Oomph!
Pro Freedom, Pro Education

30.10.2014

It’s Halloween time – the best time of the year to make jack-o’-lanterns, dress as monsters and go partying. This year, residents and visitors of St. Petersburg are especially lucky when it comes to partying, as they have an opportunity to celebrate Halloween in the company of Dero Goi, frontman of German industrial metallers Oomph! This time around Dero will be in town not to sing, but to play records, to which you are welcome to raise hell. However, Dero as a DJ is a solid prerequisite for a good party, and the rest is up to you, my friends. Shortly before his trip to St. Petersburg we contacted Dero via Skype, and he shared with us his thoughts about the recordings of a new Oomph! album, musical community, global problems and, of course, Halloween.

Do you think St. Petersburg is the best place to “survive” Halloween?

I hope so! Because that’s my plan to survive it. (laughs) I have been there before and I found it very-very beautiful. You know, it’s not that crowded as Moscow is, it’s architecturally very-very interesting, the people are friendly and nice, and I really-really like the surrounding with the water, and I really appreciate that city. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it very much because Halloween pretty much fits to that beautiful city.

Don’t you like Moscow?

I like Moscow very much too! But it’s completely crazy because it’s so crowded! I flew four hours to Moscow, and then it was four more hours from the airport to the city! That’s pretty crazy in my eyes. (laughs)

Still it would be nice if you could come to Moscow as well…

Yeah, I hope so, because Moscow is always a challenge. People are great there, and the energy, the enthusiasm during our concerts always work so great there, so I really would like to come for DJ-ing there too. Moscow is great, as I said. But concerning the traffic jams it’s completely crazy. (laughs)

Yeah, maybe next time… Well, do you prefer Halloween over other holidays?

Oh well, I’ve got two kids, so it’s great to celebrate Halloween because they have fun and dress up like zombies and vampires and stuff. It’s great to see that they’re having so much fun with this thing. But I like it too because as a musician I like to dress up and be in disguise very much too. That’s part of my job and I really appreciate changing roles and stuff, that’s what I’m doing with Oomph! too. When you’re a singer, I think you’re pretty much also like an actor. You slip into certain roles, you can be a schizophrenic, a monster, a nice guy, a vampire, a zombie. That’s pretty much what I do with Oomph! (laughs)

And do you have a favorite role?

Ah, well… There’re too many just too mention a single one, you know. Maybe the multi-personal schizophrenic people because then you have so many characters within one soul. (laughs) Maybe this one.

Do those characters correspond to your own personality much? Or are they something completely imaginary?

I think it is pretty much like with an actor: you only can be good and authentic if what you play is part of your soul. Of course Jack Nicholson is no serial killer. But I think with some parts of his soul he can identify with such people. And this is why he can act such roles so authentically. With me as a singer it’s the same. Of course I’m no serial killer or mass murderer or whatever, but I can pretty much identify with those souls who went over the line and crossed the forbidden zone, you know. It’s interesting. I think if I were an actor, I would like to play those characters, those roles, broken people with a huge break in their history.

Why don’t you try acting if you’re doing so fine as an “acting singer”?

Well, I wouldn’t say no. If someone offers me a good role, I would say okay, let’s see what it is. Never say never. But I think as a musician, as a lead singer of a band, you can be ultimately free within your art. As an actor you have to play the role exactly as the director and the producer and so on want it to be. As a musician you can be completely free. We have our own studio, we are our own producers, we write our own material, so we’re completely free within our art. That’s a big advantage of a musician in contrast to an actor, I would say. Maybe this is the reason why there are many actors who are musicians too. They found out that you can be much freer within your music. Look at… I don’t know… Juliette Lewis, for example. Or I think Johnny Depp has got a band too, or Keanu Reeves… They know that it’s completely different, you know.

Okay, free musician, is there another Oomph! record coming?

Sure, sure! We’re working hard on our next release and I’m pretty proud to say that’s it’s gonna be completely different from our former one (“Der Wahnsinns fette Beute”, 2012). This one will be completely dark and melancholic, and hard, and rough, and rocky. It’s gonna be really different.

Sounds interesting! What made you choose this direction?

I don’t know, it’s the challenge of exploring new things. The last chapter was really necessary for us to show that we are self-ironical persons too. But with the last album we reached that goal to show it and now another step of our career follows, and the next one will be completely different too. I think it’s a kind of like a trademark of Oomph! to surprise people from album to album, so next one will be a surprise again.

Yeah, that’s definitely your trademark, but don’t you sometimes feel like everything has already been said before and there’s nothing left that can truly surprise people?

I don’t know, I just can speak for myself, not for other people. As a musician, if you think too much about what people, the audience, the media, the press could think about your new work, then you’re lost, because you have to be free as a musician, you have to reflect yourself. Maybe there are too many musicians who think that way too often. This is why music becomes more and more stereotyped. There are too many bands who repeat themselves too often and too long in my eyes. I like bands who dare to evolve, who dare to surprise and who dare to open new doors. And that’s what we wanna do with Oomph!. We don’t think, “Can it have commercial success?” or whatever. As we all know, people tend to be very conservative. A music consumer is pretty much conservative within any scene – the metal consumer is pretty conservative, the gothic consumer is pretty conservative, the pop consumer too, there’s too many conservatives within each scene of listeners in my ears and eyes – so I cannot reflect on them. The only thing I can do is reflect on  my inner self. And if the inner self says, “Try to change”, I will do it without fearing the reaction of the audience, you know. That’s the freedom you need to keep for yourself as a musician, you know. And that’s pretty cool for us too to see how people react to our music afterwards.

How do you keep your approach fresh then?

I think the best way is to keep on walking through life with open eyes and open ears. You need to be interested in things, still. I am a human being who thinks that he is on a constant learning process. I wanna learn, I wanna evolve, I wanna explore new dimensions. And as long as I’m interested in things, as long as I’m curious, I have new material to write about. I mean the world is changing so fast, even though you have a feeling from time to time that history repeats itself, also, but times are changing very quickly. The whole information era, the whole digital world has changed the world completely. There’s so many angles, so many areas you can reflect on and you can work with within your music and within your lyrics, as long as you are still interested – that’s important.

Yeah, talking about changes, are there any that you like and are there any things happening around that you find bad or irritating?

Yes, sure, of course. I don’t like ignorance, I don’t like intolerance, I don’t like narrow-minded people, I don’t like prejudices, stuff like that. I like freedom. As a musician, as an artist, you of course like freedom. You wanna express yourself in the best way, so that’s what I wish for all of the people. As long as they do not hurt other people with their behavior, everybody should be as free as possible. But as we all know there is no ultimate freedom because if there was ultimate freedom, the freedom of another one would be violated at the same time, so we have to be careful even within freedom because there has to be borders, of course. But we have to look for ultimate freedom for everybody. It’s very hard to reach and I’m really lucky living in an area which is in my eyes and in my heart free. I’ve been all over the world, so I can compare a bit. So I like being free, I like spreading my opinion without fearing of government and stuff, or other parts of my country. That’s a good thing. I’m really aware of my freedom, I’m really lucky, but I know that we have to do a lot to keep this freedom. Because there are many people all over the world who wanna observe, who want us to obey, who wanna suppress and wanna have the control, you know. There are few people who wanna control many people. That’s a danger, of course. I like the democratic approach of the Greeks that the people have got the power, which means people have to be educated to know what’s going on. Education at first is very-very important because if you wanna reflect on what’s going on in the world, you have to be educated very properly, very well, of course. That’s the main thing. We have to educate people, we have to educate kids all over the world the best we can. Because an educated population is not… you cannot fool them easily, and that’s the point. I’m really pro education and I’m pro the best form of freedom.

You said you’re working hard on you new record. So could you tell me how it’s going on? What does the process look like?

Yeah, well, there are many ways to write Oomph! songs, because the three band members are all songwriters. We have our 5 or 6 songs that we write ourselves, each person in his own small home studio. But after this process we meet, we collect the songs, we talk about them, we rehearse them, and then we decide which ideas we take and which we drop. After this we have a period when we do jamming as a three-piece, as a band, and after this process the musicians that we know, good friends of us join those sessions and some of them take part in this record too, as it was on the records in the past. You can read this in the credits. You have to keep it fresh, as you said before – ‘how do we keep it fresh’ – you have to be as open-minded as possible also concerning your jamming appeal, you know. If there’s a musician, a good friend who has a great impact during a jam session, we give him credit for it. And that’s our approach to music. But we write also on our own. That’s a many-sided thing, and I like it, I like the way that we write and produce because it’s a fluent process and it’s a great thing to do. We’re all male persons, as you know, we cannot give birth to babies, that’s why we have to create CDs.

Well, you seem to be good fathers - or mothers then, I don’t know…

Hopefully, hopefully! We are very kind to our bastards.

Is there a release date already set for your new record?

Well, we hope to release the new album at the beginning of next year. That’s our goal. Hopefully we can come back as soon as possible to beautiful Russia to satisfy our very cool, enthusiastic and freaky fans. I love the Russian audience, they’re so true and so honest. I love them.

Yeah, would be great… But before that, you have your DJ-set, which is to happen in no time. What are you going to play and to do this mystic Halloween night?

Oh well, I’m a kid of the 80s. I grew up with many different styles of music. On the one hand I grew up with bands like AC/DC, Motorhead, Metallica and stuff. And on the other hand there was the electronic approach that I really appreciate still, like Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Einstürzende Neubauten, D.A.F. and Liaison Dangereuse. There’s so many bands… Ultravox, Soft Cell… I try to combine this with my actual musical tastes. I really did like the grunge era too, or the nu metal thing. I play Slipknot, I play Korn, Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana… I try to make the set as versatile as possible because I like discos and clubs that surprise you. I don’t like those mono-cultural clubs where you can only hear one kind of music. That’s too boring in my ears and eyes. So I try to give them as various styles as possible - dark music, electronic music, dance music, but also some heavy stuff. I hope that it’s gonna be fun for everybody. And I hope it’s gonna fit to Halloween.

Yeah, actually I was going to ask you if there’s some Halloween concept that all the songs were supposed to reflect, but now I see it’s just some stuff you personally like…

Yeah, that’s the main thing. But I think, because of the fact that a big part of my set is pretty morbid music, it fits pretty much to Halloween, of course. Some dark music, gothic music fits perfectly to Halloween. I think it’s a good thing to have that kind of music, it’s perfect to combine it with this feast. I like the approach. And the main thing is to entertain people, of course. You go there, you present your disguise, your costumes and then you wanna freak out with good music. Of course, you have to play some music for freaking out too, like Blur’s “Song 2” and stuff like that. Like Rage Against The Machine “Killing In The Name”. You can freak out to those songs completely.

Are there going to be any of your songs?

Oh well, I personally find it pretty much embarrassing to play our music as a DJ. I don’t like that approach too much. But if there are many people who ask for it, I’m gonna… I hope there’s gonna be also a local DJ and I’m gonna say to the local DJ, “There are so many people who want it. I don’t want to do it myself, I find it pretty much disturbing. If you would be so kind to play it, that would be great”. I hope it’s gonna be possible.

Are you going to wear a costume?

Oh, I don’t know. I’m the DJ, you know, I’m not a guest. But I don’t know… A bit, yes, a bit. But not too much. It’s gonna be decent. (laughs)

Maybe some makeup?

Yeah, a bit. But mainly I’ll try to be myself. If people who come there have read somewhere, “Dero from Oomph! is gonna be there as a DJ”, and they enter the room and go like, “Where is he? Oh, there’s a strange mummy behind the desk. Yeah-yeah, everybody can tell me that this is Dero from Oomph! Ha-ha-ha!”… I think that would be not such a good idea maybe.

And did you have any favorite Halloween costume as a kid?

Yes, a vampire.

Why do all kids like vampires?

I don’t know, because of the blood maybe. Because of the teeth and the blood.

Did you actually have it, or did you mostly pretend to be a vampire?

No-no-no, I used to be a vampire as a kid, a real vampire. (laughs)

Are there any pictures left?

Yeah, there are some. Maybe I’m gonna get them somewhere and put them online next Halloween.

What is DJ-ing for you? Is it your passion, your hobby, another way of getting money, or what?

Mainly it’s fun, of course. It’s a completely different thing in contrast to what I’m doing as a musician. That’s good, that’s fun. You visit other cities, you meet nice people and you have fun yourself playing your Top 100 ever. That’s great for me myself. It’s seldom for me that I visit parties because I’m just on my way for interviews, for my own tour, or I’m in the studio, I’m writing lyrics, I rehearse for the next tour and stuff. People think that we’re having parties all the time, but that’s not true! So that’s a good opportunity for me to party. (laughs)

What other things do you find missing in your life?

Time, of course. Spare time, you know, just complete relaxing time, stuff like that. Time with your friends and family, that’s really not enough. But that’s the price you have to pay when you do your hobby as your job. I try to have my spare time, I try to stay in contact with all my old friends and try to have a life besides my life as a musician. That’s really important to keep your feet on the ground. As a musician you’re surrounded by people who always tell you that you’re the best, but that’s not good for your ego. So it’s really important to keep the contact to people who are really honest to you. I find it really-really important because I don’t wanna turn into that typical rock asshole up-nosed singer who thinks he’s the best thing in the world. That’s embarrassing. I’ve met so many musicians who behave like that, I was always thinking, “Why that? If you weren’t there, there would be another one. Don’t take yourself so serious”. But there are many people among the fans who want rock musicians to be like that. I don’t know why. They like assholes, they like the diva behavior, but I don’t like that. I like the energy coming from rock music. But I don’t like the behavior that many musicians have. This is why I don’t have many friends within the music scene. They’re so fucked up people.

Are there any other hobbies you’d like to have more time for and maybe achieve something with them?

I’ve got a diving license, so I would like to dive more again. Last time was in the Red Sea back in 2012, I think. That was the last time when I had the opportunity to dive. So I’d like to do that again.

Cool, hope you can do that soon. Okay, it’s time to finish our interview, but before I let you go, can I ask you to say hi to you Russian fans?

Yeah! Thanks to everybody who knows Oomph! and who’s keeping the faith in our music even though we have the fucking guts to evolve so much. I know that some of our changes are really hard to bear for you, but I like that you keep on listening to our music, that’s really-really cool from you and I appreciate coming back to Russia, to St. Petersburg, I like you Russian people very much, you’re really warmhearted and open-minded, full of energy and enthusiasm, full of Oomph!, you’re great!

Oomph! on the Internet: http://www.oomph.de

Special thanks to Julia Davydova (Kultprodukt) for arranging this interview

Ksenia Artamonova
October 10, 2014
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