Am 3.Oktober beehrt der Beau des Pop im Rahmen seiner Deutschlandtour den Z-Bau in Nürnberg. Präsentiert von Curt! Man darf sich auf einen Abend
mit exzentrischen Kostümen und großer Show freuen. Im Vorfeld erzählte uns ein sympathischer, redseliger und vor allem ehrlicher Patrick Wolf über sein neues Album, sein Problem mit ITunes oder warum Oasis auf der Bühne gewollt langweilig angezogen sind.
You are financing your new Album via bandstocks.com, where is the advantage compared to your former record contract?
Without a major contract it’s a lot easier for me as a musician who likes to be extremely involved in the production of my work. Simply everything from the first idea like what to do with the album, to the artwork and the video directors. You know I have a strong idea now, after several years in the music business, how things should be marketed, or the kind of people I would like to work with. I like to have my own company, my own idea about how things should be done. When you are on a major label you surrender a lot, you basically let somebody else direct you. That’s not anything that makes me happy. Now I’m my own boss again, I employ people and work very closely with them. Just like it was in the beginning when I started. During my time with Universal it became harder. I got what I wanted from Universal, but I had to fight for it a lot, and I don’t like fighting.
Talking about people you wanted to work with, how did the collaboration with Alec Empire happen?
It was a very natural collaboration, probably the most natural in my hole musical career. We were e-mailing a lot and it came up, that we definitely had to make some music together and it became pretty obvious to the both of us that something really fantastical come out of us collaborating.
Can you name three necessary things that you always request when you go to play a show?
Number one is a leather jock strap, because I wear a lot of different outfits and I got quite a big penis, so really important. Number two would be lot’s of vodka and whiskey and number three would possibly be a huge case full of make-up.
How important is your outfit for your show?
Getting dressed and putting make up on, is always a little bit like a ritual. When you channeling emotions it’s very important to have something that get’s you into the mental and emotional experience of being a performer.
I think even a band that looks very boring like say… (überlegt etwas)… say a band like Oasis, even their look, the way they dress is as contrived as David Bowies Ziggy Stardust. They want to look boring, they design themselves to look like that. That’s their thing. David Bowie or Lady Gaga they do exactly the same, everybody thinks what to wear on stage. It’s a natural human thing to represent yourself visually the way you feel and in the way you want to communicate with the rest of the world.
After what happened at the c/o pop in cologne (zu sehen HIER), you wrote a public appology, which was not ..(hier war Patrick Wolf jedoch schon so emotional, dass er, bevor die Frage zu Ende gestellt war, bereits anfing zu antworten).
I’m a public figure and unfortunately the internet and the media, in the way they spread information’s these days has nothing to do how you work with your press officer. Now the public take footage, making their own opinions and translate a story in one day or two into a total different story through youtube and twitter, and all these portals. The public now has a great power to disturb the truth. And before that happened in this case, I just thought it would be good to take a big hose and put that fire out before it spreads. It was simple an apology, whether I mean it or not, it shut a hell of a lot of people up.
Did you mean that apology honest?
Of course I meant it honest, but you know it came out of a lot of contemplation. Normally I’m not somebody that does apologies. But I have been become the last four years more and more a celebrity, which is nothing I’m proud of, it just happened because of my records and touring. And people like to talk and they talk about me.
Does it bother you that people seem to talk about more about what you did or especially about your sexual orientation than about your music?
My opinion is that other peoples sex life must be so boring that they need to be fascinated about somebody else’s. I just think a lot of people take their frustrations out on other people. I’m more increasingly shocked by how conservative the world actually is, compared to what I thought it would be as a teenager. I thought when I get older there would be acceptance of my sexuality and my ambiguity. I don’t like to be defined in a particular genre, like do I make folk music or classical music, it’s the same like am I homo or hetero or bisexual. I just want people to keep an open mind and experience my work for what it is, and I don’t think my music belongs in a genre, and I don’t belong in a genre.
You mentioned very often that touring is a lot of stress for you, can you imagine to settle down already?
No, I mentioned it can be stressful, every now and again it gets very intense, when we talk about a hole day from seven o’clock in the morning till six o’clock when I get on the stage, after that back on the plane and play another show in the morning. That’s when it gets crazy, but in general I’m learning to say no to things and be aware of what drives me mad and keeps me peaceful. But settling down, of course I would love to, I would like to be like Kate Bush, do one show every ten years and keep it special. But you really have to work all the time at the moment if you want to survive as an artist. Even if you are famous and got a number one record in the top ten and live of that for the next five years and have the luxury of being a private person you really have to stay a public figure and tour and get out. Because luckily people still really do pay for still is to see a show. My main source of income is from touring, and even I’m not doing it for the money I would hate to return to some of the jobs I had when I was seventeen.
Like you already said the way to listen and consume music has changed, it seems like nobody is buying albums anymore, and considering that you put out concept records, will that change the way you work?
The one thing I’m not happy with right now is ITunes, which is the main distributor for music and they have such a huge power at the market right now that 60 % of your sales go to them now. The problem is ITunes is basically a website based on a piece of technology which apple, a computer company, invented. We are not talking about music fans, we are talking about a company that doesn’t love music, but love making money. And so it doesn’t understand that when an artist finished an album, it’s just the way it should be. But if they put you on the front page, they request for example six extra song tracks, and stick it to the end of your album. And I don’t want to put extra songs on my album and change my finished work of art just to get on that front page of this thing. They are not musicians and don’t understand that an album finishes with the last song, not after six bonus tracks or with a video. I just don’t like the fact that a company is changing the format, because they want to make more money, and temps the artist into doing that with extra promotion.
I refuse to buy a deluxe edition of an album, I mean it’s ridicules you can’t change a classic album like “The Dreaming” by Kate Bush. It finishes with a beautiful song in the end and that’s the experience.
So what was the last album you bought?
It was this really amazing group from the 90’s “His Name Is Alive”. It’s the record that got me through a lot of depression when I was a Teenager. It’s got a great medieval charm, and black metal and spoken words. It’s a beautiful record published by 4AD. I don’t think many people talk about this band, and I don’t know why.
Interview: Alex Pahl
PATRICK WOLF. SAMSTAG 3. OKTOBER IM Z-BAU (GROSSER SAAL). 21 UHR. SUPPORT: THE DEER TRACKS.
www.myspace.com/thedeertracks
www.myspace.com/officialpatrickwolf
www.musikverein-concerts.de
KOROVA | 28.09.2009 | 11:06
arghhhh, tag-klammern in den comments sind also böse, unciode-sonderzeichen auch..egal, interview ist toll. freu mich wie blöd auf samstag. |
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