HOW DID YOU COME TO MUSIC? WHAT IS YOUR MUSICAL BACKGROUND?

Music always was around, in many ways. I took classical clarinet lessons early on, did recordings with a Casiotone keyboard and a microphone my godfather gave me and did tape edits of radio shows. Other activities included for example djing at own private partys, sneaking (due to being underage) weekly into clubs and playing electric bass in my first band. Not to forget the daily exposure to the favourite boy group of my sister, the Beatles…

HOW DID YOU FIRST BECOME INVOLVED IN ELECTRONIC/DANCE MUSIC?

The first electronic music that really got me was Drum´n´Bass and Triphop. In the beginning I can remember that I was excited by every single track I could find in that direction and tried to collect as much as I could get.
Sadly, some of my enthusiasm faded as I had the feeling that Drum´n´Bass developed into a "faster, harder, louder" game and Triphop degraded in a clichee-laden soundtrack for boutiques without any edges.

WHY DID YOU HAVE CHOOSE THIS NICKNAME: "RADIO CITIZEN"?

In the beginning, the project was called Radio City, so the question rather is: Why did I have to change it into Radio Citizen?
The cultural world today gets divided into claims. McDonalds gets „i love it", Canon „you can" and Volkswagen tried to trademark the „Volks", which simply means "of the people". No wonder radio city had already been occupied.
It took me quite long to come up with the obvious replacement, Radio Citizen. I´m not really seeing it as my personal nickname, but as the name of the project.

I HAD READ THAT YOU HAVE A LOT OF MUSICAL INFLUENCES, FROM RARE GROOVES TO WORLD MUSIC…FROM WHAT THIS ECLECTIC APPROACH WAS BORN?

This developed slowly and was a long process. Some of the influences can be traced back to certain things: F.e. the Dancefloor Jazz to a regular club night called "Into Somethin´", the world music to touring with the band Embryo, Electronica to the fact that you just can´t avoid listening to it in Berlin, Arabic music to stays in Maroc and Yemenia, Triphop to 1995 when some heavy records (DJ Krush, DJ Shadow, Massive Attack, Portishead) came out in this direction. The list could go on…

WE CAN SAY THAT QUANTIC IS YOUR MENTOR AND YOUR FIRST FAN…HOW DID YOU HAVE MET HIM AND IN THAT WAY HE HAS HELPED YOU?

I met Will when I was with the Whitefield Brothers (aka Poets of Rhythm) recording for the now defunct Soul Fire Label in New York. Thanksgiving is the most important family celebration in the U.S. when everybody visits their families, so we invited all the foreigners we knew in New York, because they had nowhere to go, and celebrated Thanksgiving. That was when I first met him.
Later on, I saw Will here in Berlin and handed him an early version of the Radio Citizen CD. Quite in an instant he passed it on to Ubiquity who contacted me a few days later and were very enthusiastic about "Berlin Serengeti".

BAJKA, KLAUS JANEK AND WOLFI ARE YOUR MOST IMPORTANT COLLABORATORS. HOW WAS BORN THE COOPERATION WITH THIS MUSICIANS?

I knew Bajka since my Munich days when she showed up at a rehearsel of my first band. Sometimes I played with Das Goldene Zeitalter where she was member. She was also recording with the Whitefiled Brothers in New York and there we discovered we both live in Berlin. Soon we started working together.

For double bass maestro Klaus Janek I mixed a project called DeeQ. As we found out we work nicely together, he provided much input and basslines for the Radio Citizen album.

Wolfi Schlick is the leader of the Express Brass Band, a very nice "Banda" from Munich I´m a member as well. Greetings at this place to the Titubanda, the Ottonis and the Banda Roncati, and thanks to Pino Minafra!

IN THE "BERLIN SERENGETI" YOU OFTEN PERFORM AS AN INSTRUMENTALIST (RHODES, SAX, CLARINET). SHOULD WE CONSIDER YOU A PRODUCER OR AN AUTHENTIC MUSICIAN COMMITTED TO ELECTRONIC/DANCE?

Please consider me both, or if in doubt, I would prefer the last one.

DID YOU PERSONALLY CARE ABOUT EVERY ARTISTIC ASPECT OF THIS WORK OR DID SOMEBODY HELP YOU DURING THE PRODUCTION PART?

Yes, I had control about nearly every aspect of creating this record. There are some exceptions: I did not write the lyrics, for the cover I only provided the idea for the Radio Citizen letters and brought some minor improvements.
But musicwise, it was very important to get feedback and criticism by friends and people I trust. Thanks to Andrew Jervis, Michael Reinboth, Marcel Jung and many more, b.t.w.!

EVEN IF "BERLIN SERENGETI" IS A VERY VARIOUS AND CONTAMINATED WORK, IT IS AN ALBUM IN WHICH JAZZ HAS STILL A FUNDAMENTAL ROLE.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT?

Jazz is one of the few threads that keep the whole thing together in two important ways:

I think you could understand the album as clash of two extremes: Programmed and sampled music, very planned and rational and on the other side the Jazz, living out of the moment, free and with no boundaries…

Also, the album aesthetics are heavy coined by Jazz, especially by the Jazz of the late sixties. Check out the drums of "Mondlicht", the horn section and flute on "Density", basically you can find influences in every song. I listen to that 60s jazz all the time, and for me it´s one of the greatest musical innovation of the 20th century.

WHAT'S INSTEAD YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CONTEMPORARY "NU GROOVE" SONORITIES?

NuGroove is for me a term with not much proposition, I don´t know what it really wants to say. If you speak of NuJazz, I have a rather mixed feeling for it. NuJazz lacked the freedom and spirit of Jazz completely. Most of the time this was music for background and to show off good taste. It´s kind of how some years ago they called cars or perfums jazz – why? Just to benefit from the aura that people connect with Jazz?

HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE YOUR MUSIC?

Now that´s a hard question I could better answer in ten years… It´s a sample-based collage confronted with live music. It´s stylisticly very open but the roots definitely lie in the afroamerican music culture of the sixties. It´s the attempt to stretch out from there to electronic music, "world" music and other styles.

ARE YOU PARTICULARLY LINKED TO ANY OF "BERLIN SERENGETI" SONGS?
IF SO, WHICH ONE AND WHY…

The Hop – this is such a simple song and was very quick to record and to make – yet it´s the most catchy one that ended on quite many compilations and films.

Birds – This song is such a killer everytime we play live with the full band.

Night Part I - is the oldest song on the album, first version date back to 2000.

El Cielo – the last song recorded, again rather simple in production and arrangement. One of my favourites, it has a nice relaxed vibe to it. And, just listen to it on a big sound system, the bass is heavy as heavy can be.

YOU CAN TELL TO US AS THE RELATIONSHIP WITH UBIQUITY RECORDS WAS BORN?

See the Quantic story…


IT'S TRUE THAT YOU HAVE BEYOND 50 CD'S OF MUSIC ALREADY COMPLETED IN YOUR DATABASE? HOW YOU WILL USE THIS MATERIAL?
Yes that´s right. Some are purely experimental, some are albums of my previous bands, one contains f.e. the songs that did´t make it one the R.C. album. But about a third of those CDs are recordings of my (better) live concerts.
Being a sound engineer, I always had fun recording everything and finishing all my recordings to full albums. This was for me a really good opportunity to learn. The CD´s are not intended for public.
WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK ARE YOU EXPECTING FROM THE PUBLISHING OF "BERLIN SERENGETI"?
Producing "Berlin Serengeti", I didn´t think too much about feedback or anything. But as people always liked it very much and some labels wanted to sign it, I didn´t worry. What actually is amazing that since the CD is out, the positive feedback is still increasing.
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING TO LATELY?

DJ Day – A Place To Go
Rechenzentrum – The John Peel Sessions
Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
Elvin Jones – Poly-Currents
Niko Schabel Quartet – Oktober
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Hypnotic
Mouse On Mars - Live
Masada – One
4Hero – Play With The Changes
V/A – Listen And Repeat Vol.3

FUTURE PROJECTS?
This month we´ll do our first big tour with the Radio Citizen Live Set in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. I love playing live! Then, since January, I´m working on the next Radio Citizen Album. Not that I can say too much right now, it will be more into songwriting, stylisticly more of a piece and as well as the last one sample-based. My (rather electronic) side-project Electric Algebra is waiting to get finished right now and there will be some remixes for other people. And I´ll do new studios recordings with my Jazz Quartet. Watch out!