Scrit: OK mister, what�s with spelling �color� the way the British do?
Stefan: Has a better Kabbalistic impact ; ) Well, in fact we thought it looks just better...
Scrit: Colour Haze could often be described as The Jimi Hendrix Experience of desert rock. Meant to only be a compliment, this is said based largely on your amazing soloing, Philipp�s complex bass, and Mani�s octopus-like drumming.
Stefan: That comparison is really a big compliment. Thank you. On guitar, Jimi Hendrix for sure is one of my strongest influences and also my most admired guitar player. But maybe the similarity is that we also play more like a jazz-trio, meaning that every instrument has the same importance and also drums have a leading role.
Scrit: I do not own your first album Chopping Machine. But I understand the sound greatly differs from any of your later releases. Was it just a Wretch compared to Blues For The Red Sun type of huge evolution?
Stefan: No. It`s a different band that plays different music under the influence of the early �90�s scenes from Neurosis to Rollins, more complex, darker and harder than now. Not a bad album but just very much different. Also my thoughts and feelings embedded there are not the same today.
Scrit: You�ve just re-released Periscope on CD (thank you by the way). Does this differ at all from the vinyl version or original release?
Stefan: Apart from the bonus track, it`s the same as the vinyl release. It`s a re-worked version of the original with new vocals and remixed (done in 2001). The bonus track was recorded with CH`s first drummer, Tim H�fer, in December 1999, when we were rehearsing for a huge show on the Munich Millennium Mile, which Mani couldn`t play. This caused quite a crisis, as we saw our biggest chance so far in playing in front of tens of thousands of people right before the millennium. In the end, that Millennium Mile was so overcrowded (more than half a million people on that street) that the ongoing of the concerts was cancelled while we sat in the backstage tent waiting for our show time. We couldn`t even get away then as the police closed all the roads and didn`t let us get our van (and even didn`t let people get out of the subway). That backstage tent quickly was used as an emergency area for unconsciously drunk people and the heating was turned off also. And there we sat amidst a roaring madness with our gear, freezing, couldn`t get away, and our "big chance" was fast-at-hand cancelled. At least this sat some perspectives right. So the bonus track is kind of a reminiscence of all the hassles of December 99...
Scrit: Has it always been you, Mani, and Philipp?
Stefan: Mani and Philipp came into the band in summer `98. In that time we had a singer who left the band in spring `99.
Scrit: Were you not being treated by Monster Zero the way in which you would have liked, thus you gave birth to Elektrohasch?
Stefan: We always had a very good relationship with Monster Zero and they treated us very fair. But as the guys run the label aside from their studies and daytime jobs, they couldn`t do their label work concerning promotion as straight as I think it sometimes needed to. Because of that, already in those days I took over a part of the promotion work. So founding my own label was just a logical step.
Scrit: I talked to Sergio of Los Natas recently. Tell us your thoughts in hindsight about the �Tomaiten (Jamm Aleman)� collaboration and The Munchen Sessions album.
Stefan: Well, that was big fun. I did the basic organization for the three European tours of Los Natas. At the first one they arrived in Munich and had a day off the next day, so we decided to use that day for a studio recording, carried the CH backline in the Ara-Tonstudio and off they went. Natas were really hot on playing, being the first time in Europe and so they recorded those three medleys of their songs just as they play it live, all in first takes! It was really impressive. Then I stepped in with guitar and we recorded two free improvisations of which we finished the better one. Finally we recorded second guitars and vocals. The complete recording was done in one day! Tim H�fer and me mixed it on occasions over the following months. Some vocals and bass-lines Natas had forgotten that day, or wanted to see improved, also came as data from Argentina and we fitted them in. It was weird and great luck we kind of stumbled into this gem of a recording. By the way those recordings are about to be released on vinyl in February, the DLP`s are already in print!
Scrit: Do you foresee some type of live Colour Haze album or perhaps a live DVD in the future? I hear Den Bosch is set up well for video recording�
Stefan: At the 2005 Burg Herzberg Festival, we were recorded by the famous German Rockpalast TV show - unfortunately someone overdubbed the audio recording with "0"-data. So though there is quite a lot of bootleg video, mini-disc or tape recordings around we still have to wait for the opportunity to get a high-quality live recording. This also means though we want to record a nearly perfect show. E.g. on our 2005 autumn tour, we made a studio-live-recording for a local TV station in Oldenburg which turned out very nicely in picture and sound quality, quite in the style of the typical �70�s TV studio live recordings. But due to the stressful, exhausting circumstances of touring, my voice was very bad that day and also my playing wasn`t as concentrated as it should have been. Anyway we are collecting material and hopefully sometime there will be an official live recording.
Scrit: Philipp did the cover artwork for the self-titled album, if I�m not mistaken. Has he handled the other album covers as well? The self-titled artwork is amazing.
Stefan: Philipp handles all the layout work for Colour Haze and for a lot of Elektrohasch releases, though the artwork is often delivered by an artist or the bands. But at least concerning Colour Haze, Philipp always gets it in shape. The pictures on the self-titled are from an 18th century book discussing the possible existence of more sun systems with planets in the universe like ours, in the way of a theatre play, kind of to save the author from getting burned or something. One day CH`s first bass-player, Christian Wiesner, stepped in to our rehearsal, listened a while and then exclaimed he knew THE picture for us. It lasted four weeks and Christian came up with a scientific magazine showing that picture. It didn`t say in the magazine though from where the picture originated, so Mani did some internet research and found out the name of the book. We asked for it at the Bavarian State Library and in fact they had ten different issues of it from the early 18th century to 1966. We ordered three of them and went there. It was very cool to have those 250-year old books in our hands, we decided about the pictures, they scanned them at the library and Philipp edited them for the cover of the CD and LP.
Scrit: Have you always lived in Germany (Munich, correct)? I lived in Hamburg between the ages of six and eight.
Stefan: I was born in Dachau, which is about 15 km north of Munich and lived in the countryside north of Munich until age eight, since then I live in Munich. So I�ve always lived in Germany, though I`m of Austrian nationality. Philipp is from Munich, Mani is from Rosenheim, which is 70 km south of Munich and moved to Munich some years ago for band and job.
Scrit: Why is America the only ones who stubbornly do not use the metric system?
Stefan: Well it`s not logical that someone refuses to use such a logical thing as the metric system, right? And as minus (x) minus = plus, it`s otherwise just logical that the real America doesn`t use it (I think the obscure countries in the south of your continent use the metric system ; ). Beware the Muslim terrorists become aware of that! Such an inevitable source of snafu-situations! I just imagined someone would start dividing time in units of 60, 24 and 12, ha ha ha, ridiculous idea...
Scrit: Colour Haze is all about the love, isn�t it�
Stefan: The wonders and beauty of existence within all its struggles and difficulties - so in the conclusion all about love, yes.
Scrit: How do you feel about the new Queens of the Stone Age album? You a fan?
Stefan: I have to admit that once I discovered Kyuss in 1995 I was listening to them every day for at least two years. I also enjoyed the first QOTSA album nearly that way. So I think it`s a difficult thing to criticize the work of an artist that brought such good music and fun into my life, it`s hardly up to me. Anyway as you ask for my thoughts about it: I thought Songs For The Deaf was a really perfect record in its way and still should have deserved even more success. For my personal taste I missed though a certain kind of diversity as the music didn`t let go and get down clean and relaxed once. It was all the time that high-adrenaline four minutes fuzzed-out rock songs and though they were mostly very good (I`m not so much into that screamo-punk noise of Nick Oliveri) this got me tired to some extent. With the new record they made a step in the right direction about this point, to my taste, as the record offers more diversity. But personally I think it`s kind of overproduced. The songs are pasted-over all the time with too many here`s and there`s, noises, sounds and layers of guitars. Maybe it could be seen different if they just put together the very best material in a 40-minute album instead recording a DLP again. Anyway it`s a good record, far better than most, even more if you think about what really fills the charts... and I still listen to it occasionally.
Scrit: Along that line, which post-Kyuss project do you find yourself gravitating toward most?
Stefan: My favorite records of those are the first QOTSA, Desert Session 7/8 and 9/10, and Brant Bjork`s Jalamanta...
Scrit: Tell me about your Elektrohasch artist Hypnos 69. I hear great stuff about them.
Stefan: So you also should hear their great stuff! One of my all-time favorite bands. Wonderful people, dear friends and very skilled musicians. And an amazing live band. What can I say, check them out!
Scrit: Here�s a selfish one - how is the potential for releasing the Los Natas/Colour Haze/Monkey3 show unfolding, the one from Oct. 29, 2005? Do you think that might see the light on CD or DVD?
Stefan: We haven`t checked the recordings yet. But I think I`ll at least make a CDR copy or something available for fans. The video recordings are said to be somewhat too dark in picture, I also haven`t seen them yet though, as they were done by friends from Austria.
Scrit: Colour Haze is going to release another album this year, the rumor mill is spitting out�
Stefan: We already booked the Institut F�r Wohlklangforschung in Hannover, where we also recorded the self-titled, for the week before Roadburn in April. And we are working hard on the new songs, trying things, rearranging, getting focused and letting loose again... We already have a big pile of material and I`m starting to think that there`s some very good stuff - also again a little evolution as we are always under new influences. We hope to reach the quality of the self-titled with the upcoming album. Though this is very hard to achieve. Songs like "Love" or "Peace, Brothers & Sisters!" are nearly impossible to top, at least for us I`d say. Also the way the whole last album turned out including lyrics, message, recording-quality, playing, artwork and just everything was real big luck. I still think it`s our masterpiece, which I don`t think of the older releases. It is a new situation and experience to reach a point where it seems hard to get beyond concerning the overall quality. The new songs are going to be more dense and melodic, arranged more to the point, also featuring falsetto-vocals sometimes as a new spice (well I`ve been listening to Cream and Curtis Mayfield a little I admit ; ). We are moving on in small steps to new ground and if there`s a good vibe in the studio and we are relaxed enough I think the next one can grow also into the quality of the self-titled, so let`s see...
Scrit: You have a favorite country or venue you like playing at?
Stefan: Favorite venue: The Rosenkeller in Jena, Germany - though it`s always such a drag to carry our gear down the stairs...
Scrit: Why do you think Europeans are (largely) more �with it� when it comes to this kind of music? Why are my fellow Americans (largely) preoccupied with crap?
Stefan: I can`t tell you about that, as all the Americans I`m contact with are fans, friends or reviewers - and we get some of the nicest and best responses from the US and Canada. But we`ll check out the quality of the US-audience at Emissions : )
Scrit: I�m a little behind I�ll admit. But going back 16 years, the cycle kind of went: Grunge, Nu-Metal, Pop-Punk, re-emergence of Emo(?). What do you think will be next?
Stefan: Puh, that`s a question! Concerning the coming excitements for the masses I strongly believe in electro-bagpipes-techno-killer-folk-waltz with spoken-word-dada and shocking stage-shows including the extremely violent use of hairspray in search of fixating sound sculptures. Unfortunately cool bagpipe-players are hard to find - otherwise I`d for sure jump on that train to draw some new, exciting digits on my account... Electric guitar music, on the other side, has been sliding in its post-classical phase and so it doesn`t matter anymore what you do, everything is allowed and fashionable now. Anyway I hope there will be some new creative outbreak soon again...
Scrit: Any little-known facts we should know about Colour Haze?
Stefan: You mean the bag we have to carry along all the time in which the "little people" live in? Sorry, I won`t tell about that...
Scrit: Who would you ideally love for Colour Haze to play a show with?
Stefan: Concerning the stoner scene, we already shared the stage with most of my favorite bands, among those Hypnos 69, Dozer, Rotor, Brant Bjork, 35007, Los Natas, On Trial, Josiah, so who else? Maybe Motorpsycho...
Scrit: Thank you so, so much Stefan. You�ve been very generous and we all can�t wait for what Colour Haze and Elektrohasch have in store for 2006.
