Gerri: How did you come up with your band name?
Andi: �Nixon Now� was Nixon`s campaign slogan in 1972, and to us it symbolizes the time when the best music was made, from the end of the sixties to the middle of the seventies.
Gerri: Which bands have had the most influence on your music?
Andi: It is pretty obvious that the Stooges and MC5 are the two corners. It was intended that way from the very beginning. The music of those bands was the reason for me to learn to play the guitar in quite young years. Other influences are The Who and Union Carbide Productions.
Gerri: ...to whom you dedicated your song �U.C.P.� on your first album.
Andi: Right. They were also the best live band I have ever seen.
Gerri: Are there influences beyond the genre?
Andi: You can use something from every style. To give an example, we`ve got a version of �Car Wash� on the new record. When you reduce it and re-think it to rock, it is just a crushing song � the same goes for many disco numbers, by the way.
Gerri: How did you get the idea to cover �Car Wash�?
Andi: I`m very fond of �70�s disco music. As a teenager you weren`t allowed to listen to it, because it was uncool. You`d rather listen to AC/DC and whatever was out at that time. But later, when I was a little more self-confident with my taste, I bought many records that I would have liked to have back then. (Laughs.)
Gerri: Are there any things on the album you would like to change?
Andi: Yes, but you always have that. Everybody has got one or two spots where he played wrong or where it doesn`t sound right. But that isn`t too bad, because normally you only hear it yourself. If it had been really bad, you would have recorded it again.
Gerri: Your last album was released more than five years ago. Why did you take so much time?
Andi: Our label at the time had to close, and then everything drifted off a little. Other than that, the band is a little handicapped at times, because we all work. Sven (guitar) is a pathologist, Stefan (drums) and Marc (bass) work for small record labels and I am the carrier of the Molotow (a club in Hamburg, Germany). But you can coordinate all that. More than a year ago, we started to play again and played some gigs, and since then we have been doing this a little more serious again.
Gerri: In the booklet it says that you and Marc use strings of a rather cheap brand. Why do you proudly write something like that in your booklet?
Andi: (Laughs.) Because we more or less have to. We actually have a contract with the company and get the strings even cheaper than they already are. It`s because you can spend a lot of money on strings if you want to, even if you don`t change them that often. Besides, we consider all that fuss about expensive equipment pretty stupid � and I never noticed a difference to more expensive strings.
Gerri: How bad was the wear and tear of the strings, then?
Andi: I can`t numeralize that. It depends on how much you do at the moment. When you are on tour, you can hoist new ones every day.
Gerri: Has Nixon Now every won a prize?
Andi: The band never won anything. As a child I once won a book about soccer stars, like George Best and Uwe Seeler. But it was already outdated at the time.
Gerri: Will we be able to experience Nixon Now live in the near future?
Andi: Sure. The album just came out, and now we will see how it appeals. We are definitely going to play it to the people if they want to.
