KMFDM Return With Let Go
Chatting with Sascha Konietzko as the band preps U.S. tour behind new album
Calling from his home Hamburg, Germany, KMFDM leader Sascha Konietzko laughs as he describes what it’s like to put a new album out into the world – as his band just did in early February when they released their 22nd album, Let Go (via Metropolis Records).
“It’s like, in a way, giving birth – like maybe sharks do. They give birth and then they abandon their children,” Konietzko says, amused. He explains that this is because of lengthy gap between recording an album and actually getting it out into the world. By the time that finally happens, he says, “I’m so done with it. There’s a good amount of time going by where I really, really don’t care. And then of course comes the release date and I have to face other people’s opinions –which are not really all that important to me, but [if] everybody says it totally blows, that would kind of suck, actually.”
Fortunately, he adds, Let Go is receiving positive reactions so far. And, he admits later in the conversation, he does hope that listening to this album will make fans “feel empowered or happy or positive, or make them want to drive around real fast.”
He’ll get a chance to see people’s reactions firsthand when KMFDM undertake a lengthy U.S. tour starting in early March. He can’t wait to get back out in front of fans again: “That’s always really spectacular because there’s so much energy coming from our audiences. I’m always amazed at the fact that so many young kids come to our shows, as well. I’m talking like twelve, thirteen, fourteen year olds with their parents. They’re standing in the front row, and they know every line of every song. It’s crazy. It’s good.”
But even as he looks forward to these shows, Konietzko admits he’s already thinking ahead to future endeavors. “I’m sure that when I get back from this tour I’ll be on my next project. I’m actually working with Lucia [Cifarelli, KMFDM’s vocalist] on some new stuff for her solo project. Going to start working with my daughter; she wants to record some songs. And I’m sure there will be some time in between that I can focus on new KMFDM material.”
Being so prolific is, he says, “just really part of me. I don’t know what else to do: I’m not the guy that mows the lawn or does some remodeling around the house. I’m just sitting in my studio and coming up with stuff.
“Inspiration really is everywhere –I’m inspired twenty times a day,” he continues. “I’m writing things down I’m hearing. I’m recording stuff on a portable device or on my cell phone. On a regular day, my kid goes off to school and it’s 7:30 and I’m in my studio.” As he works on new material, “Little things will start to come to life and develop a thing of their own.”
Throughout the process, he says, “I’m never thinking too much about it. After all, KMFDM comes from a place of anti-art, so a certain playfulness is always a part of the game, as well. We don’t take ourselves absolutely seriously at all. We’re very serious about how we do things, but there’s always a good portion of self-deprecation and just fun.”
The tongue-in-cheek first single from Let Go, “Airhead,” proves his point, with lyrics that kick off with the line, “I was born in the year of the Chia Pet…” Konietzko believes that this approach is a key reason why KMFDM has been so successful for four decades now: “It’s just fun. It’s energizing.”
VIDEO: KMFDM “Airhead”
At the same time, there is a more serious underlying message that Konietzko hopes KMFDM is getting across. “It’s really simple. It’s kind of like, ‘Wake up, open your eyes, think for yourself, don’t believe the bullshit, and educate yourself.’ Because you don’t get educated in school. Education is work. You have to work hard on educating yourself. You don’t need the stuff you learn in school except for reading, writing, and a little bit of arithmetic. You’re not being prepared for the hardships and sudden curveballs that life throws you. I think it’s really important for young people to understand that nothing is very much as it seems. It’s important to turn things around and look at the back side and [say], ‘What is it that we’re dealing with here?’
This realist attitude certainly has resonated with listeners over the past four decades. “I hear quite a few people over the years telling me that KMFDM’s music and lyrics have helped them through dire times or overcome great pain,” Konietzko says. “That makes me feel good, obviously, because it’s not just mindless, brainless kind of stuff that is being consumed. It’s actually being listened to and has an effect on the listener, in at least some instances. I think that’s very rewarding for any person that creates.”
Konietzko recalls first noticing music’s power at an early age: “When I was maybe 11 [years old] I bought T. Rex’s The Slider. That was my first album, and I was totally in awe of that kind of stuff. Sometimes on German television there would be these shows where people like David Bowie or The Sweet or Gary Glitter or even Alice Cooper would come [on], and it was always like, ‘They’re so cool – they’re like gods!’”
But his ambition to follow in their footsteps was tempered by reality. After finishing school, he played bass in a couple of punk rock bands, but he had to hold down a job working the night shift at the Hamburg port in order to make ends meet.
Konietzko approached this situation with stoicism, realizing that his problems were small compared to what was going on in the world. “Growing up during the Cold War, the Iron Curtain was not further than about 15 miles away from where I lived here in Hamburg. So we had this constant ‘doom and gloom’ type of thing: ‘The world will end any minute if the Soviets decide to fire rockets.’”
But the bleak atmosphere did seep into the collective consciousness, it seemed. “The whole music scene in Germany at the time of my growing up was very much dominated by music that had nothing to do with rock and roll or blues; it had more to do with experimental stuff – ‘industrial’ in the true sense of the word, using machines to create sound rather than instruments,” he says. This aesthetic had a major influence on him.
After Konietzko switched to working as a photographer, he was invited to drive a group of visual artists to their exhibition in Paris. During that trip, he told the them about his musical endeavors, and they invited him to write an instrumental “sound installation” to accompany their art show. The edgy industrial soundscape he created made such an impression that he soon got commissions to do more work in this vein.
“I really found myself having a good time making super radical noise,” Konietzko says. “Then I bought myself a sampler, and that’s when I really started to get into electronic music stuff. And then before I knew it, me and some guys recorded some stuff in the studio.”
Originally naming the band Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid (loosely translated as “no pity for the majority”), they shortened it to KMFDM. Konietzko recalls that they were intent from the start on creating a unique mix of heavy guitars and danceable industrial riffs. “And I also really wanted to have female vocals – that was a really important thing from the get-go,” he says. “I didn’t want to fall in this category of toxic male shit. I wanted to make something that was empowering women and felt dance-y and yet sort of made you go, ‘Wow, fuck, this is hard! This is really good!’”
The band recorded an album, Opium, and printed a limited run of a thousand copies. Then Konietzko drove to London, where he dropped in at every record company he could find in the phone book – but none of the executives would meet with him. He returned to Germany, convinced the trip had been a waste of time.
Then, Konietzko recalls, his fortunes turned around: “A couple of months later I got a postcard from someone in Liverpool [at Skysaw Records], telling me that he had found a copy of my record in the dumpster at Mute Records, wanting to sign KMFDM and re-release the record for the U.K. and the U.S.”
Two years later, KMFDM had moved on to the influential Chicago record label Wax Trax!, and then opened for industrial music giants Ministry for 45 shows across North America. That exposure launched them into the stratosphere. “All of the sudden, KMFDM sold like 200,000+ albums,” Konietzko says.
The band have retained that lofty status ever since, remaining one of the most recognizable bands in the industrial music scene – and, given Konietzko’s talent and work ethic, it seems likely he’ll lead KMFDM through many more successful decades.
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