Interview with legendary HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS: There’s no end of learning

You worked with a plethora of artists over the years. What collaborations were/are the most interesting and important to You and why?

All of them were and are very important in terms of accepting and agreeing to their different personalities, to learn how to listen carefully in which way they were and are acting or reacting when we play either live or in the studio together.

With most of them I was and still am deeply befriended not just connected as collegues working together at interesting projects.

There’s no end of learning because with every day the complexity of life is confronting us with new challenges. Seeds become slowly fruits.

With David Bowie, 2003.

You are one of the men who created Krautrock. How was it born (and is alive until now)?

That’s what people say that are not really aware of the corpus of work, respectively everything I did myself and within groups such as Kluster and Cluster.

It’s said that we co-founded Krautrock but it is much more than that. We’re following the intelectual and emotional challenges of a new age of awareness that will bring peace and freedom to the societies.

In Japan people call us „originators of space-age"
 
Can You tell me, in short, the main ideas behind Your music? Could You name Your favorite compositions / albums / collaborations? What about the new album?

The main idea behind my own music is Life itself with all its ups and downs. But this was also the main idea behind my first collaborations with others in a constant learning process that continues until now.

There are uncountable compositions/albums/ projects to mention, all of them important steps into what’s still going on. The last „new“ album, named „Einfluss“ with collegue/friend Arnold Kasar, was released June 2017 by „Deutsche Grammophon“ which is one of the flagship-labels for classical music.

So our music is becoming classical!

 
The sound is magic. You‘ve proved it. But, what ends, when there‘s no sound?

Which sound ? What did I proove? What ends? There’s always sound!

I did what I did without any other purpose than learning by doing it.
 
What is and what is not a Sound Art?

It was sound art from the beginning and it is still tone-sound-art what I do nowadays. I/we always followed the principles of art.

What do You think about relations between the old art and computer art? Are they compatible?

A creative mind won’t see any real difference. Creativity uses what is there to work with in any moment.

Of course it’s easier today to travel for concerts just with a Lap and an I-Pad instead of a heavy keyboard and other analogue stuff!

Cluster, 1971
 
What do You think about thousands of neofolk/industrial/ambient/tribal/electroacoustic/avant-garde etc. bands/projects? Is it a kind of trend, or just a tendency towards better music?

It’s reality, whether better music or not, whether tendency to a better music. Music was ever and will become more and more the Emperor of arts.

Not only psychoacoustiquely it teaches people to understand that only love can solve the problems caused by the fear and greed of the few of us that aren’t aware of the inner sense of any religion.
 
What do You know about Lithuania? What Lithuanian musicians do You know?

Ancestors from my mother's side come from far east of former Prussia. It may have been Lithuania?

Cluster played once (long ago) in Tallinn. I remember well that mostly girls/women attended our show in an old Castello outside the center.

Almost all of them proudly beautiful. It was weird because normally to concerts of electronic music (at that time at least) came mostly only male-listeners.

I’m not aware of any Lithuanian contemporary musian, sorry.

What inspires You most?

My life with my family, my wife, our three kids and three (soon four) grandkids, our two dogs, two cats and two hamsters. Nature itself, The place where we live in between the Beethoven- and the Mozart-house in a beautiful yard inmidst the old village of Baden near Vienna.

By what I’m enabled to do by birth, by our festival „More Ohr Less“, by all our projects, our journeys all over the globe, by our friends and fans worldwide.

Thanks god I'm still able to do lifewise and artwise what I have to.

Jeeeeppppppeeeeehhhhhhhhhh…..

Thank You.

Useful links:

www.bio.roedelius.com

www.more-ohr-less.com

http://smazars.blogspot.co.at/2017/06/carpe-diem-oder-die-gegenwart-als.html