Eisbrecher
Melting Ice

29.08.2007

When singer Alexx Wesselsky left German industrial metal outfit Megaherz back in 2002, nobody expected him to strike back with something as powerful as the albums he had recorded with the band over a decade of a very successful career. But he did it! Together with his former bandmate Noel Pix (guitar, keyboards and studio wizardry) Alexx formed a new project called Eisbrecher (German for “icebreaker”), and “Antikorper” is already their second attempt at regaining the attention of their former fans, as well as all those interested in heavy music with German lyrics. Of course, “Antikorper” does have similarities with Megaherz, as well as with Rammstein, but it’s much more experimental, and the album’s hit potential is higher than that of their former colleagues’ new works. We met with Alexx and Noel shortly before their first ever gig in Moscow to get to know more about the latest sensation on the German industrial metal scene…  

In an interview you did with a Russian magazine earlier this year you said that you sold more copies of the second album in two months than you did with the first album in two years. How did you manage to do this? What is the secret of such a success?

Alexx: Well, it did sell better than the previous one… (The band’s manager comes in and brings vodka, so everyone starts laughing) When we started with the album number one, nobody knew us. We both played in Megaherz, and some people knew this, but it took us some years to get the Eisbrecher album number one ready, and Eisbrecher was a new name, so we had to start totally from the beginning. When you have some success, because your songs are playing in clubs, like “Schwarze Witwe” or “Wilkommen nichts” did, it’s easier with the next album, because some people know you already. It doesn’t take so long to make the people informed that we already have a new album. So the second album was easier to promote. But on the other hand, you never know, it may happen that people didn’t like the first album, and would never buy another one. But the first album did OK, so they bought the record number two.

In your opinion, what are the strong points of “Antikorper”? What makes it better than the previous CD and than CDs of other bands?

(The guys try to decide who will answer. Noel is a bit shy and decides to keep silence)

Alexx: Well, I am responsible for the lyrics, so I can tell you, that my highlights of this record are “Leider”, “Vergisssmeinnichts” and of course “Antikorper”. The album is named “Antikorper” because it was the last song we did during the recording sessions, and it was so unique and so strange, it had to be the title of the record. We couldn’t make this song a single, because it’s not so danceable, but we liked it anyway, so we decided to name the album like this. We liked this song so much we gave it some special...

Noel: Moment! Some special moment! (laughs)

Alexx: The first album doesn’t have a title, this one has. (laughs)

Is the new album better than the previous one?

Alexx: Yes...

Noel: We wanted to sound a little bit harder, more powerful, we used more guitars. And it turned out harder than the previous one.

In the song “Kein Mitleid” you sing “Wo ist dein Gott, gross und machtig” („Where is your god, so big and mighty?“). Is this song an anti-religious statement? Do you follow any religion or philosophy?

Alexx: This song is not about religion, god is just a metaphor. It’s about people who say, “Oh, my life is shit,” and they ask all the time, “Can anyone help me?” They are just sitting and doing nothing, and feeling lonely. This song is about making yourself get up on your feet, because there is no God who can help you, you have to help yourself and nobody will help you. I am Roman Catholic by the way, but the song is not about religion, the song is about the man who tries to change his life.

In your opinion, is it possible to understand the essence of Eisbrecher for the people who don’t speak German and don’t understand your lyrics at all? How important are the lyrics for you personally?

Alexx: In the last 50 years, after the war, everyone expected Schlager musik from Germans, or very traditional folk music that goes like this. (demonstrates the singing and starts laughing) And when it comes to rock music, German bands such as Scorpions, Accept, they all sang in English…

Noel: They wanted to sound like British or American bands…

Alexx: In the 1990s, the things changed with Rammstein, Oomph! and other bands. They all sang in German, and Megaherz did the same, because in Germany we want to be understood, that’s the reason. It’s our mother language, we dream and think in German, so this is the language we can use in the best way to express our feelings, to say what we want to say. On the other hand, people from Japan, from Israel and from Russia say that they really like the music, and it’s a big compliment, it’s the music that leads the people to start learning German. They like music but they don’t understand the words so it’s the reason to learn. For us it’s a plus, we bring the culture together with music. Music is a good way to break through barricades and prejudice.  

And how would you describe your relations to such bands as Oomph! or Rammstein – is it friendship and mutual support, or is it competition?

Alexx: It’s like sports. For me it’s a sports competition. I mean, our playing has to be better and we should sell more records than they do. We are friends with Oomph!, but I don’t know the guys from Rammstein, so I can’t say too much, but they play good music, I have some of their records and I like them. Oomph! are also great, but I prefer the old Oomph! to the new one, though it’s a question of tastes. I am happy for any German bands which are successful.

Eisbrecher on stage are six people, but only three people participated in the recording of the album. Why don’t you bring the rest of the guys in the studio, too?

Noel: There are two people who make the songs, it’s Alexx and me. We work together in the studio, and for live concerts we need musicians who can play with us, but we don’t need these people in the studio. (laughs)

Alexx: We started Eisbrecher - just the two of us. We didn’t know whether it would be enough for making music, because everything could happen, we could start hating each other… Eisbrecher is a result of trying to do something together. At first it was just a project, we didn’t even intend to hit the stage. And as soon we found out that we had the record ready and we had a record company, we decided that  we should play live.

Noel: We saw that people wanted to see us live, so we needed extra musicians. And you know, it’s a German thing to be too critical of the people who want to play with you, it’s hard for us to be always able to do good work, and also keep a good atmosphere for working.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work.

Alexx: And if six people were sitting in a studio, we all would get crazy, it’s like it was with Megaherz. I am totally happy that there are just the two of us.  We two make decisions, and today we don’t fight. If we have good ideas we of course add them to the music. And when we go on stage and make rock’n’roll we need some live musicians

(The manager comes again and offers more vodka to the musicians. They thank him in Russian, trying to pronounce “Pozhaluista” and “Spasibo”, and everyone starts laughing)

The band’s biography on your website says the two of you had serious disagreements when you were in Megaherz together, but you forgot them all when you formed Eisbrecher. And how did you manage to overcome those difficulties?

Alexx: We quarreled a lot. (Everybody laughs) But nowadays we are happy with what we did and reached together, Eisbrecher is a very successful and interesting thing. Now we do the music we wanted to do. We started this bad on a solid base – we had known each other for a long time, and we came to the point where we didn’t clash into each other any longer.

Noel: We are glad to see each other, we actually love each other. (laughs)

Alexx: Yes, we live and love… It’s like a relationship between a girl and a boy, and we had quarrels and we went though the whole cycle, so nowadays everything is working fine.

Noel: We got older…

Alexx: Yes, we got quieter and wiser. And in Megaherz it was like shit.
 
What were you quarreling about back then?

Alexx: You know, nobody asked me about this before, this is a very good question. We both have very different characters. I am very impulsive, very much like – “it has to be now, it has to be fast, it has to be perfect!” (laughs) And Noel is working like this: “it takes time, it has to be done later.” He is cooler, and I’m like fire, so you can imagine that many times we just clashed into each other. “I think this sounds like shit.” – “I think it sounds cool.” We fought all the time, it was like “I hate you!”, “I don’t talk to you any more!” Nowadays we still sometimes get to the point where I am heated up and I am so angry, but now he says: OK, calm down, you need some meditation”. We are like an old married couple, we get on with each other very well and sometimes we are nervous about each other, but we found some way not to bring the situation to the point of explosion. We are different signs, I am a Scorpio, and Noel is a Ram, and this is a perfect couple. We really like our album number two better, because it’s the result of two people who are really so different. And maybe it’s the reason why it sounds as it sounds. This kind of relationship has a very constructive aspect, but if we do not handle with this care, it may blow up so easily. Ram and Scorpio is a really dangerous combination….

OK, and which one of you has the last word?

Alexx: The last word? Hmmm… At the end we both have the last word. I have the last word on stage and Noel has the last word when we talk about production and songwriting. He is a professional in the studio, there his word is the last, and I am a performer, the frontman, and that is my better field.

Alexx, why did you add the second X to your first name? Does this extra letter have any special meaning?

Alexx: Well, there is no meaning. There can be three Xs, and three Xs is a symbol for pornography. I don’t want to be associated with this, so I just put one X in the end, because Alex is such a normal name, it’s a popular name in Germany. And when I go to play at some party and there is one Alex, two Alexes and three Alexes and so on…(everybody laughs) So I decided to just add another X , and the name became fine, this made the name a little bit special. It has no meaning, it’s just that Alex is too common.

You sometimes perform as a DJ in German clubs, for instance, you performed with Mozart of Umbra et Imago in his club at Karlsruhe in January. What is the reason for you to engage in this kind of activity?

Alexx: Yes, I was there only as a DJ, we didn’t play there as Eisbrecher. And I went there just to do some work and earn some money.

How was it like working with Mozart? How much is he different at work and in his life outside the stage?

Alexx: Mozart is a really wild guy, I mean, he is a freak. What he does is funny, but honestly I have never seen any of his shows, and I don’t want to see a guy putting his tongue into anybody’s pussy on stage. I don’t need this. This is not my taste.

Eisbrecher played at the biggest German fetish convention in April. How did you like performing at such an exotic location? Are the band members interested in this fetish culture?

Alexx: Well, it’s very interesting to see. There is a place where all these freaks meet. And we were there, we played there, we watched the people and we liked some. And we saw people fuck, we saw people dressed as whores, as dominatrices and slaves, sweating like hell. They are a funny crowd, and it’s good to see people who can live a day of their life and be whatever they want to be. In the morning a guy can be a businessman, and in the evening he puts on a woman’s clothes. But I don’t like this - I have been there, I saw all this, and I don’t really have to go there again, even as a guest, because it is really not my world.

I guess it is no secret that many people find the music that you and other German industrial metal bands do to be very sexy. Is it a kind of side effect, or is it something that you intentionally try to achieve when you write and record songs?

Alexx: Yes, I do it intentionally. Listen to the song “Ohne Dich” or “Vergissmeinnicht” – they are about relationships that might break, that can be over, and maybe the guy killed the girl or maybe not. And when you do a song about relationship and love, you can’t just cry (Shows how it could be), you should feel it, you should try to feel what you say. The studio is a naked room with a microphone, and you are standing there after a shitty day having to sing “Ohne Dich” and trying to express the feelings when the girl leaves you and you don’t want to lose her. You are like an actor, you have to find this feelings in you and you should try to sound sexy when you deal with the topic of the song is sex or a woman. Once I sat in a car and talked to a friend, and I was asked why I sang in a rock band. I answered that rock music is always about sex, for me it’s all about sex and no matter what topic you are using. It’s a sexual experience to make a record, especially when you make it for ladies. Maybe it sounds stupid, but rock music is sexy music, no matter how hard it is, even if it’s Machine Head, but it makes you feel that you are so special and your energy goes to this music. When rock music gets in contact with the audience, you share your feelings with others. Good rock music is like long sex, and when you listen to a record you get this feelings of sex, and you could listen to it while having sex.

You have recently announced that Tabu Absinth has become the official board drink of Eisbrecher. And what does this cooperation mean for the band? What kind of new doors does it open? And does it mean that you get free absinth in unlimited numbers now that it’s your official drink?

Alexx: I like absinth once in a while, but it’s not really my favorite drink and maybe I said it because some of our sponsors sat next to me. Absinth influences you, and you lose your mind. You can drink it and don’t feel that you are drunk, and only when you stand up, you understand that you are drunk. And I don’t like this way very much. I prefer whiskey, and now as we are in Moscow, we have to forget about whiskey, because this is a vodka-town. Maybe we will drink whiskey with vodka… well, I don’t know how it will affect me. We will mix 50% of whiskey and 50% of vodka, and will see how we will feel. I will do it after the show, and before the show I will drink a little bit just for controlling my stagefright.

Are you still in contact with the rest of Megaherz? Have you heard the album they did without you (“5”, 2005)?

Alexx: Yes, I have heard it. And I didn’t like it, it’s not my taste.

Noel: I’ve never heard it. (Everybody laughs)

Alexx: (surprised) Well, you didn’t? Well, you didn’t miss much. What we do is cooler. (laughs) I’ve recently met them at a park, there were all the guys from Megaherz, except their new singer - now they have a new singer again. We are friends again, and we had a great time, I mean no fighting. I am curious what the next album will be, because the last one was really quite a waste of…

When my colleagues spoke to Christian Bystron of Megaherz, he said that one of the bands that influenced him the most in the very beginning was Clawfinger. And what about your own influences?

Alexx: In 1992, when I decided not to sing in English anymore, because every German band sang in English and only in English, it was the time of Rage Against The Machine, Clawfinger, Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains… The underground was really big at that the stage, this was the music I liked, and I wanted to do it with German lyrics. And in 1992 I founded Megaherz, in 1995 we did the first festival and Christian joined Megaherz in 1996, when Megaherz had already lived as an idea and a vision for many years. When I left Megaherz in 2002 I was the last survivor of the origin; it was my name and my idea, it was ten years of hard work to get the band to some point. It was very hard for me to say, “Bye bye guys, I don’t want to go on, you keep the name, I don’t care… you keep the kids, you keep the house, you keep what you want.” I needed to live on because their vision was not my vision any more. So my influences also include Clawfinger and Nine Inch Nails, but they also include a lot of pop, wave and gothic bands, not just metal. What Megaherz presented in the end was nu rock, similar to the bands like Linkin Park. We wanted to sound like Linkin Park or even Limp Bizkit, and I definitely didn’t want to follow the nu rock trend, I wanted to do more electronic experiments, so I left. And now with Eisbrecher I am so happy because it’s like a new story. I am not a guy from Megaherz any more and you can’t expect from me anything like this. Eisbrecher has no traditions, it has no big history, and no one says, “In 1994 you were shit and you did the album we didn’t like”. This band is a new beginning, and there was some risk and now we are so fucking successful with our records, much more than Megaherz. This makes me very proud. Christian and me is the same as Noel and Alexx, but our relations never became that constructive. We are very different, if I say blue he will say white. I have no problems with Megaherz, all the other members are really cool, we drink beer every one once in a while together, but Christian never has beer with me. If we take pictures with the band, when there are people from Megaherz and me, he asks, “Can Alexx be at the back of me?” Otherwise he stays aside and says “shit”, but everyone else has fun. And now they have a history, and he is a boss, and the influence is the same shit. But Christian’s influences also include stuff like Dream Theater, he is a metal-head, and I was never really that.

Have you got any old song that you would like to recreate and use in a new project?

Alexx: The old songs are good because they are old songs. There is no use to do the rerecording. No, we never use the songs from Megaherz because they were written in the time of Megaherz, and Eisbrecher is really a new beginning. Five years have passed, and it’s a long time. Five years ago I liked this and that, now everything has changed. And I have reached that age when I am old enough, when I like something different. And I never have such thoughts like what I will do in ten years, whether I would be a DJ. Sometimes it really hurts because I did so many great songs with Megaherz and sometimes I want to play these songs live. For instance, “Miststuck”, for which Noel wrote the music and I did the lyrics. And with Eisbrecher we play “Miststuck” because for us it’s a very important song in the history of Megaherz. And this song expresses us, Noel and Alexx. Of course, without Megaherz Eisbrecher wouldn’t exist, so we play it as a tribute as well.

Your singles feature a lot of remixes. How do you usually work on them – do you give remixers any kind of instruction or do you only give them the song and then evaluate the final result? What is your favorite remix? Was there ever a remix that you didn’t like and decided not to release?

Noel: Well, these questions are a bit difficult. The last remix was made by Gothminister, and unfortunately it came out not too good, so we didn’t put it on our last CD.

As far as I know, you came to Russia yesterday, and I guess you have seen a bit of Moscow already. How do you like the city? And what are your expectations from tonight’s concert?

Alexx: Well, being here is so great, it has such a big impact on us. It is a completely different world. It’s a strange feeling, but it’s a great feeling, and I feel that I have to come back. We need more time, because we are here for just two days, and it’s not enough. On the first day we left the plane and went to some club, it was a very good club and I really liked it. Then we went to the hotel and gav€e some interviews. We went to the Red Square, it’s a very common tourist place, but what else can you do in such a little time? We were really tired, we were there at 10:30 in the evening, but we were so impressed… Red Square is a really huge place. When we passed the gates and saw this huge square, we just said “wow”! You can see the history coming alive there, you can imagine military parades, you can imagine Stalin  walking among the crowd. This is great feeling. We were in metro, in the beautiful Moscow metro and even though it is full of people, it was really impressive. And I can say that Moscow taxi is a great experience. These drivers are crazy, they say no word, they just drive so fast no matter what the traffic light is. And when you try to say “Dobrii Den” or “Spasibo”, they answer nothing. It’s very strange when you say something and no one replies. Well, you know, you are just different. And it’s a great thing that we can be here, we are so happy that we have a chance to play in Moscow. It’s a great compliment for the band and I am sure we will come back again.

Eisbrecher on the Internet: http://www.eisbrecher.de

Special thanks to Irina Ivanova (CD-Maximum) and Anton “Megaherz” Dyachenko (www.GermanRock.ru) for arranging this interview.

Interview by Victoria “Ewigkeit” Bagautdinova
Questions also composed by Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
June 20, 2007
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