RASENDER STILLSTAND have a
really nice sound which I was “forced“ to hear
more about…the group I mean because the sounds I
already have in my house. June-2016
Please tell me a little bit history of the
group?
-RASENDER STILLSTAND as a
punk/DIY-music-commando was formed in 2010 by
Frau Paula and Rodger 451’ in Dortmund/Germany.
Both are responsible for the Front- Vocals and
the E-Guitars. Since that time there were
different members in the group playing the drums
(nowadays Thomy) and the bass-guitar(nowadays
Dr. Fuchs or P.ercy Unknown). One special
feature for sure was the presence of a
cello-player (Dirk the Constructor) in the first
two years. This instrument influences the first
songs of the Band in a very special individual
manner. Some early members of the group actually
stay in close touch to us and become friends for
life.
-For the age of the members: we think
from a certain age on everyone is responsible
for his own face! ;-) So much can be said: All
actual members of RASENDER STILLSTAND have seen
and breathed the old punk days!
Work: Our profession is not to be the son or
daughter from some privileged and so all of us
have to work for managing our every day lives!
Interests: So much, so many but one in common:
never lose the child in your heart!
To
tell something bad about of us, we all have this
point in common: We ignore the fact that Punk is
dead, like Don Quichote is running again and
again against the wind-mills. All other life
concepts beyond the punk that we tried, gave us
the feeling of self-deception!
All
members of RASENDER STILLSTAND have played in
earlier bands, furthermore some have other
band-projects on the side.
-There are many favorites and each of us has
several different former and actual bands which
he/she likes. Certainly a big point for all of
us was and is the influence of basic bands with
“real honest intentions” (like Guy Fawkes had
once upon a time in the parliament of London!
HAHAHA)
. Punk and even punk music for us
primarily is a way of individual
lifestyle.
The music often did not play the most important role, but how real is the
band, how do they life, what do they express
and what does they have
in common with our own lives and ideas.
-"Frenzied standstill" (RASENDER STILLSTAND) is a metaphor of the Western
societies in which everything goes faster and
faster, but each of us fails by the smallest
deviation from adaptation, gets socially and
financially stigmatized: standstill
The name gives an idea of repressive systems
which creates more and more isolated, sick and
broken human beings with the main goal to
exploit everything and to maximize profits for a
small elite. The title of our new album and the
track on it “100 % RASENDER STILLSTAND” brings
that to the point. Back To your question if we
are satisfied with our name! Do you believe we
are?
Best Bandname in our mind: “Rage against the
machine”.
What´s the best thing with
playing live?
-Open minded Bands, good mood in the audience
and dedicated organizers .
-The best place to play are the places where
people are interested and curiously.
The worst place where people are fed up, bored ,
aggressive or totally shitfaced.
We are not fixed on a special type of bands
playing with us, but look even if the bands suit
us in human, political and possibly also in
terms of music.
How would you describe your music in three
words?
-Punk with A!
What does punk mean to you, is it only a word or
is it a lifestyle?
-For us: absolutely a lifestyle.
How do you see on downloading, mp3 and that
stuff?
-For us it’s inflationary und superficial, with
less meaning, you have nothing in your hand to
look at and to keep with.
How is it to live in Germany now? Politically?
-Better than living in North Korea, worthier
than living in “Peter Pans” world
-Yes there are many, many good smaller bands in
Germany. Unfortunately the scene listening and
going to the nowadays Punk/Alternative-Bands is
rather small, comparing to the electronic music
scene or the Hip-Hop scene. But there are a few
hundreds in the town. People running through the
streets looking like genuine Punks are very
rare. The same you can apply to the metal-scene
which was in our hometown Dortmund very huge in
the 80’s and 90’s years. Today we’ve got rather
an alternative student scene interested in many
mixed styles of alternative music on the other
hand more and more young people listen to a mean
less mixtures out of modern Soft-Rock, Pop and
(we hoped that that will never happen again)
conservative folklore German Hit-shit and there
are more and more bands here doing exactly that
really successful and for that there is a fast
growing audience coz this is the music which is
in the media totally dominating everything.
What do you know about Sweden?
-Sweden is crowded with Vikings, was neutral
during the last world-war, win their “Waterloo”,
has a world wide operating furniture company,
has an exiting countryside, good food to eat,
had only one serial-killer, kings and queens and
is completely out of cash-money.
-The Hives, Clawfinger, Tiamat.
-The lyrics from RASENDER STILLSTAND are written
by Frau Paula and by Rodger 451’. The lyrics are
basing on a mixture of individual sensitivities
und social incidents.
When you are young it’s easier to write
spontaneous not too much reflected lyrics with
the feeling that you are the first persons who
has something to say to a point. When you get
older you have to take care to make the messages
easier again and not too reflected and rational
like a science report.
Writing lyrics for us has nothing to do with
fun. It often is a roller-caster bringing
emotions and pictures in our minds into written
lines. Our
lyrics in German are surely more detailed
because it’s our home language and our
school-English is a bit rusty. On the other hand
we have many people from other countries which
are friends or are interested in us and our
music, so they also can participate to the
content of our messages, over that some music
creations we did give us the feeling that they
work better when they are performed in English.
-Intercellular Kit substance!
Politic and music, does it goes hand in hand?
Which is your most political song?
-Songs played in Discotheques, on TV, shopping
centers or big Radio stations have the only
intention to whitewash your brain and give you a
doubtful feeling of happiness. So the intention
of mainstream music is to keep the people calm
and reduces them to passive observers and
friendly consumers.
That kind of music has nothing to do with our
ideas what music should be and what even also
your question is about!
So political music never stops a war in history
or brings any famine to an end. But music can
touch people in many different ways, create
effects of solidarity, brings people together,
give them back the feeling to participate on
something away from their often isolated
thoughts and behavior, influence their lives and
their sight on the world. So we are convinced
that it is necessary to bring on important and
critically and even vicious aspects of life into
music. We don’t have one most political song.
Every word we sing is an expression of that!
-Many bands and interprets have done important
politically works in different times and
different styles and meanings. They are all best
in their intention to make this planet a little
bit better in reaching the people in their ideas
and visions.
-When you are young music can have a huge
influence on your mind. Unfortunately many of
those kids grow up and loose in their everyday
routine these improved views and ideas. They get
rational and often cynical because they are
frustrated from their own reality which is far
away from their former ideas on life. But even
people out of the old punk scene have kept many
ideals in their heart and have even nowadays
many attitudes. Mostly
they show these convictions not so offensive
like in the young stormy years. In many
different often transformed lifestyles they
practice and live their convictions certainly
not so excited, dramatically and totally as in
the past.
Your
cover on your CD looks really nice, is it
important to have a record cover which shows
people which type of music you play? Your
favorite recordcover? Who does your covers? And
do you have any good recordstores in your
hometown.
-We’re happy that you like our CD-covers. We put
many time, creativity and work in our artworks
and even in the first years of RASENDER
STILLSTAND we create the materials completely by
our own.
With the new vinyl-albums we couldn’t get
on with this DIY-Production and they were
manufactured in a conventional way. But soon we
bring out our latest album “100 % RASENDER
STILLSTAND” also in a limited CD-format, which
will be than again completely created by our own
hands.
Record-Stores: We have even three (!)
recordstores in our closer environment.
-In the 70ties and the 80ties the rare and
expensive vinyl was an exciting and significant
great thing, strictly speaking a status symbol
that shows everyone, that you are the chosen
one, because you now hold on something from your
“heroes and gods” in your hands, which no one
could understand who never got in touch with
this “Holy Grail”. Therefore a LP has maximum
space to bring up your art-work, ideas and
messages even you can put in the envelope for
example posters or small pamphlets. The cassette
was also very important because there you can
record music which you only could get through
the radio or through friends which own a record
you cannot get because
your record-store don’t sell it, or you
can get but have not the money to buy it. The
coming up CD in the 90ties was for a short
period very nice, coz you can rent them for “One
Deutsche Mark” a day, copy it on a cassette and
are immediately owner of the latest music stuff
nearly for nothing. By the way making music on
parties was also very practical with CDs while
much smaller and easier to transport as Vinyl
and even if you get completely drunk it’s much
easier to handle by only pressing the start
button and do not the crude attempts to navigate
“on the high seas” the record-arm into the right
groove ;-).
For our publications we started with CDs because
it is the easiest and cheapest term to bring the
music to the audience without losing the
objective material in form of something you held
in your hands with all positive aspects
of presenting an art-Work in opposite to
the for example “mp3 formats”.
Many people in our scene don’t accept anything
else but vinyl and they often asked us why we
don’t have any records. So last year we’ve had
for the first time the resources to produce
vinyl with the financial help of some friends.
So now we can pay tribute to those people with
our new album
“100 % RASENDER
STILLSTAND” in vinyl and another Vinyl-disk as a
compilation (“AUSRASTEN”) with a select of songs
we’ve done before on CD’S.
Please tell me a funny thing which have happened
during your career and under some gig?
-Playing as support for Jello Biafra in
Stuttgart in a club called “Universum” When we
reached, completely
tired after a long ride on the streets,
the place we see some buildings and a big
cross-junction, but nothing which reminds to a
Live-Music-Club. So we started to ask some
pedestrian: “Excuse me please. Can you show us
the way to the “Universum?”
People feel really irritated and we need
some minutes to understand why…
-Most gigs we’ve played, the audience was
original from our scene. We also played some
gigs in other coherences even in front of other
ethnics. These were also very interesting
concerts with a totally different perception,
but throughout positive reactions on our
performances. So we don’t miss any type of
people on our concerts. Sometimes we regret that
there are people outside, where we are convinced
that they would like to enjoy us, but never
heart about us, and so don’t visit our gig, when
we play in their town. We had performed with
some “bigger” acts like “Jello Biafra”, “Reagan
Youth”, or “The World Inferno Friendship
Society” as really positive examples in
relationship. And yes that is always something
special, but even to play with so called “small”
bands like “Los Disckolos”, “Dead City radio”, “Notgemeinschaft
Peter Pan” etc. means
to us often more fun, relaxed time and closer
contacts, than playing with the so called
“Famous” which are, even if they don’t claim
that for themselves, always busy and distanced
(surely for their self-protection).
-Sometimes in interviews the questions are a
little bit pointless. In many ways you get
questions which have nothing do to with you,
your life, the identity,
ideas or intentions of the band. Often we
have the impression that the interviewer isn’t
really interested to become acquainted with the
band in a closer manner, while it costs time to
be engaged in individual personality.
-“Joy Divison” (Rodger), “Rage against the
machine” (Frau Paula) , “Emils” (Dr. Fuchs),
“Suicidal Tendencies” (Thomy),
“Neurotic
Arseholes” (P.ercy Unknown)
-Absolutely, playing in a Band is like having a
family with all conflicts, different views,
doubts and struggles. If you are in an active
band playing many gigs in different places you
are confronted with many challenges and making
by the way many experiences which bring you to
your own bounds, teach you to manage difficult
situations, make you more open minded, sovereign
and self-confident. Things which are helpful to
transfer in your everyday life. Overturning:
Yes, playing in a Band helps you to leave the
everyday life with problems behind or to put out
strong emotions or thoughts into creative
energy.
-Do you drink bear or hard liquor?
-Yes there is the question we were never asked
till today. But we want that the people make
their own thoughts on themes. So we can wait and
don’t want to give odds on everything.
Futureplans for the band?
-To become acquainted with others
are the celebrations in life.
We met many different nice people through the
activities of the band outside of the own
environment, so have many new won contacts and
even friends , spread all over the countryside
and even the planet. This is a great thing! We
wish that this happens further on in the future.
For yourself?
-No matter what happens! For that we never
surrender and never lose ourselves!
Punk is dead, but giving up is not an option
Wisdomword?
-Punk is dead, but giving up is not an option!
Something to add?
-Thank you Peter, for the interest in us!
Many Greets to you and to Sweden!
Peace!
RASENDER STILLSTAND |