Rockezine.com interview with Steril on Sep 12, 2002

with Mähne Meenen on Sep 12, 2002


		It took about six years to release Purification, what happened in the meantime (between Venus Trap and Purification)? After the Venus Trap we all had to relax and we started to recharge our creativity. Every Steril member concentrated its activities into side projects but we never stopped working on Steril material. It was an important process for us to work on different music projects, everybody on their own. Supporting ourselves we learned a lot, for instance many new ways of producing and handling new technologies. Axel raised his skills in mixing and engineering songs when he built up a little studio where he produced his triphouse-project SpectralBeat, which sounds very brilliant. In this studio, we also finished a huge part of the new album. Jan has made a lot of spectacular remixes for other bands, like Covenant, Haujobb and Philtron. Those mixes are best described as ‘re-composed’ songs. It works in the same way with Steril songs. It’s great. Every song of the new album is hardly influenced by the electronics of him. Meanwhile, I founded CycleTribe, an internet remix project for Cypunks. It sounds more like a heavy sort of industrial rock. Musicians from very different styles remixed the songs that I produced for the Tribe. The actual Cycle-members made a decision about the quality of new mixes and until we picked one, the producer was also part of the Cycle. It worked out quite well. In the last year we got a telephone call from Canada. It was Jackson Presley, himself founder of the record labels ‘kyndred’ and ‘e115’. He was very interested in Steril and he had a lot of good ideas to promote our music. For example, he released special tracks of us for the Strip-chain ‘Dollhouse’ and he provides our music for Model contests featured by Naomi Campell. That was exactly the energy we missed all the time and it gave us the kick we needed to produce the new album Purification. It will be released on Strangeways Records in September 2002.
		Purification is a diverse album, I hear influences from NIN (‘Disposable’ and ‘Out Of Control’), the Prodigy (‘Chemical Bastard’), but also hear ambient (‘Back To 1999’), electro (in ‘I Get Closer’) and more…
		Aren’t you afraid that your album is too diverse for some people? We like the possibilities that we have with the new media. Until the first releases we had shown that very varied music doesn’t have to lead to confusion. It is a hard process to keep the tracks in frame when we cross different styles. But in the whole production we are always focusing on making songs danceable and easy to consume without getting loss of quality. So everybody who listens to electronic music should understand that style mix we do. It is just a kind of demanding entertainment. Very static electronics lead to a standstill in the musical evolution. So we try to invent new gates in the structure of music. To put a lot of inspiration of different bands into our sound is just a tool. We never try to hype our songs with this method.
		You’ve had some help from L-ja to sing on the song ‘Guess’. When did you decide to get her help on this song? You stated on your website that you had trouble singing it, but the song is from a female perspective. So did you change the lyrics, or…? That was just a joke. ‘Guess’ is a former CycleTribe production. I chose L-ja as CT’s main singer because of her very powerful voice. As we worked on Purification , Jan did a remix of ‘Guess’ and we all decided to put this song on the Steril album. It was no question that L-ja should sing this song again because we wrote the song together and she was always very proud of being a part of it.
		Other help came from Kai Leinweber (famous producer from Tatort and some commercials) for the Orchestra Arrangement and Timo Hohnholz, for the co-production of ‘Phoenix From The Ashes’. Can you tell us more about that? Axel had connections to them and he gave Kai Leinweber a demo of Purification. He liked ‘Phoenix’ very much and offered us to make the orchestral background of this song. It took us completely by surprise because he doesn’t work usually in the independent music business. The string arrangement was great. More and more we specified ‘Phoenix’ as the perfect pop ballad and so we took more support by Timo Hohnholz. He was very experienced in commercial productions and helped us a lot to finish this song. It was a very successful cooperation that we expect to do again.
		It seems that 1999 had a big impact on you? Not only the song ‘Back To 1999’ proves that, but also the cover (with the text 99 Vision) shows it. Can you tell more about that? Millennium. Everybody expected a totally different future and we reflected about life. The media started the biggest trouble I’d ever seen about a particular event. Was there going to be a real change – or just some more zeros in the date ? Anyway, we lived, loved and grew up in the 80s and 90s. We listened to punk rock, new wave, minimal and industrial. Later on we got more experienced and we liked techno, ambient, chemical beat up to pop-music. In the end we’re still alive and we have lived in that exciting period of time. To express all that and to keep the memories, we chose to write ‘1999’. Remembering that we grow old but the scenes grow older.
		Your lyrics seem sometimes angry, hateful, melancholic and reflective about yourself… It sounds like a blueprint of your last few years, is that true? Can you tell something more about that? ‘Purification’ itself is the description of what happened to Steril while we reconfigured our own sound. We used different techniques of writing songs in the past and in the break of 5 years we redefined ourselves, too. The lyrics are not about just one subject. They were written over a long period of time. We dealt with many subjects and that’s what the songs are about. About us and about experiences.
		What are your own expectations for STERIL in the next few years? We’d never choose the easiest position for a band. Our audience should be prepared for new releases and more continuous output of Steril. We hope that we can get many new fans because we will go on and on.
		Are there plans for touring Europe? Yes, of course. In spring 2003 we will start a club tour in Germany and the neighbouring states. The summer will bring the festivals we’ll like to rock, too. Our show will be energetic and rocky. We will have live drumming, and maybe more guest musicians with us to keep the show alive. Come to see us.
		Something you always wanted to say, but never was asked… David Niven (movie actor) said : “the three thinnest books in the world are: Delicious meals of the English kitchen Italian Heroic Legends 1000 years of German humour”. For more info: www.sterilmusic.com.
(Beautevil )