"KMFDM- MORE PUNK THAN PUNK"
Transcribed from The Depaulia Magazine
Friday, September 26th, 1997 issue
By Mike Duffin

While the Sex Pistols, punk's most infamous rockers, traded in any ounce of respectability they had for reunion cash last year, KMFDM's creator Sascha Konietzko was in the process of staging a rebellion.

Although the lyrics to KMFDM's songs - which break the barriers between industrial and techno - would imply a rebellion against the government, Konietzko chose to attack the commercial market via the group's latest release. Instead of giving the album a proper name, Konietzko chose five distinct symbols (explosion, crossbones, bomb, swirl, and pounding fist) to represent the music. "It's just a part of the everyday rebellion against bullshit censorship and that kind of stuff" he says. "You cannot pronounce it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a valid name." If Konietzko's rebellion agmnst commercialism fails and KMFDM's new album goes gold, Konietzko says he'll plead apathy. "It's not an aspect that I'm interested in. I'm not marketing music, I'm making it."

Although the symbols are a unique anti-marketing strategy, Wax Trax!/TVT, KMFDM's record company, wasn't so thrilled. "The fun aspect for me is getting calls from the record company saying 'how we gonna enter this in the computer and how are we going to market this,'" he says. "And I'm like, 'well, get inventive.'" Regardless, when referring to it, he calls it "the album."

Although KMFDM fans have been unable to see the band play for over two years ("We needed a little time off," says Konietzko), the KMFDM catalogue has expanded drastically. After XTORT, the Rules EP was released, which featured remixes of songs on XTORT. In the summer of 1997, Beat By Beat, a video featuring live footage from the band's previous two tours (which also included all seven music videos) was also made available.

Although releasing an EP and a home video between albums is a good form of marketing, Konietzko denies any such doings. "That would imply that we're actively doing things to commercialize KMFDM," he says. "We made an effort to put together something that's entertaining, a little bit insightful and basically making the best out of the scattered footage that we had. It's good for people who have never seen a KMFDM show to at least get an idea."

The raw carnage that goes on at KMFDM shows is not to be missed. Every song is played in a fashion that few electronic bands can reproduce, with the exception of a few. The drums are played on electronic pads and the shredded guitar playing evokes all the energy the crowd has. Seeing Konietzko and fellow band member En Esch in person is a sight in its own. Konietzko has his infamous blonde mohawk, while the bald headed En Esch prances his six and a half foot frame around in fish-net stockings.

Since KMFDM is against the commercialization of their music, it was a shocker when the band played Q101's Jamboree in 1995. "I did it very reluctantly, basically returning a favor," says Konietzko. "We haven't done it ever since and we won't. It's just not the way to go about things for us."

Before America had ever heard of KMFDM, the band's music was stuck in the underground of Europe, literally. "The first recordings we made as KMFDM were done by Raymond [Watts] and myself in a former air raid shelter in Hamburg, a couple of stories underground," says Konietzko. "We had a little studio there and a loose formation of people from various [musical] backgrounds."

They would later employ the talents of En Esch, who, along with Konietzko, would remain as the two core members of the band. Watts would eventually venture in and out of the band while forming his solo project Pig.

Since the very start, KMFDM's contributors diverse and talented in their respective musical backgrounds - have come and gone, working on one song or an entire album. Past albums have branched out into reggae, rap, metal, and blues.

For the song "Torture" Konietzko collaborated with former Skinny Puppy singer Ogre. The electronic-based song sounds like techno meeting Skinny Puppy. "He has a signature sound," says Konietzko who admits "the song itself doesn't sound like a KMFDM song at all." It was more of a two man collaboration, he says, just "Sascha from KMFDM and Ogre formerly of Skinny Puppy shooting the shit and putting something together." He states that it was by mere coincidence that it wound up on the new album.

The various collaborators KMFDM has worked with have twisted the perceptions of the sound. "KMFDM is not focused;' Konietzko says. "It never has been. It's really a scattered situation. There's some bands that are like bands in the true sense of the word. They have a rehearsal room and one of them is a drummer and that's what he does and the other one is a bass player and that's he does, so forth. In KMFDM, everybody does everything that's necessary. En Esch can play drums, piano, guitar, sing, and programming. I can do the same thing"

For this album KMFDM employed the talents of Tim Skold (Skold), Abby Travis (Elastica), Bill Rieflin (Ministry), Michel Bassin (Treponem Pal), Watts, and Ogre. Like every one of their albums, the new release doesn't sound like the previous. "KMFDM really reinvents itself every time there's a recording session," says Konietzko. "The records are basically the outcome of the momentary moods, the lineup and so forth."

According to its definition, "Megalomaniac," the first song off of the new album is about a person having a delusion that they are great or powerful. It starts off with muddled synthesized bass lines techno beats that dominate over the guitars. Konietzko and En Esch then trade lyrics in German and English. It contains the standard use of the band name (Kein Mehreit Fur Die Mitleid, which in German translates to No Pity For The Majority) in a question or staremerit chorus. For this song, the statement "KMFDM, better than the best" is used to reiterate the gist.

Like most KMFDM songs, this one also has female back-up. "The female vocals just give this massive choir effect" says Konietzko. "It has become somewhat of a trademark."

Konietzko believes the techno elements presented on the new album are natural, they aren't inspired by any techno acts, it's vice-versa. "We started and prepared ground for all this kind of stuff called techno," he refutes. "There's no such thing as techno purism because techno really comes from late '80s type industrial and disco in a way. We're as techno as anyone that is techno and we're as industrial as anyone that's industrial."

After licensing a few of their albums to Chicago-based Waxtrax! in the late 80's, KMFDM decided to travel across the Atlantic and tour the U.S. Luckily, the band was invited to support Ministry on tour. It definitely was the biggest turning point in the history of KMFDM;' says Konietzko. "It changed KMFDM's perception of their role in the world because at that point, we were just very unsuccessfully touring and recording in Europe." Although Wax Trax! was a buzz word for new music in America, Konietzko didn't have a clue. "It was unthinkable to pick up the phone and make a phone call to the U.S. and try to get some feedback or a general idea of what was going on there at the company," says Konietzko. "We had no idea why this band wanted us. The only impression we had of Ministry was the 'All Day' single. So we thought we were going on tour with some daft American sort of Depeche Mode type of band that plays electronic soft pop."

Unfortunately, Konietzko never picked up a copy of Ministry's Twitch or Land Of Rape And Honey to realize they were similar in some ways to KMFDM. "Ministry was five or six guitars and two drummers and didn't sound like on 'All Day,'" he refutes. "The whole fucking world just did one really quick 360° and things started coming into perspective for us. When we came to Chicago, it all of a sudden hit us like a brick in the face that we had about 25,000 albums sold."

Although they had a home in America, it would collapse. In 1993, Wax Trax! filed for bankruptcy. "I very much hesitated being involved with Wax Trax! at all after they filed bankruptcy," says Konietzko. "I wanted KMFDM to have a certain amount of stability in order to enable us to increase our budget here and there:'

TVT would soon step into the picture and help the label reform. KMFDM had a choice of whether they wanted to remain on Wax Trax!, meaning they would also be on TVT. "I found that when I weighed my options;' says Konietzko, "the biggest factor and most important factor for me was the human aspect of things. I felt that no one understood what I and KMFDM were about as well as [owners] Jim [Nash] and Dannie [Flesher] from Wax Trax! So we really looked carefully together and tried to find someone that would give a financial injection to Wax Trax!, yet leave them relatively independent:'

But like most good situations, things took a turn for the worse, according to Konietzko. "TVT really worked out quite well in that direction up until the point that Jim Nash died [1994] and that's when things seriously and drastically changed and control was completely seized by TVT."

Although his bitterness from TVT's takeover of Wax Trax! seems to unveil an eventual severing of ties, Konietzko says this release will not be KMFDM's last on the label. "I am not the person that prematurely gives up their commitment;' he says. "I was loyal to Jim and Dannie. Now that Jim is dead, I'm loyal to Dannie and in a way, I'm continuing - whether I want to or not - the heritage of Wax Trax !"

END