Fritz Kalkbrenner Interview

We speak to the legendary singer, producer, composer, DJ, Fritz Kalkbrenner. With Soul music and Techno ticking his boxes, Fritz has also composed music for film scores, and is currently on his world tour ‘Sick Travellin’. We find out a little more about this excellently talented Berliner.

How are you? Where are you in the world right now?

I’m very good, thanks for asking. By chance I’m at home, here in Berlin, Germany, but tomorrow I’ll play in Hungary, next week it’s Switzerland and the Netherlands and the week after I’ll play a United States tour. So I know that your question’s flipping around but in the end, I’m settled at home and that’s a good thing.

Difficult to ask questions to someone who has been a music Journalist in their career, so how about we start with what was the first record you bought and is it still playable?

The first record that I really, really bought was De La Soul, ‘Three Feet High and Rising’, but way earlier I was, of course, pretty much interested in the music and especially what was coming out of that magic box called radio, and so before the reunification, before the wall came down here in East Germany, I was listening illegally, pretty much, to American Force Network and British Force Broadcasting Services, so all that music from the late 80s which was coming out then had a pretty much emotional impact on me. So, for instance, you pick maybe The Bangles – ‘Eternal Flame’, that might be a record that I liked pretty much, at that time.

Aliens have invaded Earth and as representative for Berlin you are asked to hand over five records to describe human emotion, what would you hit them with?

That’s actually a pretty tough question and I don’t think that music and records would put the variety of human emotion to justice. So, better instead, I would pick five records which shows the huge wide span of music, in fact. So there might be two classical compositions – maybe one of Beethoven, one of Anton Bruckner, a Black Flag record, something from Nina Simone, and Wu-Tang records.

I am a big Hip Hop fan; big lover of the Daisy Age tunes from Arrested Development, De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest. Do you fancy something darker or quite varied and across the board in your selection?

I did that Daisy Age stuff pretty much too, but in that time, starting from, let’s say, ’95, I was pretty much more into the stuff that was flipping around Wu Tang and all that, especially those solo albums that they did, and especially to mention on that the GZA album, ‘Liquid Swords’, which was, I think, one of the milestones ’til then. Yeah, kind of that stuff around about ’95 – that what DJ Muggs had produced as well, so that’s Cypress Hill style. Later on, let’s say like from ’98 on, I was really digging like ATCQ, especially when J Dilla came into production on the team. And from then on, around 2000, that Common album ‘Like Water for Chocolate’, which, I think, it was its best.

‘Berlin Calling’ was a platform for your music to get really quick international success! How do you approach a project like writing film scores. Do you watch the uncut film first? Read the script? Meet the director?

To be honest, I wasn’t that much involved in the project ‘Berlin Calling’ by actually doing that soundtrack, because my brother Paul did that, but the director Hannes Stoehr which I knew very good, he has done a new project which is called ‘Global Player’ and that movie is already in German theatres and me and Paul, we did together the soundtrack again for that movie and actually, the process of working is kinda flipped backwards, meaning that you meet with Hannes and we show him some sort of production form that we think might fit on to what he’s doing, and of course he gets the last decision but if he finds something and he tells us in detail how to change the production and way… and the last process, he edits all the footage that he shot on the music, so it’s all flipped backwards like it is usually done.

Your upcoming Gig in Belguim for ‘I Love Techno,’ shows the global appreciation for the genre that had previously had such local beginnings (in Berlin/Detroit) how do you feel things have changed since having gone more mainstream? What’s changed?

There are more people into the game, there is more money into the game, of course, and I think for a decent producer who did this from the beginning on and who is really down with the essence of Dance music or House music, the main challenge for him is to keep the distance to what the main productions are because, for example, if you just look at the paper and write by definition what this music sounds like, for example, like Dance music – 124 to 128 BPM features synthesisers as well as samples and vocals are included, I would be doing the same thing as they are, which I’m not doing of course. But I think the main challenge is to keep the distance and yeah, the mainstream scene will have way more strength than we have so it’s our turn to do something new, and to reinvent the kind of music – I don’t know how that will be done so yeah, let’s see.

Your tour for ‘Sick Travellin’, Takes you from Mexico to Holland and everywhere in between: How do feel these trips influence your future tracks and which DJ’s would you recommend as the up and coming and best of the moment?

All those trips all over the world are a great opportunity to show my music to those people who haven’t experience it before and I think the main reason why it is, in certain circles, it’s popular is because of what the music sounds like and especially it’s not influenced by all other different things around, so I have to say no, all those trips, they don’t really influence my ways of producing, because I have my certain tricks and moves and ways to produce, and I think all those challenges in a lifetime which makes me a human being and all those emotions that I have to handle, and all those problems that I have in my life and all those ups and downs are influencing me much more in being a musician, than being somewhere in the world for a day or two.

Singer/songwriter, Producer, DJ. Anything else you would like to add to the list? And what would you be if you weren’t all these things?

I’m quite okay in cooking, so you can maybe add that on the list. But to be honest I don’t know any profession which I would be capable of besides being a journalist which I did in my past. So I think cooking from time to time and being a former journalist, I think these are the two things you can add to the list but I don’t really think I’m capable of a bit more.

Your lyrics are poetic, quite romantic at times, to me they have a positive element that a lot of Dance music is scared to discuss (without sounding cheesy). Would you say this is the Soul element coming out in your work?

It’s hard to say, but I hope so. It is, yes it is of course that strong influence of Soul music which is in my mind in all those lyrics and all those records, all that Marvin Gaye stuff and all that Curtis Mayfield stuff and how they dealt with and you know had a positive position to rough times. Yeah, that influenced me quite a lot and it comes quite naturally to me when I hold the pen in my hand and thinking about how to write lyrics, and somehow it doesn’t happen that I write those “ooh’s, yeah’s, let’s pop the bottle tonight” because it’s quite thin to me. So, yeah I think I can’t help myself, it is the Soul approach that’s coming over me.

Have you ever wanted to run your own club? If so where would it be?

Run a club? Hell no! It’s way too much business. It sounds too easy for the people from outside in but if you had some inside looks in the game you’d see that it’s quite a tough job to have that. You burn a lot of money in the beginning and you may get something out of it so no thanks, not for me. I think every place is as good as another so I would do that from home in Berlin.

What’s in the pipeline for 2014?

2014? From 1st of January until April I will be completely off because here in 2013 I think I came off with 120/130 shows, which is a lot for me. So I will be off the first four months but I already started working on the new album, which hopefully will come out October 2014. So this will be my main challenge for 2014: getting off, playing a few shows at the festivals in summer and getting the album done.

Thanks so much for taking the time to chat to us!

By Hannah Shakir