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Interview with

Mona Mur & En Esch

MONA MUR & EN ESH both are pretty exceptional artists. Mona has worked already with such icons as ENSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN and YELLO, while EN ESH is a founding member of legendary KMFDM as well as a trained percussionist and multi-instrumentalist. What came out when both artists joined forces is the album ‘120 Tage - The Fine Art of Beauty and Violence’ and both were more than willing to talk about the genesis of the whole thing and a few things more.

Promofabrik (PF): Hi guys, thanks for taking the time for this interview. How did you two meet in the first place?
Mona Mur (MM): Actually, the sweet wild KMFDM boys were old buddies from Hamburg in the 80s. I think I can say they were Mona Mur fans. I knew Sascha K., and also Raymond Watts, who was the MM sound engineer and then became KMFDM member. Later I got to know En Esch’s outrageous performances in mini skirts, fishnet stockings and parachute boots which immediately shot him far up in my eternal top list of extreme stage personalities.
En Esch (EE): We met the first time 1985 in Hamburg during a Mona Mur show at the klecks-theater when I opened up for her being part of the early days of KMFDM. I loved her show and her stage presence right away....One member of her band was Nikko Weidemann on keys. Years later Nikko moved to New York only a few blocks away from my lower east side apartment. Due to mutual friends Nikko and I started to hang out in NY. Eventually I moved to Berlin about 2 years ago and Nikko was already here so I asked the guy about Berlin neighbourhoods and apartments and such and he dragged me along one day to visit Mona Mur.....

PF: Your collaborative debut album ‘120 Tage - The Fine Art of Beauty and Violence’ was released on 15th February and you’re calling the style Chansons Brutales. How did you get the idea to take this stylistic direction and what’s the definition of Chansons Brutales?
MM: Well, it has always been the direction. I think it really nails the feel and atmosphere of the songs. We both stand for music that is intense, hard and sophisticated. Playfulness and rigour at the same time. Beautiful melodies, harsh guitars and rhythm elements like moving steel sculptures. Lyrics in black and white... nothing between. We like hard contrasts.
The songs are chansons about love as an edgy experience... brutal and aggressive yet tender and broken. That’s it.

PF: Mona, you have worked with Alexander Hacke, FM Einheit and Marc Chung of Einstürzende Neubauten (just to name a few). How did that come about and how’s it working with other musicians?
MM: In the punk/wave explosion of the early 80s I met up with them in Hamburg, as friends and then fellow musicians. Forced them to try me as a singer. It was like a volcano eruption. 2 months later, we were in the famous Hafenklang-Studio recording our 12” ‘Jeszcze Polska’. Matches like this only happen 2 or 3 times in a life. Working with musicians, it’s always like a love affair. Chemistry is most important, apart from skills. Or I rather stay alone and do my own thing. That also happened for longer periods.

PF: Are you still in contact? Will there be another collaboration in the future?
MM: I still appreciate the colleagues very much, and we sometimes meet in the Berlin nightlife. Mark Chung is boss of the Freibank Music Publishing where my songs are published. So, we still work together on another level. At the moment, I am with Mr Esch and this is a full programme.

PF: En Esch, you are co-founder of legendary KMFDM. Why did you decide to become a musician?
EE: I didn’t decide to become a musician; it was an act of god...Or DNA...I started drumming on the dinner table at the age of three, I used to drum to the music on TV also, it drove my parents nuts....I had my first band as a drummer when I was 14 and the rest is history.

PF: Even Rammstein opened live for KMFDM years ago. How did that come about?
EE: I saw RAMMSTEIN’s first gig in the US back in 1997 in NYC. KMFDM’s management said we are going to tour with RAMMSTEIN in Europe and afterwards they would open for us in the states, check them out... I never heard about them before and I was blown away by their live production even in front of only 80 people... They brought even the burning coat, explosives and the dildo to that small venue... ha, ha. I continue to be friends with Rammstein ever since, they worked hard and toured their ass off to become that successful. Btw, their drummer Schneider did an awesome remix of ‘blast’ for my other project ‘slick idiot’.

PF: Why did you quit KMFDM?
EE: I didn’t actually quit, I rather didn’t re-join... There was a lot of negative energy between Sascha and Guenter Schulz and myself around 1999 and we decided on the phone to call the band quits. Only 2 days later I heard that Skold and Sascha started a new project called MDFMK, I wonder to this day what was up with that. 2 years later Sascha and I had a meeting in New York and he tried to convince me to re-join his idea of a new KMFDM. I was pleased with my new creative freedom at that time and so I refused the concept of a fast reunion of KMFDM. Sascha couldn’t wait and went ahead without me. But I’m proud that I’m a very important part of the golden years of such an influential band.

PF: Okay, different topic: Mona, you have travelled through India a lot in the 90s. What is so fascinating about that country?
MM: After 10 years of rock n roll life I had to explore some new spheres. India is a shock, a wonder, chaos, hell and heaven at the same time. It smashes your prefabricated views on life forever. It hits you hard. It offers you its treasure freely if you open up. Its music is overwhelming. I can’t say no more. It will never let me go.

PF: And how did it come to you picking up Taekwondo?
MM: Same with Martial Arts. I was lucky to find martial arts as a way of life; instead of going on destroying me completely in my “poète maudit” existence in the 80s Rock ‘n’ roll underground, like being burnt in my own flame. I obviously need things to get hooked on, obsessively. Not even music did the job alone. So, I learnt how to smash wooden panels with my hands and feet... I learnt discipline ... I enjoy the elegance of its movements and deadly kicks. Here we go again, elegance and brutality.

PF: Since 1999 you’re producing music for videogames, too, Mona. For which games did you craft sounds so far?
MM: There is BALLANCE; the magical puzzle game by ATARI where I have designed the hyper-real Sound FX and spherical music. There is VELVET ASSASSIN, a surreal WWII - stealth - shooter... where I have composed some really dark, desperate, forlorn music - very lost piano pieces, iron “judgement day “ horns and some brutal beating. It will be released in March 2009.Work in progress is CULPA INNATA 2, an adventure game where Esch & me contribute a song - Actually ‘120 Tage’ in a Russian version - AND we are also IN the game, as Mur & Esch 3D characters. I love that. The Game will be out late this year.

PF: Looking at your daily routine, how much time do you spend on making music? What are the bright and dark sides of being a musician for you?
MM: There is nothing else. Apart from my martial arts exercises which I try to do as often as time allows. I need it to be able to continue my musical work. Bright sides, dark sides... You have no choice. You are musician or not. You work without security web and no one guarantees you any success. Music is a strict, sometimes merciless mistress.
EE: Musicians are artists and artists work for themselves, they are their own boss but on the dark side don’t have the automatic safety blanket, payments and security of a conventional job either. We have learned over the years to express our emotions, angst and experience in our work of art....That is untouchable.

PF: Okay, back to your new album ‘120 Tage - The Fine Art of Beauty and Violence’. I’d like to take this opportunity to say that this is an artistically outstanding and sophisticated piece. What’s the meaning behind the album title?
MM: Thank you. First, ‘120 Tage’ is the title of a MM-underground hit from 1984. It has been in movies like Monika Treut’s ‘Die Jungfrauenmaschine’, and on many compilations. ‘120 Tage’ stands for the ultimate marginal experience. It deals with love and lust, pain, fear, abyss. We shamelessly play with these associations. Formally, the song is like throwing knives at a moving target. I find that extremely thrilling. Actually, my songs always say what I am up to in a given moment. I am not much of an actress.

PF: How much time passed from the first ideas to the final master?
MM: We started in May 2007 with some days in the studio sort of live-playing-recording the basic tracks. With us was at that time our long time fellow organist Nikko Weidemann who was initially responsible for this new MM-incarnation. He later left to go on pursuing his own solo career. I regret that, but we are still in love and I wish him the best. Then followed a long period of Esch and me listening, editing, pre-mixing. I completely lost distance to the older songs. This is where Ingo Krauss came in. During summer and fall 2008, Esch and me happened to create the four new songs: ‘Candy Cane’, ‘Thin Red Line’, ‘Visions and Lies’ and ‘The Wound’. Last touches were made mid November 2008.
EE: The album was completed in four stages. First: jamming out on our computers writing and re-writing and Pre-producing the new and classic Mona Mur material for this record. Second: Studio session in a wonderful underground studio here in Kreuzberg making a lot of noise: tracking live vocals, guitars, organ, keys and piano. Third:  tons of editing, sequencing and fine tweaking again on the computer. Four: Mixing and the final touch by Ingo Kraus, know from his collaboration with bands like: DIE AERZTE, DIE FANTASTISCHEN VIER, NINA HAGEN UND EINSTUERZENDE NEUBAUTEN to name a few... The whole thing went on for over a year.

PF: How are you guys working together, who is responsible for what?
MM: Mr Esch and me, we do what is necessary. WE take the best idea, no matter who comes up with what. I enjoy it so much. There is no ego bullshit. We have no competition. Better not say it too loud, as this is what kills most of the collaborations when strong personalities have to deal with each other.
EE: We are both capable of singing, song-writing, programming and producing, so there’s never a certain way of working together. The good thing is that we have an outstanding tolerance because we are very similar, both Leos and posers....ha, ha...and we know where we both coming from.

PF: En Esch, you are a seasoned multi-instrumentalist. Which instruments can you play?
EE: Like I mentioned before, I started out as a drummer, age three so to speak, I watched my band mates and learned guitar by observation, I finally became a singer in a band when I was 19 because I got tired of being stuck on the drum stool. Btw I have a diploma as a classical percussionist playing timpani’s, vibraphone, snare drum and such....I play pretty much every instrument besides woodwinds and brass....I used to have a retainer (orthodontic device) as a child and the doctors were warning me about playing the trumpet because it would destroy the work of years inside my mouth....ha, ha, ha.

PF: Mona, your voice is very fascinating, sometimes close to hypnotizing. Where did you learn to sing that way?
MM: THANKS. You only get hypnotized if you want to, btw. I guess my mother triggered it. She was singing since I existed.....she has a brilliant soprano, and she was singing Russian songs the whole day. This is a deep mark and influence. Sad, beautiful Russian songs about snowstorms and desperate lovers. The rest is, well, live fast and do not die too young. Some technique also helps.

PF: Brecht and Weil also are influences on the new album ‘120 Tage - The Fine Art of Beauty and Violence’. What makes these two personalities so fascinating for you?
MM: Since the 80s we had some Brecht/Weill in our repertoire, with our ‘Surabaya Johnny’ version being a kind of signature song. ‘Song of Mandelay’ and ‘The Ballad of the Drowned Girl’ are also really expressive, radical little gems of a lost genuinely German music tradition which was totally destroyed by the fucking Nazis. To have ‘The Ballad of The Drowned Girl’ in our version on this record is a true miracle, by the way... Universal Edition Vienna strictly refused to give permission, out of “internal reasons”. In the last second, I could convince the higher instance, the KURT WEILL FOUNDATION NY, to allow it finally. They rarely do that as far as I am informed. Thank you, Ms Weber.

PF: Several gigs have been confirmed, e.g. at Live at Dot in Berlin on 20th February. Are you planning on doing more gigs to present the new material?
MM: Absolutely. I want to travel around this planet with it if possible. A tour is in planning for April/May, also gigs in Poland, Copenhagen and Italy. The game, Culpa Innata 2, will possibly take us to Russia.
EE: To record an album is one thing to perform it live is another. I’m looking forward to play a string of live shows throughout Europe with this material in the next few months. Please come and see us play, you’re going to love it. We will have our good friend Johann Bley playing the drums with us on stage. He’s also a very talented programmer and used to play with people like Juno Reactor, Holger Hiller.... He also played live drums for KMFDM once during my days on one of the big US tours. There’s also an acoustic version of “candy” we’re going to release online in a few days and an EP with remixes and outtakes in the making for a fall release.

PF: And what are your plans for the future?
MM: More work with Mr Esch I hope. Touring. Producing new music. Maybe some harsh dance floor stuff....the world needs discipline :)...and also I hope for new exciting computer games scores. Like the other one I am doing at the moment... Which is still secret... which I will hopefully be able to reveal this spring.

PF: Many thanks for the interview, much success for your further collaboration. I hope many listeners will be as much excited as I am by your music! Any last words or a message you want to leave here?
MM: Keep the fire burning....
EE: Thanx to any old and new supporters of our music out there. We are looking forward to many years to come to rock your world.

Interview conducted by Promofabrik in February 2009
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