Deine Lakaien - August 2010

Interview with

Alexander Veljanov of Deine Lakaien

DEINE LAKAIEN have been around for some twenty five years now and have been responsible for some thirteen albums as diverse in style as anyone could imagine. Consisting of German / Macedonian Alexander Veljanov on vocals and Ernst Horn, classical conductor and pianist, they have trodden an unusual path of experimental Dark Wave / Gothic which have led them to be all at once rejoiced and reviled by sectors of the media. I managed to catch half an hour with Alexander to discuss all things DEINE LAKAIEN earlier this month.

RoD: Alexander, nice to speak with you and thanks for your time. Can you tell me, you started with an electronic sound, went through a myriad of styles and have finally returned to a sound more akin to the sound at your inception, was that a deliberate journey through or did it happen more ergonomically?
Alexander: Between the last studio album and ‘April Skies’ there was a break of five years, we had a big orchestra project with the New Philharmonic Frankfurt, also we had time out for our solo projects: Ernst with his and me with my Macedonian album and after five years of course we started a year ago with writing songs. But yeah, after ‘April Skies’, we had once again the feeling that we should concentrate on our basics because we started in the mid 80's as a typical synth-wave duo, and it was always electronics and voice only and it was always our dream. DEINE LAKAIEN never tried to copy bands like DEPECHE MODE or other heroes from the 80's from the synth pop genre; we always tried to have an individual sound. We always used old analogue synthesisers from the 80's, we're still working with them, we don't use any presets because we wanted to have our own typical sound and we tried with this album, compared to ‘April Skies’, to concentrate on that again.

RoD: I understand that your name comes from the lyrics of an EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN track, 'Die Genaue Zeit'?
Alexander: Well, yeah, EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN, there is this phrase “Auch Lakaien haben Taktgefühl” - and there was this idea of trying to start a pop, well no not pop, more of trying to start this post punk wave project, but making it clear that we don't want to become pop stars or whatever, we were not interested in top 10 singles and things like that and Lakaien means something like “lackey”, so we just wanted to state that we are musicians and we regard ourselves as maybe like musicians in the 18th century, workers and artists, and yeah we are lackeys for our audience and for the god which is music. We also wanted to have a name which was different because in this period of the 80's it was the end of the German Neue Deutsche Welle (dark new wave), and there were just so may horrible bands in the end just produced by the major companies to make a lot of money and we wanted to sound different and to have a different kind of name.

RoD: I see, so a little then about your background if we could? Your half Macedonian I understand?
Alexander: I'm half and half, half German and half Macedonian and I grew up with both cultures and both languages

RoD: So as a lot of your songs are very political and really have something to say, do you therefore draw on German or Macedonian history as a source of inspiration?
Alexander: I think that my background of course is inspiration and influences a lot of my thinking and how I'm trying to express myself in lyrics. I don't know if you ever listened to my solo project 'Porta Macedonia' but I tried to write songs about why do we have categories in Europe of different European nations, first class, second class, third and whatever? Also on 'Indicator' there are songs which continue this line, 'Europe', about who has the right to live in Europe and why. I think it's important to pick up questions about these things.... and we're not singer/songwriters like BOB DYLAN or JOAN BYEZ but we're very political people, we grew up in different times and Ernst is a bit older than me, more the '68 generation, and I grew up in this punk and post punk atmosphere and there were always very important bands who tried to command things, political things, it's a good tradition to go with.

RoD: Yeah, it’s great to hear music with such lyrical substance to it. It's great that you have socially pertinent messages and I think Ernst said you really both feel there is still a lot to accomplish, so where are you going next?
Alexander: Now I'm just having a break (laughs), and I'm so happy that people seem to like the new album and you know it's not easy to start with studio album number nine, but we had many live recordings, and after 20 years or more you have to ask yourself before you take your next step in your history “what have we to tell anymore?” And when we started it we realised very soon that there is still a lot to tell and do and writing these songs, there was so much energy! We gained a lot of energy with the orchestra project, from our solo projects and also last year in Germany, some of our very rare acoustic live shows and we realised that our audience is still so hungry l and we were very un-rock and roll-ish. But people were just listening, so you could hear a pin drop!

So this experience last winter gave us another push, even more energy, and we realised that we have twenty songs written, and that was a good sign and we didn't have to think “Oh we have only five songs how are we going to fill an album?” It's like in the early years, it's like a second spring for us, midlife crisis is gone! (laughs) And we know we have to tell something and it might sound a little arrogant but Ernst is such a unique artist and I am so happy and proud to have worked with him so many times. He also told me that he was happy to work with me because he said in the last five years I had developed as a singer in such a positive way and we don't sound old and bored! (laughs) So we're not just doing another album to make the machine go on, to make money, and it's a great feeling that the reactions for this album have been so good, so we will do concerts in Germany in October and in Europe in November.

RoD: Dare I ask if that includes England?
Alexander: Yes! For the very first time! Before we’ve had some offers from London but it never really happened, so hopefully for the first time we'll come to the UK!

RoD: You have so many solo projects and yet remain as a duo, does that help that you each have your own thing going on to continue being a duo happily?
Alexander: Well, it was always very important for us, in fact a very important rule. If we would have concentrated on DEINE LAKAIEN only, we would never have made it to 20 years! It's always important, like in a good marriage, you always got to have your free space and own time, and it's always important for a duo project where two people are so close together, important to have time also to watch what this guy is doing without me! (laughs). Especially, during the last years it was very important, because I can sometimes see things from far away that I want to pull into DEINE LAKAIEN.

RoD: And finally, tell us something interesting about yourself?
Alexander: Something interesting?!? Ohhh we're so boring.... no really, people are always so disappointed when they meet us, because we're not the same as on stage. On stage I'm a very strange kind of performer, very distant, but that doesn't mean I'm not respecting my audience. I respect my audience very much, but I don't want to just be an entertainer, I want to be the man, the man who’s responsible for the connection between our audience and our music, like a medium! (laughs) And music is always much more important than the show because we are DEINE LAKAIEN, our name stands for this explanation, that we are the servant of music and of people who love music, and this is the number one thing in our whole work!

RoD: Thank you Alexander, it was a real pleasure to interview you!
Alexander: You're welcome!

Promo pics by Joerg Grosse-Geldermann
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