Pink Cream 69
Opening New Doors

21.09.2014

*** ARCHIVE ITEM - DATED 2003 *** Here’s another interview of those that take years to make. In the summer of 2002, we were trying hard to get Kosta Zafiriou, drummer, manager and founding member of German melodic rock masters Pink Cream 69, on the phone, but never got the call we waited for so much. Well, we decided that if we can’t talk to Kosta in Moscow, we should go to Germany and meet with him there. The following conversation took place backstage at the Bang Your Head 2003 festival, the day before Pink Cream 69 hit the big stage for the first time in 2.5 years…

(EDITOR'S NOTE - THE YEAR 2014: We keep on putting up archive items that our authors penned before starting to write for HeadBanger.ru. We polled the visitors of our Vkontakte page, and poll results clearly show that these old interviews are still of interest to the readers and they want these texts to be available again to the general public. As to ourselves, this is a good opportunity to re-live some of the great moments of our careers as journalists, and we are naturally eager to share them with you...)

First of all, what’s going on with your guitarist Alfred Koffler? How is his arm?

It’s better, but not totally good. Yesterday we had our first show with a second guitar player. We have a new and very good guitar player in the band, who at the moment will be in the band only for the live set-up, but he will be a steady member of the live set-up. He’s named Uwe Reitenauer, he’s not known in the metal and hard rock scene. We wanted somebody from Karlsruhe to be able to create a personal relationship, to meet for rehearsals and everything. We didn’t want to put an end in Metal Hammer saying, “Pink Cream’s looking for a second guitar player for live shows.” Of course, lots of people would like to join us, but we don’t want somebody from Hamburg or whatever who can only fly and meet with us for the show and stuff, we want to have somebody to whom we can say, “Hey, let’s rehearse tomorrow!” or “Let’s go out for a beer!” or “We have to talk about something! Let’s meet in the office tomorrow.” We want to make it easier, not complicated. Uwe is a great guy, and Alfred is much much better, so in combination with Uwe… I’ll quote my manager on that, who is not always that nice to us, he’s a very nice guy, but he’s very straight. He said after seeing us yesterday, “I had never seen the band that powerful since Andi (Deris, ex-singer, now with Helloween – ed.) left!” The two guitars make a huge difference, Alfred is feeling much more confident, he played a great show yesterday, Uwe is great, and we’re all burning to play live. Yesterday was our first show in 2.5 years. So I hope if we don’t have technical problems and all kinds of shit, we’re gonna kick some serious ass tomorrow.

Are you planning to release a new album anytime soon? I’ve read on your website that you’ve started writing new songs…

We’re working on it, we’ve just finalized drums, bass and guitars, and from next week on we’ll start working on the vocals. But we wanna take our time, so it will probably come out at the end of the year or even in January 2004. We think we have a few very good songs, and for the vocalist it’s also very important to take the time. I’ve just said in an interview before, “We have a huge advantage, we have Dennis Ward the bass player, who’s also the producer in the band, and we also have the manager in the band.” I’m doing the tour management for the band, when I spoke about my manager, he’s my partner in the management company here, but when we go on tour, I take care of everything. So our costs are very low, because we can do lots of stuff ourselves. This gives us the freedom to produce high quality stuff, especially having Dennis in the band. That’s why we always take time, we will not hurry, we will not bring out the record just to get the money or whatever. We wanna make sure it’s a 100-percent kick-ass record. So that’s why it will probably come out at the end of the year.

It’s been a while since your latest record “Endangered” (2002) came out. What are your current feelings about that record? Are you satisfied with it right now or is there something that you could have done better?

To be honest, I think it’s a good record, but it’s not the strongest record we did in the second phase with David (Reedman, vocalist), in the back-to-the roots style. I think “Electrified” (1999) and “Sonic Dynamite” (2000) are a bit stronger, especially “Electrified”, in my opinion, is a very good album. Maybe I miss the feeling a little bit, because we didn’t play live with this record, so you don’t have such a personal feeling for each song. Of course, you play the stuff in the studio, then you have the record and you listen to it, but you don’t play the stuff many times in the rehearsal room. I think the break we did was very good for the band. We are very fresh now, we went very fresh to the studio, and yesterday’s show was great. The meeting with the guys in the rehearsal room alone was great, you go, “Oh yeah, cool, let’s rock again!” Before the break it became a little bit of a routine. Don’t forget that we’ve been around for a long time without any line-up changes, except when Andi Deris left the band. Dennis, Alfred and I have been playing and making music together since 1988. So this break was really good, now we are very fresh, we really wanna play shows and enjoy being in the band again.

What is the song “Don’t Need Your Touch” off “Endangered” about?

I don’t know, to be honest. I am aware of most of the lyrics, but on “Endangered” I was involved less than usually. Dennis, David and I usually work on the lyrics and vocal melodies together in the studio, but I was on tour with other bands a lot when we did that album. I don’t have such a close feeling for the record that I had for the previous records.

Then let me ask you about a very old song of Pink Cream 69. What is “White Man Do No Reggae” about? (This is a bonus track for the band’s self-titled album released in 1989 – ed.)

Actually that was only a joke.

Is it an original song or a cover version?

It’s an original song, it was written by Dennis before the band got together, when he was being drunk and stoned with a friend, jumping around, you know, and taking a shit off reggae music. One of the lines says, “I have guitars and don’t know how to use them.” Because they always go, “ding, ding, ding…” (everybody laughs) They don’t play guitars as compared to rock musicians. It’s just a fun song, we played it for many years, but we didn’t want to play it live. So to create that special vibe we played the music with a ghetto blaster, all the band members came upfront, put the mike in the ghetto blaster, and we sang together, that was always the very last encore of the show. We were one of the first bands in Germany to get rid of that concept, (speaks in a hoarse and roaring voice) “We are heavy and dark and dangerous and always look like that.” We were one of the first bands to smile at photos and show that we are enjoying ourselves. That’s why we purposefully chose the name Pink Cream 69, we’re just not at all hard rock or heavy metal, you know. Back then all German bands hand names like Steeler, Sinner, Running Wild, etc. And we wanted to be a bit different from them.

I have some questions about the “Mixery” EP (2000). In the booklet there’s a line saying that the two live tracks on this EP were bootlegged by a fan and taken away from him by the security. However, the sound quality is very high. Can you give me more details of this story?

It was in 1999 when we played in Japan, and we did a show that was really kicking ass. We played together with DC Cooper, who is bigger in Japan, but Pink Cream really kicked ass. Obviously bootlegs are not allowed there, and a security grabbed the guy who was taping the show and took the recorder away from him. It was very small like this (points at the dictaphone on the table – ed.), but it was a very expensive Japanese model. We didn’t know about it. They brought the tape to the promoter, he listened to it, and it turned out to have great quality. And the promoter liked David’s performance so much that he came up to him and said, “This is for you! I enjoyed the show so much! I could keep this, it costs a lot, and by the Japanese law this is mine, because the guy was not allowed to tape the show. But I give it to you as a present.” We listened to it and went, “Kick ass!” The only thing Dennis did was EQing it a bit. Normally you wanna mix it, but there are only two tracks on it, so what can you mix? There’s also a little fuck-up in the beginning of “Shame”, where I didn’t count, and it takes a while before the band is together. But we thought, “Fuck it, that’s live, shit happens!” But it brings across the live atmosphere very well.

Why did you re-record “One Step Into Paradise” (originally on the self-titled debut album) for this EP? Why this particular song?

It’s a very old song people requested many times, and it’s a very high song in terms of singing. In the early days, Pink Cream’s trademark was Andi Deris’ high vocals. When we played this song live, David always said, “People don’t listen to the song!” They don’t enjoy the song, they just wait till the chorus comes to see, “Can he sing it that high?” Of course he can sing it that high! And it’s a great song! Usually when I go to a concert, I don’t think, “Can he play the drums? Can he play the guitar? Can he sing that high?” I wanna enjoy myself. And we wanted to give people the proof, “Check this out, he can fucking do it! Now you have the proof!” It was like Dave’s little revenge. But it’s also a very strong song from the past that we wanted to represent anew. The whole EP was not a big deal for us. In the beginning of 2000 we did a tour Axxis throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This was a tour for “Sonic Dynamite”, it was very successful, and the record company asked us to do it again at the end of the year, because it was so great. And they asked Axxis and us to collect some fan items to put it on a CD. So we said, “OK, we have a couple of bonus tracks, but we also want to re-record one song anew.” And that song was “One Step Into Paradise”.

Why did you decide to cover The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” for “Endangered”?

Actually that was Dave’s idea. Dave grew up on old English rock music, he’s into The Beatles very much, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix. Though he’s the youngest in the band, he grew up with the oldest music somehow. (smiles) That was his idea, and we thought that his voice fits very well to it. But on the new record we will have no cover versions. This time we decided to go only for our own songs.

Are you planning to release a live album sometime soon? The last one was a long time ago…

It’s a long time ago, yeah... No concrete plans, though. I’m sure one day if we have a right tour and we think the time is right, but at the moment nothing concrete is planned.

You also have a live video with Andi Deris from 1992. Is it still available somewhere?

Ehh… E-Bay. (everybody laughs) I bought it on E-Bay for something like 20 euros, I didn’t have it myself. You know, when it comes out, the record company sends two or three or four copies for each musician, but friends are coming, “Can I have a look?” “Yeah, here it is, here it is, here it is!… I don’t have one!” For years I didn’t have one! I’ve always been watching for Pink Cream 69 on the German E-Bay page, and the only thing I’m looking for right now is the Japanese EP that we did before that video. The EP was called “36/140”, and I don’t have it either. I’m still looking for it once in a while, because I wanna finish up the collection. I wanna have everything to show my children, play them that stuff. So I’m gonna buy this as well.

You also have another EP with a very strange title “49/8” released back in 1992. What is the meaning of it?

“36/140” was the Japanese version, I think, and “49/8” was the European version. We released “One Size Fits All” in 1991, played a headlining tour in Europe, and then in 1992, we got an offer to open for the band Europe. We played for three months all over Europe, it was the best time in our lives, but we had to leave this tour, go to Japan and play our first headlining tour there. So we created the idea of two versions of the EP, and the numbers are the coordinates of the places. Karlsruhe is 49 degrees North and 8 degrees East, and Tokyo is 36 whatever, I don’t remember this exactly now, but one is Karlsruhe and the other is Tokyo, that was the concept. Most of the songs are the same on the European and Japanese versions, but two songs are different.

Before Pink Cream 69 some bandmembers were playing in a band called Chimera…

That was me and Andi.

You also had a record out, right?

No, that was after we left, the band existed for a while and they did an EP or something like a small record. I think it was self-distributed, they didn’t have a big deal.

So you are not on that record…

No. We did several demos together. The music was a bit more metal than Pink Cream, not as melodic, there was a bit more guitars, two guitar players back then.

I have a question about your business activity. When and how did you start Bottom Row Promotion?

Actually it started with my partner Jan Bayati, who was the Pink Cream manager from the first day on. Two years later he started a company called Bottom Row Promotion with Sasa (Erletic). Originally they started the company with another third partner, who later left them, and I joined in 1997. Before 1997 I was only drumming for Pink Cream, and after that I also started working on the business side.

What qualities should a band have to get signed to Bottom Row Promotion?

(pause) Just one thing – great songs! That’s all that matters these days. 15 years ago if you had a singer with good voice who could sing high and everything, you would get a deal anyway, no matter if your songs are good or bad. Whether you would have a success is a different story, but you would get signed. These days you have to have exceptionally good songs, then you will have a chance to get signed everywhere, not only with us. You have to stick out of the mass, because there are 10 times more bands today than there was 15 years ago, and you have to be different, you have to be better, it’s a competition.

Can you tell me something about the Missa Mercuria project?

Yeah, that was my baby more or less, but it was so much work that I decided not to play drums on it. That’s why many people don’t know anything about it. That lady (Karin Forstner) came up to us, she had the story, the script in mind and written down, and she wanted us to make music for it. So we started from zero, we had to put together a team of songwriters, I talked to her about every song, about every chapter of the story, in which musical direction it should go, I talked to the musicians, they wrote songs and offered them to us, then the lady and I decided which songs are the best, and then we put together the team for the recordings. There was a huge amount of work, because there was no band, there was nothing, there was just somebody who wanted everything to be put together. So we had to start from zero. “OK, song one. What do you imagine?” And she was like, “Oh yeah, this happens in the story, and this and that, this has to be more dramatic, this has to be very powerful, here these emotions come in, so it has to be a bit more complicated,” and all that kind of stuff. We had to go point by point and to sort out each individual song, each individual mood of every song to be able to create the right vibe for what was going on in the story. It was a very challenging job, it was a big job, I worked a long time on this, but it was very interesting. I work with lots of musicians, but usually within a band. Here we had four different guitar players in one project, it’s great. We had five or six singers on it, it was interesting.

How did you hook up with DC Cooper for his solo record?

Actually through my other job as a manager. My company booked a European tour for Royal Hunt in 1997, the “Paradox” tour, and I went on tour with them as a tour manager. I met DC, and we became really close friends, we were getting along very good. He got a view of how my company works, he got a view of the musical abilities of the people we work with, and it was always his dream to do a solo record, but he did not have the surroundings for it. He wanted to work with Tore Ostby from Conception, and we offered him to use the instrumentalists of Pink Cream – Dennis, Koffl’ and me – to have an experienced team behind it, not just to throw good musicians together, it does not always work. We wanted to have an experienced team together and made them sit together, DC and Koffl’ and then Tore, they wrote the songs, Dennis produced it and played the bass, I organized everything – like with Missa Mercuria, I did all the organization – and played drums on it. That was very much fun, that was very enjoyable. We’re still close, at the moment we’re working on DC’s second solo album. I don’t know how soon it will come out, we’re still in the songwriting process, we’re still writing and checking stuff, but the next record will come out for sure.

Does DC’s band Silent Force still exist?

Yeah. Before his new solo record the new Silent Force will come out. We just recorded the drums last week for Silent Force, now the guitars will go, then we will do the vocals, and when this production is done, we will concentrate on DC’s solo record.

As far as I know, the name Pink Cream 69 was taken from a cocktail. Do you remember the ingredients of this cocktail?

No.

Then where can I try it?

To be honest, we tried it once and we didn’t like it! (everybody laughs) It’s very sweet, it’s more like a women’s cocktail, there’s not enough power, it’s not for Russian guys, you know. (laughs) Forget it! By the way, we have vodka in the car, so later we can try something! (everybody laughs)

Some of Pink Cream’s albums were released by the label High Gain Records…

Yeah, two.

What is this label? I’ve never seen any other CDs released by it.

It does not exist anymore. Luckily we got the rights and re-released “Food For Thought” (1997) and “Electrified” on Massacre Records. The thing is if some of the musicians also work in a management company, we have good contracts, so if a company breaks down, stops or quits, then the rights come back to the band.

How many videoclips have Pink Cream done?

Wow, hehe! I think a few with Andi, but not much with David. “One Step Into Paradise” was a very low-budget thing, we were just filmed live playing on stage. The clip was shot at a concert in Munuch in 1989 or 1990, and we also have that concert in full on tape with very good quality. I don’t have it myself, but I know that it has a very good sound and that it is one hour or 75 minutes long. It is an equivalent of the Japanese video we have been talking about. For the second record we did “Livin’ My Life For You”, and for the third record we did “Keep Your Eye On The Twisted” and “Face In The Mirror”. From the “Change” album (1995) we did “20th Century Boy” and “Only The Good Die Young”, and from “Electrified” we did “Shame”. We stopped doing videos after that because it simply makes no sense. In Germany and in Europe we don’t have suitable TV channels, MTV or VIVA do not play traditional hard rock anymore, they only play modern music. And even if you do a really low-budget video, you still have to invest 20,000 or 30,000 euros. We prefer to invest this money in support tours or whatever, because there we can reach the fans directly. We were thinking the same in 1989, the record company said, “Let’s make a video for promotion,” but we said, “We prefer to do a European tour supporting Bruce Dickinson.” I think these days it’s smarter to invest in other kinds of promotion.

Which video is your favorite?

I think, “Only The Good Die Young”, although it’s a ballad, but it’s very well made quality-wise. “Face In The Mirror” is also very good, it’s not the right song for a video, but still very good. Nevertheless, it was too expensive. We did it in London, but we were on Sony Music – the good old days when record companies had lots of money to invest.

Is there any chance to see Pink Cream live in Russia some day?

I don’t know, I hope so. Journalists know the problems, but fans don’t know them. Fans always ask, “Don’t you wanna come to our country?” Sure we wanna come, we’d love to play there, we love to play live in general. But going to Russia requires high costs, and we are not that rich to say, “OK, we will go to Russia, we will lose 10,000 or 20,000 dollars, but who gives a shit?” The band cannot afford it, which means that the promoter has to make us an offer. We need a solid promoter with whom you can be sure that the money will come. He has to bring us over, he has to invite us. For instance, our record company in Brazil is planning five to seven shows, because our records are selling good over there, we will go over there, we will not make any money, but we will do it for promotion, we love to do it, if there are people over there who love our music, we will love to play for them. But the record company or the promoter has to cover the costs. It’s the same with Russia. So it’s not up to us. If we were millionaires, no problem, we’ll come over to play anywhere, but now we can’t afford it.

Does it mean that no Russian promoters have approached you?

At the moment we have no serious offers. We’re just about to sign a new contract for the next record. I hope and really think that it’s gonna be a good and strong album, so hopefully it will open a few doors for us.

P.S. Later at Bang Your Head, Pink Cream 69 signed a deal with Steamhammer/SPV. We wish the band good luck with a new contract and, of course, soonest recovery for Alfred!

Pink Cream 69 on the Internet: http://www.pinkcream69.com

Special thanks to Stephan Treu (True Music Promotion) for arranging this interview.

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
June 27, 2003
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