++INTERVIEW++
Artrocker chats to former Atari Teenager Rioter Alec Empire...
Alec Empire is perhaps most famous as the leader of Berlin based group Atari Teenage Riot, who between 1992 and 2000 produced some of the hardest, fastest and heaviest music of the era. They were also openly revolutionary, sometimes nihilist in their approach. It is perhaps unfortunate that most people of the indie fraternity seem only to know of Atari Teenage Riot from 'Does Your Heart Go Boom', the record made as a tribute to them by Helen Love.
"I haven't changed my political opinions. People can argue as long as they want to, but our society is using wars to make a profit - it's the economy."
Atari Teenage Riot ended after the death of their MC Carl Crack in 2001, but Alec Empire had been making solo records since 1994 and continues to do so to this day, as well as managing the record labels Digital Hardcore Recordings (home of ATR) and now Eat Your Heart Out Records.
Artrocker: Guten Tag! So, du muss ein Flug machen am nacht? (Hello! So you've got to catch a plane tonight?)
Alec: Ja! Und du kann Deutsch sprache!? (yes, and you can speak German?!)
Artrocker: Ja, fur mich es ist ein Hobby, aber ich bin ein kleine practischloss im moment, so kann wir auf Englische sprache, bitte? (Yes, for me it's a hobby but I'm a bit out of practice for the moment, so can we speak in English please?)
Alec: Yeah, of course...
Artrocker: You don't make many records in German?
Alec: Only one: Hetzjagd auf Nazis...
Artrocker: Hunt down and kill the Nazis!
Alec: Yes exactly, it was my message to Germany about the state of the country... (Smiles wryly)
* * * *
PART ONE: IDENTITY CONTROL
Artrocker: The press release calls your new LP "The New Sound of Berlin"...
Alec: No, that was a quote, used ironically because some journalist called it that, and I passed it on - "The Sound of New Berlin"! I'm cynical about it, you know this kinda thing when the media is calling something new. A journalist wrote "This record sounds extremely new!" I thought that was funny because when I make a record I make a bridge between where I stand now and what influenced me 20 years ago, so I think it's funny that what they find new is something that influenced me 20 years ago.
Artrocker: Looking at the cover, and the Iggy and Gary Numan influences, it almost like you're a pop star now!
Alec: But my head is cut off!
Artrocker: OK, the inside cover...
Alec: That's just a photo! Ha ha! I like it!
Artrocker: But the record is like an electropop album...
Alec: The weird thing is that most radio people call it unlistenable. Sometimes I do something I think is easy for people to understand and everybody goes "Oh, it's a crazy noise", then with something like this the same people would go "My God it's so melodic." In a way there's a club side to the record - it's going back to where I started, the techno stuff. Before I started D.H.R. (Digital Hardcore Recordings) I did a lot of acid records and electro records under various names, so I want to go back to that. I wanted to create a very cold sound, an anti-warm sound.
Artrocker: The latest LP seems lyrically to be more about love and romance than politics...
Alec: Let's put it like this, a political record like Intelligence and Sacrifice is more outgoing, like a painting of a nightmare vision of the future, while this record is a personal experience. I don't want to be a politician or a person who's always saying things without people knowing who I really am. So instead of feeding that image or trying to make money off it, I just wanted to show a completely different side. Some people will criticize and say "but this is going against the 'Alec Empire' we know", but I'm saying "OK, I'm sorry. You don't wanna see that side. It's OK, don't buy the record or don't listen to it."
PART TWO: THE HISTORY OF ATARI TEENAGE RIOT
Artrocker: According to Wikipedia you've made over 100 albums, is that true?
Alec: I wouldn't say full-length albums, but I was involved in the production of yeah, over 100 releases.
Artrocker: Still, it's a massive body of work!
Alec: Hih! Hih! But, you know, I started really early HA! HA! But it doesn't say anything about the quality of the work, Y' see, that's my problem - people go to Last FM or something and they see tons of shit and say "Why did Alec do this!?" But I like the confusion. Somebody types in my name and gets some breakcore and what they wanna look for, I dunno, maybe some of the new record... Hih! Hih! - quite funny.
Artrocker: I always thought of Atari Teenage Riot as a pop band really...
Alec: Yeah, that was the idea.
Artrocker: What were the early days like?
Alec: I remember that we (were) always frustrated because we wanted to get this energy going that we always had in Berlin and it was somehow really difficult in England. I thought that Berlin and London were so far apart back then; when we listened to techno records and aggressive breakbeat stuff in Berlin, we thought OK "It's one thing, the world" but it was a very different sound in England - it was all like pianos and happy. (He imitates early 90s Old Skool)
Artrocker: I think Britain caught on to that a few years later.
I hand him a copy of the band's first single.
Alec: Hih! Hih! This is really rare now. (reads CD sleeve) "All rights reserved. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending..." That is a joke today!
Artrocker: Yeah! Although they still put it on, now it's like a begging letter saying (in whiny voice) "Please don't copy this record ... please respect the artist and realise that this is theft..."
PART THREE: HOW MUSIC SOLD OUT ON POLITICS
Artrocker: At the time of the third LP 60 Second Wipeout, there seemed to be a political movement going, with Asian Dub Foundation, Rage Against the Machine and the rave movement against the Criminal Justice Act (Alec nods intently). What do you think has changed between that political time musically speaking and now?
Alec: Good question. I haven't changed my political opinions. People can argue as long as they want to, but our society is using wars to make a profit - it's the economy. If people can live with that, fine. I can't, for some reason. This record was a reaction to the Iraq war in the nineties and it's exactly what happened later on. It's a vicious circle and it's almost like our society, this system can't survive without this stuff going on.
Artrocker: Why do you think music is less political in these critical times, compared to back then?
Alec: I think there is not an easy answer to this, because politics are very complex in general. I think now it's easier to get alternative information. While back in the nineties I had a feeling "OK we have to make a record... we have to make music so people can see the other side. Also what's going on now since 9/11 is that most people are really scared of saying their real opinion or even thinking... and I think it's very bad that bands go for that easy option, that easy way which is welcomed so much by the media. I had many discussions with people on the Berlin scene, people in electroclash, saying "This is a fucking joke!"
There was something in Berlin with Chicks On Speed and y' know many of these bands and saying look, how can we just sit here and watch this, these people are making a clown show on stage.
Artrocker: Ha! Ha!
Alec: No seriously, for me it felt so bad. It's part of my personality because I don't really take drugs and stuff like this - so I have to confront this feeling. I know if I don't confront it I will carry it with me for a longer time and it will feel much worse.
So I could never understand this escapist mentality and in the end people were like "Yeah, but we want to have more fun", and of course the media said "Thank God! Let's get all this music and push it!"
Artrocker: Do you think that lead to a decline in respect for the music scene?
Alec: Well, the music scene is responsible for the fact that music is less relevant for people now. Everyone has this problem, the music industry, the bands, the labels, everybody goes "Why don't people care about music and just download it and don't see there's any value to it?", and I think actually it doesn't mean that much to people any more. It doesn't reflect on the lives of people and so what's the purpose?
Artrocker: Isn't that just pop music?
Alec: Yes but there was always a certain balance between pop music and music that had a big meaning and both things feed off each other. You could even argue that that at time of the Vietnam war, Jimi Hendrix and those people didn't sell as much as more mainstream acts, but they made that period relevant for music. And when people look back now to that time they think of that music. It was intense, and it's the same with punk or early rap and hip hop.
PART FOUR: THE DEATH OF DIGITAL HARDORE
Artrocker: About a year ago I went to the old Digital Hardcore Recordings offices on Dean Street, and it's now a lapdancing club.
Alec: Ha! Ha! Hee! That's exactly it! Peaches replaced us! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! No, we moved away from there a while ago.
Artrocker: When I went there, I took a photo and a bouncer from the club ran out and told me to "fuck off". I thought it was a good metaphor for the way that DHR collapsed. Do you think so?
Alec: Good question. I think it has more musical reasons. There was a moment in 2001/2 where Atari made this big step in terms of intensity of sound, while the rest of the scene stayed with that sound of the nineties. And there was a moment where I thought OK, once people start repeating themselves and it doesn't sound as exciting any more, well... Plus there was the other side: Atari was quite burnt out 'cause we made three albums and then suddenly Carl dies, and it's like OK this could be the end of the road.
Artrocker: Finally, can I take the opportunity to ask you about the Red Army Faction (1960s anti Nazi political faction known in Britain as Baader Meinhof) from a German Socialist perspective?
Alec: Sure, but it's complex. We have to understand why this situation occurred. In the late sixties the USA kept certain Nazis in power to keep the GDR from the Communists, so there was a fear that Germany would return to the Third Reich. I have to say that there was no right or wrong here, it was not a simplistic argument and depends on the situation. You have to look deeper, for example the media sees Palestine as a simple situation, but it isn't. This is why Bush's war is a one way street - they could never 'win' because the situation is too complex. I don't think the Red Army Faction could have brought about the Socialist revolution but they made people more aware and alert... like Atari Teenage Riot!
Artrocker: Alec, vielen danke fur ihr zeit, und fur ihr geile Musik! (Alec, thanks for your time and your great music!)
Alec: Danke fur die fragen! (Thanks for the questions!)
Polaroids by Ric Rawlins
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