JUSTUS KÖHNCKE interview

in noaptea asta, la Martin

Justus Kohncke for FGM: I (and all of whirlpool) have always been strongly related with disco. House music was disco with no budget, using cheap new electronic instruments. Disco to me is as blues or jazz might be to others. Disco is about freedom and despair. You do not need to show off with knowledge or coolness or whatever in order to attract the people that attract you. That you mostly can let it go. I had to learn this for quite a while, I wish I knew this when I was 20.

I always love to spread my sound, be it live or playing records, it depends much more on the crowd, club and mood how much I enjoy it. People will always like to go out and drink, dance, enjoy music, flirt around and have a good time. That’s been like that since way before Jesus was born and killed. The good values of a party scene are the clubs that make you feel like home in a second. Partying can be a whole life life-style, but ooops, do you want to talk about the facts of my ruin?

I am not in a band, except for Whirlpool founding member and oldest Cologne friend Fred Heimermann co producing the “jk” stuff and going on stage with me as well for live. I was in “Whirlpool Productions” with Hans Nieswandt and Eric D. Clark 1993-2000, when we split after 4 albums, though. 1997 we had a hit called “from: disco to: disco” that became kind of a classic and we recently played a few live gigs again together since we’re very old friends anyway. But I’m not in any “band”.

Touring with Hot Chip was absolutely lovely, since we are friends anyway for quite some time and it was a good fit. Alexis Taylor even did a cameo vocal appearance on “Parage” on these 4 German dates. I had a wonderful time with them.

Being “electronic” by itself pushes nothing forward. But: “es wird immer weitergehn, musik als träger von ideen” (KRAFTWERK).

Posted in interviu on March 19th, 2010 by fresh good minimal | 2 Comments