The German godfathers of electronic music Kraftwerk are bringing their minimalist show back to Auckland. In a rare interview, band founder Ralf Hutter talks to Graham Reid
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The innovative German electro rock pioneers Kraftwerk are, shall we say, different: they give interviews only rarely and their Kling Klang studio in Dusseldorf has no phone, no reception area and all mail delivered to it is apparently returned unopened. When they first came to attention in the early 70s they seldom played live and their perfectionism in the studio meant long delays between albums.
They cloaked their music, albums and lives in an almost Teutonic concern for efficiency, automatism and industrialism. They loved machines and technology, wrote about autobahns and train travel, behaved as Futurists already living in the future, and were astonishingly influential.
Albums such as Autobahn of '74 profoundly affected David Bowie and Brian Eno (who used it as a template for Bowie's Low and Heroes albums in 1977), DJs like Derrick May and Afrika Bambaataa, and producer Giorgio Moroder (who was inspired by the repetitive Kraftwerk rhythms for Donna Summer disco-hits like I Feel Love).
Kraftwerk are probably responsible for the whole electro-rock movement of the 80s. Without them, no Joy Division and New Order, no Tubeway Army or Ultravox, no Detroit techno as we understand it.
Their appearance at the 2003 Big Day Out was little short of astonishing: four men behind laptops making repetitive, often minimalist electronic music while computer-generated images flicked up behind them.
While rockers prowl the stage, work the audience and ask us if we are feeling awwright, Kraftwerk were the antithesis: intellectually remote, anonymous, aloof; but producing thrilling music to a capacity crowd which bayed its approval.
It was an extraordinary performance, if you can use that word about motionless men who might as well have been automatons.
Given the mystery, the music and the effect they had on popular music, it is frustrating that Ralf Hutter - co-founder with Florian Schneider - rarely does interviews. On the few occasions he does, his answers may be elliptical, questions deflected and nothing of a personal nature is revealed. Other than they are all mad keen cyclists.
One music journalist was told not to ask about Kraftwerk.
Yet quite unexpectedly here is Hutter on the line from Dusseldorf sounding chatty, laughing even, and directly replying to every question put - including those about Kraftwerk, the studio, and, of course, cycling.
So why would this normally reluctant man speak now, in advance of an Auckland concert which, if that 2003 showing is anything to go by, is almost guaranteed to sell out.
"When there is something to say, why not say it?" he says, which is either Zen simplicity or Teutonic directness.
Hutter's answers may clipped but he enjoys a joke. Put it to him that on the Big Day Out stage they could have simply been sending emails to friends and he laughs.
"Yes, that is a very funny vision. Of course there is black humour involved so whatever people have - serious thoughts or whatever - are okay. Electronics is very mind-stimulating music.
"There are no limits, the limit is our creativity... but this time for you we will have the robots. Last time they had to stay in Dusseldorf and they were very fat. But this time they will travel with us."
Ah yes, the robots.
In the context of their minimalist music and love of industrialism it was inevitable Kraftwerk would create robots to perform instead of them, or alongside the band. This is all part of the same ethos of emotional detachment, anonymity and letting the music speak for itself. Who is on stage is less relevant than the sound coming from it.
"Kraftwerk is a concept for electronic music and when I started with Florian in 1970 we always worked with different musicians and people like artists, painters and poets. We have technicians or computer programmers, cameramen and animators, and people who do the album covers. We work with people in the printing stage. And graphic people."
The notion of music-work as an industrial process is essential to an understanding of Kraftwerk: they go to Kling Klang like some people go to the office: "We call ourselves musical workers, kraft-werk."
Because they treat the studio like an instrument, a place of musical experiments, albums take a long time (they have no "songs" they are going to record) and the reason they didn't tour often in the early days was because they couldn't replicate the studio sound effectively on stage. They wanted to tour but simply couldn't, says Hutter.
"In the late 60s and the early 70s Kraftwerk was a live electronic outfit and we came from free-form improvised music, classical or jazz. And so we were stuck with all this complex analogue technology that took so long to set up we couldn't perform the music to the same level as on record.
"We had multi-tracked on record so on stage we used tapes, especially for the drum tracks. So the drummers were just posing," he laughs.
Finally the technology caught up with them and today they can tour with light, compact and efficient equipment. It also allows them to improvise on stage and use the technology to trigger images, and draw from a massive bank of pre-recorded music.
"With the Kraftwerk repertoire we now have maybe 40 years of sounds in our computer memory, so we are able to use old and new sounds to modify and modulate our music. Some people call it sound design.
"We have the original Autobahn sounds from '74 and then we modify and work with those, and we might change them during the performance. Although there is a basic structure so everybody knows where they are going."
"Everybody" no longer includes co-founder Schneider whom Bowie acknowledged in the track V2 Schneider on Heroes: "He never likes touring so in the last years he is working on other projects, technical things. So we are travelling with our live set-up. We are me, Mr Henning Schmitz, Mr Fritz Hilpert and Mr Stefan Pfaffe who is programming visuals with us."
And of course the robots.
Hutter says he enjoys touring, it allows them to communicate with people in different cultures (they go to Singapore for the first time after they play Auckland) but is disappointed they can't bring their bicycles to New Zealand where he knows we have hills and mountains.
But as someone who doesn't cycle I have to ask: what's the attraction?
"It started 30 years ago - although obviously in our childhood too - it was man-machine and it in a way is the men of Kraftwerk on their machines.
"On the other hand it is similar to music because it is always going forward and you keep a rhythm and you keep your breath - and try not to fall off.
"Once you stop, you fall off."
LOWDOWN
Who: Kraftwerk
Where: Auckland Town Hall
When: November 26
Trivia: Because they have remained largely anonymous - aside from founders Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider - Kraftwerk has had many unnoticed line-up changes. Almost 20 people have been members in the past three decades.
Also: For a complete transcript of Graham Reid's interview with Ralf Hutter click here.
