Klaus Schulze Interview

Interview:

1. Klaus, thank you very much for taking your time! How are you?

What are you doing these days?

Thanks for your kind interest. Because I'm a professional musicians, I do music, in my studio.

And I live & enjoy my daily life.

2. You have such an amazing carrier! I would like to talk about some of your albums, that have been really influential to other musicians. One of the first projects you were involved with was Tangerine Dream. In 1970 you released Electronic Meditation. It always amazes me how raw, psychedelic and avant-garde this LP is! I would love if you could tell me some of the strongest memories from producing and recording this LP!

This is over 40 years ago, sorry, but I don't have any strongest memories of this. It's a thing of the past. We did out thing, and a label released it. The success (interest, influence) was low to nil, then.

In same year you left this group to form Ash Ra Tempel with Manuel Göttsching and Harmut Enke. You guys released your first album and later went to solo. Again this is an amazing piece of work! I would love if you could share your experiences with Ash Ra Tempel for my readers...

Same answer: 40 years ago, and I don't have much memories or experiences anymore.

With Ash Ra Tempel we made many concerts, and we recorded a first album.

4. Now I would like to ask a few questions about your solo releases and then we will talk a bit about your collaboration with different artists. In 1972 you released Irrlicht, which is one of the most influential albums. What were some of your influences at that time that inspired you and what can you say about recording it?

There were no "influences at that time that inspired me" to do IRRLICHT and all the following albums. Of course, at this time, as a young man, I have listened to most of the pop and other music at this time, same as many other did; we all listened to Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, etc. - but IRRLICHT was quite different from this kind of music that I have heard for entertainent in 1971, 1972. It was not my intention to copy some pop music for my own music. Later, at times of "Moondawn", or "Body Love" I even liked to listen to Dire Straits and J.J. Cale, yet John Denver (!), mostly from cassettes in the long car travels during our concert tours, and this also had no influence on my own music. I can separate these things: listening to some music of the day, from radio or else, and on the other hand: make my own music. I don't even have a record collection.

5. Later you released several more albums including Cyborg, Blackdance, Picture Music, Timewind, Moondawn, Body Love, Mirage, X and many others including with Code III, The Cosmic Jokers and Stomu Yamashta's Go. What are some of albums you are the most satisfied and proud of and why is that so?

Still, I can be proud of early albums like Moondawn, Mirage, X, Body Love ...

"Cosmic Jokers" were a - not serious - joke. These carelessly made funny recordings were mostle mixed and released without the knowledge of the musicians, by a drugged producer. That some people reagard these silly recordings high, today, says a lot about their musical taste and knowledge :-)

The work with most of the GO people was wonderful. Later I worked with Michael Shrive again: in 1979 and '81 he came over to Germany and visited me in my studio. A lovely man, a very good musician. He aroused again my interest in rhythm and drumming which I had lost after my first years as a drummer in T.D. and A.R. T.