The Traceelords
Born To Be Alive

03.04.2007

“The Ali Of Rock”, the title of The Traceelords’ latest album, tells a lot about the band. Even though the band was put together by ex-Sodom guitarist Andy Brings, it was never easy for them to break through. Countless record label changes, line-up changes and a lot of other troubles stood in their way, but with the new album and a new video for the anthemic punk rock song “My Evil Girlfriend” they seem to be stronger than ever. In our phone conversation, Andy Brings turned out an extremely interesting person to talk to. He’s been around on the music scene for years, he’s been through ups and downs of a musician’s career, and it’s no wonder that he’s writing a book about the music business, for he really has a lot to say…

“The Ali Of Rock” comes out on your new label AFM Records, while the previous album “Refuse To Kiss Ass” (2004) came out on Roadrunner, and the first one “Sex, Money, Rock’n’Roll” (2000) on Massacre. Is that a kind of tradition for The Traceelords to change labels after every record?

(laughs) No, it’s not a tradition, it’s just a matter of business. You don’t always work together with the same people, sometimes you don’t wanna continue the work, sometimes your partner doesn’t wanna continue the work. Some relationships just don’t last for various reasons. Right now we’re on AFM, we’re still on AFM – can you believe that? (everybody laughs) You never know, maybe the next album will come out on AFM Records as well.

The thing that made me ask you this question is that Powergod, your other band, is still on Massacre…

Oh, you know about Powergod? OK. Yeah, some relationships last a little longer, it’s not a big deal. Some projects are not good at a certain company, while others work out a little better. It’s not that important.

You seemed quite surprised when I mentioned Powergod. Does it mean that you try to keep secret the real identities of the persons who play in that band?

It’s not a real secret, but we’ve always done Powergod records under different names. (Andy is known as Riff Randall there – ed.) We try to keep the two bands separate, and I’d like to keep it this way now.

OK, let’s go back to The Traceelords then. In addition to the new label, the band has also got a new guitarist named Christof Leim. How did he get the job, and what happened to his predecessor, Mirco Salispahic?

The previous guitar player made some choices for his life, and that didn’t include The Traceelords anymore. There were no hard feelings, just some private reasons. He got married, and he had the feeling that he couldn’t give us the amount of time that we deserve. He was right, it was right for him to leave, although I would have wanted him to stay. Anyway, we had to look for a new guitar player, and sometimes things change for the better. I’ve always loved and enjoyed playing with Mirco, but with Chris we are an even better live band now. In many ways it was a change for the better. I don’t wanna take anything away from Mirco, there were no personal problems or stuff like that, he just made some decisions for his life, and that included leaving the band. We are still friends, we’ve played two or three shows with him since he left, because Chris was sick or had some scheduling problems, and it was a lot of fun. And Chris – I knew him before, he was the first and only guitarist we tried out, and it happened very fast.

The name of the album – “The Ali Of Rock” - brings forward obvious references to boxing. Do you think that sports and music, or rather sports and the music business, have a lot in common?

The title is a kind of personal thing. The band has never been fed with a silver spoon, we’ve never had it easy, we’ve always had shit to deal with, but we’ve always stood up again and walked on. For us it’s the feeling of “Mohamed Ali of rock’n’roll” - you punch us down, but we always come back. I’ve never seen it the way you suggested, but you’re right – this business is a shark pool, it’s not kindergarten. (laughs) It’s extremely difficult to survive here as a band, it’s a constant battle, you have to fight everything and everyone for what you believe in and for what you wanna do. The analogy is definitely there.

Who came up with the idea for such a cool album cover? How did you get George DuBose, long-time photographer of The Ramones, to make this photo shoot for you?

It was my idea – I came up with the title, and I immediately had this picture in mind. When I heard that George DuBose is living in Cologne, which is not very far from the place where I live, I just had to meet him, because, in my opinion, he is responsible for some of the greatest band shots and album covers of all time. I contacted him, we met, I told him my idea, and he was excited. We did this, and the picture came out exactly the way I had imagined it. I’m extremely proud of having worked with a legend, and I’m very proud of the cover. I don’t care if everybody likes this cover, it’s what I had in mind, and I think it’s a great picture. It really stands out. Plus, I always wanted to have a band photo on the cover, but not just your everyday band picture – a band with instruments standing in front of a brick wall. I think this is boring. The way we did it, the band got to play a role.

Where do you get the inspiration for writing such lyrics as “My Evil Girlfriend” or “Room For Improvement”?

Part of inspiration comes from just living your everyday life, being at home… (everybody laughs) Being at home is sometimes very inspiring, I don’t go for any fantasy stuff. Of course, not everything is autobiographical, but you get inspired, and we all know the feeling when your girlfriend or your wife or whoever just transforms into this evil person, and you think, “Have we met before?” (everybody laughs) It’s all funny in the end, it’s all good, but the inspiration is already there. Just wake up, open your eyes, and listen carefully, and you’ll get inspiration.

Can you also comment on another song from the new album – “Mr. Marple”? You never had such funny and at the same time sinister lyrics before…

Are you familiar with “Miss Marple” movies?

Yes, sure! They’re very popular in Russia.

These are among my all-time favorite movies, and when they show them on TV, which is quite often, I watch them whenever I can. I was just wondering – “Hey, everybody knows Miss Marple, but who could Mr. Marple be? What would he do? Maybe he’s not a detective, maybe he just kills his wife for obvious reasons!” (everybody laughs) I wanted Mr. Marple to be the exact opposite of Miss Marple, that’s it.

Speaking about lyrics – all your songs are in English, but your website only has the German version…

Is that so? I’m not sure?

At least I failed to find the English version anywhere…

I think we have an English version, but I must admit that sometimes I’m just too lazy to translate the German news. (laughs)

OK, but where does most of your audience live? Do you primarily orient on the German market, or do you also keep an eye on other European countries?

We try to keep an eye on everybody, but unfortunately that’s not our daily business. That’s the record company’s business, the manager’s business, and that’s a lot of hard work, because there are a lot of bands out there. If it were up to us, we would play anywhere anytime. It’s just a matter of how the people behind the band do their job, promote and sell the band. Of course, our main market is Germany, but we have been to Romania twice, we have started playing in Holland, and we are taking from there. Just give us time and place and tickets, and we’ll be there. It’s never been a secret that I want this band to be successful. We wanna play for people, we wanna meet and rock them, this band was never meant to stay at home. Whenever we get the chance and whenever we are being let loose, we go out.

Can you tell me about the concert in Berlin that you had on May 19, where you were joined on stage by Dr. Dot, a famous rock’n’roll masseuse?

That didn’t suck (laughs), that was fun. I contacted her because we played in Berlin, and she’s from Berlin, and she’s a rock’n’roller. I was quite familiar with what she did, I had read her book, and I knew that she’s into rock’n’roll a lot. I sent her an album and said, “Hey, when we come to your hometown, do you wanna join us on stage and play two or three songs with us?” We didn’t have a rehearsal, we had never even met before, so we as a band rehearsed two AC/DC songs – “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and “Highway To Hell”, and she rehearsed them at home. During the show our guitar roadie comes to me and whispers in my ear, “Andy, Dr. Dot is here, you can announce the songs now.” (laughs) I said, “OK, people, we have a guest on stage,” and she entered the stage, and we played together. She’s a great singer and a great performer, so people had a lot of fun with that, and we did, too.

You have probably heard about the problems that the Italian band Rhapsody had with the band name. Have you ever experienced any legal troubles with your band name? Don’t you think that porn star Traci Lords may one day show up and demand money for using her name?

No, because we spell this differently.

But still everybody knows the origin on the name.

Really?

I think so.

That’s what you do!

Maybe I’m too much into porn or something…

Maybe. (everybody cracks) I don’t know what you’re talking about! (a new burst of laughter)

OK, let’s skip this issue. You have two bands – The Traceelords and Powergod, and you also work in the studio as a producer a lot. How do you manage to combine so many time-consuming occupations? Do you ever have any time off music, and what do you do then?

To be honest with you, I don’t have time off, and I don’t take time off music. I’m into music 24/7, this is what I’ve always wanted to do, and this is what I will do. I don’t have a hobby, there is nothing I enjoy more than music, all aspects of it. I just love creating stuff, being a part of the creative process. It’s a lot of work, but most of the time it’s also a lot of fun. It’s my obsession. I have to take a break every once in a while, we all have to, but basically, it’s 24/7 of music. By that I mean working, not partying. When I talk about rock’n’roll, I talk about hard work, not about drinking all the time.

I know that prior to becoming a musician you were publishing a fanzine…

(surprised) You are well informed!

Thank you!

Yes, that’s true. When I was 13 or 14 years old, which is about five years ago… (everybody cracks) That’s how it started – in the 1980s I was a Kiss fan for quite some time, then I discovered real heavy metal underground, and I wanted to do something. The first things I did was taking guitar lessons and publishing my own fanzine. It was in black and white, I laid it out at home with old-school copy and paste technique, with scissors and an old typewriter, then my mom made photocopies of it at work, and I sold it at record stores in the area where I live. That’s how everything started for me. But I soon stopped it for the lack of money and the ability to really print it. I put all my time in learning how to play the guitar.

What did you like and dislike about being a journalist? And would you like to return to writing about music one day?

I don’t think so. I have mixed feelings about music journalists, I am one of these guys in a band. (laughs) Like about all things, there are good and bad feelings. I’m not sure that I will return to do this, because what I did as a kid was not real journalism. This was a fanzine, it was nice, and when I read it now, I really astonished at how good it actually was. I’m writing a book, this is what I hope to be able to publish one day…

Oh, cool! Can you say a few words about this book?

It’s still in the making. That’s something I really regret, but it’s hard for me to find the time to write, I have so much other stuff to do. This will be an alternative guide for starting bands from somebody who really experienced the school of hard knocks. This guide will cover all aspects, this is not very technically written, rather in a very entertaining, but, I think, in a very useful way. What I wanted to do is to give bands a guide to the stuff they really need to know. No theory, no stuff from people who don’t know what they’re talking about, only the stuff that you will really face when you go out there and start to form a band.

I know that you are not very happy about what is happening on the current metal scene, and that you prefer the music of the 1980s. In your opinion, what does the present-day metal scene miss?

(sighs) You have to consider that I’m not 20. If you are 20 or 16, you wanna hear fresh music from contemporary artists. This is what I absolutely understand. But when I was 16, there were other bands around. Back then this music was new, for example, power metal was around for the first time, and every time something happens for the first time, it doesn’t get any better. It was the same with punk rock, and the same with metal. On the other hand, not everybody can listen to the same old music, there are new generations, and the stuff gets developed. But to me, extreme metal and power metal happened in the 1980s, and this is the stuff that I listen to when I wanna listen to heavy metal. I guess In Flames are a good band, that’s possible. I saw them two weeks ago opening for Slayer, and a lot people liked that. But I waited for Slayer, and when Slayer came on, this is something I really admired. This is something that is still the original. They were the headlining act for a good reason, you could tell the difference. The difference is energy. There are a lot of causes of that, one cause may be that when those bands started out, they didn’t have hi-tech equipment, they didn’t have mega-distortion that bands have now, they really had to put their energy into creating an extreme tone with the guitars. They had to put themselves in and the energy of their right hand into the strings, into the amplifiers, to make sure that something powerful comes out. These days lots of bands that are sailing under the power metal flag don’t have any power at all. To me this is just hot air with no power. There are a lot of good bands out there, don’t get me wrong, but when it comes to metal, I always check back on the originals. Or maybe I’m just old. (laughs)

There’s a very popular opinion that in the 1980s bands mostly relied on good songs, and nowadays they rely mostly on the sound…

Yeah.

But at the same time, you work as a sound producer, so how do you deal with that?

You know, some records from the 1980s are just impossible to listen to, this is why we did two tribute albums with Powergod. We wanted to update the original songs and to combine the best of both worlds – songwriting from then with production techniques and the powerful fat sound of today. You always have to keep in mind what you’re working on. A band like Stratovarius gotta have this technical sound, and what they do, they do very well. But if extreme metal or thrash metal sounds too technically advanced, that takes away the original idea and energy. This is something that we wanted to keep when we produced the “Sodom” album. I wanted to give the band the sound that is kind of modern, but on the other hand, a little raw and dirty. It’s not too technically advanced, but it’s still up to modern standards.

The latest album by Sodom is your most famous production work so far. How did you manage to re-establish relations with Tom Angelripper? Your departure from Sodom back in 1994 was far from peaceful, and you even named the first Traceelords mini-album “Pussy!” (1998), because that’s how Tom used to call you after the break-up…

You are so well-informed, I can’t believe it! You even know the “Pussy!” album!

To tell you the truth, I’ve never heard it, but I know that it exists…

You know what? I even forgot where the inspiration to name it came from, but you’re right! (laughs) We all grew up, we learned how to deal with all kinds of stuff, everybody’s hopefully able to talk, and sometimes time just heals wounds. It’s not a problem anymore. You’re right, the departure was very far from peaceful, and there was no communication between us at all. But it changed somehow, and now we’re friends again, and we work together. It’s good!

Do you as a producer follow what your colleagues are doing? Do you specifically listen to albums to find out how they sound like?

For sure! I listen to music in many different ways. Sometimes I listen just to enjoy the song, I’m still able to do this. But a lot of times I find myself with a mixing desk in my head, when I listen to music. I try to analyze how they did it, what is happening here, etc. But the most interesting thing for me is always the song, how it comes to life. This is the biggest secret – how to make a song sound well. It’s not always just a matter of expensive guitars or the biggest room for drum recordings. Most of the time it’s just about emotion, the human touch – you cannot recreate this with ProTools or anything. You just have to listen to the song and try to give it everything it needs. Sometimes it’s hard to switch off the mixing desk in my head, but I still can do it.

Haan Hartmann is your partner in most of the things you’re doing, you are in the two bands together, and you are owners of the Midas Twins studio. When and how did you first meet? And how did you get the name Midas Twins?

We met by a mutual friend, I guess it was in 1997. I was already working on The Traceelords, and I was looking for people to bring my music onto the stage. A mutual friend of ours introduced us to each other, and we got along really well. He had a studio, I had the music, so we said, “Hey, let’s just work together!” The first two or three demo recordings that we did with other bands were kind of like turning shit into gold. There were two or three really shitty bands which we tried to polish, make good. In a way we felt that we turned shit into gold, this is what King Midas did, though he had straw, not shit. So we thought, “Hey, let’s just be the Midas Twins,” there was not a lot of thinking behind this. We just had a feeling that we can work together really well and turn bad music into mediocre music, mediocre music into good music, and good music into very good music. We had the same feeling for music.

Your biography on the AFM website starts with the phrase “you don’t become a musician, you are one.” When and how did you realize that you are a musician?

I think very very early. There are silent home movies from the early 1970s where I’m running around the Christmas tree with a guitar and joining the band on stage on an uncle’s wedding at the age of three or four. It was clear pretty early that music was my life. I sometimes feel that I never really had a choice. It’s not always easy, never has been, and probably will be, but I never really had a choice. This is the place I was put on in life.

I remember the song “Fucking Grow Up” on the first Traceelords album. It was written about 10 years ago, but as far as I understand, your attitude has not changed since then. What is your recipe for not growing up? How do you manage to stay as fresh and energetic after all these years?

That’s a good question! One thing, I think, is to be true to yourself, not try to be something you’re not, but on the other hand, always try to develop. As old-school as I am, I always try to develop myself, but in a natural way. I don’t wanna become anything I’m not and probably never will be, but I still wanna explore myself, develop myself and challenge myself. You just have to look around – the people you grew up with, the people you went to school with, do you wanna become like them? Definitely not. Are there aspects in life that change? Absolutely! You always have to find a way through this. You have to be true to yourself, but not stubborn, don’t make yourself comfortable once you have reached the point which seems to be OK. If you do this, you stop developing. If you think, “This is kind of nice,” this is just over. I don’t wanna give anybody any advice, but you asked me how I manage to do this, and this is what I think. My advice may be as good as the next guy’s advice, I don’t have the secret recipe, but I think that it’s always good to switch on your head before you leave the house. (laughs) Turn on your head, but listen to your guts as well.

The Traceelords on the Internet: http://www.thetraceelords.com

Special thanks to Irina Ivanova (CD-Maximum) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
November 13, 2006
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