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Stromkern began in 1994 as the solo project of J. Ned Kirby in Madison, Wisconsin. After a
couple of songs made it into compilations, Stromkern was offered a record deal not by a
home label but by the german Kodex/Sushia Light.
Since then, Stromkern had some more
critically acclaimed releases but still remained more well-known abroad than at home.
Recently, Stromkern went from being a one-man project to becoming a band with the addition
of Kelly Schaeffer (keyboards and programming), Rob Wentz (keyboards) and Matt Berger
(drums).
Musically original, a fluid combination of EBM, classical and hip-hop and great lyrics,
Stromkern's main distinguishing feature is J. Ned Kirby's unique vocal style: deep and
clear vocals, with obvious hip-hop influences, creating an ambiance by itself sometimes
bringing an almost rap-like quality to Stromkern's songs.
C.B. - Can you give us some insight into the beginnings of Stromkern as a musical
project? How did it initially come to be?
I was DJing a lot, and really into goth rock, and hip hop, and had all these
years of classical music training and a love of techno, and everything coming out
in '94 seemed to suck. So I thought, I must simply do this myself, I must. So
I got some crappy gear, and some not-so-crappy gear, and got started.
C.B. - And, of course, why the name 'Stromkern' (core of flow/river/current. my
german is residual at best)?
Ah, the stupid name. So: I'm 17. So: I wanted to have a cool German
name for my band, so I ask this German grad student friend how to say
"eye of the storm" in German, and she tells me. Little do I know this word
doesn't exist. So: it gets onto a couple of compilations, at which point
I learn some German and discover the name doesn't mean squat, but figure it's
too late to do anything about it. So, yeah. The Germans get all up in
arms about it ("Strom kann kein Kern haben!") but they seem to remember it.
Next time I'll just name the band "Infection 2019" or something easy like that.
C.B. - Before Stromkern, were you involved in any musical projects or activities?
I was playing piano, and cello in orchestras... but no other bands per se.
C.B. - An interesting aspect of your musical background is a formal classical
training as a pianist and as a cellist, which also appears to have a marked
influence in Stromkern's sound. Another obvious influence appears to be
hip-hop, mostly evident in your singing.
Having had training in classical music, how and why did you end up
drifting towards electronic music?
Dunno. I was a big techno/house freak for years, and of course the
day I first discovered Nitzer Ebb and Information Society and all that
shit was a big to-do. I'm not sure why I drifted over to the dark side,
though; that was the music I was listening to, and so when I decided to
start doing it myself...
C.B. - Was your training as a classical musician instrumental in the shaping of
Stromkern's sound, not just as an influence but also in practical aspects of
musical creation?
I think so, definitely. The sorts of structures and arrangements and
chord progressions and so on, at least in the early stuff, were very much
influenced by all the training I'd had. I've spent the last few years sort of
consciously "unlearning" a lot of it, so as to be able to expand my
horizons, or narrow them I suppose...
C.B. - About musical influences, what would you say were your main ones in the
past and what are they nowadays? Any bands, musicians or composers in
particular?
There were... I mean I listened to shitloads of stuff, as a DJ, but
there were a few records that really made me go "I gotta do this myself".
Coil's "Scatology", Second Voice's "Murder She Said",
Non-Aggression Pact's "9mm Grudge", Mentallo & The Fixer's "Revelations
23", Meat Beat Manifesto's "Armed Audio Warfare". Swamp Terrorists.
And Attrition. The whole classical thing came from Attrition. For many years I just
wanted to be Attrition, basically. "Hardwire", from "Flicker Like A Candle",
is more or less just me trying to write an Attrition song. I heard the Tricky & DJ
Muggs and Grease record right before I started the final mixes for "Armageddon"
and I was making a conscious effort to emulate some of the production of that record,
which is brilliant. "Dämmerung Im Traum" was influenced heavily by the
first Forma Tadre record, which is still brilliant, to this day its brilliant. And Haujobb. Everybody loves Haujobb, and with
good reason.
But, you know, everyone has other influences, I dunno... I mean I think what
influences you is probably different from what you listen to, although what
you listen to can influence you in interesting ways. I don't think we sound
like the Dismemberment Plan, but for all the Dismemberment Plan I listen
to, you'd think we have a right to.
These days, influence is from producers. Kelly and I are just trying to
squeeze every trick we can from the books of Timbaland and Swizz Beats and
Organized Noize. And I like a lot of more rocky stuff. If I could make the
next record sound like Placebo's "Black Market Music" I'd be happy. Placebo,
with more strings and hip-hop beats. Imagine the "Nefilim" record with
Nelly doing vocals. See, the possibilities are endless.
I do like a lot of stuff, but I try to keep a lot of it from influencing
Stromkern - because I want the project to sound like what it is, whatever
that is. Divergent interests are the stuff side projects are meant to be
made of.
C.B. - Looking back at your "career" as Stromkern, it is evident that you
achieved some notoriety and projection while relatively young (at least by
comparison to most artists in this field). How did that and the doors that
it opened affect your life and future plans at the time?
You think? I feel old as the hills and don't feel like the band has
gotten anywhere. It's like no one knows who we are. But it's nice to
hear you say that ;-)
Stromkern has always been a major, if not the major, focus of my life and
all else tends to get subjugated to it. I'll quit jobs, move, whatever,
to facilitate the process of making records and touring. That's starting
to change, somewhat, but that's also because the band is, at least on some
level, established, so I... I guess I feel like I have to try twice as
hard now, but in some senses, certain things are a little easier. But there
are also other things I want to be doing, other interests I have, so I'm
not sure I want to forego all of them just to be able to jump around on
stage like an idiot a few times a year.
C.B. - Oddly, your first record deal was on a german label (Kodex/Sushia Light,
1996) and only relatively recently were you given a record deal by an
American label (Wax Trax II). Why do you think that it took so long to be
signed on a 'home' label? Do you feel that the acclaim you have abroad was a
factor in being signed by Wax Trax II?
Yeah, I mean I'd been in negotiations with Bart [WTII label head] when he
still worked for Wax Trax! - when there still was a Wax Trax! - about signing
with them. This was before "Dämmerung im Traum" was even out in Germany,
during the long doldrums of 1998-99, where I was sitting in Germany with a
finished record that no one wanted to put out. That album was done for 14 months
before Kodex dropped me, and Scanner picked it up. But the US thing never came
to pass - Wax Trax was on the outs with TVT, and William Tucker died, and it
was just one thing after another.
When we were touring with Icon of Coil in early 2001, before "Armageddon"
was finished, we were getting offers from some other US labels, but none of
them really seemed all that willing to pursue it, and WTII was willing to,
and I wanted the record out here, so we went with them, even though they're
not the biggest fish in the pond. Will I regret that decision, I don't know.
I think there's a lot to be said for a good artists/label relationship, and
having them like the music even if they can't push it the way a bigger label
can. You build a relationship with them, you're important to them and they're
important to you, as opposed to just being another number in a catalogue.
Why did it take so long? (1) there aren't a lot of US labels. (2) the basic
US label philosophy for the last few years has been "let's see what
sells well on import, and license it. That way, we don't have to do any
A&R, we don't have to do any real work, we just put the record out and let
it sell to this built-in, established fan base, and be done with it". We
never quite made that leap to being a well-established EBM act, and as the
years have gone by we've gotten further from that sound - I mean it's just
a little too weird for the Pitchfork crowd, or whatever. Or maybe it's because
it's not that good, I don't know. But I think all the work is starting to pay
off, because we do seem to have a following, and I think after the next record,
we'll find out just how much the work has paid off and just who is willing to
do what.
C.B. - Nowadays, at Scanner, you collaborated with Cycloon by writing lyrics and
doing guest vocals for a couple of tracks. How did that collaboration come
to be? Do you have plans for future collaborations of this kind with other
bands? And upcoming remixes by Stromkern?
Axel, from Cycloon, is a freak, and a really nice guy, and when Dämmerung
came out he called me up and left this awesome message, in German, that was like,
"Ned - man - dude - man - Ned - this is like - the best thing I've heard in - like -
7 to 10 years." it was great. We stuck it on the end of the "Night Riders"
EP, if you wait until the very, very end. So he asked me to do some stuff, and I did,
and it was OK; and then a year or so later, he asked me again, and I said yes again,
although I really didn't have the time to do it, and I sat on it for about 6 months until
he was like "OK I need this in 3 days, where is it?" And then I did
"New Patterns" which turned out to be great, people seem to really like
that track.
I'd like to do more stuff with other people. I'm supposedly going to take part
in Tyler Newman's K-Ninjas project, if I ever write the fucking lyrics. That's me,
being lazy. We've done a lot of remixes, none of them terribly high-profile,
but some have been lots of fun. The Attrition one, from years ago, that was good.
We just finished one for cut.rate.box that's really good. The Informatik one was
fun, we got to try out a bunch of new gear.
Upcoming mixes: I owe Battery Cage a remix. And we owe Seabound a remix. And
I owe Haujobb a remix. And... shit, we owe a lot of people remixes.
Beyond that, we're probably going to not do any unless we're getting paid, because we just
don't have the time. But you never know. I always say that, and then 3 months later I
have 6 remixes to do.
C.B. - Stromkern used to be a one-man band. With the addition of Kelly Schaffer
and other musicians to the permanent line-up there were some noticeable
changes to Stromkern's sound. How did the addition of Kelly Schaffer and
other musicians to the permanent line-up influence Stromkern's creative
process?
Kelly sort of gives me half-finished tracks, or finished tracks that I deconstruct.
He really has helped me focus on certain aspects of the sound, on paring it down
to what it needs to be. And having a drummer has been great, because you have
someone to say "no, you don't do it that way, you do it this way". It's been
really good. I enjoy being able to just have a song idea, just the basic
verse-chorus-whatever, and take it to the band, and we play with it, and after
a few shows it's taken on a life of its own. Is it Stromkern? Sure, because
Stromkern is whatever I say it is. And this way, it's a lot more fun than just
sitting around in a studio in front of a computer, quantizing drum loops.
Allowing other people to be a vital part of the creative process has started the
project down the road of transforming from a "project" to a "band", which I
just couldn't be happier about. It's great.
C.B. - Have you already begun work on the next album? Considering the evolution
from "Flicker Like a Candle", through "Dämmerung Im Traum" to
"Armageddon", what can be expect from an upcoming Stromkern album?
Well, we have one new song, "Ruin", that we've been playing a lot.
And a bunch of ideas. But I feel like all the demos, up until now, are just
rehashing the "Armageddon" sessions, so it's going to be awhile until the next
record is done. I'd like to say something will be out next year, but I make
no promises. We still have a lot of work to do pushing this one... I mean, I think
it's a good record, a solid record, so it deserves some time invested in it.
I don't want to just hurry up and throw out another release just to say "look,
we can release a record every year". Especially because now it seems like
people might actually be listening, or something.
What can you expect? I think it will definitely be a more "live" sounding
album. Less studio trickery and more RAWK. Well, maybe not so much rawk,
but... basically, I just want real drums, and that's the end of that. But
I'd like to revisit some of the more introspective, classical moments as well,
I think we lost some of that on "Armageddon" and I'd like to find a balance.
C.B. - Unlike what frequently happens in the electro music genre, your lyrics
make sense and appear to be worked out to become an integral part of a song
instead of just filler-up material.
Where do you usually draw inspiration for your lyrics? Personal
experiences, world events, literary and musical sources...?
There's a lot of personal stuff in there, sure. I just look at the world
around me, and try to write a song. My lyrics end up being very personal,
to me, but hard to talk about, not because they're painful or anything,
but often because I don't quite know how to talk about them. The lyrics, the
music, it's all a big package. You can't dissect it. It's a whole greater than
the sum of its parts, and if I could do it in any individual part, I wouldn't
need to be spending bazillions of dollars and years of my life making these
records.
I'm starting to get more into storytelling in my lyrics. We'll see what
happens. Usually, I just try to start with a concept. Like "Perfect
Sunrise", we were like, OK, I have this line, "if God wants to punish you
he'll answer your prayers". So, what does that mean? What does that make
you think about? And the lyrics came from there. "Night Riders", once I had
that mental image of the Serbs bombing us to kingdom come, that was easy.
C.B. - How does your process of song-writing usually work? Do music and lyrics
evolve simultaneously or does one take precedence over the other?
They usually evolve separately. I'll do some music, or Kelly will, or
whatever, and once we have some beats and a bassline, I'll start working
on a vocal melody, or more often a vocal rhythm; and then once that's quasi in
place, I find some words from my Folder o' Words, and start mashing everything
together until it fits.
C.B. - While the lyrics to songs in "Flicker..." and "Dämmerung..." had a more
introspective feeling to them, several songs in "Armageddon" have lyrics
which are metaphors (sometimes rather explicit ones, like in "Terrorist")
about 'outside world issues' which gives rise to the feeling that this is an
album with a very marked political and ideological charge.
Was this evolution a conscious one or did it simply evolve like this?
I can see why people think this, but "Armageddon" isn't supposed to be a
political record. I don't want to be political. I express my own viewpoint,
sure, but it's not political like Consolidated-political, or even Snog-political.
A lot of stuff on "Dämmerung Im Traum" deals with the same sort of ideas - liberation,
revolution, destruction, etc. - that "Armageddon" does. Hell, "Heretic"
is really the basic expression of all of it; "Night Riders" just provides
a setting to couch it all in...
...and for the record, "Terrorist" was written long before the 11th
[-- WTC bombings... S.B.]. It did have to do with the title, to a certain extent,
but any other similarities are purely coincidental - and kind of frightening.
C.B. - "Armageddon" gives the idea that you have a personal interest in politics,
or at least personal opinions. Are you involved in political activism of any
sort?
Goodness no. I vote, I think George W. Bush is an idiot, but that's about
as far as it goes. I keep up on things, events and so on, and certainly have opinions,
but I'm not an activist or anything. It just doesn't seem like that's the most
effective way to change people's minds. Everyone hates the fucking Greenpeace
assholes asking you for 3 hours of your time to explain to you why saving the whales
is a worthy investment. We *know* it is. Those people are annoying. Greenpeace
does not do themselves any favours by being annoying. It seems like a much better
idea to just instil in people the idea that, hey, if we just live our lives like
intelligent, thoughtful human beings, we won't get into these messes, and the whales
will be just fine, and we can tell Greenpeace and their $2 billion a year "non-profit"
status to go fuck themselves and leave us alone.
C.B. - What is your opinion on the evolution of the world situation since the
September 11th attacks and the highly mediatized 'War On Terrorism', which
seems more of a crusade for revenge and show of military power (as well as
boosting the President's approval ratings) instead of addressing the real
causes of the problem (rampant misery, oppression, ignorance)?
Of course, that's all it is. A quick fix. It's no different than in 92.
I mean, Clinton was a dweeb, but he was a smooth talking dweeb, and he knew how
to keep a lot of people happy. Did things get better under the Clinton
administration? Probably not. Did evil corporations still get trillions of
dollars in tax breaks? I'm sure. But enough things were done to at least...
well, I don't know that anything *good* was actually *done*, but everyone
felt like it was. We weren't on the brink of war. We weren't goading
nuclear powers into a fight. I mean, don't get me wrong, Clinton wasn't all
that either, and he did nothing to address the causes of the problems facing
the world, but he at least seemed to keep things from getting worse. It seemed
more civilized, somehow.
But, what do you want. This is the age of WWF and Fox and reality TV. People
don't care, and if the people don't care, ain't nuthin' gonna happen. If enough
people fuss, things will change. Now, what constitutes a fuss, that's a different
story.
Things sure aren't looking good... I hope something can be salvaged before we all
blow each other to bits. It was weird, the first 36 hours after the 11th, the whole
country was actually honest for a little while. Everyone was seriously fucking
freaked out, and no one knew what was up, and reactions were what they were. Two days
later, of course, the machinery took over, and it was business as usual. That was
the most depressing part of it for me. That, and the fact that 5000+ people died
for no readily apparent reason. I think it's important to reiterate that, although
it's easy to point fingers, and say "we had this coming", and so on, it's still a
terrible, terrible tragedy. 5000 people die in a earthquake, that's awful, sure;
but 5000 people die as a result of a premeditated act of terror, I don't care
whose side you're on, that's just terrible, period.
C.B. - What are your opinions on the Internet and the concept of music sharing?
What about the attacks of the 'Big Music Industry' on file-sharing
applications claiming that it destroys music by causing profit loss (while
spending millions in advertising and legal fees against P2P servers)?
Well, it does cause profit loss. No question about it. On the one hand,
my first reaction to this for the last several years was just that this was
the same story as the '70s, "home taping is killing the music industry"... or
the VCR. People still buy and rent movies. It's OK. Instead of making
billions and billions of dollars, they're only making billions of dollars.
But in music, it's harder; there's a lot more independent types, and people
who used to be able to make a living at it are having a harder time of it,
as a result of this file sharing business. The major artists don't
care, because they've always known that you don't make any money off the
sale of the stupid fucking CDs anyways: that money all goes straight back to
the record label coffers, to pay off your insurmountable debt to them. You,
as an artist, make money off of publishing, and t-shirt sales, and marketing
the hell out of yourself. The CDs, that's just icing on the cake. Very, very
few major label bands ever see any money from the sale of CD. So for them, it's
not as much of an issue. For the *labels* it's an issue - they're the ones
getting fucked, because the artists already have the advance money, but the
labels aren't recouping because they aren't selling as many records, and
while the artists still technically owe them the money, you can't get blood
from a stone.
There are a couple of problems, none of which are being addressed by the
RIAA's lawsuits. (1): labels are putting out shit - no, wait, *bands*
are putting out shit, and the labels are encouraging them by releasing
it. Quality control, very important. (2): it's easier and cheaper to
make a record than ever before, so lots more people are doing so. There's
a glut in the market. (3): people are greedy bastards who would rather
take something for free because it's easier than spending money on it.
Let's face it, people steal records, all the time, every day. It's one thing
to burn a CD from a friend - that requires effort. But to just pull it off
the Net, that requires zero effort. It's a real problem. I'd like to see
it go away. But the real fans, people who have always been music people,
they still buy records, 'cuz they get it. The people who grab a track from
Kazaa, probably never would have bought the record anyways, so it's not like
you're losing a sale. The problem is now, you have a whole generation who are
being brought up to think that music is basically free. How are you going
to convince all these kids to go buy records instead of just nabbing them?
You can't copy-protect it. There is always some hax0r in Norway who has
more time on his hands than you do, who is going to crack your copy
protection. The problem is extremely fundamental. I don't know what
to do about it. Get back to me on this one.
C.B. - Getting a bit away into some 'less-serious' issues... the upcoming
Stromkern tour in 2002. What are your expectations for this tour, both at
home and in Europe? Will this be a Stromken-only tour, with occasional
collaboration with other bands, or will you be accompanied by another band?
Well, for the first chunk of the US tour, we'll be out with Seabound.
I'm not sure it's the greatest match-up in the world, but they're nice guys,
they did a great remix for us, I know their manager, and blah blah blah, it
seems like it could help us both a lot - some places are more keen on them
than us and vice versa. Europe, don't talk to me about Europe, I don't know
if/when that's going to happen again. I hope next year. So after the first
2 1/2 weeks with Seabound we'll be out on our own, possibly accompanied by
another under appreciated American electro act who shall remain nameless ;-)
I think the tour will be good, I think we'll play to good crowds, it seems like
people want to see us and I think our live show has matured to the point where
it's interesting and we know how... we're comfortable up there, now, so it's not
like "oh look, they're pressing buttons for the first time". Only time will
tell, I suppose. Ask me in November sometime, "how did the tour go?" "They
ate my guitar in Tulsa."
C.B. - Touring involves some time investment and one might suppose that you don't
make a living from your music as Stromkern. How do you balance 'real-life'
work with 'music-work' and add touring to the mix?
I'll just quit a job, or tell them "hey guys, I'm gonna be
gone for 2 months, like it or lump it" and let come what may. But I've
been awfully lucky to have jobs where the people I work for understand
I have this music thing, and they're pretty easy to deal with about it.
Right now I work for the University of Wisconsin's computer science
department, and they're not quite as understanding, so we'll see. Working
on new material is getting harder and harder to do, to find the time and
energy for that and balance the job at the same time. Something's gotta
give, so I'm going to see what I can do to ease the pain, so to speak.
C.B. - Having performed in both sides of the Atlantic and at some point having
moved to Germany, how would you compare the U.S. and North European
audiences for your music (commonly referred to as 'scenes')?
The Euro audiences weren't so hot - with the exception of the audience
at M'era Luna 2000 - but part of that was that we were playing to Velvet
Acid Christ's crowd and... well... they have their crowd, and we have ours,
and I'm not sure there's a whole lot of overlap there. But I think a lot of
our fans are a lot like me - I mean, I'll rarely, if ever, go up to someone
in a band after a show, even a really excellent show, and go "hey man, great
gig, let's talk about something" - which lots of people feel compelled to do,
for some reason. I don't, and I don't think most of the people who listen
to Stromkern do. Not that that's a bad thing, talking to bands, it's just...
I get the sense a lot of our fans are very introspective types. Then again,
some of our fans are raving maniacs, so maybe I should just shut up while I'm
ahead. To answer the question: the US audiences have been better, but since
we've been playing regularly in the US, we've been better, so maybe the Euro
folks will warm up to us if we take the new live line-up over there. Although
part of it... I've always tried to perform as much live as possible, and that's
not something really valued in this "scene", certainly not in Europe. It
was never about rock'n'roll in Europe, it was about Depeche Mode and Simple
Minds and Kraftwerk. So it's all about show and how much makeup you're
wearing and gimmicks and so on, to an extent at least. And that stuff plays
here as well, but if you get up and play a fucking rock show in the USA,
that still connects with people on a very visceral level that I think goes
over the heads of a lot of European crowds. I remember seeing the Jon
Spencer Blues Explosion over there, in 98 or 99, and it was this awesome
rocking machine of a show, and there were a few kids bouncing around, but I
later discovered they were nearly all foreigners. The Germans were just standing
there. It's like, it's fucking ROCK, man, get into it! I don't know. Does
that answer your question?
C.B. - After reading Smoove B's "I'll Treat You Right" column in 'The Onion' that
you highlighted in your site, I feel compelled to ask: how seriously do you
take yourself and your music-work in particular? How do you feel about fans
that view musicians as a sort of unreachable inhuman divine-like entities?
I take our music very seriously, I take music in general seriously, maybe
too seriously. But that doesn't mean I can't poke fun at it when I'm off-camera,
so to speak. Maybe we'd be more successful if I'd have some über-spooky
website and updated a LiveJournal every day about how I was about to go
sacrifice a goat before engaging in a wild sex orgy, but I can't be bothered,
really. I'm not entirely sure who was responsible for the Smoove B pisstake.
I think it was an ex-girlfriend, but I can't be sure. It's funny as hell,
in any event. Even better is the Seecolinslash live acoustic cover of
"Night Riders". It's still online, somewhere, I'm sure. Track it down,
it's worth it.
Musicians are just people. It does bother me, that people tend to think
of successful musicians as these untouchable god figures. They're just
people, for chrissake. Most of them are dicks, some of them are nice,
they all go to the bathroom and tend to lead far less interesting lives than
anyone likes to believe. But, at the same time, that's what the public wants.
No one wants to get to know these bands - it would ruin the fantasy. That's
why we're on a 6' elevated stage, and you're standing there, staring at us.
It's not so much because we want to be up there, but more because you want
to be down below looking up. Being a rock star, to a rock star (or a wannabe
rock star, I suppose) fulfils a simple narcissistic need in the rock star,
but it fulfils a far greater need to many other people. I'm not sure I
entirely understand it, but it sure seems to be the case.
C.B. - In closing, we'd like to thank you for this interview. Do you have any
final words or requests? ;-)
Thanks for the interview!
Heretic II (visionary) MP3
Nightriders (album version) MP3
Melt MP3
Re-Align (live) MP3
-- interview by Miguel de Sousa. Press photo by Eric Hall; Group photo by
Dan Lavalley; live photos by Sam Atakra
(www.atakra.com) and E. Katie Holm
(www.ekatieholm.com), used with
permission. (September 2002)
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