Interview withTorben Wendt (vocals) and Felix Marc (keyboards) of Diorama
Out friends from the Ukrainian and Russian DIORAMA support sides took a little interview with Torben and Felix in the course of the D-Day III in Reutlingen, the home town of the band. You can read the outcome of this interesting conversation about the upcoming album, touring and much more here…
Torben: I would say, of course they are. Concerts in Germany are all the time a little bit more focused on music, on the presentation. Of course it depends of the city, of the country. I think we always enjoy travelling on the wings of music :)
Daria: Are there any places where you’ll never play shows? And why?
Felix: North Pole. It’s too cold there.
Torben: I would like to play there. Actually I like when it’s cold. Maybe in Sahara, because it’s too dry. And there is no beer :)
Felix: And no Gin :)
Torben: Basically anywhere. If you have two houses and a church on the street- we’ll be there :)
Daria: What will be after this concert (in Reutlingen)?
Torben: The next target will be new CD. We almost finished with everything and will bring it as soon as possible. And after this will be of course a lot of shows with the new album.
Daria: Will you play shows in Ukraine-Russia as last year?
Felix: These places are in the top of our list :)
Daria: In what situations do you usually writing songs (lyrics)... at home… in the bus… with what mood?
Torben: I think the best situation is when you really touched emotionally. It can be when you are sad, negative or very positive, if something happened to you very exciting. These moments are really the best when lyrics and music comes the easiest from myself. And I think Felix will agree with me, because we get inspiration from life itself.
Felix: It’s probably the same. But for me for my music it is more melancholic. After good party or so, I don’t have so much inspiration.
Daria: As I know both of you are talking not only in English. French and Spanish you can speak too. Did you ever think to sing a song not in German or English?
Torben: It’s a very good question. We thought about this, that we should sing a song in French or Spanish, because we really like and enjoy to talk and sing foreign languages. And we also like music from these countries. It’s just a question when, and not a question if. It just never happened. When you write lyrics you just release the thoughts from your head and if you almost every time realizing them in English it’s hard to change.
Daria: Maybe you’ll try and in future will be songs only on these languages? :)
Felix: I think you will probably hate us :)
Torben: Would be funny even to sing a song in Russian :) You must help us, but be honest with the translation :)
Daria: And what words you already know in Russian?
Torben: Na Sdrove! (На Здоровье!) Not so many words actually. Perestroika, Pravda (Перестройка, правда!), Yes, Wodka (водка) as well :) The real touristic words. Pivo (Пиво) :)
Daria: Is it possible to hear somewhere from Diorama any acoustic songs, see acoustic concert in future?
Torben: No real plans now.
Felix: We often have concerts with electronic bands or playing at the electro-songs clubs and it’s difficult to combine with such things any acoustic material.
Torben: Actually this is what we really very much enjoy. Before the concerts we usually practice our vocals just by piano. We sing a song over and over again and just concentrate on vocals. I really like to do this. About acoustic material - it’s also a question of time. But I’m sure that on the next tour we’ll do something special
Daria: Tell one interesting or funny story from your tour?
Torben: There are really many special moments. It’s hard to memorise. I remember one time, when I was DJing, and there was too much alcohol :) I was really playing weird music and people say later: "You’re a bad DJ!" And I told: "OK, no problem. I don’t care." :) They all wanted "Combichrist"," Combichrist"," Combichrist"… We like it, but we refused to play only that kind of music. Basically I played very fast songs and a very slow song right after it. And Felix was recording this on camera... and the camera was shaking, because he was laughing. People said: "What is he doing?","What is he doing?" But there are a lot of things that you really can’t tell to everyone. There are always very little things, not big story. It’s very special and hard to tell somebody else.
Daria: Ok, and what about any interesting moments with fans? Something special, interesting gifts?
Torben: Yes, sometimes we get strange gifts, but we also get really nice gifts. No matter how strange they are, we’re always happy to get things and see that people spent their time on it. For example, in Poland we received a national flag of Poland with the word DIORAMA on it.
Daria: It was on Castle Party 2007, right?
Torben: Yes. We received it in advance. It was interesting present in some way. We interpreted it like: "DIORAMA welcome in Poland" or "Poland-Diorama country". Or in Belgrade... we received a table-cloth with the word DIORAMA. And it is so amazing; someone really spent many hours to do this by hands. People often paint us, record covers, they do photo albums with their own artwork... It’s really very good stuff. And I sometimes contact this people to say THANK YOU.
Felix: Yes, we often received houses, cars… :)
Torben: Every handmade present reflex the thoughts that somebody have when listen to your music… btw we also accept money :)
Daria: How do you choose the succession of songs in concert playlist?
Felix: It’s an important point. We spend hours before each concert to put the songs in right order. We try to make new set-list every time, which depends where we will play, the location, the country, were we there before... what people want to listen... and of course what we want to play…
Daria: …and how much time you have… :)
Felix: Of course. :) There are many different situations, but for each situation we always try to do the best. We need to follow the plot. It must be connection between tracks.
Daria: What are the most boring you questions from journalists?
Torben: I think it is: "What does the word DIORAMA mean?" :)
Felix: Yes, we had to name our band -"Torben Wendt’s Band" that nobody ask :)
Daria: I hope after people will see this interview in magazine-they will ask you this question not so often, at least in Russia and Ukraine. :)
Torben: We try to give answers on any questions, as long as they are not too personal.
Daria: As a big KLANGSTABIL fan, I can’t do nothing else than to ask... How you became friends with Boris May, where met you for the first time?
Torben: We are very close friends. He’s also from Reutlingen, so we are one family. I got to know him when our friend decided to make independent movie "Stigma". He needed a soundtrack to it. His name is Heiko. Then he wanted that I make this soundtrack. I have never done anything like this before. Heiko told, that he has another friend who has expertise to synchronize pictures and sound. So he introduced Boris to me. We spent about 6-8 weeks in the studio 24 hours per day. And after this the material was ready. It was very intense time and that is when we got to know each other. And I think that was a time when he became a friend of all of us.
Felix: We knew each other, but not very close before. We have seen each other on parties, in clubs but through the connection of the movie we got close with him.
Anastasia: As we know you were living for some time in different countries. Have you any ideas to repeat this experience?
Torben: Yes, I wish to go somewhere else and stay there for a very long time. Maybe on Mars. :) But at this moment I have a band here, my best friends, family... This is what still keeps me here. There are two sides of this story. One side of me wants to leave everything behind and do somewhere.... and another... There are really a lot of not good things here, but show me the place where it is better?
Daria: Not Ukraine :)
Guys: Yes...hard situation now there! We know that Ukraine has very nice nature... there are good people there... but...
Torben: If you want to see only negative things, you can find them anywhere... but we’re talking about good place for each of us... about paradise... where to find it... Felix, do you want to go somewhere?
Felix: In the past I spent 2 years in USA and half a year in France. I don’t think I’ll go somewhere in close future.
Anastasia: What was the inspiration of your new album? The song ‘Apocalypse’ makes me thinking that it is about serious situation in the world or so...
Torben: I think many things brought me the inspiration... for example how people live their lives. You know, watching the world crumble and fall into pieces. We just finished some songs of the new album, and it’s very hard now to reflect what the inspiration was. We need some weeks or more to listen to the tracks again. It’s not a very concrete idea, or a very concrete message that we want to express... Ask as again in half year please :)
Anastasia: What is your attitude towards Depeche Mode? Many people came to Diorama through their music, as I know...
Torben: I like them a lot. I grew up with this music, but I will not consider that it’s a key to our music.
Anastasia: What concerts did you visit last time?
Torben: Can’t remember. I don’t visit them very often.
Felix: Schiller, Coldplay... I try to do it once in a while. It’s interesting. And about me... It can be not only Dark-Scene bands, I very like pop concerts too.
Anastasia: Will be the whole new album as cool as ‘Acid Trip’?
Felix: You mean 12 songs the same like A.T.? :)
Torben: Thank you very much. Every song is special. I think the energy that you heard in it sends some kind of aggression... not like in previous albums. We wrote this song a couple of years ago.
Daria: By the way... do you use your old lyrics now, or new songs, is it only new material?
Torben: Can be both. We have really large "box" of unwritten songs, lyrics. If we have just some ideas we write them down and put somewhere, and when you have inspiration or any new idea you are trying to find what you need in this big collection of drafts. We just collect ideas and put them down. Because not every thought becomes a song. Sometimes we write down just 3 words...and...
Daria: …and than we get a song with only 3 words… :)
Torben: Yes :) Like ‘Klarheit’ :) But it has actually more words, maybe about 12 :)
Anastasia: And special question from us… Why you decided to be vegetarian?
Torben: Just one day I decided... I’m against making animal’s life trivial. But at the same time I like and enjoy eating meat. I have contradiction with myself. And one day I tried to do it and understood that I really like it. What really touched me was that if you buy a half of a chicken it costs about 1.5 Euro, and when you’re going to the Supermarket to buy vegetables you see that they are more expensive! Why is it so?
Felix: As for me... I like meat, but I don’t like fish and cheese :)
Daria and Anastasia: Ok guys, thank you for the interview. Was very pleasant to visit your concert again and we’re very much waiting for the new release :)
The Interview was taken b y Daria - [Ukr Support] Ukraine (www.myspace.com/volkova_gothic / www.myspace.com/germanykillers) and Anastasia - Logic_Friends [Russia] (http://www.logicfriends.ru/) and is published here with friendly approval.
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