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Interview with

Thomas Adam (keyboards, lyrics) of De/Vision

The German synth-pop band DE/VISION has released a lot of albums and meant a lot to the development of the electro-pop music. The band played at the Arvika festival for the first time in 1996 and I think a lot of people were happy to see them here again. During the time when I was to meet Thomas Adam and do the interview it was raining buckets outside and well I had to run into the rain to get to the tent where the band was relaxing before the show.

Reflections of Darkness (RoD): How would you like to introduce your band for those who have not heard about it before?
Thomas Adam (Thomas): DE/VISION is an electronic band that plays electronic pop music and there is not a lot more to say about that. *laughs*

RoD: How did you come up with the name DE/VISION, is there a story behind it?
Thomas: It was a game of words, nothing special.

RoD: Which bands has had the greatest influence on your creative work and style in the beginning or your career and which are now?
Thomas: When we started making music in 1988, all the music of the 80´s was an influence for us - Erasure, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Camouflage and Tears for Fears, Eurythmics. We grew up in the 80´s and we were listening to electronic music, keyboards, synthesizers and all the bands of that time was a big influence and it made us start a band, write our own songs and music and that was back then when we started the band. Today there is no influence - that is what I always keep saying. There are many artists and bands that we like but after 20 years we have found our own ways of making music and we have our own ideas of sound, songs and everything so there is no influence anymore. *laughs*

RoD: Where do you get you inspiration from when you write and create music?
Thomas: Life, life is all the inspiration you need. Sometimes when I need lyrics for a new song for example then I go out partying with friends and something like that. If I don’t know what to write about then I go out with friends, I have a good time and then I have new ideas for new songs for new lyrics so life is all the inspiration I need, that’s it.

RoD: What drives you and makes you keep working with music?
Thomas: We need money! *laughs* Writing songs is much more comfortable than like having a nine to five job or something like that. Although as a musician you also have to be very concentrated and you have to work every day, you have to work hard; you can’t just sit around all the time having a party and everything. It’s not a nine to five job but it’s similar, you have to work, you have to kick yourself in the ass every day and you don’t work from nine to five you work more like maybe from seven to ten.

RoD: But you can choose the time yourself…
Thomas: Yeah you can always choose when you work and you can always choose and say “hey today I don’t want to work, I want to do something else” but once you started for example right now we are working on our new album and then you have to sit down and be concentrated, be focused on what you do so you can’t be lazy all the time. It’s not so easy, many people think “oh musicians they sit around drink beer all the time and maybe an hour or two they plays some melodies and then they go and party again” but that is not the truth so you have to be focused!

RoD: I read on your home page that you are planning on releasing a new record next spring, can you tell me something about it?
Thomas: Like I just said we are working on that album right now, we have a couple of songs finished but not too many, only a couple 4 or 6 songs so there is still a lot of work to do. The plan is to release the new album in March or around that but I can’t really say about which direction the new album will go, if it will be more electronic or…I don’t know if we will work with guitars and drums again at the moment we are just collecting ideas and then we will have to see what we do with the ideas. One thing that is new for us this time is the fact that we don’t have a record label anymore - we have our own label right now and the next album will be released on our very own label.

RoD: On your conditions…
Thomas: Yeah! But there is a lot of work, there is not only the recording of songs for us to do, we are also doing the organizing, the distribution - we have a distributer but still there is a lot of work for us to do this time, so much more than it was in the past.

RoD: But you have more control now over your own music…
Thomas: Yeah we are our very own boss this time, you are just working for yourself not for anybody else, this is of course much more risky and difficult but well in the end you earn a little bit more money *laughs*

RoD: If you think back to the time when you worked on your very first record, how has the way you work changed since then from how you work with music today?
Thomas: Well the way we work has not really changed, a lot is still the same, you sit at home with your computer and your keyboard, you play your melodies, you write demo songs and something like that and then you go to the studio you work with your producers. You put a lot of work into your songs that is still the same and has not changed for 20 years. We write some demo songs and then go to the studio and then the producers put their own ideas into our songs, sometimes they create something completely different and sometimes they just use your song. Sometimes the songs changes and sometimes they don’t change that much.

Something that has really changed since out last album, on ‘Noob’ we had for the very first time song writers what were not part of the band, in the past we wrote all the songs on the albums. On ‘Noob’ it was different; some songs were from the band some of them were written by the producers. On our next album it will probably be the same, we write some of the songs and some of the songs will be written by the producers as well because we found out that they also have very good ideas and why not use a good song when it’s there?!

RoD: Which of your own song moves you most?
Thomas: I don’t know, it’s different, people ask me so many times “hey what is your favourite song?” I don’t have a favourite song. It always depends on the mood I am in, when I am in a happy mood I prefer to listen to the happy songs and when I am in a melancholic mood, when I am feeling down then I rather listen to the dark melancholic songs - it’s always depends on the mood I am in.

RoD: Are there any songs which are favourites right now, a song you really look forward to do live?
Thomas: Most of the songs we play over and over again so there are definitely some songs you can’t hear anymore and you just don’t want to play those songs. But the fans they want it, they want to hear some certain songs. “Try to forget” is one of the fans’ favourite songs; I don’t like that song any more I can’t cheer at it anymore but still it’s still fun to play the song. When the audience enjoys it, has fun and likes it then you like it too whether you hate the song or whether you love it if the crowd likes what you are doing then it’s fine

RoD: Can you point out some differences between touring in like USA, Scandinavia and Europe? Do fans in different parts of the world treat you differently?
Thomas: In Germany for example, we have toured in Germany for 20 years so I don’t want to say that people are fed up with us there but they have seen us so many times and they are probably a little more relaxed than the fans in Russia for example. When we go to Russia people are like aahhhhhhh, you know they are going crazy because they have not seen us in that many times in Russia, although we have been to Russia a couple of times now but we are still new for the people there. Even if they have known our music for 20 years now as well it’s still a little bit different. We played out second tour of this January in the US and you know it’s funny because when you talk to the fans in USA and you ask them about the music of DE/VISION they tell you “DE/VISION is an industrial band they play industrial gothic cross over music” that is what they are telling you. If you talk to the people in Europe they say “well this is synth-pop”. When you talk to people in the US they say things you have never had on your mind when you talk about DE/VISION, they see us and our music differently and I don’t know why but that is how it is.

RoD: When you listen to music, what is the most important for you, I mean do you listen and read the lyrics or just enjoy the music part or kind of take it all in at once?
Thomas: When I listen to something - not my own music, a good song is what is important to me, a catchy melody that stays on my mind. It’s not enough just with “boom, boom, boom”, if you have a hard beat or whatever, the melody is the important thing as well as the lyrics of course. What is important to me is a good song, a melody that stays on your mind you know a catchy melody for me it’s not enough just with “boom, boom, boom” you know if you have a hard beat or whatever for me what is always important is the melody and also the lyrics of course what the people are singing about what they talk about but most important for me is the melody. I must find something that really touches my heart in a way you know and that is why I don’t like most of the electronic bands right now, because I am missing the feeling, the melodies I want good songs with good melodies.

RoD: What kind of music are you listening to right now?
Thomas: I don’t listen to any electronic bands right now, well on our last tour in Germany we had a support, we were supported by a guy he is operating all by his self, and his name is Janosch Modau, have you ever heard of him? No, he is from Germany, he is playing electronic music but very, very dark and most of his songs are very slow but very well there is a lot of feeling in his music. He has a lot of feeling in his music, beautiful lyrics and beautiful songs really. I really like him, he is a very good electronic musician there are not many like him anymore. Most of the electronic bands of today they want to be fast and they want to be hard and that is it you know but where is the fucking melodies?!

RoD: If you were hit by a car and lie dying on the ground - but you got to sing one song that people would remember you for, a song that would sum up you which song would that be?
Thomas: Oh that is hard, it’s a though question, it probably depends on where the car hits me, is it in the city or outside somewhere where there is grass all around or in the forest or in the… Well if it was in the city I would probably sing a Kraftwerk song and if I was somewhere in the nature and were hit by a car I would probably sing Angelo Branduardi or something like that.

RoD: Do you have any message to your fans?
Thomas: No, Hello fans! No message *laughs*

Thanks to Thomas Adam for taking the time to do this interview and to Jan Winterfeld for making the interview happen. For more information about DE/VISION please visit www.devision-music.de/

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