Four decades in, most bands either fossilize or politely fade into heritage status, wheeled out when someone needs a reminder that rebellion once had a dress code. KMFDM, instead, keep behaving like a system error that refuses to be patched.
With ENEMY, they return not as archivists of their own mythology, but as active participants in a present that seems increasingly indistinguishable from the dystopias they were already soundtracking in the 1980s. The language is still confrontational, the beats still engineered for impact, but there’s a strange duality running through it all: a sense of defiance that borders on celebration, like dancing in a burning building because at least the music is loud enough.
Speaking with Sascha Konietzko and Lucia Cifarelli today means navigating a perspective shaped by endurance rather than nostalgia. Their answers don’t romanticize the past, nor do they pretend to fully decode the present. Instead, they operate with a kind of blunt clarity: power structures shift, enemies multiply, and the machinery keeps running. You either get crushed by it or you learn how to make it rhythm.
What follows isn’t a legacy interview. It’s a conversation with a band that never really stopped arguing with the world, and, inconveniently for everyone else, still sounds like it might be winning.
Chain D.L.K.: ENEMY feels both confrontational and strangely celebratory. Who or what is the “enemy” in 2026, and has that definition shifted since the early days?
KMFDM: Everybody that doesn’t shut up, fit in, swallows the bullshit without complaint, bows to the emperors is ENEMY. We, the sub-culture, the LGBTQ+ communities, the misfits, the outsiders, the ones that think before speaking, us who won’t conform and join the chorus, we are ENEMY.
Chain D.L.K.: After more than four decades, how do you keep political anger from turning into self-parody?
KMFDM: By keeping it real. By keeping a finger on the pulse. Always listening with a keen ear. Keeping it simple and true.
Chain D.L.K.: The production onENEMYis described as sharp and contemporary. How consciously do you update your sonic palette versus relying on the core KMFDM blueprint?
KMFDM: Every album that we do develops its own sonic spectrum as we compose and add to it. They all sound distinctly different from each other but they all sound like KMFDM after all.
Chain D.L.K.: Tracks like “OUBLIETTE” lean into dance/rock melodicism, while “L’ETAT” dives into hyper-industrial aggression. Do you see these contrasts as tension or as balance?
KMFDM: Both actually. If it’s never quiet, it’s never loud. An important aspect we pay a lot of attention to is the sequencing of an album. Nothing is left to chance. A track gets composed to be the album opener, another to be the closer. It’s supposed to take you on a rollercoaster ride.
Chain D.L.K.: Sascha, when you started the project in 1984, did you imagine it would outlive entire political systems?
KMFDM: I didn’t think in those terms back then. I just did what I wanted to and didn’t care much about timelines and future-perspectives. Life was lived day by day, getting by somehow.
Chain D.L.K.: Lucia, your vocal presence has been central since the early 2000s. How has your role evolved on this record compared to something likeLET GO?
KMFDM (Lucia): Not much. Sascha and I have been collaborating the same way since the beginning. He presents me with a fully realized track or the start of something he likes and I weave a melody and lyric through it. If he likes the idea we run with it and work out the vocal parts together in the studio. There’s an ease and trust between us that’s felt natural from the beginning. He values my ideas and vice versa.
Chain D.L.K.: Andy’s percussion has always been muscular and precise. OnENEMY, how did you approach rhythm differently, if at all?
KMFDM: There’s 3 different versions of drumming when we record.
1. Andy drums and records himself, then edits and finetunes the recordings. (GUN QUARTER SUE, VAMPYR, OUTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION and more)
2. Andy and I program drums using samples (OUBLIETTE, A OKAY and more)
3. I program drums using samples (STRAY BULLET V2.0, CATCH & KILL, L’ETAT, ENEMY, YOU)
Chain D.L.K.: Tidor Nieddu brings new guitar textures into the fold. What did he add to the internal chemistry of the band?
KMFDM: Tidor came in about half way of the making of ENEMY. At that point I had played all of the rhythm guitars already so he fattened up some of those and added all of the guitar soli and bells and whistles. He immediately understood what we were looking for: some of the filthiest, fucked up rock’n’roll!
Chain D.L.K.: Annabella Konietzko makes her songwriting debut on “YOU” How does it feel to bring a new generation into a project with such a defined legacy?
KMFDM: She’s our daughter so we didn’t think too much about it at first. It was interesting to me how firmly she tackled the track and how decisive she was in how she wanted to have the vocals recorded and mixed. Contrary to most budding artists nowadays she doesn’t use auto-tune or the like at all, what you her is what she can do with her vocal chords. Needless to say, KMFDM have never used auto-tune ever anyways. But now in hindsight it is really cool to think that one day she might carry the banner of KMFDM on to a new generation. KMFDM V2.0
Chain D.L.K.: “OUTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION” and “CATCH & KILL” suggest a world spiralling into spectacle and violence. Are you documenting the chaos or trying to weaponize music against it?
KMFDM: Again, both. We are documenting the downfall and celebrating it at the same time. I wonder if life in Berlin in the 1920’s felt somehow similar to what we experience now. Dance on the volcano.
Chain D.L.K.: The term “Ultra Heavy Beat” has followed you for decades. Is it a slogan, a philosophy, or a self-fulfilling prophecy?
KMFDM: It is simply a term or a “definition”; I came up with in order to describe the sound of KMFDM waaayyyy baaaack. It stuck. I mean we are not making industrial rock, clearly not. KMFDM’s spectrum is very far and wide, there are many musical directions we sit straddle.
Chain D.L.K.: You have always balanced satire with sincerity. How do you prevent the satire from being misread in a time when irony itself feels unstable?
KMFDM: That’s more in the eye of the beholder than in our intent I’d say. Some people can’t determine these fine lines. Not everybody laughs at every joke. KMFDM are very serious about what we do but we don’t take ourselves too serious.
Chain D.L.K.: From Wax Trax! in Chicago to long-term collaboration with Metropolis Records, how has the business side of industrial music changed your creative freedom?
KMFDM: It hasn’t. We’ve always gone the path of least resistance when it comes to shooshing labels. Shut up and let us do our work. And pay a decent royalty rate.
Chain D.L.K.: “Juke Joint Jezebel” once propelled you into mainstream visibility. Do you still think about chart success, or is impact measured differently now?
KMFDM: Never have thought in those terms. I hate JUKE JOINT JEZEBEL for the fact that it became popular because it in no way represents what KMFDM are best at. It’s a shitty pop song with daft lyrics that mean absolutely nothing at all. Utterly forgettable.
Chain D.L.K.: The postponed European tour due to illness must have been frustrating. Did that interruption affect the emotional temperature ofENEMY?
KMFDM: ENEMY was done and mastered on November 1st, 2025. On November 10th I was diagnosed with some serious renal cancer. A few surgeries later by now I can say I am going to be ok. Just had to postpone the tour into the summer of this year. Sorry.
Chain D.L.K.: Many younger heavy electronic acts cite you as an influence. Do you pay attention to contemporary industrial and metal scenes, or do you operate in your own orbit?
KMFDM: I have no idea what’s going on out there in terms of new music. It doesn’t interest me much really. I have a very different taste in music.
Chain D.L.K.: There is a theatrical streak in KMFDM’s work, almost Brechtian at times. How important is performance as confrontation rather than entertainment?
KMFDM: Entertainment isn’t real, isn’t honest. KMFDM is real, I am the same guy on stage as I am in the street. I don’t disguise, no make-up, no stage costume. Just real, relatable, touchable.
Chain D.L.K.: Industrial music was once seen as abrasive and niche. Now harsh textures are everywhere in pop and hip-hop. Does that feel like vindication or dilution?
KMFDM: Neither. I don’t give a flying fuck. 😉
Chain D.L.K.: With 24 albums behind you, do you think in terms of continuity, or does each record attempt to rupture the previous one?
KMFDM: A little bit of both of course, conceptual continuity is one thing, but striving to renew, regroup and building anew means also destroying in a sense, preparing the ground in order to erect new structures.
Chain D.L.K.: If making yourself the “enemy” of hypocrisy is the mission, what personal risks does that still involve in 2026?
KMFDM: I wouldn’t say that that’s the “mission”. I have better things to do and am hoping to do a lot of traveling, bringing the KMFDM sound to the masses again later this year and for many more to come!
Visit KMFDM on the web:
https://kmfdm.net/
https://kmfdm.bandcamp.com/