Just when the nerves that come with sitting down for a face to face Skype interview with Einstürzende Neubauten frontman and former Bad Seed Blixa Bargeld begin to recede, panic sets in as the artist is nowhere to be found.
Then a message flickers to life on-screen: “Sorry I am late; do you still want to do the interview?” Ten minutes later, he appears, sitting in the study of his Berlin home.
Short and sharp when it comes to playing the promotional game, Bargeld is less interested in selling concert tickets and seems to be happier discussing the origins of the industrial genre or the death of the music chain store giants.
When asked about Neubauten’s stint at The Drones curated All Tomorrow’s Parties and subsequent tour, Bargeld answers shortly “we have an agency and the agency was contacted and the agency emailed us and we decided to do that. I have not much of an involvement in that.”
Thankfully the German artist thaws a tad when the subject turns to the group’s difficult to pronounce, and even more difficult to spell, name.
“It’s not so difficult” he says, helpfully breaking down each word, “it is best to start with the second word, ‘Neu’ as in ‘noise’, ‘bau’ as in ‘bow wow wow’ and ten like the number.”
“The first word you break down in four syllables. ‘Ein’, ‘shtur’ that is the only difficult word, you form a ‘u’ with your lips, but you try to say ‘e’, then you have ‘zen’ as in Zen Buddhism and then ‘de’.”
“I started playing with Nick [Cave] and no, I did not write lyrics. We had a lyricist there, his name is well known.” – Blixa BargeldArticulate and constantly scribbling notes during the 30 minute chat, Bargeld admits that his perfect English was far less so until his time with Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds.
“My English was terrible. Mainly my English developed in conversation and mainly through talking to Australians as you can imagine,” he chuckles gruffly. “I spent 20 years in an Australian band; I had almost daily use of the language so certainly nothing in English would come to me until probably the late 80s.”
“Before that,” he barrels on, “I wasn’t that exposed to the language at all and it was only my life taking me down the rockstar path that I was more subjected to actually using it.” Further explaining that creatively, “I don’t think that I have ever tried to write something in German and then translate it to English or the other way around.“
Working with an Italian composer has also had its perks; “In an Italian restaurant I can get through without them noticing that I do not speak Italian but out of the culinary world you would notice that my Italian is not very good.”
Speaking about his lengthy career, Bargeld firmly points out that aside from Neubauten, he has only played with one other band, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds which he left in 2003, a fact which he seems proud of, “…at the same time I was still playing with Neubauten. I just played with Nick (Cave) for 20 years and we are still friends.”
Shifting focus back to Neubauten, Bargeld also found himself back in the role of primary lyricist. “You must understand, Neubauten was formed in 1980, it was my first band and I always wrote the lyrics. Then I started playing with Nick and no, I did not write lyrics. We had a lyricist there, his name is well known.”
“That was fine; I think originally it was not meant to even be a band. Nick had just come out of the split of The Birthday Party and he wanted to do a solo record. He rang me and asked me if I would play guitar. He could have rang and asked me to play clarinet and I would have done that too!” he laughs in his richly accented drawl.
“At the same time I gave up playing in Neubauten, I had no interest anymore in playing guitar in another band.”
“Industrial music? That term was almost unknown and was probably helpful for some music journalist to label particular things that they could not label otherwise.” – Blixa Bargeld
Musing over the changing face of music consumption, Bargeld is not the least bit sad to see the end of giant music chain stores around the world. “I am in Berlin, which is a very trendy, hip area – the hippest on this planet and I know that around here there are probably two or three record shops still existing because it is so hip now but apart from that…”
“When CDs were still sold, these chains were dictating the record companies for what price they would take the CD into their catalogue. The giant record shops are dying,” he declares.
Despite his band being constantly labelled as industrial, Bargeld feels differently, explaining, “I think we are probably not on the same wavelength. Industrial was the name of the record company that Throbbing Gristle founded for releasing their records and to my understanding because that is exactly my time period.”
“The things that they have released and the general ethos that was connected with it is industrial music,” he explains. “That term was almost unknown and was probably helpful for some music journalist to label particular things that they could not label otherwise.”
Whatever his initial misgivings about the genre may have been, the singer has given up on trying to kick against it. “The name industrial did catch up with us very fast so after a while I just said ‘oh so what, name it whatever you like’ it didn’t make any difference to us.”
Interestingly Einstürzende Neubauten will be supported for their coming show by fellow ex-Bad Seed Mick Harvey. “I have heard of him” laughs Bargeld until he is asked whether he sought out Harvey personally, to which he replies curtly “I didn’t ask him, the promoter asked him.”
While he may come off as prickly, one could never accuse Bargeld of changing his demeanour to sell records; a quality that should be rejoiced and celebrated.
Einstürzende Neubauten are currently on tour in Australia, with dates remaining in Sydney and Melbourne, see below, and you can win a double pass to either of the shows by entering our competition here.
Einstürzende Neubauten 2013 Australian Tour
With special guest support by Mick Harvey (joined by Rosie Westbrook and JP Shilo)
Friday 22nd – Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Saturday 23rd – Tivoli, Brisbane
Tickets on sale now from www.handsometours.com
