know, cut away, and yes, I got hair implanted here to make me feel good!” But I find it really embarrassing—

Swiss: Really? Wouldn’t you, like the Ohoven [2] back then, she got her lip injections.

Chris: Ah, the one with the sausage, with the sausage lips?

Swiss: And then she said, “No, I just did—” What’s it called? “I just did my makeup differently.”

Chris: Exactly, the makeup!

Swiss: Ooooh, Wizzy is just coming in!

Chris: Awesome!

Swiss: Wizzy comes in; hey, he’ll be here for two nights, he just has enough stuff with him to climb Mount Everest. Hello Wizzy!

Chris: Hey, Wizzy is the oldest of you, but still the most handsome, has to be said!

Swiss: Wizzy is the most handsome of us, it has to be said.

Chris: Alright.

Swiss: Look, the thing is—

Chris: But—but—

Swiss: —if hair, I quickly have to—there is—

Chris: Just very quickly, bottom line is that I would say it. I would make it public.

Swiss: Okay.

Chris: Because there is nothing I find more embarrassing than to pretend [I did] not. You understand?

Swiss: Yes, yes, I understand. Well, I personally… you always see that at Istanbul airport, it’s also called “Istanbul hairlines”—

Chris: Yeah. But it doesn’t work out, man, this hairline has to be different, man! That has to be random! This Istanbul hairline, I know it! This “no hair and then lots of hair”, that looks so shitty! Nooo.

Swiss: Yes, you see, and at the beginning I thought like “is there a—what kind of clinic is here?”—

Chris: *laughs*

Swiss: —because you see many people, many have these headbands and these red heads—

Chris: Yes, yes.

Swiss: —and I thought, like, “Hey is there a clinic that treats skin diseases or something?”, and then at some point I checked, “Bro, they just got their hair done here”! And that’s really, in Turkey, you can just fly there and they pick you up, VIP service, then you are in some fancy hotel, then you get picked up for the surgery, in the evening you go for a delicious meal, and so on and so forth. So, Christian, hey, I really have—

Chris: Exactly, Turkey specialized in two things there, there are many of these hair clinics and also many dental prosthesis clinics, where people want to get their teeth completely—to get a Stefan Raab (German comedian who had all of his teeth done) set of teeth, much of it gets done in Turkey.

Swiss: Yes.

Chris: I know that because I actually have—I occasionally work as a narrator for documentaries or for advertisements, and once I narrated a whole dental traveling—

Swiss: For animal documentaries!

Chris: —dental traveling to Turkey, I actually narrated a whole documentary about it. Yes, if you’re viewing humans as animals, yes, definitely animal documentaries.

Swiss: No, I can… There are actually other things too; I also know a lady who, for example… how am I supposed to word it? Who got her entire self done! *laughs* So, from head to toe, you could say! Like, the whole nine yards, and was very thrilled, too; by everything.

Chris: That’s like these—there are a few US rappers who don’t have time and who aren’t up for the pain, and that’s a thing in the US currently, I know that from the tattoo scene, which I’m quite close to, that some actually undergo general anesthesia, which would never be allowed in Germany, and they lay down and five tattoo artists just do the whole body, at least one side, everything that’s on the back, because you can sleep on your stomach, they just finish it.

Swiss: Crazy!

Chris: In eight hours.

Swiss: Dude.

Chris: And then afterwards you have—I don’t know, you take valium for two weeks and sleep on your stomach, but then you’re done and over with it, and don’t have this process of— everybody who is tattooed knows that, even a small tattoo takes hours, you go there, it gets prepared, and afterwards and blah blah. And it doesn’t get celebrated anymore, it’s just about being covered, and one year later you do the front, and then you’re covered. And that’s currently a thing there. Especially in the rap scene and among tattooers, of course, it wouldn’t be possible here, to ask an anesthetist and tell them: “I’d like to get eight hours of general anesthesia, so I can have a big dragon on my back”. So, that wouldn’t happen here.

Swiss: Yes, everything for the press photos, right?

Chris: Yes, of course.

Swiss: So, getting finished fast, so you can look cool—wait a minute, I quickly have to—or do you have something else marked down? I…

Chris: No.

Swiss: … need your opinion.

Chris: Yes!

Swiss: We sat here yesterday and the evening before yesterday and said, “Hey, come on, let’s watch some other shows.” Right? Like “what are some awesome live shows”—

Chris: To talk shit about them, right? I know that! (The tone clearly marks that it’s a joke!)

Swiss: No, not to talk shit, but also to see what others are doing!

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: Then we first watched… what’s-their-name…

Chris: Lord Of The Lost?

Swiss: Red Hot Chili Peppers, where you have to say—no, of course, we checked in our…—

Chris: Yes, yes, I know.

Swiss: —without wanting to compare myself to Red Hot Chili Peppers, but rather something, so to say—

Chris: Yeah, I understand.

Swiss: —that rather matches our energy or something. And Red Hot Chili Peppers are totally awesome, and that was intense, too; I believe they also play without a click, and I have so often—

Chris: Exactly, everything is old school there!

Swiss: Yeah, and I often heard people talking shit, “Kiedis’ singing voice sounds so weak live” and so on, but I found it totally awesome! Like, I absolutely dug it.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: And then we started looking into newer things for a bit, and then we first watched Machine Gun Kelly, and the guy is also—he comes onto the stage; bro, that’s so thoroughly stylized. Right? Crop top, a silver coat and the hair up in spikes, and man, he looks so incredibly good! Right? And then he has—he stands on a pyramid and has a guitar player, hey, she— I don’t know, she looks like she was in the last season of Bay Watch—

Chris: *laughs*

Swiss: —and that is such a—and despite that, and there I have to get to the antipole for a bit: it didn’t touch me at all. You know? It was so—I found it boring very quickly. And that’s how I felt, by the way, also when we watched Bring Me The Horizon, then. Him too, man, what a motherfucking cool dude, the show—

Chris: The show with the screens is ultra crazy, ultra crazy!

Swiss: Gigantic! But bro, for me it was very quickly like, “Oh, it’s theater”. And then we watched Bloodhound Gang 2006, *laughs* Hey, they just, they— Germans, they only made fun of Germany, they let them sing the national anthem, then he showed a Hitler mustache, and tricked them, it was the whole—

Chris: Well, that’s the thing that Americans can do.

Swiss: Hey, they just didn’t give a shit at all, and for us it was like, “Hey, dude, they are like us!” Right? Because our thing is the same. This, like, man, no big production; okay, the tour will be a BIT different, but it doesn’t rely on having an epic stage setup or something, but it relies on this “man, fuck you all” moment. Like, right? And… I found it very, very intriguing, I was in awe watching that, because this show felt so close to the thing that we like to do and want to do; Die Ärzte are like that, too, you know?

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: There you also have no big flames going on, and pyramids coming out of the floor somewhere, and so on and so forth. So everything but a US production, but… it has a different energy. And I noticed how much I like that.

Chris: You have to—hey, actually you’d have to do a cooperation with Evil Jared, I mean, he lives in Berlin, the Bloodhound Gang Bass player—

Swiss: Yes, but you already know that the Bloodhound Gang, they have recorded “Vermisse Dich”?

Chris: Yes! But—I know, but exactly that’s why!

Swiss: Nooo! No, no, there I’m very—there I think… no, no, I think that’s uncool.

Chris: Okay—

Swiss: Without wanting to—

Chris: Would just be funny because a friend of mine has a new musical project with Evil Jared…

Swiss: Yes.

Chris: And then I thought how funny it would be if you played “Vermisse Dich” together. *laughs*

Swiss: Yes, but still, that has… how should I say it? It bothered me a bit.

Chris: Yes, I understand that.

Swiss: Because it also just—yeah, I don’t know. We gave them everything, we said “here, take the whole GEMA” (he means the money they had to pay to the Society for Musical Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights) and so on and so forth, and then they still reported it. But I don’t want to complain about it, that’s not what it’s about, and—

Chris: Also, the hour is over!

Swiss: Is it already? I didn’t know that—I’m totally intimidated by that time now!

Chris: Well, we still can continue a bit, but I just wanted to say it, so, I would just—

Swiss: Matze is like, “Just do another one”. *laughs* No, no, it’s all right, dude.

Chris: The thing is, I promised to get this book, this Das Wissen der okkulten Finanzelite (“Knowledge of the occult Finance Elite”) by Deven Schuller, but you know what? When we meet in person next, maybe we’ll just check it out in person, because I do want to read out two or three things.

Swiss: Yes, maybe, I mean last time, last week it was the instruction manuals, maybe you can read out one, two really rad key phrases not only to release us, but also to get the audience—

Chris: Yes—

Swiss: —of this podcast totally motivated. You know?

Chris: The thing is, why it’s actually opening a deeper topic, I have read this book, and as stupid as it partially is, and as far as it also stumbles around on the thin line of… how should I say… conspiracy theories, I have to say, this book showed me again that there is actually someone who just wants to show his knowledge to the world and to do something cool with it, and has led me to question the big topic that we should talk again, prejudices in myself. Because that is not all just shit. Even though the book is formatted badly and has many errors, and he shows himself a lot with cool sports cars and in front of swimming pools, one has to be very careful with one’s own prejudices. That’s why—

Swiss: I find it great of you, now.

Chris: Yeah, but it IS like that!

Swiss: I would have done a significantly more spiteful summary of this book if I had looked into—

Chris: There is one thing that I want to read out, though, maybe next time we will actually talk about prejudices. Either way, at the end he writes —and he is standing in front of his pool there, in front of his, I don’t know, Spanish villa—

Swiss: Cool dude!

Chris: —at least there is a palm tree standing there, “I am secured. Even if artificial intelligence takes over everything, I don’t have to prove myself in the gladiator’s arena anymore.” That’s a nice closing word, right?

Swiss: I find that nice! And I also wish that for us, Christian. Right?

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: That we are also at that point some time that we don’t have to prove ourselves in the gladiator’s arena of life anymore.

Chris: Man, you can make a songwriting camp on Sylt, wishing you lots of fun—

Swiss: Christian, you on St. Pauli again, unbelievable.

Chris: Yes, of course.

Swiss: You’re saying that so rarely, that you’re speaking right from St. Pauli. I hope that was a nice hour for you as well; I found it very nice.

Chris: I found it very nice as well, but I believe that we won’t meet in person in two weeks again, either, I don’t know where you will be at that—

Swiss: You’ll be on the road then?

Chris: —I’ll be on a skiing vacation!

Swiss: Oh, on a skiing vacation, Sölden (village in Austria) again or St. Trop— no, what’s it called, St. Moritz (village in Switzerland)?

Chris: Well, I’ll tell you where I’m going later, or in person, or else I won’t be alone there.

Swiss: Okay.

Chris: Exactly. But—

Swiss: Yes, all of these Lord Of The Lost skiing communities that exist; you don’t want that.

Chris: Exactly, the ski bunnies.

Swiss: The ski bunnies.

Chris: No, but I would actually do it from my skiing vacation, then, the call.

Swiss: Awesome! I’m happy!

Chris: Awesome.

Swiss: Hey, my dear, it was nice hearing from you, it—

Chris: Yes, likewise!

Swiss: —makes me feel at home. Take care!

Chris: Have fun and greet the guys!

Swiss: I’ll do that, bye!

Chris: See you later, bye!

 

 

[1]: In 2022, Germany offered a train ticket for 9 Euros, valid in June, July and August, which allowed people to use public transport with just that one ticket (local transport only). Many people used it, including punks, who then went to Sylt to protest against social injustice.

 [2]: Chiara Ohoven, daughter of UNESCO special ambassador Ute-Henriette Ohoven and BVMW president Mario Ohoven, got very noticeable lip fillers, but denied it and told a reporter that it might seem like she had some done because of her hair color. A few years later she admitted having had work done on her lips.

 

 

Translation: Margit Güttersberger, Elisabeth «Kurojuki» Czermack, Jari Witt

Proofreading: Gaëlle Darde