Peter Heppner
You Can’t Learn To Do Electronic Music

17.04.2019

Peter Heppner, the voice behind the mid 2000s’ hit “Die Flut” and the former frontman of synth pop duo Wolfsheim, is about to return to Russia. After the album “My Heart Of Stone” (2012) the musician disappeared out of sight due to issues with his heart. But late last year he returned to the stage with two new albums, a tour, and even an audio play. Shortly before the Russian gigs, which are due April 19 in St. Petersburg and April 20 in Moscow, we managed to catch the ever busy Heppner online and discuss with him a few aspects of his art, both past and present.

You have returned after a break with not just one, but two albums. And I’ve read that the first one, “Confessions and Doubts”, which sounds completely your style, you co-produced, while the other one, “TanzZwag”, which is essentially a dance album, as you said, was produced almost without your intervention. Can you explain, why is that? And why in general did you want to make a dance album? That could have been anything!

First, why I did a dance album. I made the layouts for the songs, which were very danceable. So I thought it would be a good idea to make a dance album out of it. And that leads us to the second question why I did not intervene in the production. We just thought: okay, what we are doing – a dance album – we should do the right way, and that is mostly to produce it as an ensemble, it should not be an album that is made by one musician. That is an album, which is made by a lot of dance producers. We wanted to have it that way. And this is why we chose so many different producers. Then I just told them they should do their work. They can do it best without my intervention I think.

And what do you think in general about dance?

Dance music, or, let’s say, danceable music, has always been a great part of my work. I always wrote danceable music and I like dance music, I like dancing music, I like dancing. And I think it’s a very important part of human life, so I’ve always liked to make danceable music. That answers your question?

Yeah, quite!

Okay.

On “Confessions and Doubts” you have a song “Was Bleibt?”, which is your second collaboration with Joachim Witt after “Die Flut”. Can you elaborate how this second time happened? Like, were you in touch with him all this time and it kind of organically happened or you just, you know, suddenly decided to re-unite?

No, it did not work that way. It was… Joachim and I did not have… I don’t know how to say that… We did not want to do a new song particularly. We just thought: okay, “Die Flut” was great, it was a really great song and if it happens that we have such a song again sometime in the future, then we will maybe think about doing a song together again. But we never thought that this would really happen. And then it got together, because he really liked it. And I liked it also, so I said, yes, okay-okay, I can try. And so it went on and we had a song ready in the end. It was natural evolution more than a reconstructed thing. It was not like I thought, “Oh, it would be a good idea to make a song with Joachim again”. No, it did not work that way.

And how did the first collaboration happen?

Pretty much the same way – Joachim sent me an idea for the song, I thought it was good and we wrote it together.

Did you know him already?

No, that was the only difference between these two times. In the past when he sent me the song “Die Flut”, the layout for “Die Flut”, I did not know him at all. But that was 20 years ago or something, so it is a little different now! I mean, I have to say, I did not know him then, but of course I knew who he was, because he was a big artist then already, so I did not know him personally.

Can you tell us a little bit about the other song on the album, which is called “Theresienstadt: Hinter der Mauer”? As far as I understand, it is connected with the audio play “Die Kinder der Toten Stadt”, is it correct?

Yeah.

What was the connection and how did this whole thing happen?

Ouch! I don’t know how to say that in English. I was kind of… I helped them. They asked for my advice and I gave them my advice. I talked a lot to them about how to do a thing like this. Because it is a very difficult method and theme - to do a music piece about this matter. It’s very difficult. So they asked me what I think about it and we talked a lot with them. So I was kind of an adviser for them all the time – from the beginning to the end. And that’s my connection to it. I always said to them: if I have the right song, I’ll help you with that, you can use this song however you like and I give it to you, and so this song appeared, yeah.

From what I understand you also released at some point a song called “Still the Same Sky / Alone” with Jade Schultz. That also relates to the story, right?

Yes-yes. It’s part of the theatre piece itself and yes, they asked me if I want to sing for them and I did it.

Is it any different than recording for the album – doing something for the audio play? And have you done before something like that?

Do you refer to the recording of the song or to the recording of the audio play? Because I am involved, I am the singer for the song and I am the speaker for the audio play. That’s two completely different things. So what are you referring to, what is your question? The audio play or the song?

Well initially I was asking about the song, did the fact that it is connected with this play anyhow influenced the creation of this song? But what was your speaker experience?

The recording itself was the same as for every song because they were very professional and so it was no problem for me to record the song with them or for them. With the audio play it was a little bit different, because I am the speaker, I have the role I have to play it while speaking. And that was only the 3rd time I did this at all and it was kind of a difficult thing. But I think in the end it’s working out. In the end it’s a good thing. And the process of creation was fun.

During your career – both in your solo career and back in the times of Wolfsheim you had some very interesting videos for your tracks. Do you ever participate in developing the concept of these videos or is it something that the director or whoever comes up with?

Sometimes I have a good idea and we are looking for the director who can deliver this particular idea and make it into a video. And sometimes it’s the directors, who have ideas about shooting videos the certain way. It depends on a video. It’s completely different each and every time. So you can’t really say, “Oh I always have the idea for the video” or “The idea for the video comes always from the director”. Sometimes it’s that way, sometimes it’s another way and sometimes it is completely different way from what I imagined, so you can’t generalize it about videos. The only thing I can say in general about videos is that I would never shoot a video I don’t like or I don’t want to make or I don’t see as fitting for a certain song. So I guess I always have a say, I always have to approve and I always have to like the final result. It is always made that way, but from which person an idea for the video is coming from is completely different.  

Yeah, I actually asked, because many years ago when I first came across your music, the first video which I saw was Wolfsheim’s “Kein Zurück”.

Oh!

And I think I still don’t really exactly know what is happening there to this woman.

(laughs)

I was like, intrigued for years!

That was an idea from the director, Detlev Buck. And we talked a lot, or I talked a lot to him about this song. We discussed how this video should look like. And it took a very long time to come up with the right idea for it, I think. It took 3 or 4 weeks, which is quite a long time for a music video to develop an idea. And then he came back to us with in fact two ideas. He said: “Okay, first idea is like a big cinema, where we shoot big pictures”. We thought it would not be quite the right image for the video. Because we believed it has to be a little bit smaller, as it’s a very personal thing that we are singing about, so the video also has to be more personal. Then Buck showed us the second idea he had and he said: “This is a very personal level, someone is in the situation, from which there is no turning back”. And this is exactly what I am singing about in the song. And I thought, okay, sounds like a good idea. A person who is in her special no-turning-back situation and we are just filming that.

Yeah, I mean, it’s amazing that nothing is exactly defined there. That was something that I found really intriguing. Because you understand the emotion very precisely, but you don’t really know what exactly is going on, who this woman is!

(laughs) Yes, we thought it’s better not to know what exactly is going on there. We just picture this very personal situation, but we did not want to explain why or when or what is happening. This is important about this video. And I think it worked out quite well, because a lot of people ask me this question. They always say, “Okay, yes, I get that whole thing about a no-turning-back situation, but what is it all about?!” (laughs) Nothing! It’s nothing! It’s just about no-going back. It’s just that.

Yeah, I see! Okay, next question. You have been to Russia and to Moscow I think quite a few times…

Yeah.

Do you feel that Moscow is more or less a familiar place for you now? Did you have a chance to see it?

Not as much as I wanted to, because it’s always a very tight schedule that we have when we come to Russia. Mostly because of the visa situation. Because we get visas for a couple of days only or something. And it’s always difficult to travel to Russia. But it’s okay. Sometimes we have a day here or there. I had a day in Moscow to look a little around and I had a day in St. Petersburg. I know a day per city is not enough to see everything that is interesting, but maybe one day I will have more time and I will gladly look around the cities a little more.

You have collaborated with a lot of interesting musicians, like Schiller or Paul Van Dyk to name just a few, who would be your dream collaboration with, if you could choose any?

I don’t know. Seriously, I don’t know because I’ve never asked myself this question before. But I always asked this question after the situation arose. Oswald Henke for example asked me if I wanted to do a song with him and I told him that if the song has a good vibe, then we can do it. He sent me a song and I thought: okay, this might happen. That’s the way it happens. I don’t think forward like, “Okay, with whom I could do a good duet or something like that?” I am always asking this question only when I have a song. Because it’s all about the song, it’s not about the people – it’s about the song.

Yeah, it’s about ideas. I also wanted to ask, I haven’t been following lately, but I remember that at some point the German far-right political party AfD was using your song, “Wir sind Wir”, at their events. How did you feel about that?

You know, I can’t do anything about it. If they do it, they do it. There is no question if I like it or not. It’s the question of laws. And with German laws I can’t forbid that. I can’t prevent it from happening. They have the right to play this song as everyone else has. You know, it was not the first political party that used the song of mine and it won’t be the last political party (laughs) that will use the song of mine I suppose. And I can’t really do anything about it. I don’t like it – I really don’t like the fact that a political party uses a song of mine. Because it’s not written for political parties, it’s written for the people. I can’t like that the political party misuses my song for – I don’t know what for. But I can’t do anything about it. Unfortunately.

I see. Okay, last question. I just wanted to ask, what was your way into music and how did you start you career in that direction?

Huh! I was a music fan! I really-really liked music, I liked listening to music, I liked to dance to music and I liked music in general – a lot. And then some friends of mine made a band and they were looking for a singer and so I tried to take that role and from then on we were a band. So I think, it’s quite a normal way. I think there was nothing unusual about my start.

Did you ever study any music or you just learned by yourself?

No, we’ve learned everything by ourselves. You know, you can’t learn to do electronic music – where should I go to learn it? There is no school for that or something. So we had to teach ourselves. If there was a school for it, maybe I would have taken some lessons, but there is none!

I meant, maybe vocals or something.

No-no, we taught ourselves.

Okay! Thank you very much for your time!

Thank you!

Peter Heppner on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peterheppneroffiziell/

Special thanks to Maxim Chistyakov (Russian Synth Community) for arranging this interview

Olga Stebleva
April 15, 2019
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