Interviewer: Laura Schmitz

 

Chris: Welcome to the next Fanterview, this time with me, I’m Chris, and you are?

Laura: Laura.

Chris: Laura (shakes her hand) Did we already? Yeah we did. With Laura. And, maybe we’ll first do a little intro or something…(snaps fingers)

 

(Intro)

 

Laura: I’ll just try to start somewhere. After so many years, do you long for something private, don’t know, like staying home, a bit of quiet?

 

Chris: I don’t long to stop doing what I’m doing, but I have reached the point that I never thought I’d reached, where I’m tired of St.Pauli. But instead I’d like to buy an end unit house in a suburb of Hamburg. I’ve been living in St.Pauli for so long, I think since I was 20. So, one year (laugh) nah, really long. I’m just tired of it. And I do have a family. That does all work on St.Pauli, but actually I would like it more quiet. I don’t wish for my job and the band and the business to get more quiet, but everything around it. So yes-and-no.

 

[1:40]

Laura: Yes-and-no, okay. Have you reached a point in the meantime where you regret old songs, where you think today “What crap did I play back then”? Or did everything always stay cool?

Chris: No…well…I regret…”I regret nothing!” I regret a lot of things, but no songs. I once saw an interview, I think it was Farin, from Die Ärzte, and they were talking about the song “Westerland”. And they said they totally weren’t in the mood anymore to play that live. Or to practice it, and then play it live cause they’ve played it so many times. And they have so many times more concerts and years behind them than we do. But then you play it live anyway cause people want to hear it, and then you realize why you’re playing it, and then it’s fun again. And that’s how I feel about some songs too. There are songs where I hate even the thought of practicing them: Dry the Rain, Credo…these are the kind of songs where, in the rehearsal room you think “Why do I have to practice this at all. And do we really have to play this?” And then you do, of course, --okay, we don’t have Credo on this tour, but Dry the Rain of course—and you see how, from the first beat, all the way to the back, everyone in the hall is filled with happiness for hearing one of their favourite songs. And then it’s fun again. 

Apart from playing live, concerning regretting songs: there are things which, technologically, I think “Ah fuck, I would do that better today”. Production, old things, old bands of mine, from past times, if I listen to things, which I used to think back then where awesome, and think “God, what kind of garbage is that? Why didn’t I hear that back then? Why did I make such mistakes?” But that’s not regretting, that’s a completely normal learning process. It’s like looking at photos where you’re 14 and thinking “Oh god, how stupid did I look back then, and how cool do I look now.” And in 10 years I’ll look at pictures of me now and think “God, how retarded did I look then?” (laugh) Which shows that you’re halfway happy with what you have right now and sort of have to smirk at old things.

Laura: Okay.

Chris: But I don’t regret any song, really…there are also many songs I wrote which no one will ever hear. That is, never, anyone, anywhere, for which no proof exists. If I had published those, I would regret them. But I don’t publish everything I write. Fortunately. For you guys.

 

[4:00]

Laura: Now, not concerning concerts, I know you don’t compare those, just comparing cities. Do you ever think “What kind of a small city is this, where am I playing here?” or is it just all the same to you? 

Chris: The funny thing is that…my impression of Osnabrück for example, is limited to a few experiences. I’m in the Rosenhof for the second time now. I know the street of the Rosenhof.

Laura: I think you’ve been in the Bastardclub before.

Chris: Exactly, the Bastardclub. I also know the old one. It was a skateboard hall. I also know the street of the Bastardclub. Then we were in this Stadthalle (town hall), what was that thing called?

Woman off-camera: Sort of a garden? Stadthaus (city hall)?

Chris: Where that castle was.

Woman: Lagerhalle? Lagerhalle (store house).

Chris: Lagerhalle. I actually went for a walk there for a few meters cause I was looking for an optician. That’s my impression. And it would be completely unfair to say, based on that “What a beautiful city this is” or “what a crappy city” if I know absolutely nothing about it. Of course it also happens, in an industrial area, you arrive during the day, it rains, you enter a cold hall, and you’re thinking “What shit is this here.” But it’s often those places where you think “Oh crap” where the most magical concerts take place, and it’s totally great. So, what was the question actually?

Laura: (laugh) If, comparing these cities, they should rather be big or small, or if you don’t care.

Chris: Ah. Nah that doesn’t matter. I’m happy if there’s something nice in the surrounding area, where you see something nice and can quickly go somewhere, that’s nice. It actually doesn’t matter. It’s about what happens between the audience and the band. And that can also be in a storage building on the junk yard. Although I don’t wanna say that I wouldn’t like to play in a castle. Of course that’s nice.

 

[5:43]

Laura: Okay. Do you prefer festivals, or concerts, or does both have its charm?

Chris: Most of all both are completely different. For concerts, we’re there for a day, the crew builds everything up, everything is exactly as it should be, people ask me if the little platforms I stand on should be one centimeter more to the left or right. You can set everything up exactly as you like, with a lot of time. Festival, no matter how big it is: you have time to prepare behind the stage, and then you have 20 minutes, and bam bam bam bam everything has to be done. You have to live with completely different compromises. On the other hand, at festivals you have the situation that you reach many more people, and new people, and that’s very exciting, like getting to know something new, like playing the lottery and not knowing “what will happen if I turn the wheel?” So both is exciting. It always sounds like I’m trying to weasel out of the question like some politician cause I never say what I prefer, cause I really can’t say, cause you can’t compare it.

 

[6:45]

Laura: You incorporate experiences and thoughts into your songs. Are those only yours, or also partly those of the whole band, where someone says “Hey I’ve got something here. This might help…”

Chris: Um, that’s profoundly variable. For example, See You Soon is a song I wrote, which didn’t concern me directly. It’s about facing the death of someone you love. To be precise, it was about cancer. And it wasn’t about me, I just processed how bad a friend was feeling. It can be a funny story which, I don’t know, Class tells me, and says “Hey cool, I’ve got…” I don’t know “This and that would be a crazy idea for a song”. And then I pick it up and it inspires me and I make something out of it. It can be pure fiction. It can be dreams. I can see a movie and think “Boah, what awesome optics” and those optics open a world in me that creates a song. It can be a personal experience. It can be very deliberately addressed. Like October 29 is such a song, which very consciously addresses how I saw my very first girlfriend again, where we saw each other again after years, on that October 29. Black Lolita is complete fiction. It’s sort of a small sex play story. There really isn’t…it can be anything. It might be that you’ll now tell me a funny story and I think it’s so cool, and then somewhere that manifests inside a song. Totally variable.

 

[8:20]

Laura: I’ve also had questions forwarded to me. A lady asked me to ask, first of all: is it already decided when you’ll go on tour with the ensemble again?

Chris: Yes, it’s decided.

Laura: (laugh) Okay. When?

(Tour dates are shown on screen)

 

[8:37]

Laura: Will there be an Eye to Eye with Scarlet Dorn?

Chris: Yes, dammit! We keep forgetting it! Could someone please remind me? We have two concerts left. We have to do it tomorrow. Or today. Yes, sure. There are a few people…we keep walking past each other. I also want to do an Eye to Eye with Matteo from Hellboulevard / our video director. For years. Eye to Eye with Martin Engler. For years. It’s just (shrug) we keep seeing each other somewhere and “Oh, we should have”. I don’t know. It’s totally crazy. Michael Jackson. For years. And then he died. By the way, I’m wearing a T-shirt…ah no, it’s Bon Jovi, sorry.

 

[9:20]

Laura: Do you keep your contact to the former members intact as well somehow, or…is that rather live and let live?

Chris: It depends on what he or she is doing. How occupied we are. How the course of life…also interests, focusses…does that word exist? Foci? Foces?...changes. Sometimes we don’t hear of each other for a long time and then we do again. To some I have regular contact. For example our former guitarist Sebi. Um..some of them I haven’t seen for years. Just cause, somewhere else and travelling a lot. It’s completely different.

Laura: Ok.

Chris: And if course separations aren’t always completely easy. There are phases where it gets a bit stressy, and you have to get through that till you find common ground again. It’s completely different. But in the long term, so far it’s always been the case that we all had very good contact. But we never…oops, that’s my cellphone…we never separated in a huge fight. If anything, the fight came afterwards because it’s always difficult to process things. But all separations happened with mutual agreement, so so far it’s cool.

 

[10:48]

Laura: Ok. Is there a preferred band or preferred singer with whom you would like to speak, or go on tour?

Chris: Oh that’s…I get that question a lot, and it’s always so different…always so depending on my mood, what I’m listening to at the moment. At the moment, because I’m looking forward to the concert, I’m listening to a lot of old Aerosmith songs, cause I’m a big fan of Aerosmith. And they are doing their good bye tour now. By the way, it’s called…what was it, it was such an awesome name…Aerovidaci is the name of the tour (laugh), totally great. And in three weeks or so I’ll be at a good bye concert in Berlin. So right at this moment I would say Steven Tyler. He’s just one of the most awesome singers of all time. And to do something with him, boah, that would be epic. But maybe tomorrow I’d tell you something else cause I’ll be listening to a few other things. But at the moment, today it would be Steven Tyler.

 

[11:40]

Laura: Are there also those with whom you absolutely would not want to work together?

Chris: Oh yes, very many.

Laura: Okay. You probably don’t wanna go into it further.

Chris: That would be unfair. Cause we’re not in wrestling here, where you do dirty…no, that’s not dirty talk. How do you call that? Dirty talk is something else.

Laura: I think…

Chris: (on someone’s cue) Trash talk, thank you! I guess if one of them is watching: boys, you do know which of you I consider complete crap. (laugh)

 

[12:08]

Laura: If for whatever strange reasons, the band doesn’t work out anymore, what will you do then?

Chris: What do you mean by “work out”?

Laura: I don’t know…

Chris: Is it working out?

Laura: I don’t know, yes.

Chris: Philosophical question. Is it working out?

Laura: [12:23] ??? still looks good on you. You know what I mean?

Chris: Uh-uh (humming “no” while drinking from his can).

Laura: Should something happen to them….(her cellphone dings) man! 

Chris: What do you mean happen?

Laura: I don’t know. Let’s say it doesn’t work out with the band anymore in general at all.

Chris: (mock-concerned expression) Do you think it won’t work out anymore in the future, or what are you trying to tell me?

Laura: (laugh) Okay let’s stop the shit.

Chris:…No, you want to know what I would do if…well nothing I guess. Hartz 4 ( =unemployment benefit). (drops the joke) Thing is, I’m already doing a lot of stuff beside the band. For example, the studio I have in Hamburg I don’t just have because of Lord of the Lost…we also do Lord of the Lost in there…but in the team we have we also produce 20 other albums per year. I would probably work as a producer. I continue to enjoy lecturing as a freelancer. Also in the sound technical area. I write songs for this and that.

 

Laura: So you’d stay in the musical area.

Chris: That’s the only thing I’m really good at. There are also other things I’m creative at, be it sort of generally. I could probably also start as an industrial designer, with a bit of retraining, cause after all I don’t just make music for Lord of the Lost, but also a lot for the booklets, merch design, optics and all the overall concepts. I could probably manage some kinds of bands and work as a product designer or something. But there’s the question if I really want that. I think I’ll stay in this area. Of course it’s possible that everything falls apart and doesn’t work at all. I guess then I would have to see what I do. No idea. Actually I can do only this. The problem is, I am one of those people, I’m not a specialist, I’m more sort of a generalist. I can do a lot of things, but none to perfection. But I can do a lot of things quite well. And that’s by big strength, that I have know-how in a lot of things, and therefore I can handle things omnipotent. But, kind of, a real specialist….(weird squeaking interrupts him as the door suddenly closes) (paranoid whisper) Who was that??

[14:40] Generalism…vs specialisssm…(to camera) what do you want??

Person behind Camera: 20 minutes.

Chris: What you mean 20 minutes?

Person: I was supposed to inform you.

Chris: (mock-angry) But now it’s getting interesting!

(Laura laughs. Chris laughs)

 

[14:50]

Laura: If you don’t have a concert right the next day, but an off day, how should we imagine that, with bands? Do you have parties…do you, I don’t know, pick up women, and till the next morning…

Chris: Sure. Well lots of women. If there are none, that is, if there’s nothing useful at the buffet that’s for free we’ll just get hookers. Those sometimes include a few trash-mofas, but we have to fuck those too. Other than that we take a lot of drugs. Mainly coke. It’s a bit 80s, I know, but…heroin cracks by contract…we smoke weed…so we coke ourselves up and weed ourselves down. Mondays are a bit unpleasant cause we go to the doctor and have all the sexual diseases removed again . So we’re generally on antibiotics. Gared for example always sleeps with a condom. It’s safer. You never know what will happen. So yeah, that’s exactly how we do it. We have off days…

Laura: Just rattling off some clichées...

Chris: Sure. We’re not just rattling clichés. We’re rattling everything. On off days we fuck everything that’s not on a tree by the count of 0. Look how embarrassed she is. Um, and we take a lot of drugs. You know what’s the stupid thing about off-days? You spend money, without doing anything. Cause: a nightliner costs, I don’t know, 1500-2000 Euros a day. On an off day you’re not making money cause you’re not playing a concert. So you’re sitting around somewhere, and you have a watch and you see bap bap bap the pennies falling. And in the evening you think: “Great. We just spent 2000 Euros for a bus.” That’s why off-days are shit, and that’s why we compensate that with hookers and coke.

[16:44] Laura: To tell it right away. ??? (Or something about balancing it out?)

Chris: Yeah that makes it more expensive but…the heart needs what the heart needs.

(He grins, people laugh)

 

[16:55]

Laura: Okay…Is it always the same boring questions you are always asked by fans or are they always different?

Chris: I think the only things…can I have a look? (takes her notes with the questions)…the only things that kept repeating things are the comparison of cities….small/big location, festival, that comes up from time to time…um, the wish-band-thing for cooperations…annoying characteristics…

Laura: I haven’t asked that one yet.

Chris: Yeah, I’m looking forward to it…no that’s it actually. I don’t actually think they’re that boring. They just repeat themselves. But other than that you’ve so far asked a lot of questions I thought were very cool. And very new.

Laura: Okay. I’m proud of myself.

 

[17:49]

Laura: So the one with the annoying characteristics I’ll just…

Chris: No, go one, ask all of them. What time is it?

Laura: Well I’m almost finished.

(People talking over each other)

Chris: We can manage 3-4 Minutes.

Laura: Okay (laugh) So are there any characteristics which your friends find terrible?

Chris: Yes, surely. But either I don’t know everything they find horrible , although you don’t always say everything. Some things you just accept and think “He’s just like that. His problem. I don’t care.” I guess you’ll have to ask the others. I think the moments where I’m really annoying are…cause I always double-check everything really thoroughly and make sure everything works, and I’m rather strict. I mean I have to be, in a way. It’s always difficult, that border between, on the one hand I’m the director and on the other hand we are friends and that can surely be annoying sometimes. I am probably also annoying with the same stupid jokes…and…(to the side) what else is annoying?

Class: Boy…we have four more minutes, right?

Chris: No, no idea, cause, I just always go on the assumption that, if I really piss people off with something, they will tell me. Like I do too, and that’s important. But…don’t know…I can be quite annoying. (Joking) But of course I always have a good reason to be!

 

[19:15]

Laura: Have you ever developed fan-friendships, or do you separate that completely?

Chris: Across the years friendships have really developed here and there. And also sometimes absurd relationships. For example, two years ago I had to give away two of my cats because of a strong allergy I had for years and didn’t know about and I already developed allergic bronchial asthma. I wrote an appeal on Facebook and hundreds of people replied, and I had to filter for a long time to find out who would be the right person. And I found a family in which everyone is a great Lord of the Lost fan, where these cats are now really happy. And that creates friendly relationships without you knowing it beforehand. There are some you keep seeing again, so many years, and then you see each other after the concert and are happy. It’s always kind of difficult: How do you define friendship? What is friendship? How deep does it have to go for you to call the whole thing friendship. But…yes, friendly relationships are created, but it’s probably not the way many fans would wish. After all, there are several thousand of them and that doesn’t work that way. And unfortunately you disappoint people often, where, in the past, you had a lot of time cause three people were at a concert, and now you have 15 seconds, cause 150 other people are waiting. So I guess with increasing success this isn’t necessarily going to get easier. But we don’t rule anything out, but we also don’t force anything. What happens happens. Human is human, no matter what music he makes or hears or whatever.

Laura: Yeah.

 

[21:00]

Laura: Yeah that was it actually...

Chris: Yeah. Thanks a lot. I forgot your name again.

Laura: Yo, Laura.

 Chris: Yo-Laura? That was Yolaura. I’m Yochris. Um…thanks, it was nice.

 

 

 

Translation: Manuela Lütolf

 

Proofreading: Julia Orlowski