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Interview with Anatol Bogendorfer for
www.kathodik.it
in the year 2003
questions: Lush Rimbaud
1) First of all, compliments for "vagabond", we all enjoyed that record so much, moreover it's recorded by Steve Albini. Could you tell us something about recording with such a great engineer. We are curious to know something about your experience.
As you can imagine we were asked this question for many times. Let me try to keep the game interesting for me with answering the question with a minus/plus game. The winner is already known at beginning of the game:
It´s British Airways for two reasons:
1) They got all the passengers from the Spanish Airline Iberia which began to strike 1 day before our departure.
2) They had one extra-meal left on board for the fatass broker bastard in the first class as I don´t eat this plane-food in general.
Plus:
* He is a smart and gentle guy.
* He knows his tools and is therefore a very good sound engineer.
* He let the band work and tell no one what to do (except his employees).
* He is honest enough to tell me not to worry too much about grammatical faults in my lyrics as no one understands what I am talking about anyway.
* He owns a espresso machine and became a hero at the moment when he decided to let bands use it as well, so they can avoid getting in
contact with the end of the history of coffee: American Coffee.
* He knows what the german (and not translatable) word "gemütlich" means.
Minus:
* He sleeps longer than 3 people who are in contact for the first time
in their lives with a non-phenomenon called Jetlag.
* A short break during the recordings introduced with the words "I´ll be right back" can last for a while.......
* He knows too much about other countries´ cultures. You hardly ever can impress him with a story that he didn´t know before.
* He owns more band T-Shirts than I do.
Plus:
* They knew a lot about Albinis strategy and decided because of this to
go to record with him in Chicago.
* They had a long training period before they went there.
Minus:
* They didn´t know that the name Steve Albini will be with them on every concert-flyer and in every review until they decide to record their next record with the daughter of Ornella Muti.
2) Now let's talk about your sound, we recognise a wide spectrum of influences in it, from punk rock to emo, passing through math rock and noise. What are the bands that influenced your sound most right this moment? What are you listening to in this period?
Yes. I think you´re right. There is a wide spectrum of influences as we
are fans of a lot of different types of music in general. That´s it.
It would be a little too funky to name bands directly that I feel
influenced in a particular period. That doesn´t make sense to me.
But I can tell you what I was listening to in the last few days if this
excuses my straight answer about an abstract thing called "influences".
Keiji Haino, The Jesus Lizard ("Goat"; still one of the best records
ever), the new Melt Banana, Hank Williams, Themselves, The Paper Chase, Deadzibel, a lot of Demo tapes; Sun Ra; Low, Nina Nastasia;
Again, I do not care and waste time with thinking about the idea of putting music in different genres in the year 2003.
3) Your music is quite complex and articulated, otherwise the lyrics
are musically simple and immediate, this discordance sounds very
interesting. How do you compose your music? Do you use a specificprocess or it's more casual?
I don´t wanna think that our songwriting is very special. We are just a band. A trio ! ...and we are not interested in popular music and its stereotypes !
It just takes us a long time to write a song.
Why? Because we are in the nice position to call ourselves non-musicians.
And we are in the excellent position to call ourselves non-artists.
This avoids on the one side assholeness and boredom.
This avoids illusions about anything.
This avoids the pressure to think about things in an unnatural way.
This gives to the band the freedom how to deal with its ideas of music.
On the other side all this facts need and deserve time to be able to tell ourselves in the end: We are happy with the things we are doing.
Another explanation for the reason why the songwriting in Valina takes a while:
We don´t think we are a very good band. And we don´t take cocaine.
So we always have to work hard and long on our musical ideas to satisfy our needs.
4) What is changed for you as a band after "into arsenal of codes"?
The most obvious and maybe the most important change was the fact that a lot of people in and outside of Austria heard of this band Valina for the first time after "Into arsenal.." was out.
..and some of them seemed to like it. So they spoke about us and with us. They engaged us for concerts. They wrote reviews. They gave us food, drinks and bad sleeping places.
We enjoyed that and continued doing the things we like to do. Playing a lot of shows. Beeing in the rehearsel room and play around with our ideas of music. Mind our own buisness. Organising our band and the financial/time troubles of it´s three members. See some nice spots in Europe.....
We made friends and no kids.
Followed by the year we prepared the "Vagabond" album.......
5) Did you enjoy your last italian tour?Do you like some italian bands?
Italia e bella terra !
Oh yes.
This year we played our first shows in Italy on our Europe tour in march which lasted for more than 5 weeks. No joke - the Italian shows were the highlight and brought the most satisfying moments of the tour. There we experienced nearly every day and at every show the things which are so important for us. We were not minimized to the status of the band which comes and goes. We met a lot of interesting and nice people who introduced us to their country, their culture and their countercultures. I don´t wanna talk too much now about all the Italian chliches which we also like a lot......coffee, pasta, ragazze......
I wanna tell you that I had the feeling that there are a lot of people in Italy who are into good music and who are an active part in different scenes. Cultural scenes, musical scenes, political scenes.......
People treated us well. We became friends with a lot of people. Many people attended the shows.
Well, and then Paolo our Italian booking agent organized a few months later a 2weeks Italian only tour which even topped everything we experienced before.
And, yes, we were lucky to play nearly every night with young but very good bands......Disco Drive, Three in One Gentleman Suit, Lush Rimbaud,........
6) Talk us about the music scene in Austria especially for indie rock bands. Do you feel part of a peculiar "scene" or not?
I don´t think that there is a particular indie rock scene in austria.
There are some bands around which are more or less connected with eachother.
Some of them are really good. Some of them suck. As everywhere on this planet.
We are out of Linz.
There was always a good independent music scene around an indie club called Kapu.
But this indie scene is defined by friendship, a way of life and different forms of countercultures rather than just by musical terms.
We have friends in HipHop Bands as well as in Hardcore Bands as well as people who don´t play in bands but do things we really appreciate.
If you wanna know some bands ...here´s my top 9 list of Austrian bands which mean or meant a lot to me....
Kurort, Bulbul, Deadzibel, Texta, Guigue, United Movement, Strahler 80, Sensual Love, Bug.
7) Now a little digression...What does "Valina" mean?
Nothing in particular.
I once heard that Eskimo wives say this word to their husbands after they fucked the whole night through.
It means something like: Thanks, Darling, can you please turn off the Elvis record now !
8) Do you play in parallel projects/bands?
No. Not really.
Husbert Huber played recently some basslines on a country album.
But there are no other regular musical activities beside Valina.
9) Are you working on a new album? What's your future projects?
We were at the studio recently to record one song for a split 7inch
with the Minneapolis based band Sicbay.
There are these two labels, one in France and one in England, which
asked us to do this limited Tour-single.
And as we have never done a tour single before we agreed. I like the
idea that people who attend our shows can bring a special gift to their
sons and daughters at home.
Beside this... there are no extraordinary plans for the future.
We´re gonna tour Europe (with Sicbay) in February and March 2004. After Europe we´re gonna head to the USA.
And after this...even more shows somewhere. You see...we play a lot. And I tell you something: there´s nothing better right now than sitting in the van, read, drive, dream - go out of the car ..... get to know some
people......have a beer at that bar.....eat pasta in Italy ..... drink wine in france......make friends in Kopenhagen....etc. etc.
We slowly start thinking about our next record. Nothing is for sure yet.
We just start to work on new songs.
...and this will take time..........
10) Can you mentioned us some artistical works (not only musical) which has inspired or impressed you?
A lot of people ask us this particular question. I don´t know why.
Hmm.....Let´s see.....
I didn´t attend that many art exibitions in the last few months.
I´ve seen a great performance of a guy called marc9 who built this electromechanical orchestra.
He made music out of tedium objects that were operated by simple relais which were again operated by himself. Beside the experimental character of this project marc9 managed to make real great music with a lot of rhythmical elements in it.....Amazing.
Does this influence me. I don´t know.
In general, I guess all members of Valina are more or less influenced by a lot of art as everyone often go to see other people doing things. Call it art. Call it...watching people who do things they think of this is their natural way how to spend the day.
Some of this art is total crab, I think, some of it is so good that I am happy to have not missed it or happy to simply know it.......
I guess there is, again, no special artistical work which kinda influenced us in an obvious way.
Some of us read books about capitalism or religion - some of us read books about the history of pin up magazines as well as books about the shoa...., you know.
I love the films by the Coen brothers. Fellini. I love Robert Altman. The Wanderers. Benigni. David Lynch.....and I know Tinto Brass too.
But even more important are the hundred underground movies I have seen at my friends houses, but I have forgotten the titles, actors and directors...as I used to think for a long time that I am not interested in movies. I was wrong !
Claus, our drummer is maybe a dictionary of art.
Husbert is down to the ground and therefore a notorious sceptic guy concerning good art.
One thing in the end which just came to my mind....
Concerning songlyrics......I feel obviously influenced by David Yow of Scratch Acid and The Jesus Lizard. He´s the best.
I will never be able to steal him the show......................
11) Ok, let's end the interview leaving you free to say anything you want to Kathodik readers..
Prendiamo qualcosa al bar !
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