T.Raumschmiere

Chain D.L.K.: What are the things you enjoy doing most as T.Raumschmiere?
T.Raumschmiere: Doing interviews.

Chain D.L.K.: Besides playing your music you are active as a remixer.What is your usual way of working? Do you tend to change the tracktotally or do you just spice it up a little following your own style?
T.Raumschmiere: I always try to keep a little something from theoriginal. Mostly it is the vocals. Then i write a track with my “ownstyle” that catches up with the harmonies of the original sometimes.And then I mess around a little bit with the vocals. Not too muchthough. I like clear vocals.

Chain D.L.K.: Your albums “Radio Blackout” or “Blitzkrieg Pop” had atechno punk sound, “Random Noize Sessions Vol. 01” was moreexperimental (in part because it gathered unreleased tracks comingfrom the 1996/2005 period) while “I Tank You” is a blend of differentstyles: techno, rock, electro, rap. Can you do a sort of analysis ofthe key steps that brought you through this evolution?
T.Raumschmiere: I think the idea has always been there. It just took alittle while to come out. I can’t really explain why it came out now.Maybe it’s the sum of my experiences. Maybe it all depends on ashitload of luck. Meeting the right people at the right time in theright place with the right idea. The rest just happens. I don’t haveany concept of when i started doing music. I compose music first andthe I create the concept around it.

Chain D.L.K.: “I Tank You” has a lot of guest artists. How did thesecollaborations come about?
T.Raumschmiere: I’ve known Mr. Maloke & Panic The Pig of thePuppetmastaz for a long time and we’ve always wanted to do somethingtogether. The only problem was that i had to get them out of their”animal territory” and bring ’em to my “studio territory” to recordthis track. Once that was sorted out everything went fine and I’m veryhappy with the track.Barbara Panther & Gene Serene I didn’t know before. They are bothfriends of Moses Schneider (my co-producer for this record) and whileI was in Mexico playing some shows he had invited them to the studioand recorded the two tracks. It was an experiment and he wanted tosurprise me. And I tell you, he did surprise me! I loved the tracksstraight away. A few changes here and there and the thing was done.Warren Suicide I met last year around Christmas time when I wasrecording drums in their studio “Chez Cherie”. We became friends veryfast, and not only that: We decided to do a track together, Warrenalso decided to release their new record o Shitkatapult.Deichkind i met during a tour in march 2007. We had been on the roadtogether for 5 days (also with the bloodhound gang) and right afterthe first day we combined our backstage rooms (not with the bloodhoundgang) and started partying for the next 5 days… So one thing lead tothe next and when i had the track “Brenner” finished I asked them toput a “rap” part on it. The other voices on that track come from meand Patrick Schauer, who is the singer of my punk-rock band The CrackWhore Society (where I play the drums)Tim Vanhamel i know from his time in Millionaire. I’m a very big fanof that band (and so is my son) and we met a couple of times infestival green rooms… It turned out that he’s a big TR fan aswell… So I decided to call him when I finished the track “What AreYou Talking About” and he said yes straight away!!Lilian Hak I met during a festival in Utrecht (NL). She was playingwith her band before us and I quiet liked it. After the show she askedme if i could do a remix for her. I said “yes, if you sing on one ofmy songs!”. So i sent her three tracks to pick one out and she endedup singing on two of them. The other one will be released as a bonustrack on the vinyl release of “I Tank You”.And then of course there is Moses Schneider who was actually supposedto record the drums for my record. Ben (my drummer) is running astudio with him in Berlin (Transporterraum) and had introduced him tome. Usually Moses works with punk-rock bands like Beatstakes,Tocotronic etc…. Once we started recording the drums he got so intoit that we decided to also mix the album together and (as said above)he also introduced me to Gene & Barbara… We were/are a really goodteam and we had lots of fun during the recordings and the mixing.

Chain D.L.K.: Did you have an idea of who you wanted to have as aguest when you composed the tracks?
T.Raumschmiere: Not really.

Chain D.L.K.: Richness of sounds, energy, rhythm and melody are keyelements of the new album. What have been the most difficult things tofix during the production sessions?
T.Raumschmiere: The coffee machine.

Chain D.L.K.: I read that “I Tank You” closes the triptych opened withthe two Nova Mute albums. What was it about?
T.Raumschmiere: I think somebody made that up. For me it’s more thefirst page of a new chapter.

Chain D.L.K.: Does this mean that on your next releases you’ll changeyour sound a bit?
T.Raumschmiere: I always try to change my sound more than a bit onevery record and surprise people here and there.

Chain D.L.K.: “E” was the first single out of the new album and it isthe most techno sounding tune. Those who dug that track might besurprised to hear a totally different sound on the album (besides”Brenner”, which is a powerful distorted electro tune). What is thereasoning behind this choice?
T.Raumschmiere: The general idea behind “E” as the first single was toget back in peoples minds… I had not released a “proper”Raumschmiere track for at least 3 years (except for a bunch of remixesand the ambient CD) and I thought that “E” was the best way of saying”hello, I’m back!”. By the time “E” was released we were still in thestudio mixing the rest of the album so it was obvious that we couldn’tgo on tour and the fact that “E” is an instrumental was just perfect!We sent out some white-labels and let the Djs of the world tourpeople’s minds. And of course I also wanted to surprise people, andmake them think the new album was gonna be a techno record. Well, itis not. Besides “E”, “Brenner” is the only 4-to-the-floor track on thealbum.

Chain D.L.K.: This album also features two band members on live drumsand guitars. Is this a solution you’ll further explore in your futurelive gigs?
T.Raumschmiere: The TR BAND has existed for about 4 years now. We’veplayed a lot of shows with this set up and all the members wereinvolved in the complete writing, recording and mixing process in someway. There is Ben Lauber, Andi Paruschke and on some of the “officialband photos” there’s also Allert Aalders. Ben has been our drummer forabout 3 years now. Together with Moses Schneider he runs”Transporterraum” which is a Berlin based studio where we recordedsome of the drums and mixed some of the tracks. Allert has been ourlive sound engineer ever since the band existed. His “regular” job isbeing the sound engineer at Tivoli, which is a very nice concert/clubvenue in Utrecht (NL) and that’s where i met him 7 years ago.Andi is our guitarist but he can play pretty much everything. I methim when i was 8 years old and ever since then we have had variousprojects together. Recently we also played together in The Crack WhoreSociety where he plays bass and I play the drums…

Chain D.L.K.: What are the things of “I Tank You” you love the most?
T.Raumschmiere: The way it originated.

Chain D.L.K.: What are your future plans?
T.Raumschmiere: Staying alive.

[interviewed by Maurizio Pustianaz] [proofreading by Marc Urselli]