EGG IDIOT: The Interview
Dopo averlo seguito per 3 live di seguito durante il suo tour italiano, Baby Lemonade ha deciso di intervistare l’idolo dell’egg punk tedesco, George a.k.a. EGG IDIOT.
Intervista a
KLINT
+ bonus track
Baby Lemonade
I kinda missed the 90s.
But in the 2000s I started organizing concerts together with some younger people in our local youth center. We also organized some anti fascist, political events.We founded an official association called Profan (Probsteier Forum Anti Nationalism)
Dopo un incontro mancato al Get Lost 8 ad Amburgo, ho avuto l’occasione di entrare in contatto con Sven aka KLINT (Germania), creatore del cosiddetto “Viking Synth-punk”. Fin dalla prima volta che ho ascoltato la sua musica – che ho avuto modo di recensire e di aggiungere nell’ultimo Fritto Mixtape – sono rimasta incuriosita dal suo stile. In questa intervista Sven/KLINT, il vichingo, ci parla della sua visione del mondo di oggi, di ieri e di domani.
Questa intervista, inoltre, anticipa l’imminente uscita della seconda tape, “Existence”, prodotta dalla nostrana Goodbye Boozy Records. Per l’occasione KLINT ci ha regalato (oltre alle sue parole) un pezzo inedito con alle spalle una storia pazzesca, che troverete qui sotto tra le righe e sul nostro canale YuouTube.
Questo è quanto cari e care amanti del ROK, buona lettura a tutt*!!
Hi Sven, I’m so happy to do this interview, thank YOU so much for agreeing to answer to a few questions. After we lost the chance to meet in Hamburg al Get Lost, we couldn’t loose the occasion to know you and your art!
Let’s start talking about your solo project KLINT (that’s your surname, right?), how came out the idea of a Viking Punk returned from the past to fight against our society?
Your music reminds to me, in fact, a scenario of war or revolution. Your music is so fresh and original. I recognize there is a good part of egg-punk in it but, in the other hand, much of your vibes are unfamiliar to me. Where do you get the inspiration?
That’s right, KLINT is my surname. In the danish language it has the meaning “steep coast” or “cliff”. In german it is only a not so common name. We are living in northern germany near the danish border and near Haithabu.
1000 years ago Haithabu has been the so-called capital of the vikings and at that time with about 5000 inhabitants the largest trading place in Nothern Europe (this may sound a little ridiculous in italian ears). Located at the end of the 40 kilometer long and only ‘fjord’ in germany, going out from the baltic sea inland. From Haithabu it was therefore possible to transport (viking) ships over short distance on land to reach a near river wich flows into the north sea. This saved the vikings the long sea route around denmark.
Enough history, sorry me. But so it was clear to call my project “KLINT – Viking Synthpunk based in Haithabu”, as it should be a viking cliff of humanity in the rough seas of turbo-capitalism, nationalism, climate change, war et cetera.
I started at the beginning of this year with dusting off and repair the old instruments and bying additionally some old used hardware…after Caro (my wife) and Lars (Klint, my brother – he is playing in a band called “State of Value”, great, more the “Shades Apart” style…check it out) kicked my ass to finally do it.
The idea has been around a little longer, practically since Eggpunk hatched out. The Coneheads time, maybe. I wanted to do something like this. But additionally use a synthesizer, a nasty synthesizer. There is definitely a lot of untapped potential for synth in pumkrock.
Then the war came. And the first song was “Terrortorial Integrity”.
What’s your creative process?
Very different.
Sometimes I “steal” things and transform them.
Sometimes I have ideas and usually implement them first with the synth. Or with the guitar.
Actually a song must always theoretically be written in it’s entirety before I record the drums first. Of course I use a drum machine and this has to be programmed. It is fortunately very precise so it’s not too bad if I add some human mistakes by playing the instruments afterwards.
The recording machine is an analog Yamaha 8 track tape.
Your lyrics are a open critics over our society and, in particular, the war. How much all the catastrofic events (from the immigration issue to Middle East and Ukraine war and the pandemics) had influenced you as an artist and as a person?
These things touch and influence me every day. Espacially the war and the pandemic.
The pandemic simply because it has an impact on my profession. But also because of how people in my professional and private environment are reacting to the pandemic. I know some people who have never been politically active in their lives or have rebelled against any kind of abuse. But now seem to have found their purpose in life and know so much more than experts and professors. Or accuse them of conspiring with who knows who. And they don’t care about getting infiltrated in their bubble by fascists.
Last week a bought a book which was released a few days earlier. It is called “Heaven above Charkiw” written as a war diary by the Ukrainian artist Serhij Zhadan. I think he plays in a ska-punk band also. It is a tragedy. And a seemingly never ending story of warcrimes in 2022 committed by a terrorist state called Russia.
The war might not have been the mainspring for me to start to make music again, but it accelerated the whole thing. The war started Feb. 24… Two weeks later Gabriele released “Terrortorial Integrity” on Goodbye Boozy Records as a digital charity output. I really wish german government was as fast as this with delivering weapons to the Ukraine. The song was created without really knowing how to use the recording technology but with so much desperate hate as stimulation. It was similar with the song “Selected Welcome” regarding the refugees situation.
But at this point I have to say I also have doubts about my anti-nationalistic attitude because I would have expected russian civil society to get out on the streets on the morning of Feb. 24….in hundreds of thousands …in Moscow, in Sankt Petersburg, in Omsk, in Novosibirsk, in Wolgograd…..
But nearly nothing came. So I say russian civil society is naive, selfish, antisocial. And Russia is a terrorist state.
Precedente
Successivo
We can say you are a Pacifist Viking?
That was definitely over on Feb. 24..
I see no other way of stopping russian fascism and russian terrorism than through violent defense.
And it was definitely already over in 1990 when fascists from east Germany raided and burned asylum homes in our area. I remeber protecting them with violence.
And is about to be over when people want to exercise power over other people.
In other situations you can say I am a pacifist viking …or at least a humanist viking. But it is just noise.
When we spoke about doing this interview you said to me that the last interview you did was in the 80’s, when you used to play in the german punk band “Go Ahead”. I tried to do some research on the internet but i didn’t be able to find any information about it. Who were “Go Ahead”? did you play in other bands during this years?
Oh yeah, it must have been about 1000 years ago.
Go Ahead started in 1987, the hightime of american hardcore in Northern Germany (we are always a little later). I played bass guitar and lived in a small shared appartment together with our drummer Kalle (he did the legendary fanzine “Anti System” in the early Eighties and played together with our Go Ahead guitarist Ulf in the legendary band “Scapegoats“). Bille was our second guitarist and lived in an appartment with Ulf near to us in Kiels’ problem area “Gaarden”. Bille also made a fanzine but I forgot the name.
We always went to gigs in our area together (mostly with my brothers Tiny Giants kids). You are italian, I remember Negazione in Kiel, no one was dancing but me. I jumped on stage for diving but no one came to catch me. Negazione was laughing but afterwards playing Tutti Pazzi for me, haha.
We had our practise room upstairs from my parents shoe shop and made a demo tape wich was very well reviewed by Armin (X-Mist Records, still existing as fantastic label and mailorder) from TRUST Fanzine (first regulary releasing punk/hc zine in Germany – still existing). Because of this review we got a record deal and released an LP and single on Weird System (Label in Hamburg).
During that time I helped out in a unknown band called “Los Comas” and in the straight edge band of my brother called “Tiny Giants”.
Precedente
Successivo
I kinda missed the 90s.
But in the 2000s I started organizing concerts together with some younger people in our local youth center. We also organized some anti fascist, political events. We founded an official association called Profan (Probsteier Forum Anti Nationalism), this made it easier to get support from the city I lived in. It was a small town with about 6000 inhabitants. But the concerts were incredible. 200 people fit in the room. Most of the time it was packed with a mixed audience from the Kiel punk scene and the local village youth. That was the right educatioin for the young people. You had to dance because it was so packed. Sweat ran down the walls. Some kids told me years later that these gigs were the only shining point for them making their life worth living. Puh.
Precedente
Successivo
You come from a generation in which the digital wasn’t so much dominating as today in the way of doing music and mostly in the way of comunicate it. What’s your relationship with this new medium?
If the Internet can no longer be destroyed, at least the so-called social media should be switched off immediately. The loud-mouthed insanity that is allowed to be spoken out there with impunity in the form of lies, division, selection, hatred, hate speech, threats and fantasies of violence against minorities doesn’t deserve a platform.
I would also be happy if I could run to the post office every day for weeks, for example to receive the stone-carved single Raped Ass by our Swedish Viking colleagues Anti Cimex, which was ordered months ago and transported carefully by Viking longboats. That includes an appreciation that, with the flood of (very good) publications and their easy accessibility, falls far too far by the wayside for me these days. The quantity displaces the enjoyment.
So I buy more tapes in these days as in the Eighties and equal amount of vinyl.
(But of course I use Bandcamp. It is a drug and costs lifetime. And of course I should go to the Fediversum. We all should go. No Punk Rocker should use twitter, no Ukrainian will buy a tesla)
You said to me that you are “full time working in a normal stressing job”, what do you do for living? Are your everyday job and your musical career anyhow related?
I don’t just do this to make a living, I really enjoy doing it.
I am shoemaker master. Like my forefathers have been since the year 1776 (proven). Now in industrial times of course as orthopedic shoemaker. Caro has the same technical schooling.
We serve people with severve disabilities throughout the northern area of germany (Bundesland Schleswig-Holstein) with handmade orthopedic shoes. Caro is a technical genius. And I’m allowed to deliver the shoes made by her. I take the plaster casts from the mostly spastic deformed feed and have the direct contacts to the care facilities and the disabled people. I love this. I love the people with disabilities.
One of them, his name is Mario, is the biggest Kraftwerk fan worldwide. And becuse of their song Autobahn the biggest fan of german Autobahnen. Despite his handicaps, he can draw Germany’s entire Autobahn network by heart. Of course he gets his orthopedic shoes in Autobahnschild/highway sign blue and with the white Autobahn street sign as embroidery. And because he is also a true audiophile I made a song for his birthday called “Elektro-Mobilität”. His carers are still grateful to me to be able to hear this song day and night at full volume from his room, haha.
I still get angry when I think about times in Germany my grandfather lived through. People with disabilities were obliged to wear a black triangle as a mark of identification, similar to the Jews’s star. Until 1942 they too were systematically killed. With this past I still find it difficult to be proud of anything in germany.
Most of the mentally not so disabled people know my music because I always tell about it and play it. Some of them are my greatest fans. This is something I can not say about other people in my area. Otherwise it is a very international scene in which we move. If I want to talk to people who like similar music like me I have to drive to Hamburg. It seems like Punx in Schleswig Holstein never heard about things like eggpunk, synthpunk et cetera. The scene does not move here. Not yet.
NAME ONE SONG, ONE ALBUM AND ONE BAND/ARTIST YOU REALLY LIKE AND SUGGEST TO OURS READERS
Only one?
A must know from the past (for younger readers): Verbal Assault – Learn. And new…I bet your readers watch the scene but perhaps they overlooked this:
Song: Circuits – Mediocrity
Album: Sprgrs EP1
Nearly everything: Platinum Crack
If I’m not mistaking, you were at Get Lost’s first day. What were your favorite bands?
Yes, I was there only at friday and I was really looking forward to it. It was the first gig for me in years. And then with some of my favorite bands.
All the bands were incredibly good.
Pink Room surprised me the most. I did not expect this insanity. They reminded me of NoMeansNo.
Clearly: Prison Affair and Powerplant knocked me out of my socks.
But Chain Whip… I couldn’t control myself anymore and as an almost thousand years old viking I was right in front of the stage…in the pit…and immediatly got an elbow in the face. Never mind, I felt so good in the pit again. It was like in the eighties. This energy. I still love this kind of HC punk.
What bands you’d really like to see live?
7 Seconds. I always missed them. I love their spirit. But I think they quit.
Dr. Sure. I missed them last week in Hamburg.
I’m looking forward to Mononegatives in Europe. They told me they will try to come.
And of course you can see me in the pit again if Gee Tee and RRC actually do a eurpean tour in 2023. If I haven’t turned to dust yet.
We at Super Stanzy are crazy about Twix and one of a ritual question during the interviews is “TWIX or Mars”. But we are crazy for kebab too. After Turkey, Germany it’s like the homeland of kebab and falafel, so I’m going to ask you: KEBAB or FALAFEL?
Sorry, no Twix, no Mars. You should try Lindt, especially the Lindor balls, in hazelnut.
Kebab. That is clear.
LEGGI ANCHE
Ferruccio Quercetti (CUT) – Interview
Ferruccio deu CUT, band storica bolognese. C’è tanto da imparare.
Italia 90 – Interview
La delegazione Super Stanzy / Pizze di Liquirizia colpisce ancora. Super intervista con la band inglese più italiana di sempre.
CLUTTERED GROTTO – Interview
Punk californaino di soli 12 anni. Intervistato da Saldacani.
ANTARES – Un album di cover degli WILDHEARTS
Si chiama Shitzophonics e ci sono tutte le hit della band di New Castle. Matt Ragazzi commenta l’album e Yuri si concede ai microfoni di Super Stanzy
Spya Sola – “The Kidnapping” compilation
Spya Sola s’innamora, e inizia a cercare progetti DIY in lingua italiana. Non é facile trovarli, quasi impossibile , cosí 3 anni dopo nasce “The Kidnapping”.
The Lost Record
Edoardo Serena ha intervistato la coppia Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, Chain and The Gang ecc…) Cabral a Milano, dopo la presentazione del loro film “The Lost Records”.
