Interview with Andy T. from JAX
Twenty years ago the hermetically sealed Berlin Wall burst open. The Wall’s fall is celebrated in the recent album from JAX, We Are The People. IndieMusicReview.NET’s Gary Levinson spoke with JAX’s Andy T.
Gary Levinson: Andy, first can you tell us your memories of what you were doing and how you felt when you heard The Wall was open?
Andy T.:
I was in Berlin-Kreuzberg, where I had lived for a very long time. When I heard of the opening on the morning of the 10th of November 1989, I went to Brandenburg Gate and after that to Checkpoint Charlie to stand there together with a hell lot of others. There, we banged on the roofs of the Trabis [Trabi is short for Trabant, a popular East German car], that came in to West-Berlin. I was very excited, because really no one ever thought that the wall would come down. The wall was a kind of normality for every West-Berliner.
GL: How did the project get started, and how were you motivated to get involved with this project?
AT: The first idea for the song rose up immediately after the change in 1989. Those days I was already making music in Kreuzberg, which was a very special place for musicians and artist from everywhere. I was doing gigs and sessions and spending some time in the studio. When I read in the German magazine “Der Spiegel” in November 1989, that the wall came down after 10315 days, I liked the special number and connected it with a good groove, We were jamming on in those days. At first I had the English verse “After 10315 days, history walls away…” But in 1989 and later on I did not have the opportunity to produce this. I would shortly be taking my first examination in law at the university and my life took me a different way, away from music.
This year I met my old friend Marcus Waibel and we had the idea to take the song and add to it, what had happened since then (ie: the financial crisis) to celebrate 20th anniversary of the Wall falling down, with a critical eye on today. We knew each other since the late 1980’s and had had good sessions in Kreuzberg back then. We composed and texted the song in German and English together and recorded it at Marcus’ Studio in Dreilinden, which was a high-security zone during the cold war, as an additional funny aspect. Marcus has his own label (WW-Records) and is a very good producer and a very good friend. He brought the singer Marnie and me together.
GL: It must have been difficult to find funding?
AT: We financed the project on our own.
GL: I notice that there is really an expert level of mixing on your synth / keyboard tracks. Whoever made them must have had many years experience….
AT: Marcus is a very good musician and producer and has a lot experience in the studio and even in producing film and TV for the German station Deutsche Welle. I have studio experience, as well.
GL: The music has a club sound to it. Do you know if in fact it’s been played here in clubs in Berlin? And if not, don’t you think it would be a good idea?
AT: We send a CD to Berghain and Tresor for example before the official date of the 9th of November this year. But I don’t know whether they played it. They never answered. If you do the PR as an indie project for your music on your own, it is very hard to get somebody’s interest, media or anyone and especially if you do a kind of ambivalent project like we did.
When we started with a press-briefing in July 2009, at our digital release with freibank recordings, we really informed every German newspaper, TV-Station, radio station and so on. Later on, we joined the mpn (music promotion network) and did a lot on our own, but interest in our project was very hard to find.
As an indie project or band you have to help yourself because you cannot afford PR-Agencies and Radio-PR and things like that. And there is normally no one who helps you for nothing. I mean, what you normally hear on the radio is only a very small part of the real music world that exists, isn’t it? Its pushed by big labels, with big advert budgets, who buy for their own products ratings in the charts and things. If you as an indie musician send a radio station something to play of you, normally they never do, because they do not get any money from you.
The worst of all is, that now some of our most clicked music-videos on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/jaxmusik) are being blocked by Warner music group. They are saying that this is their content. I think this is because they are one of the distributors. I’m trying to get more information about this, because no one tells you really what is going on. Even GEMA (German copyright collecting agency) normally does this, because they want to get money from youtube, says that they are using the videos commercially by showing adverts. Sometimes greedy lawyers try to tell you off, because you play your own music. For newcomers and indie musicians youtube is one of the most important “spread-out” media channels. It seems as if everything goes against you, if you try to go your own way. A big rip off. It makes me very angry. Next year we will realize a really cool website for artists that wanna go their own way.
GL: The lyrics seem to include the message that people are in charge of their own destiny. Would you like to comment?
AT: The Fall of the Wall in Berlin was a lighthouse of freedom for the Germans and the whole world later on. After the history of 20th century of Germany - leading to 2 world wars and the absolute moral down-coming in killing more than 6 million Jews - the extremely good moment of the peaceful revolution in 1989, by East German people going on the street was so wonderful and so important.
How could the demonstrators really know, whether it would happen the same to them, as it did on Tienanmen square just some months ago? These people were so courageous. Of course, they didn’t do it just on their own. Beginning with the Polish solidarnosc and the Polish pope and Gorbachev’s perestroika a lot of things led to this special situation. But the result and the thing to remember is “Don’t lose hope. Fight for your rights. You are strong if you go with others together. You are the people to decide. Don’t let a political and commercial might decide the different matters important to your life. ”
This is the democratic essence, away from a lot of lies and hedonistic PR and marketing standards which are used everywhere. The shout “We are the people” is the most mighty call that shows the wish and need of normal people to decide their lives on their own. Not to be just a number and economic client to buy things and be uncritically happy by doing that. No government and industrial or commercial might likes the people going on the street shouting “We are the people, we want to decide”. This is the ambivalent and funny thing with the memory of 1989. The official view tries very hardly to prevent saying that 1989 was a peaceful AND successful revolution. And comparing to other revolutions it was in fact the most peaceful one. But the powers-that-be don’t want this conclusion to get fixed in the head of the people.
A lot of things coming after the Fall of the Wall were good, like the freedom for the greatest part of the former East block countries and the rising of democratic rights for more people. But the bad side of the medal was the extreme greedy capitalism and cold neo-con thinking, as a result of the no-concurrence-situation of the capitalistic system, “end of history” and all that stuff lead us directly to the todays world, economic crisis and the neo-con way of minimizing social standards as far as possible. Their opinion, that human being should change into walking credit-cards and all around consumers. You’re only a good citizen, if you buy and consume and this is all? Climate change is also a result of that greed.
The Fall of the Wall and the actual economic crisis are the two culminating points of an epoch, that goes to an end. We cannot solve all problems only by growing economically. It simply does not work. You cannot eat money, you cannot drink money. Its just a change, not God-given. If our nature and our planet is destroyed, in order to have the most amount of any toys, cars, money, this does not help us breathing and living. We must change our way of living and thinking. Nothing in the whole universe grows endlessly.
The existence of the whole human race is in danger by the economic and climate crisis and it needs a new way of critical thinking and changing things.
GL: There are Chinese and Farsi versions of the song. How do you see these relating to the fall of The Wall?
AT: The fundamental idea of making different versions of our song, in a crossover project, is meant as a musical and cultural bridge and platform of interpretation for the ideas of the Wall falling, freedom and democracy by more artists from different musical styles and cultures. When the fall of the Wall brought freedom, our song and project should symbolize this also. So we could try to bring cultures and styles together, who does not seem to fit in the beginning, under the light of freedom.
We sent the musical tracks over the Internet to some international artists we know in Berlin. They did their interpretations and sent it back to us. We did the end mix and I think this was one of the most thrilling way to produce this crossover sampler. To get the outtakes back and to listen what the others done to it was so exciting and it felt so good in the end. I see this as a new way to work musically together in our digital world.
The Chinese version was a private idea, because I have a deep personal connection and respect to the Chinese culture and people. I found the wonderful singer Lin He and He Bo by advertising at the Berlin artists’ university. Lin He changed the lyric into a wonderful love song about being reunited after a very long time of being divided by a wall. I really love this version so much.
When we produced the songs in the studio, the news and pictures showed the demonstrating youth in Iran. We thought, wow, this is like a déjavu to the German change in 1989! Peaceful revolution with the starting point of cheated elections. In 1989 it also started with the obviously cheated communal elections in the spring. And who ever thought, that Iranian people would be so courageous as to go against their brutal regime? In our opinion it is really a shame, that the hopeful Iranian young people were oppressed by this regime for such a long time and under the former king (the shah) there as well. This revolutionary situation needed support and we wanted to honor their courage. The parallelism of Iran and Germany in this year 2009 was also seen by some journalists, but I don’t know whether there is another project to connect both.
We thought that it would be great, if we have a Farsi version of our song. Iran students living in Germany did the text and the singing and sorted out films and pictures for the Farsi music video. Because we don’t want to earn money out of that, we got in contact to amnesty international in Berlin. They will receive the part of income we get for the Farsi version.
GL: How has the initial commercial success been?
AT: Bad, the income doesn’t reach the costs up to now. But it was a so special working together with artists and creative people from different cultures and styles, we never want to miss this great experience. If the light of freedom and hope spreads out a bit by our project, this would be the greatest income we could have. But of course we would really like lots of people buy the album. You can get the album or the songs worldwide on the download-stores and in Germany at the Kulturkaufhaus Dussmann and at libri.de.
GL: What are JAX’s future plans?
AT: For an edition 2.0 of the actual album “Project D” we are still looking for musicians who want to make interpretations of the song. More Infos on our website.
We want to produce more songs for a complete album during the next months and you can find an unplugged version of the song “winner or loser” on our youtube channel jaxmusik.
GL: Thank you for your time, Andy.
AT: Thank you for the possibility of this interview Gary, and best wishes to all readers of IndieMusicReview.NET from Berlin.
Check out JAX at:
http://www.youtube.com/jaxmusik
http://www.youtube.com/rosannaw
http://www.jaxmusic.de/Flyer_JAX_WSDV_eng.pdf
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