Nel corso degli ultimi anni ho sviluppato una spiccata predilezione per l’upcycling di robe inutili. Il Fidanzato Asburgico la chiama passione, mia madre mania. Esprimo il mio meglio con i vasetti di vetro.

L’altro giorno finalmente la temperatura è salita sopra i 15 gradi – il mio limite personale per uscir fuori a trafficare – e ho tirato fuori vaschette, terra e semini per iniziare il giardinaggio primaverile in terrazza. Ho seminato prezzemolo e basilico, broccoli, bietole, timo e maggiorana. Poi mi è venuto in mente che a dicembre mia madre mia aveva mandato altri semi per posta. Tra i quali i semi di cappero.

Ora, il cappero da queste parti è relativamente esotico, non l’ho mai visto in nessun vivaio o fiorista. Né i semi né la pianta. Solo al supermercato, da mangiare.

Mi erano giusto avanzate lì due vaschette per far germogliare i semi, di quelle pre-formate, 24 tazzine da riempire di terra col sottovaso per raccogliere l’acqua, e il coperchio trasparente. Ho immediatamente elaborato un piano che non esito a definire geniale: piantare tutte e 48 i pirottini con i suddetti semi, aspettare che le piantine crescano a sufficienza, trapiantarle in graziosissimi vasetti di vetro riciclati con un paio di graziosissimi sassetti sotto di drenaggio, appenderci delle graziosissime etichette con uno straccio di indicazioni, fotografarle super instagrammose, venderle online a 5€ l’una. Ci vorrà massimo un sacco di terra, i cartellini li ritaglio da cartoncini di recupero – mica devono essere tutti dello stesso colore. Nastrini e fili colorati ne ho scatole e scatole, sassolini ce ne trasciniamo due sacchi dal vecchio giardino ancora incartati. Vasetti sono piena.

Mentre elucubravo ha iniziato a fare freschino e sono rientrata. Ho raccontato al Fidanzato Asburgico la mia meravigliosa idea, e mentre parlavo gli ho anche fatto un bello schemino con tanto di hard-facts e business case sul ripiano bar della cucina. Lui è rimasto molto impressionato e ha insistito per fotografarlo e per aggiungerlo intero qui sotto, nonostante fosse realizzato in quel brutto Denglish. Denglish è l’acronimo di Deutsch e English, tedesco e inglese, ed è anche un po’ il nostro viziaccio, specie in forma scritta. Ci sono momenti poi, come ora, in cui lui ha tanti meeting in inglese e io magari sto leggendo un libro in inglese, e tocchiamo il fondo. Ma sto divagando.

Dicevo, questo piano fantastico, finalmente verificato bianco su nero, l’ho voluto battezzare Das Kapern-Imperium. Un bel nome, non c’è che dire, specialmente se stai pensando in Denglish e la traduzione italiana viene solo dopo: L’impero del cappero.

Ah, la madrelingua! Sempre così pregnante.

Premessa

All’inizio di questa storia la suspense cresce un sacco e non si capisce bene se la storia finirà drammatica o comica. Volevo avvertire subito: comica.

Una domenica mattina troppo presto siamo stati svegliati di soprassalto dal campanello della porta. La porta d’ingresso del nostro appartamento viennese al piano terra della scala 4, cioè tre portoni battenti, due cortili interni e mezza rampa di scale dal portone della strada. Molto misterioso.

Mi sono alzata col pilota automatico, ho infilato una felpa e sono barcollata in ingresso. Mi sono trovata davanti la schiena del Fidanzato Asburgico – si era addormentato sul divano quindi era arrivato prima – che indietreggiava mentre richiudeva la porta.

Si è girato verso di me e ha fatto

C’è una donna nuda davanti alla porta.

Così, plain. Senza inflessione, senza sorpresa, senza umorismo. C’è una donna nuda davanti alla porta. Punto.

Mi sono riscossa un attimo dal mio dormiveglia. Lui nel frattempo si era fatto da parte e mi faceva strada verso il portone chiuso

È meglio se vedi tu.

Meccanicamente, ho aperto. Davanti alla porta c’era una donna nuda. Il mio cervello è andato in black-out, panico panico, oddio che faccio. Il mio istinto ha preso il sopravvento e, mentre elucubravo su come procedere, ha chiuso la porta.

Ricapitoliamo: davanti al nostro ingresso c’è una donna nuda che ha citofonato; le hanno aperto in rapida successione due sconosciuti; entrambi l’hanno guardata assonnati e le hanno richiuso la porta in faccia.

Ho riaperto la porta e, avendo già assorbito lo shock che era nuda, l’ho guardata meglio. Stava appoggiata allo stipite coi capelli lunghi scomposti e si copriva il viso con le mani, forse piangeva piano. Ho notato un po’ di sangue tra mani e bocca. Il sangue mi ha svegliata completamente.

Le ho detto di non preoccuparsi, sono corsa in bagno – lasciando la porta aperta – e l’ho avvolta in fretta in un accappatoio. Stava in piedi a fatica. Una volta sedute sul divano ho cercato di capire cosa le fosse successo. Non so cosa si fosse calata ma nel corso della mezz’ora seguente ha ricostruito una storia abbastanza confusa.

A quanto pare al quinto piano sopra di noi abita un tale Bernd. Sia lei che Bernd sono utenti di una pubblicizzatissima piattaforma online per incontri tra accademici di classe. Ieri sera sono usciti per la prima volta e sono finiti a casa di Bernd. Qui la storia si fa più confusa. Lei si è svegliata sul pianerottolo nuda, non ricorda perché e percome, forse ha battuto il mento sul corrimano di ferro mentre scendeva le scale bussando alle porta, forse no.

Non ricordava il proprio numero di cellulare – presumibilmente tuttora cinque piani più su – né il numero di telefono di alcun parente o amico. Tranne la mamma al paese natio, 400 km da Vienna. Seppur nel suo stato miserabile, abbiamo concordato che non era davvero il caso. Abbiamo cercato sua sorella su Facebook e le abbiamo mandato un messaggio con il mio numero di cellulare dal mio account (non si ricordava la password del suo). Ci ha messo un po’ a scriverlo dato che non aveva gli occhiali.

Il Fidanzato Asburgico, nel frattempo, si era fatto tappezzeria. Immagino fosse stritolato tra la consapevolezza che, con ‘sto maledetto elefante nella stanza dello stupro, un uomo non dovesse battere ciglio o emettere fiato; e la volontà di non lasciarmi sola con una sconosciuta sanguinante. Ha scelto la via dell’immobilità assoluta e si è fuso con lo sfondo nell’angolo più buio della stanza. Una soluzione molto elegante, devo ammettere.

Mandato il messaggio – era ancora parecchio presto – l’ho messa a letto accappatoio e tutto, e sono tornata in soggiorno. Ci siamo seduti sul divano ad aspettare la telefonata.

Per farla breve, la sorella è arrivata, le ho dato di che vestirsi e ringraziandoci profusamente sono partite alla caccia di occhiali, cellulari, Bernd, password e dignità perdute. Il sollievo era tutto nostro.

Epilogo

Un paio di giorni dopo mi è arrivato un sms. La donna nuda davanti alla porta ringraziava di cuore e chiedeva quando potesse riportarmi i vestiti. Immaginando l’imbarazzo le ho proposto la scelta tra venirsi a prendere sportivamente un caffè da noi, citofonare e lasciare al volo, o depositare al bancone del nostro caffè preferito dietro l’angolo. Ha scelto di essere magnifica e venire a raccontarci la storia vera di quella stramba mattina.

Lei e Bernd hanno bevuto troppo e sono semisvenuti nel letto dopo una notte di fuoco. Quando ha iniziato a fare giorno, la luce l’ha svegliata e tra sbornia o chissà cosa non ha riconosciuto né capito dove fosse ed è andata nel panico. È scappata in pianerottolo e ha iniziato a scendere cercando aiuto bussando a tutte le porte (e ha davvero pestato il mento sul corrimano). Poi succediamo noi. Poi la sorella l’ha portata a casa sua, e nel frattempo lei si è schiarita abbastanza da ricordare che no, non era stata violentata e la faccenda era piuttosto tutto un equivoco. Nel primo pomeriggio si è svegliato anche Bernd, sorpreso di essere solo. Ancora più sorpreso quando ha trovato i vestiti e gli occhiali della nostra donna nuda sparsi in camera da letto. Bernd l’ha chiamata sul cellulare, quello ha squilla dalla borsa sul divano. Le ha scritto su Facebook, su WatsApp, persino sulla pubblicizzatissima piattaforma online per incontri tra accademici di classe. Finalmente lei ha risposto, scambio di effetti personali, sorriso imbarazzato, sipario.

A noi di questa storia ci è venuto in tasca un buono per un brunch in un caffè chicchissimo nei paraggi. E un aneddoto che non ci stancheremo mai di raccontare sulla pubblicizzatissima piattaforma online per incontri tra accademici di classe. Ah, e un numero di telefono che ho salvato in memoria come Nome-donna-nuda.

Dovessi una volta aver bisogno di darmi alla macchia in fretta so chi chiamare.

Nota spazio-temporale: Questo post va online quando è stato scritto, il 25 marzo 2018. Prima o poi lo sposterò a una data più consona al diario, cioè novembre 2015.

Idan Raichel was waiting for me in the lobby.

He mysteriously recognized me and greeted me with a friendly wave that I immediately forgot my makeup, the cold and the running nose. He shook my freezing hand with a smile and never mentioned the mascara-panda-eyes. Idan Raichel is a gentleman.

Idan Raichel talks smooth, and I mean it literally – he talks slowly and accurately. He stops mid-sentence if he feels the story isn’t coming out as he meant, then, quietly, starts over again with a smile. He underlines what he says not by an increase in the volume of his voice – like everybody else I know. When he wants to stress something he simply says it a tiny little bit faster. I could listen to the hypnotic tone of his voice forever.

In a world where it is acceptable to check your smartphone during a conversation and attention has long gone down the drain but we can’t hear the flush because of our headphones, Idan Raichel stands out. Like when at a party everybody suddenly stops talking and you find yourself shouting. He is very aware of where he is and of what he is doing. He notices what is happening around him – the hotel employees, his cup of coffee, the child jumping in a corner, me fumbling with my voice-recorder – without being distracted. Awareness is the word that jumps to my mind.

Also, Idan Raichel is the first artist that I interview who seems to be genuinely interested in knowing the person who’s firing questions at him. How old I am, where I come from, what foreign languages I speak, do I have brothers and sisters… all this attention got me a little confused, almost to the point when I forgot that I was conducting an interview and not casually chatting with some interesting guy I just met. Strange. In a very good way, don’t get me wrong, but strange.

Idan Raichel, still standing in the lobby, immediately started apologizing for the early hour…

Once you have kids nine o’clock is the middle of the day!

Haha, it’s ok, don’t worry! How old are your children?

I have two daughters, 2 years old and 6 months. Both of them are Viennese!

I actually met my lady exactly in this area…

Oh, tell me the story, please!

First of all I met her father, around seven years ago. He was a music teacher here in Vienna, he heard about my music and came to my concert at the Konzerthaus. After the concert he came backstage with his two daughters, and while I was talking to him one of my band members invited his daughters to dinner. I met them there.

Since then I’m telling her father You don’t bring your daughter backstage!

It sounds like a classic romantic comedy!

Hehe! So I met her here, at the Konzerthaus. Then Damaris – my lady – came back and forth to Tel Aviv many times. The past three years we’ve been living in Tel Aviv.

I’m totally in love with Vienna because it’s an amazing place. My lady lived in different districts – like in the 16^th, very Turkish oriented, in the 1^st, very touristy, in the 3rd district… now we’re staying in the 16^thand will be back to Israel like in a month. What district do you live in?

The 7th, but I also moved around a lot, I had five different apartments in Vienna in the past ten years and each time I thought Oh, this is the perfect district! I’ll never move away! Then I move and Oh!! Now, THIS is the perfect district… so basically it’s the city.

Yeah, the city is beautiful…

And still, you live in Tel-Aviv!

There are many artists that it doesn’t really matter where they are from. For example Leonard Cohen, it doesn’t matter that he’s Canadian, right?

He could come from anywhere.

Right. Or Pet Shop Boys… they are from the UK but it doesn’t matter.

But there are singers that hold inside them the identity of the place. For example Mercedes Sosa for Argentina, or Edith Piaf for France… if you heard that Edith Piaf moved to Norway because she loved it… no! It doesn’t sound reasonable, right?! It’s Edith Piaf and she lives in France! You know what I mean?

Yes. If you move away from Israel, either you change the music you make or make entirely something else?

I think it would change the identity of what I do, yeah.

Well, who knows, maybe eventually you’ll be ready for such a change!

Yes, maybe! But not for now…

I want to tell you a story… this summer Global Rockstar made the Monopoly version of the Idan Raichel Project… it is called Global Rockstar United: We invited six artists from six continents, six handpicked artists that participated to Global Rockstar 2014.

We locked them in a recording studio here in Vienna…

(Suddenly there is excitement in Idan’s voice) Shut up!!

They emerged four days later with two songs…

Wow…

The last two days we shot the video and then everybody left.

Wow! Here in Vienna?

Yes! I will show you the video afterwards!

Being there – I spent the whole time with them – was amazing. In four days they wrote a song from scratch, the music, the lyrics, the arrangement… we came out four days later with a rough mix. What amazed us was how well everybody understood each other, even if not everybody was proficient in English and one needed a translator…

It’s amazing! It’s a dream, it’s one of my dreams to be able to bring artists together and to shoot a documentary. I always thought of making it but I never had the platform.

I always wanted to bring artists together – like six to eight artists, ten days – maybe in a big hangar, a recording studio and rehearsal too, four walls and them sitting in a circle in the middle… and also cameras shooting it, as a documentary.

My dream was that this six to eight people would come from conflict areas, a guy from Israel, a guy from Syria, a guy from the conflict areas in Mali… To see how artists in conflict area are managing. And enough time to write songs, around ten days, probably…

Yes, definitely. We had four days for songwriting and the pressure the last 24 hours was almost unbearable!

Still, after four days we were best friends. The music – To the Moon – is amazing, but what really amazes me is what happened at a personal level. They were complete strangers with a task – music. The only thing they had in common was music… and they hit it off!

I just did a project with pianists around the world – United Pianos – we took the theme of Peter and the Wolf, very simple. It was naive, just to make it easy for everyone as a test case. Then I took many pianists from around the world and each one of them recorded this theme and we edited it… it’s really cool.

Do you see the same thing happen with the Idan Raichel Project? When all else is different, bond on music?

Hmm… because I play with musicians that live… one of the craziest thing that I did, I played with a musician that lived 45 minutes from my house. But I cannot meet him in Israel. There is a border and I cannot cross. And he cannot cross. So we met in New York. It’s crazy! We live a 45 minutes drive from each other’s house and we cannot cross the border.

And also Syria, I can drive to Syria in two hours. But I cannot cross the border. I’ve never been able. Also my parents have never been able. So I thought Wow! It would be amazing to meet somewhere in Europe, all these musicians from conflict areas…

At the past years, when I started the Idan Raichel Project – I started it around 12 years ago – and my intention was just to make music. I didn’t have the intention of bringing people together or crossing cultures and stuff. I just wanted to make music.

The way that we live in Israel, that is, in every block, in every neighborhood, there are many immigrants from many parts of the world. For me, it never looked special, because this is the way that we live. Your neighbor from next door is from Africa, this one is from North Africa, this one is from Germany… that’s how it is. And it’s not like in New York, that there is Chinatown or Little Italy… for us, we live together.

Before my first album, I was very young, 21-22 years old, I was a counselor in a boarding school. I realized that the youngsters who came from different parts of the world to live in Israel were losing their identity very fast. Their mission, their target, is to be Israelis. To learn the language, to be assimilated, just to be Israelis (snaps his fingers) fast.

And I thought, Why don’t you keep your own traditions? Why don’t be Israelis but keep your own language? Be Israeli but keep your own name? A lot of people in the African community in Israel adopt cool names, like Afro-American names or Jamaican names – like hip-hop nicknames. Why don’t you keep your native, African village, names? Or why don’t the former USSR immigrants keep the tradition of the opera alive? Or the ballet? Or whatever, just be Israeli but keep your own tradition!

It was important to me that in the studio we would record each one of the artist, we would record his own traditional instrument, or at least his own traditional way of playing. Even if you play guitar just have some phrases that remind of your background. And if you’re singing, sing in your own native language.

We had over 35 musicians and singers that participated in the first album. The idea of the Idan Raichel Project is that in every song there is a different lead singer and different musicians.

When we finished the album and I brought it to the record company, they immediately put it under the genre of world music. Because it’s not in English and it’s not in our local official language, Hebrew. They were not Hebrew pop-songs. But we sent it to deejays and they started playing it on mainstream radios. And very fast it became Israeli mainstream music.

It was the first time that songs on the mainstream Israelis radios were not in our official language – and it was like number one hits!

Now, it made huge news in Israel. Why? Because, imagine that in New York, in Manhattan, you’ll take a group of musicians from Little Italy, from Korea Town, from Chinatown… and the lead singer is from China, singing in Cantonese. Can you imagine that this band – the singer singing in Cantonese, in Chinese – this would be the number one hit and it will leave behind Beyoncé, or Adele, or Madonna?

It’s incred… it’s unreal! You would think it will be a hit on a world music station, but not on the mainstream.

I personally have a little problem with the definition of world music as a genre…

Hmm…

It’s not a genre, for me it’s a definition as good as all others…

Exactly!

Music genres per se are always cut with a big, big knife… this is jazz, this is rock… but there is a lot in between and you can call it whatever you want. But world music is especially bad!

First of all there are two ways of meaning world music. One is contemporary world music, the other one is traditional world music.

Traditional world music is always something very, very simple, like…

I understand that! That each country has its own roots, its own traditions…

Exactly, it can be tarantella music from Italy, it can be a tribe playing in Africa, it can be a Chinese violin playing whatever.

But the contemporary world music is exactly as you said, actually all the others… foreigners… for us Israelis Ornella Vanoni is world music, because it’s Italian and we don’t know what it is! You know what I mean?

I do!

Everything can actually be world music!

I think that there are musicians that are doing world music who are crossing over. Edith Piaf is world music from France that crossed over all over! Bob Marley is world music for all over.

So for us, my band, I think my definition is Israeli music, or world music from Israel. But when I played with Alicia Keys or when I played with Andreas Scholl at the opera… if you want to call it world music, call it world music! Call it whatever you want!

Sometimes I’m a bit lost with your music. Sometimes the influences are so strong that I have a feeling the piece is talking… a foreigner language?

Yesterday, for example, I was listening to A Quarter to Six (Idan Raichel Project’s album released 2013) when Ana Moura’s fado came up. I suddenly realized I was more at ease! I don’t understand Portuguese, I was not even listening to the words, but the feeling was I know myself. This is the verse, this is the refrain… I could navigate.

Well, sometimes I cannot navigate your music! I’m a bit embarrassed that I said this out loud… What do you think about it?

When I write the music my goal is to write it as free as possible. As free as possible.

I see every song as a scene from a movie: my role is to be the director. The kind of director that I am is… the kind of the director that Woody Allen is, or Spike Lee! The kind of director that, sometimes, writes the script. Or is involved in writing the script. And sometimes he is playing one of the roles, and sometimes not.

Every scene, after I write it, is a little story. But the story can be about… kind of a sequence, the person goes from here, across here, across here and reaches here at the end of the scene. But sometimes the scene is just atmosphere.

In an atmosphere (scene), if you just look at this place, even this lobby, it doesn’t have a beginning or an end. You can look at this life (NB very appropriately, exactly at this moment a waiter lets his tray fall on the floor making a huge noise), or you can look at this painting. On the way of arranging it, you can get focused on different things. It’s a different approach of arrangement.

For example there is a song, Chalomot Shel Acherim, and there is a motif – (Idan hums the tune) DAN DAN DONG DO DO DONG – and there is this violin, Azerbaijan violin – A-NANA-NA-NA-AHH – and the singer is singing – (Idan sings a few lines tapping the rhythm on his thigh) Shanim kulam borchim, shanim kulam chozrim, Rodfim achrei hashemesh, Shvuim betoch ma’agalim… – now you can call it a song, but for me, the way I arranged it, even if you mute the vocals…

…it works!

It works. Why? Because this is a scene. You can listen for five minute like this – DAN DAN DONG DO DO DONG… The way that I arranged the film… err, the music!, is always, I mute the vocals and see if the song still works.

If it doesn’t work… it’s not good. It has to be arranged like in a classical orchestra, symphonic orchestra, if you mute one (instrument) it still… there is a lot of music, the violins are playing something, and there is something that will catch you.

There are songs that – like Sabe Deus that I composed for Anna Mura from Lisbon – the song is very clear… (hums a little) Sabe Deus, DA-DA-DA-DA-DA… it’s because I’m coming from folk music. I used to play accordion, which is the un-coolest instrument ever! While all my friends played guitar…

Oh well, maybe back then when you learned it as a child, nowadays the accordion is pretty cool…

Hehe, maybe today it’s a bit cooler! But when I played most of my friends… (shakes his head as if he’s pushing back the bad/funny memories…)

There are songs that are very in a form… with A, B, chorus, B, C part… you know, like this. But a lot of my songs are songs that are pure atmosphere.

This is why I have many fans around the world, they don’t speak the language – even me I don’t speak all the languages, it’s many languages, Amharic, German…

But I think you can feel related to this because of the scene. The scene is more important than the song, it’s the atmosphere.

So I’m telling you I can’t navigate your music and you’re saying I don’t want you to navigate, enjoy!

You don’t need to, just play it, you know?! Just play it and listen to it, and just see where it takes you. Just see where it takes you.

The Idan Raichel Project’s last album, A Quarter To Six, was released also on iTunes and you can also find an instrumental version. You can buy it without the vocals. And also the album that I just released on January 22^nd 2016 – At the Edge of the Beginning – you can buy it without the vocals.

I didn’t know!

Because I believe in this so much, that it’s all about the scene.

Tell me more about the new album At the Edge of the Beginning…

I always perform with a very big band, there are between seven and fifteen people on stage, and a month ago (NB November 2015) I decided to be brave and to go alone, with a piano, for the first time.

It was important for me because I always stated it’s the ultimate way of an artist. I saw Caetano Veloso, Jilberto Jil… even Dave Matthews, playing alone. I saw an actor, a theater actor that I loved to see in big theater sets, he went on stage and gave a monologue for like 90 minutes – alone – and I thought Wow, I have to try to do it.

So a month ago I started to play. When I play piano solo the songs are going closer to the song-writing and not to the scenes. Because I go to the essence as naked as possible. So it’s a different approach, yes.

I’ve read you mean it as a step back…

…from the big production!

Yeah, away from the razzle-dazzle and towards private life – I read about your daughters and everything. There is one quote from you that struck me

“I’m not here just for myself anymore, I’m here for my daughters.”

To me, it sounds like “this man feels responsible now!”. I was wondering… responsibility is everywhere. You are responsible for your children, for your parents, your country, the environment… the planet!

Of course, one cannot feel responsible for everything, you have to channel. To pick your fights. How do you pick your fights?

It is very interesting the way that you see it!

There is a song of Bob Dylan from the album Slow Train Coming, that (says) you have to serve somebody. It says, no matter what you’ll do, you’re gonna serve somebody! You can be this, but you’re gonna serve somebody! La-la-la… you’re gonna serve somebody!

(NB This is the first verse of Bob Dylan’s Gotta Serve Somebody, 1979)

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.)

To serve somebody is the responsibility. Google about it, Bob Dylan… first of all it’s an amazing album, Slow Train Coming…

I have it at home!

Hehe, Gotta serve somebody, it’s an amazing one!

The thing is, for me as an artist, I always felt totally spontaneous and free. And I didn’t feel that someone was paying a price for me being free.

For example, I got an offer to tour in Japan, three weeks. I take a flight and tour in Japan. I got an offer from a singer from Portugal to come to record. I buy a ticket (snaps his fingers), six hours, boom! I’m not here, I’m in Portugal.

Now I feel that they will pay the price.

Your family, staying home alone without you?

Yes. It is a price. I was touring – a year ago – and I was in a performing art center in the USA. One hour before the concert I opened Skype and I was talking to the family. I try to talk to my daughter, she’s very young so she doesn’t have a lot of patience… when I finished the conversation the head of the performing art center came to me and said

Was it Skype?

Yeah.

You’re talking to your family on Skype?

Yes. 

You know that it’s not worth anything?

What do you mean?

It’s bullshit! You’re not there!

What do you mean?

You can talk to your daughter 20 hours a day on Skype, and you will still not know anything about her. If you want to be a father, be a father! If you want to be an artist, be an artist! I don’t tell you what is good, but just for you to know, that when you’re abroad, you’re not at home. It’s better for you not to talk on Skype, to miss her, and she will miss you, and when you’re at home be 24/7 a father. And when you’re on the road, be on the road.

I don’t know if I agree with him.

I don’t! Of course if you’re not there, you’re not there, but… my family lives far from here and I talk to them every couple of days, once a week at least. It’s clear that it would be better if I were there, but it’s still better than if we don’t talk at all!

Exactly. But, still you have a very strong bond of many years, roots, and foundation, big, strong foundation, with your family. It’s not early times. Now you don’t need the touch of your mother anymore, you don’t need the kiss… you know how…

I think I understand what you mean, like you can maintain a long distance relationship but you cannot build up one if you’re not physically close…

Right. And you know how to summarize your day to a ten minutes conversation, which a baby cannot do! A baby is here and now.

Are you going to slow down with touring?

No! I’m not. When I talk about the responsibility, it’s this feeling… I know that if I stay at home the whole time, I’ll not be a good father…

You’ll be frustrated?

I’ll be frustrated, yes, that I’m not fulfilling myself. I feel that there is a balance, that when I’m there I’ll be fully there… and even when I’m there, there are times…

I think that the responsibility… at the back of your mind, every decision you’re taking, other people are being affected by this. This is the responsibility.

With the decisions that I took before, people were also affected. For example, I can decide I don’t want to tour for three months: it affects a lot of people from my band that won’t have a job. Or if the Global Rockstar’s staff decided I want to take a year off!… it will affect a lot of artists that are enjoying the platform!

Of course.

So you have to think this, but when you see the person that you are responsible (for) every day, then it jumps up from the back of your mind.

There is a musician, name Ömer Faruk Tekbilek – a very interesting Turkish musician – when his baby was born, he stopped touring for seventeen years!

Bwah! His father put his life on hold until the kid left for college?! That’s a lot of pressure for a child!

(This is the moment when I realize we’ve been chatting for almost an hour while I was told I had 30 minutes. So, being the stupid person I am, I warned Idan Are you not running late for your Konzerthaus appointment? and he went Ah, it’s all right, I’m having fun!)

His decision was a very brave move. He took a day job in a factory and had concerts only around his area, in a way that he would not need to travel for weeks or months. In order to wake up every day with his family and to go to sleep with his family.

There is never one answer. Maybe this decision made him a better human being, maybe a better musician! Maybe it was good for the child, because his father was there all the time. Maybe it was bad, some negative vibes, or maybe he was frustrated by this. I don’t know Ömer Faruk Tekbilek in person, therefore I cannot say if it was good or bad. I think that for any decision that you’re taking the results can take to one side or another.

Back to Bob Dylan. Who do you serve? And who serves you?

Bob Dylan’s Gotta Serve Somebody is very good food for thought. I think that every day we are serving someone and someone serves us. On a daily basis, I’m serving my daughters, I’m bringing food to the table for my family, even serving the audience sometimes, when someone writes me that he wants me to play this or that song. And even people that are working as employees, in the system of the Idan Raichel Project, or the Helycon Records (NB Idan’s label).

The secret is always to understand that the hierarchy is changing all the time. Sometimes you are the artist who is leading the audience, sometimes you are being led by the audience. Sometimes you are leading the record company, sometimes the record company is asking you to do some activities, or media, or press, or to pay attention to some musical choices…

I think that the secret is always to accept the fact that the hierarchy in each system is constantly changing. Changing and evolving.

It is the first time that I’ve approached musicians with such a high glam-ratio so I said to myself: This is my chance to learn about the rock star life. Is all that glitters glam?

I arrived 20 minutes early, mostly because I love the Arena – the most iconic underground location in Vienna. I always like to stroll around the venue, admire the spray paint art and breath in the carefully arranged chaos.

I called the tour manager just to let him know I was there. Instead of letting me wait at the bar next to the stage, as I was expecting, he invited me upstairs to the backstage area. It was almost 4pm and according to the schedule pinned on the wall, The Darkness had sound check at 5, dinner at 6 and the concert starting at 9pm.

First of all I met Bonnie, Justin’s dog, a honey colored almost-Yorkshire terrier wearing a purple angora sweater with golden jewel-buttons. My grandma would have dubbed as a bit out-of-date, but who am I to question Bonnie’s fashion choices? Also, Bonnie likes cheese biscuits.

While I waited, The Darkness’ band members were looking around the backstage for props to make some jokes on stage. One involved rock and roll and they chose a broken brick for the rock and a bread bun for the roll. Then they stopped for a second wondering about the roll – these people are no beginners. They looked around for a German mother-tongue person to ask. I happened to be the only one in the room that didn’t belong to the tour-crew. (Little did they know that I’m not German mother-tongue but Italian! I didn’t say anything.)

Dan: Do you think people in the audience will understand the bread for roll?

The bread he chose was a Semmel, the round bread roll that is very much a synonym for Austrian breakfasts. People in the audience would probably go Semmel-Semmel-Semmel in their head, like Pavlov’s dogs.

Now, I had to be careful: I really enjoyed being the center of attention and I wanted to talk for the longest time possible, but I also wanted to avoid being interrupted or losing their attention midsentence – that would be too humiliating!

Me: Hmm, I’m not sure about the roll… I think not many Austrians understand the word roll for bread. The rock is safe, though.

Dan: Should I get toilet paper from the loo, then?

Me: Oh yes, much better!

Dan: Thank you so much!

Me: Err… that was really an important contribution…

Dan: No, no, it was important!!

Me: My parents will be so proud!

Fun-fact: I told my parents, indeed, but they weren’t as proud as I expected. Actually, they weren’t proud at all. Bloody bourgeois!!

Dan Hawkins, with his well-brushed longish hair and sober spectacle frames, looks like a cross between the new sexy math teacher all girls will fall in love with and a rock star in disguise. It turns out the hair and the glasses are indeed a disguise.

Do you get recognized on the street?

Dan: I just cut my hair and I wear glasses, so I’m pretty much going under the radar, but when my hair is longer I tend to get recognized for Justin as well… People on the street shout

Justin! Justin!

And when I don’t react

Is that Justin? Are you Justin? Or are you the other one?!

Rufus: Oh my god, nooo!! The other one!!

Dan: So many fucking times!!

Oh my! And what do you answer? ‘Cos you have to be nice to fans!!

Dan: Ha, this is a misperception! I don’t have to be nice to anyone!

(Both laugh, a loud and evil mwhahaha!!)

Dan: If someone is rude to you, you can be rude back, I think.

(In a low voice) That was not very Christian of me, but I’m not Christian! Hehe!

Rufus Taylor looks like he really should: a young guy who’s living his dream. Right now. He has a light in his eyes, an infective energy. Maybe it is also so evident because he is 24, younger than the other band members who are all fortyish.

What are the best moments of the rock star life? When you think YES! I love this job!?

Rufus: (folds his hands in his lap, crosses his legs like a professor at an exam, and talks with a straight face) Being single and on tour is a great thing.

Hehe! Would you like to elaborate on that?!

Rufus: Err… I shouldn’t!!

(While Rufus talks, Dan is looking at him, Cheshire-Cat smile, and giving an enigmatic hmm… every couple of seconds)

When you’re single on tour that’s one of the best parts that I’ve experienced, people are just so willing to give you a party or take you to a party! Everyone is willing to give… everyone is just up for a good time! It’s so much easier than… err… hehe…

…than organizing all those parties yourself?!

Hahaha! Anything that happens to be on your mind is very easily possible when you’re on tour.

And the worst part of the rock star life?

Rufus: The worst? The worst is… whohoho…

Dan: It’s difficult to answer that one, isn’t it? Because the worst can be really, really bad. The most common thing that people find difficult with touring at a high level is the sheer amount of time you’re away from home. It’s very hard to…

Rufus: And having a good crew as well!

Dan: Oh, yes, that’s…

Rufus: …vital! If you’re on tour with a bad crew of people you don’t like, it becomes very tedious very quickly.

Dan: Because everyone is living together and everyone is on the same level, we literally live the same life. On the bus I sleep here, Rufus is there, someone else is below there and everyone is together, and shares everything…

We’ve got a fantastic crew at the moment, really, it couldn’t be better. But it’s not always like that… sometimes it’s very much like Animal Farm…

Anything else?

Dan: I think a lot of people wouldn’t be able to handle the smell of a tour bus at three in the morning.

Rufus: Yap! True!

I’ve never be on a tour bus, how does it smell?

Dan: There’s this myth, they say that when they open the door of an airplane after a long flight, apparently the smell is enough to knock you out… methane…

(I’m not English mother tongue and this is definitely a word I’ve always seen in written form but never heard pronounced)

Sorry, I didn’t get that?

Dan: Me-tha-ne.

(I turn my head on the side a little)

Hu?

Rufus: Do you understand flatulence?

(But before I can confirm that I, indeed, understand the word flatulence…)

Dan: FARTING!

(And I made a face exactly like this: °______°)

Well, it’s a small environment!

Rufus: Yes, maybe that’s the worst!

Dan: That and champagne hangovers! They’re quite bad, nothing beats a champagne hangover.

(I’ll have to trust them on this one too. I’ve never been on a tour bus and I’ve never had enough champagne at disposal to get drunk on it. I’m starting to wonder if I have the right job at all!)

Rufus: Maybe a hangover and then a long sound check! That’s really horrible.

Dan: Bwah! Back in the days The Darkness was, how can I say… really serious on booze… until a point where we didn’t sound check for a year and a half. Even at arena level.

Rufus: (his eyes widen with a hint of admiration) What?!

Dan: Yeah, we would basically sleep, stay sleeping in our hotels, and we’d come to the venue half an hour before the show…

And? Did it work well?

Dan: No. We were shit!!

(NB During this Rufus has been laughing his ass off)

Hehe, when I say Rock and Roll is also a lifestyle I’m not necessarily thinking sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, I’m not interested in this things…

Dan & Rufus: (interrupt me almost affronted) Why not?!

(We all laugh)

Oh, I’ve already read so much about it!

I think each person lives in his own parallel universe, or time zone if you will, made of the kind of life that one lives… and this very much influences your life, the things you do, the people you hang out with, the places you visit…

Dan: Everyone in the band is different. But my lifestyle, when I’m not touring, is very much up at half six, kids to school by nine, then some very mundane stuff to do, pick them up and going to bed by eleven. And then you go on tour and you wake up at eleven…

Which is normal, I guess? How can you get up at 8 if you go to bed at 4 in the morning? There is no other way to do it!

Dan: Yeah. The whole thing shifts, and it’s very personal. About the whole experience of being “rock stars”… a lot of those things are by necessity, you know? Some people in the real world – when I leave the real world and I go on tour – they can’t believe that the first contact I make with them is 2pm, when I’ve just woken up. And they go…

Oh bloody rock stars! Lazy bastards, you’re living the dream!

Rufus: Yeah…

Dan: What they don’t realize is that I’ve been in affliction to sleeping in a tour bus. When the tour bus is moving I can’t sleep – right? – so when the bus finally finishes moving, around nine in the morning and we get to our destination, that’s when I get to bed. That’s not a very nice existence, you know? It’s very personal, and I think there are a lot of myths about what it’s like to be a touring musician.

The tour is probably when it becomes more apparent, this living in the tour-bubble is a world by itself, that you bring with you… do you really notice if you’re in Vienna or Prague? I mean, besides that all the writings are in German?

Rufus: Oh, you know where your next gig is going to be, so most of the time you know where you wake up! (giggles) But there are occasions when you look out of the window and you wonder where are we again?!

But I think, as far as it goes… when you get back from the tour and people get surprised when you still call them at two in the afternoon… It’s just a combination of every single day, you get more and more tired, you lose more and more sleep, so by the end of the tour you’re completely shattered! Most people will end up knocked down in two days!

Dan: And we all get ill!

Rufus: Yeah, everyone gets ill!

Dan: Every single time! After the last gig…

Rufus: …your immune system’s dead!

After the last gig. Before you were probably kept together by nerves?

Rufus: Yeah, it’s the time when you relax, your brain is telling you ok, this is it, now you can fall down! And your immune system just disappears.

And when you’re not on tour can you really have the life that you want? You, Dan, said you have this “classic” life, with kids and school…

Dan: Yeah, I do!

You’re much younger, Rufus, what about you? Do you?

Rufus: No!! Hehe, not yet!

Dan: He’s on tour-modus all the time!!

(All laugh)

Dan: It depends, though, family and home time… that’s quite a small time, generally. Because, you’ve got to remember, we write music together, we co-op music, and we generally go away from our homes to do that.

Like a retreat?

Dan: Yeah, we tend to go all over… a lot of places, Spain, Ireland, Ibiza…

Rufus: Yeah, somewhere with no interruptions…

Dan: …by people! (Turns to Rufus) How many weeks of last year have you been at home?

Rufus: Oh, not at all…

Dan: Like, three weeks?

Rufus: Hardly!

Dan, I imagine that you and your brother Justin became musicians “the normal way”, a passion that develops into a career. It is no secret that you, Rufus, are the son of Queen’s drummer Roger Taylor, so you were born into a completely different setting. Many people think, if you come from a family like yours, that…

Rufus: That is easy?

Easy? Well, that’s not what I had in mind, but in a way it must also be a bit easier…

Dan: I imagine it a lot harder, because the whole thing about being a musician is getting people to take you seriously. It’s always difficult and musicians are very prejudiced about musician’s offspring and very snooty…

Many think that if your parents are famous, you becoming famous is just circumstantial and has nothing to do with actual talent. But I know people in the same situation – following their parent’s steps in the applied arts – and in my opinion the biggest advantage they have is that their parents and their environment value that kind of talent. Nurture that talent.

Had I told my parents I want to sing for a living I’d still be grounded in my room 20 years later!

Dan: Yeah, like that is never gonna work!

Exactly, they don’t take it seriously! You have to fight on two fronts, the struggle to set foot in the industry, but also internally in your family. I imagine this to be the biggest privilege that comes with a famous musician parent. More than the connections and everything…

Rufus: Hmmm…

Am I wrong thinking this?

Rufus: No, no! It’s kind of difficult to explain…

My father is the reason why I enjoy playing drums, because drums were always in the house. From my earliest memories, I always remember seeing and hitting drums – and enjoying it. That was obviously the first thing that got me interested. And while most people develop different interests growing up, I just stayed on the drums, purely… I just loved it!

Dan: Mine and Justin’s parents were very much like that, they thought they were normal choices we were making. When we were younger my dad always said to us…

If someone else is doing something, if they can do that job, so could you. All you need to do is work hard and you can do it.

So because he had that attitude, we had that attitude, and when we had the talk at the end of high school

What are you going to do?

I’m not doing anything!

(Rufus and I jump on our chairs and laugh)

What?! Is this really what you told your father after graduating?! :-O

Dan: Hehe, more or less! I told him…

I’m not gonna waste my time doing A-levels (NB a school leaving qualification test that students in the UK must pass if they want to access university) and getting a degree.

I was pretty much a straight A student, as Justin was – but I just thought This is a fucking massive waste of time, why do I need to do this?!

My plan was more…

Somehow get to London, join the right band and I’ll be a professional musician!

And he was…

Yeah, go for it, son!

Rufus: Good parents!

Dan: Great parents!!

Rufus: I forgot that point earlier, but just like Dan and Justin’s parents, my parents never looked down at the decision I made. Do what you love and what you believe in.

Dan: I equally think, being a parent myself, I’d never push my kids into music. I’ve got quite a few musician friends who are basically force-feeding music to their kids, and you just know it’s gonna go the other way…

Rufus: Right!

Dan: Whatever my kids wanna do, I’ll be right behind them, if they want to be a plumber… whatever! Anything other than… hmm… ok, next question!

(Both laugh)

I’ve noticed this not only with musicians… if you enjoy your job, you’ll probably be more flexible with your children in terms of allowing them exotic choices. While if you’re struggling with your job you’ll probably want them to study something valuable. Do you agree?

Rufus: Yeah, absolutely! There’s no proof to either one, what’s better…

Dan: No, it’s true, it’s pretty fucking random anyways, isn’t it? It’s terrifying.

Rufus: Yeah, my brothers and sisters also do different things. One of them is a doctor, one’s in advertising, stand-up comedy, one writes books… there’s no telling what your kids are going to do.

Well, Rufus, all of you do something very creative!

Dan: I hope my sister doesn’t get too creative at being a doctor, because that could end up really dangerous!

Haha! Right, with the one exception of the doctor-sister!

(We all laugh)

The lineup of The Darkness changed over time, people left and came back, it’s sort of a troubled story. Rufus joined in April 2015, less than a year ago. Speaking of line up changes, there are bands that focus almost exclusively on the friendship factor, while others put all the attention on the technical skills. How does it work for you?

Dan: When I joined – (NB to Dan) which was ten months ago? – it was almost instantaneous. We got on from the get-go, it was apparent very early that working and touring together was enjoyable and fun.

But it’s also about being able to play with each other, because, you know, you can like someone…

…and then it doesn’t work, musically?

Rufus: Yeah, sometimes it doesn’t really happen and then you have to make a decision… but thankfully it’s been great from the get-go.

Dan and I worked very closely learning the songs, we went through that very quickly. We instantly felt that we play together very well…

So it worked on both the personal and the musical level?

Rufus: Yeah, you can hear it when you don’t even have to look at the person and you know where they are going.

Dan: Sometimes you just can’t get that connection, it’s quite rare, it’s really rare. I certainly didn’t have it with Ed!! (NB Ed Graham, the original drummer of The Darkness who left end of 2014).

Rufus: Hahaha!

Dan: Not even for a fucking moment! Haha!

Rufus, when you join a band that has been active for a long time, is there a phase, at the beginning, where you feel like a guest?

Rufus: At the beginning I was nervous, because I wanted to get it absolutely right, as best and as fast as I could. Because I know the guys have been doing this longer than I… they’re a proper band and I don’t want to fuck it up.

So yes, at the beginning, the first few times we went in and out of Europe, the first few gigs I did…

Dan: It was tough, wasn’t it?

Rufus: It was tough but I was trying to keep my energy up, making it as energetic and strong as I could, to help drill it into my brain, basically – it’s the best way for me to learn. I think the guys picked up on the energy, definitely, and ultimately it got easier and I didn’t have to think about what song is next and what do I have to do in the next part…

And how is it for the rest of the band to have a new member?

Dan: We’re so lucky, like you were saying before – the friendship thing is so important and being on the same page, being part of the gang, is much more important than being able to play or not.

To find someone who can really play and fits in perfectly… I’d say the chances are very very small. And I do think…

Rufus: I want to say, it’s the other way around as well! It’s relative because of my age, but I have spent many years looking exactly for this kind of band and music to be playing for, so…

Dan: There aren’t many of us around anymore…

Rufus: No, there aren’t.

Dan: It’s certainly important to have him, we are just very lucky.

Rufus’ first gigs were basically just festival appearances, we had a shit-crew at the time as well, and loads of things were going wrong, it must have been so stressful! We were all so desperate for the summer to end so that we could actually go on a proper tour. Like rock stars!!

(Both laugh)

We’re still young enough to make a difference. I think, we kind of lost our way a bit on the second record (NB One Way Ticket to Hell… and Back, 2005) and we’ve finally found our mojo, so… we have high ambitions still.

So you’ve got your mojo back with this album Last of Our Kind, what are your plans for the future?

Dan: Ahm… well…

Are there plans?

Dan: Yeah! Basically we’ve written about twenty-odd songs for the next record already, with Rufus…

Rufus: In two days!

Dan: Yeah.

The new record is in the drawer?

Dan: No, no!

Rufus: There’s still polishing off to do.

Dan: Yeah.

Rufus: But there’s definitely some potential ideas.

Dan: It’s very exciting, we’re trying to work out how our year will look like, touring-wise. If we wanted to go for 2016, we could get an album out and tour the UK… but I think we’re going to be more realistic and focus on making it, then release next year.

So, a new album, hopefully early 2017; we’ll be touring America again, it’s building well for us, every time we get back it’s getting bigger and bigger; we’d like to do maybe a concept album and write musicals as well…

Musicals!

Dan: I really think we should write a musical. Not about us!! About some completely random topic…

Oh, whatever it is, do that, please!

Since then he has recorded six studio albums, and his songs have been used in numerous films and TV series. His latest album, Onward and Sideways, was released in 2015.

“I played in Vienna 10 years ago, it was my first tour, I opened for Tory Amos! I got to see Vienna and had some Schnitzel, it was lovely! Over the years I got a lot of emails from people asking to come back to Vienna.”

…and here he is!

Coming Saturday, January 30, 2016
Joshua Radin – 8pm in Chaya Fuera, Vienna!
Tickets and info here.

The music industry has changed, true, and we think of these changes inevitably in a negative way. Focusing on what is missing compared to the good old (pre-internet) days.

Now think of this: In the good old days the labels were in control. Nowadays the artist is in control. In the good old days there were strict rules regulating what could be published and how. Nowadays one can release whatever material in whatever quality they like. If you can find enough people that like your music and buy your music, in whatever form possible, you can build a career. In a sense, also, music fans are more in control of the music market than ever before.

Maybe it’s time to stop thinking of all the ludicrous revenue streams they had back in the good old days, with record stores on every corner, radio hits and the major labels. Joshua’s positive attitude made me realize that maybe it is time to stop talking about the good old days at all but to focus on the brand new digital era that lies at our feet, full of new possibilities.

Hi Joshua! Thank you for your time during the weekend!

Hi! Of course, no problem!

There is somehow a gospel about you that goes

“Joshua Radin picked up the guitar by chance. He wrote Winter for fun. He happened to be two degrees of Kevin Bacon from the big licensing boom of the early 2000s …and he took off!”

Well, sort of! In a nutshell! But you’re right, I didn’t plan on being a musician, I didn’t grow up studying music and playing an instrument or anything like that.

No singing in the shower?

Oh, I was singing in the shower!

At the beginning of your career you were really a beginner, I mean at the guitar! What was the feeling?

Scared!! I learned my first few chords and then I was on stage playing in front of an audience. Most people have their whole life to practice, I kind of got thrown into it. I had to learn by doing!

What was more difficult, the big crowd or the small intimate crowd?

It was always tougher when I knew musicians would be in the crowd!

But the smaller audience is always more difficult. Because you can see everybody from the stage, while the big crowd, with light and everything, it’s not as intimate. You don’t see the reaction of every single person!

Like you have a sort of screen in between?

Yeah. For instance over Christmas I was at my girlfriend’s parents’ house and her mother was like

Hey, would you pick up your guitar and play a couple of songs for our guests?

There were maybe 20 people and… that’s the toughest thing to do!

Hahaha!

It’s tougher than playing in front of thousands of people, because if you play in front of a thousand people you’re on stage and there are lights…

… kind of a barrier?

Yeah! But you and your guitar in a kitchen in front of 20 people that don’t know you… and you see everyone and their reactions, there’s nowhere to hide!

That’s the most difficult, I think.

Most musicians actually wait much longer for success to come, reading your story it feels almost like you were born a musician but nobody noticed until you could finally blossom!

(Laughs)

Does it feel like that or more like a phase in your life? Now you do music but maybe if something happens you could do… I don’t know, poetry? Paintings?

I always felt I was a creative person. I was interested in many different kinds of media, screenwriting for example, anything that would express what’s going on in my head. I was interested in doing that.

Music was one thing… I never thought I could do it, it seemed like a magic trick! But once I tried, it clicked!

Actually that’s how music feels to me, I tried a lot but it never clicked! I’m amazed.

It’s like when you’re a kid and you pick up a pencil, you draw something and either you like what you’re drawing or not. I think when I picked up the guitar, I thought It’s the song coming out of me and either people are gonna like hearing that or people are not gonna like hearing that. Luckily for me, they liked hearing it! So I kept doing it! It feels good.

But whether it’s a guitar, a paint brush, a laptop, whatever, I just knew I wanted to be creative – it doesn’t really matter what form the expression takes.

So it doesn’t feel like you finally discovered your hidden vocation but more you’ve found a channel to let all the creativity out?

Yeah, I guess. Some people say they were born to be a musician…

Exactly!

I don’t know about that for me. I think I was born to try to create things and express myself. Maybe five years from now I won’t be making music, maybe I’ll find something that interests me more, that I can be creative in a way…

I love music – don’t get me wrong! It gives me the possibility to travel around, meet a lot of people, and have a great life so far! Maybe I’ll be playing music and writing albums for the rest of my life, I don’t know. I don’t want to be locked into doing it.

Your story also sounds like you were the right guy in the right place, although you were not physically in LA. You moved from New York to LA for your music, right?

Yes, exactly.

This is very interesting for beginners: how important is the geography?

It wasn’t the geography, but in a sense it was… I moved to LA because I’ve found a community of songwriters and performers all around one venue, one little tiny club. It was the community that I’ve never been part of and all of a sudden I had all these friends – I was talking to people about songwriting and being inspired by people and watching their concerts and picking up tips…

From New York you had the feeling you were too far from it?

New York didn’t have that scene at that time, LA had that scene. A lot of my music has been used in films and television and that all happens in Los Angeles, all that is done here.

(This is the moment when Josh – who was driving in in his car and talking to me over the speakers – parked and got home. His voice suddenly came out of my phone so clear that I jumped and looked over my shoulder to check if he maybe physically entered the room!)

Also, when you’re starting doing something you’ve never done before, it’s scary. It is nice to hang around people you can talk to, who are like-minded, it is inspiring.

You seem to navigate the online market quite well and I believe you do it yourself…

Yeah, basically it’s just me and my manager, I don’t have a record label or anything like that.

You’re the first famous artist I talked to that does it himself!

Well, it’s nice having a bunch of control over your own career!

Do you think there is a right strategy online?

I don’t know, if I have any advice to give it’s just… sometimes I see artists trying to be something that they are not. Having their life and then a separated stage life.

For me what’s been easiest is, I never have to worry about getting caught because I’m always just being myself!

At my performances I don’t dress up in some costume, I wear just whatever I’m wearing that day – that’s what I’m wearing on stage that night. I never think about that sort of thing, I just focus on the writing of the songs! And playing them!

Speaking of social media, if I post a picture on Instagram or Facebook, of me on vacation… it’s just me on vacation! I think I share my pictures with my fans as if it was my family.

Ultimately, as a musician today, where is the money? Online sales, radio play, soundtracks, live concerts…

Ah, there’s so many places! What people just have to realize is, the record business is dead – no one buys records anymore. The music business is not dead, the record business is!

I make money in many different ways, just … not as much as it used to be!

(We both laugh)

Hehe, artists need to save their money! Any minute it can all go away!

It’s going back to what it used to be – singles! Like before the LP was invented, there was an A-side and a B-side of a small 45 rpm record… and also radio play, everything is about singles!

I was talking to my manager the other day about these new songs I have… but it’s not a full album, in the sense that it’s 11-12 songs. I was wondering

Do you think I can release an album that’s 8 songs?

And she was like

Yeah, why not?!

There’s no rule, there are no rules anymore! It used to be you have to have this many songs on the album and this few singles and this… like formulas for success. Nowadays, just because of the Internet, you can do what you want.

There is a lot of freedom with it!

They are currently touring Europe with Karacho and I had the chance to meet the DONOTS shortly before Christmas, backstage before their concert in the Viennese Arena.

I told them a bit about Global Rockstar, who we are and what we do, and I mentioned that Global Rockstar 2015 – the third edition of the world’s largest online music contest – just ended and the winner is Methedras, a thrash-metal band from Milan…

DONOTS: Yes!!

Not only! Second place is Ani Lozanova, a heavy metal singer from Germany…

YEAH!!

The ballade is just third…

Haha! If thrash-metal is number one then the world is not so fucked up! (All laugh)

Whenever I have the chance to meet someone so successful in the music industry I love to ask about their own experience in regard to their career path…

All right!

Let me begin with the usual question: why did you become musicians and what would have become of you, if not music?

I think we became musicians out of boredom! We were bored teenagers looking for something we could do together. None of us could even play any instruments. We started at the youth center in Ibbenbüren, our hometown.

It was 1994 and somehow we liked the same music… we listened to Bad Religion, The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Nirvana – of course, back then nobody could avoid them – and we started covering these bands in order to get along with each other. We also started quite early to write our own songs… and they were not good! Not good at all!

There is this video of our first concert – awful! Once we played tennis against Die Tote Hosen at an MTV charity. Die Tote Hosen’s stake was an Echo Award, ours was this video, should we have lost they would have got it – and immediately published! Thank God it was a tie, we had to interrupt the game because of the darkness.

Where is the video now? Buried in the garden?

Hehe, yes, yes!

At the beginning it was very important to have this youth center, Scheune, that housed us. We had a rehearsal room at disposal and we feel like we played only there for the first ten years. There were music exchanges – with people from Holland or with other German cities… but the most important thing at the beginning is that you play! That you gather experience on stage and that the people can see you, live.

This is incredibly important, you can record as many albums or upload as many songs to the internet as you want … what must happen is that the people see you live. Because it is touching. It is something you cannot download for free, you must see it… this is exactly what we did at the beginning – like stupid – we played always in the same club!

You mean at the beginning one should focus all the energy and connections to play live?

Of course! We should also mention that our beginning was at a time where there was no internet. I made the booking for the band myself, I spent whole afternoons sitting around and flicking through British magazines. I looked for the biggest possible international band playing the smallest possible club. This was always the point at which a young band had a chance. For example: Lagwagon will play at a tiny youth center… I looked in the phone book or called the operator and asked for a fax or telephone number. Then I sent a fax, or called the venue and tried to get the person in charge on the phone

Hello! We are a young band and we would love to open for Lagwagon, you don’t have to pay us, Spritgeld (a token barely covering gasoline) would be nice, if not it’s ok… we would simply love to play!

Did it work?

Not often! But yes, sometimes it did!

It is always a statistics thing!

These were also the shows where we could reach new people in the different regions we were visiting – and I mean a lot of new people! Then we could afford to come alone next time and fill the small venue by ourselves!

Nowadays it is not comparable anymore, every band and every club have an online presence … if I were the owner of a club today I would just puke at the gazillion of e-mails saying Hey! We‘re the newest and coolest band!

To be successful as a band, of course, one needs talent…

Damn! That was it… (all laugh)

…what kind of character qualities make one suitable for a career in the music industry?

Endurance! Endurance is extremely important. And you must find your own path and stay true to that. If you make music like a flag-in-the-wind… people will notice! If you go what is hot at the moment? Ha, that’s exactly what we’ll do!… it just won’t work. You must find your path and then you must follow it.

You are always at your best when you do what you can do best. If you have to hide behind a crazy hairdo ‘cos you can’t put a song together, or if you spend more time in front of the mirror in the backstage that in rehearsing room… something is completely wrong! This is not how it works, it can cause a little stir for a while but will bring to nothing in the long term.

This is also something I always loved about the punk rock subculture: if you want to reach something, do it yourself. DIY spirit!

If you just sit around in your rehearsal room and wait, like in Wayne’s World, for Frankie Sharp of Sharp Records to pass by in his stretch-limo, accidentally the window is open and Oh, cool! A band is rehearsing! Let me see, I’ll give them a recording contract!… that’s not how it will work 

We produced the first couple of records ourselves, we did the booking ourselves, and even today we’re quite the control freaks. It is not easy to work with us, even if everybody says that we’re a nice band. We are nice people and we’re easy-going but when it comes to our music we’re very focused and we want to know exactly what is going to happen with it.

Another important character quality is, one should never take oneself too seriously! You must take seriously what you do, never yourself.

Founded in 1994, first tour in 1998, the real breakthrough in 2001 with Pocketrock. In the meantime seven years have gone by. When was the moment you thought to yourself, I’ve made it!?

I hope it comes soon!! (All laugh)

I find this expression quite strange… what did one make?

Hmm… I don’t know how you phrase this concept in your head, but eventually the moment comes when one can say I am a musician! I make a living out of it!

I’d say – speaking for myself – I am not a musician… we are – however by chance – a band… but first we’re friends! Then we’re a band.

There was a moment, anyhow, when we had to choose between studying at university and keeping making music with the band. Both were too time consuming, with mandatory classes and all. We thought

Listen, we are very young, let’s put university on ice, it won’t hurt anybody, let’s try it for a couple of years, if it works it works, if not we’ll go back to school.

…and it worked well since!

Young bands ask us very often How can one become successful? and I always think What kind of weird question is this? My personal definition of success is the fact that we are five people that, after 20 years, can still be creative together and that have so much fun making music together!

Often young bands want to know How do I sell a lot of records? How do I get a chart-position? If these are the topics at the top of your list, as a newcomer, I’d say that you’ve started at the wrong end! First get out and play!!

If success comes, that’s a nice side effect, but it can’t be the aim of a band. Otherwise you’re one of those bands that – when a label signs you but says: play this music and wear this clothes – becomes a toy of the industry. And nobody wants to be that.

Last year, during Global Rockstar 2014, it came totally by chance to our knowledge that the winners of the Austrian pre-selection Laurin&Nico, due to attention generated by the contest – were in the charts in Japan! I believe you were successful in Japan without knowing too. How do you handle something like this?

It was the same for us! We learned about it by chance.

We were in New York, 2003, at the CMJ – a fair – and we wanted to check-in at the hotel. We had all our guitars with us and in the lobby a Japanese man approached us. He asked if we were participating in the fair, where we came from, what’s our name…

DONOTS?! Wicked! In Japan you’re famous! All the kids listen to your music, you’re on the radio!

Everything was in a broken English and after he left we commented to each other Did we get that right? What was that? Gibberish, it can’t be real!

Shortly after Ingo came to us Actually, I’ve been receiving mails from Japan recently – it was the beginning of e-mails and such – it looks like something is going on…

And, as a matter of fact, in June we toured Japan for the first time and found that we were really in the charts with imported CDs. The radios were playing us and we even had a little hit, all without our knowledge!

Then Amplify the Good Times was released and it jumped from zero to #2 in the international charts, it was so strange… Whitney Huston was one position behind us! Totally weird!!

A smasher. I don’t know how to push something like that, though… but we made good use of it…

How?

We founded our own music label, Solitary Man Records…

To better pursue the market?

Actually, to release bands that were not officially imported to Japan.

Each time we were in Japan we searched record stores and realized that many bands were not officially released. Cool bands, like the Beatstakes, or Dover from Spain, they were always in the import drawer. At horrible prices!

We thought we could open a label in Japan to officially release bands that were otherwise only available through import. We have very short channels, we can talk directly to many bands. We released bands like Dropkick Murphys, Boysetsfire… all possible big bands up to Placebo. It was really cool!

For your 20^th anniversary you released a single in German – your mother tongue – for the first time. A year later Karacho, your first album completely in German. Here in Austria, for the last couple of years, we have a kind of revitalization of Austrian music…

Bilderbuch, Wanda…

Exactly! Why wait 20 years and then sing in German? Is it Zeitgeist? The spirit of the time? German is in the air? Or is it you personal spirit?

We started making music in English because we all listened to Californian punk rock and at the beginning it was clear to us that we sing in English. It was natural.

It was also the spirit, back then, many punk rock bands from Germany sang in English. That’s how the scene was and we didn’t question it. Even if we had a lot of music in German in our records collections at home and we covered German-singing bands, Die Kassierer, Die Toten Hosen, Die Ärzte…

After 20 years we thought, let us try something else!

Something new?

Yes, so that is stays exciting for us, as a band.

I am Italian and a very common comment I get is how musical my mother tongue is. I personally think that different languages are best suited for different music genres…

Yes, definitely!

We noticed that the German language is more direct, and consequently the whole record is more direct. German also has more polysyllabic words, this means you have more staccato, you can be faster with your vocals. I’d say the record is more aggressive than usual, more of a punch in the face.What happens to the music when you sing in another language?

We also recorded Karacho in English, for Japan and the USA. When recording the vocals it was freaky: the same song, with the same lyrics only translated, had two completely different settings in two languages! Some songs work better in German, some I’d even say in English. Some are not completely satisfying and it is really freaky, ‘cos it’s the same lyrics, only the language is different. Nevertheless it is a different approach!

English flows a little more, a bit like Italian which always sounds like one’s singing. And German sounds like someone is ranting at you! German bands, even when they sing about love, always sound very brutal. But for a punk band it is so right! You always have a latent feeling the music is spitting at you.

The pronunciation in German can almost be too direct, somehow it also sounds a bit stupid: if you sing too fast everything gets quickly packed and convoluted. One hides behind their mother tongue.

Could it be that the directness lies in the fact that German is your mother tongue and if you write or sing in English you always have a kind of filter in-between?

Definitely! In German you can’t fool yourself! You understand every word. It happened that the lyrics worked well on paper, then you begin to sing and it sounds like crap. There’s not much you can do, you must change it. But afterwards the meaning is not completely correct anymore… because in German it is more evident that the sense changed slightly. Your own mother tongue is less forgiving.

To go back to the question why German? It also simply happened. For our anniversary we actually wanted to release one or two songs and we wanted it to be something special. So we thought to do it in German. We went into the studio and the beginning was bumpy. In the end it was with the first track on the album – Ich mach nicht mehr mit – also the first one we finished, that we felt the breakthrough. Now we knew where we wanted to go.

Thank you, boys, it was a pleasure!

For us too! 

Imet Róisín backstage before the concert and was amazed at her normality… we chatted, we laughed, we interrupted each other during the interview and after the concert I went home with this thought: no matter what career path this woman chose, she would have been brilliant at anything remotely related to art!

Do you remember when you decided you wanted to make music for a living? Do you remember a turning point, the moment you realized – Hey, I can earn a living out of this!?
For me it was a little complicated because I didn’t really decide that’s what I want to do, I got sucked in it. Moloko started as a relationship and music thing at the same time – boyfriend and girlfriend, same night when we recorded music together – but I didn’t think I was making music, I was saying stupid stuff… everything I did has just been one sort of accident after another, really.

I think the major turning point was making my first solo album (NB Ruby Blue, 2005), because I…

Really?! That late?
Yeah, because when I made these records with Moloko it was with my boyfriend, I travelled the world with my boyfriend… it was a safe environment, a very small, cozy, safe environment. When I questioned myself should I really be doing this or not I didn’t really have an answer until after I did it on my own.

Maybe also because you were so young?
Well, I was 19 when I started, I was getting closer to 30 when I finished with Moloko. It was also a wild splitting-up, Moloko had a wild finishing: the process of closing it lasted two to three years, we made an album (NB Statues, 2003, Moloko’s last album), we toured the album…

The real relief was when I finished Ruby Blue, it sort of ended a period of three to four years of uncertainty for me.

You were 19 when Tight Sweater, Moloko’s first album, came out. Was your young age an advantage?
Oh gosh, yeah! It would have been quite easy for me to get lost in the world that I was in. To have a reason, a focus for all us creative people to throw it all in… I was very, very lucky to find that career!

You decided to stay in UK at age 15 instead of moving back to Ireland, even before you started making music. Music was not part of the equation?
It was in a way! My family went back to Ireland and I didn’t want to go back to Ireland, they’re all into heavy metal and I just couldn’t bear it (NB Róisín laughs, then I laugh… there was a lot of laughing involved with this interview, actually).

I loved music, I was going to see a lot of bands, I was going to the clubs, I was buying records, hanging out with people really into music… I didn’t want to go!

Some places are better than others to build a career as a musician. Would you recommend to young artists who were born in a somehow unfavorable country or city to relocate to a better music scene as soon as possible?
Oh, I don’t know… great music can come from any place.

But I was lucky because I landed in Manchester and it was the end of the 80s and they really had some times in Manchester… we had Madchester, The Haçienda, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and all that Factory (NB Factory Records) stuff… it was a very vibrant musical scene.

You were also in the right setting for the kind of music that you make… who influenced who? I mean, do you make this kind of music because of the place where you started?
Yeah, maybe… Manchester was a big thing for me coming from a small town in Ireland. We moved to Manchester when I was 12 and for me it was perfect, just the perfect thing. My brother – he was older than me – was not so good, he missed his friends. But I was so ready for that bigger pond.

You have a very carefully constructed image when it comes to your artistic persona… 
I don’t back the carefully constructed… (NB we both laugh and then I play my “not mother tongue joker” once again) 

This keeping the artist image separated from your private life, it has pros and cons. Would you recommend it?
I don’t know if I do (NB have a separate image as an artist)… I mean, you see me now in my absolute scruffies… (NB it’s a t-shirt and yoga pants, btw, and to me it seems just right for someone who will be at make-up in a few and on stage in less than one hour).

I don’t feel it’s separated identities, it’s the same person, it’s me and it’s my taste, it’s my flamboyancy, my silhouette… mine! Just as much as everything else! 

Can you go to Tesco undisturbed?
It’s brilliant because I walk out the street and if I don’t have the shoulder pads on nobody recognizes me … if they knew everybody would go “put on the bloody shoulder pads!”

But I’m not that famous anyway, maybe if I was really f-a-m-o-u-s…

We all know people who spend months, years in studio improving, filing and polishing songs that are already perfect. A lot of artists have a problem to press the big red button and saying – this is it, it’s finished! I’ve read that with your new album Hairless Toys this process was quite easy…
There wasn’t much stress about that at all working with Eddie (NB: Eddie Stevens, British composer and arranger who worked with Moloko and followed Róisín in her solo career). There was just knowing that it would be ok!

When you’re in the middle of stuff and you’re working with somebody you don’t know and the result is not perfect, it doesn’t sound right, you get an anxiety… because you have to explain it to this person and you don’t know if the explanation is coming across, you don’t know if they’re going to fix it the way you wanted it to be fixed…

But with Eddie, we wouldn’t even have to say anything! We just knew, later on we will fix this and that but for now we just keep this, this and this. That’s how you keep the energy in the studio, it’s very important to get the energy actually down onto the tape. It’s very very very important, you don’t destroy that in any work of art, you’ve got to keep it alive, not overwork it.

Some people work hard on things, I worked hard on things, but there is a line, it’s a stretchy line, and it’s different for different things but… when it’s finished it’s finished! You shouldn’t go past (NB the line) and you should never expect it to end up perfect.

You also have to do the math: what am I going to lose by fixing this?

Freshness, I guess?
Yes.

Closing an album… there is always a lot of compromising involved. Are you 100% happy with Hairless Toys? How much did you compromise?
I could answer the question yes I’m 100% happy and also no, you can never be 100% happy with anything!

It is finished and I’m 100% happy with that, I can move on.

Hmm… I think I’m asking the wrong question for your mind setting! Is this ability to move on to new things your secret?
It’s not that I have a rule that we don’t overwork things, I don’t set a line and you can’t work past that. It depends on the moment, it depends on the situation. I’ve made records that were ridiculous… I mean, Statues, by Moloko, was insane! Fifty piece orchestra… mixing was a nightmare!

What is the correct way to pronounce your given name?
Ro-sheen [ɾˠoːˈʃiːnʲ]

Oh! Here in Austria everybody says Rosin!
British people can’t pronounce it either! It’s Irish, very Irish… even the English radios don’t say it right!

Does it still disturb you?
A little bit. (NB giggles)

Well, thank you Ro-sheen!
Thank you, enjoy the show!

(NB we enjoyed the show very much!!)

This was my very first writing job. A Viennese start-up decided to bring six artists from six different countries to Vienna for 4 days to write, record and shoot the video of a song. Ah, the memories!

To The Moon was released on Sept. 16 2015.

About the song and the production

THE MAKING OF TO THE MOON – #HitInTheMaking

TO THE MOON LYRICS! – Music and Lyrics by six people without quarreling

A SONG UNITING CONTINENTS – Music has no Borders

MIX IT UP! – On Love, Respect and the Concept of Borders

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY – A Note on Global Rockstar United’s Lucky Star

Interviews with the production company

THE MUSIC PRODUCTION – An Interview with Christof Straub

THE MARKETING CAMPAIGN – An interview with Ronny Steibl

ORGANIZING CHAOS – An interview with Mirella

THE TEAM – A thank you note

Interviews with the the artists

KATIE THOMPSON – Representing Oceania

A YEON – Representing Asia

CHRISTIAN RABB – Representing Europe

MURRAY YATES – Representing North America

JHANNIEL – Representing South America

SYSSI MANANGA – Representing Africa

Facebook videos, daily wrap-up 1-5

These videos were originally published on the Facebook profile of Global Rockstar shortly after they were shot.

The audio is horrible, I know, still I love to see how everybody went from ok, I’m here, kinda cool to WOHA I LOVE THIS CRAZY STUFF!! in a matter of hours…

Day 1 – 14 Aug. 2015

Day 2 – 15 Aug. 2015

Day 3 – 16 Aug. 2015

Day 4 – 17 Aug. 2015

Day 5 – 18 Aug. 2015