KROKUS ON LIFE 'N' STUFF!

KROKUS ON LIFE 'N' STUFF!

FEATURES

David Keeps

Rumplemeyer’s is a New York institution, all decked out in cotton candy pink and servin’ up the most dee-sgusting ice cream sundaes you ever laid eyes on. It’s the last place I’d expect to be sitting opposite Swiss guitarmeister Fernando von Arb from those Midnite Maniacs who call themselves Krokus. I am further surprised to discover that I have to explain to a gen-yoo-ine European just what the hell a frozen chocolate eclair is. So you can just imagine my shock when the blond, surprisingly sober axeman tells me, “We can talk about whatever you want. Whatever concerns us, it doesn’t even have to be rock ’n’ roll.”

Hey, I could get to like this guy! Let’s go right out on a limb and get avantgarde, shall we? “That’s going to be good. No problem!” Fern replies in his charmingly fractured English, but I’m still not sure whether he’s talking about the eclair. So away we go...

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What's happened lately that's interested you in the world? Are you concerned with politics at all?

I have my periods when I’m very into it and I would like to go to Capitol Hill and kick some ass or go to the Kremlin and kick some ass there or whatever. One of the main things I study right now is the big influence of the Illusion World—the film and video world. How much there are people who already cannot separate the illusion world from the real world anymore. They can’t decide whether this action they see in TV is for real or that is only played.

Do you think kids might be influenced by heavy metal that way, too?

I think that, yeah. When I was a kid and in college I was a very good actor and I realized when I was smashing my guitar onstage that this could only be the beginning. I could put on a way wilder show and give some real shit. But then I realized there is no limit then. You can push it way over the acceptable limit, and be very successful. I was having a fight with myself always. I realized that the musician in me was number one, and then there's the actor—and I realized that show business is a lot of acting, but I said to myself, “Even if you lose some money, I’m not going to do it.” I had a taste of it. I could be really mean—the kids got so hysterical and aggressive when I made this whole Roman gladiator stuff. And it was fun in the beginning, but in the end it frightened me when I saw how much power I had over those kids without saying one word. And since I know my tricky brain, I tell you—I would have the biggest troubles with myself later to know that I made all this big money based on pure aggression.

But isn 't that what heavy metal is supposed to be about?

Well, that’s just it. I began to feel kind of in a cage when we were pressed into this heavy metal corner and I realized, “Hey, man, you always wanted to make rock music because you wanted to break out of things and rebel, but in a good kind of way—to be yourself.” But they want to lock you into a heavy metal cliche where you appear with exactly the right clothes and leather and all this and that. But I have seen so many really big heavy metal bands who were so depressing. And after their shows the audience went out very depressed-looking. So I think I’m more rock ’n’ roll when I say no to all the people who want to put me into a cage, and I feel sorry for them because they’re not free rockers anymore—they just walk like soldiers and that’s for me too dumb. Well, how have you changed since you became a professional rocker?

Now I have the feeling that it is that serious business down to the last dime with lawyers and lawsuits. I was doing almost anything to get popular at first. Doing whatever. There were not so many stop signs. Suddenly, I saw how other people ended up— one year being absolutely great and two years later selling hamburgers! I saw that I wasn’t going to be happier when I had money and success. Either I’m now already happy and satisfied with me, or I’m never going to be. The success of rock music is not going to change it.

Has spending so much time in America changed you?

I’m halfway American now. I’m definitely going back to Europe again, because I have a home back there and I have memories and mountains and trees I have to talk to. The woods have something that bothers me, I begin to dream about them inside...dream that I want to go home desperately. I want to have the European air inside me on the next summer. I want to go into the Alps and walk. I invite all our rock fans to walk with me up one of the mountains and then you’ll know what I mean. I mean going up there for a few hours, sweating your ass off, that’s another challenge that I like. ’Cause the air is so clean and there’s no noise—it’s like another kind of rock ’n’ roll.

What? When you’re up on a rock?

Then you roll it down. Going up there and sitting overlooking those mountains. Then you know—RIGHT ON! It’s another thing you did successful. I just like things like that.

Do you think you understand Americans better now that you have a couple in Krokus?

I think I already understood them. We know so much about America in Switzerland. We know who Johnny Carson and Nancy Reagan are. We know things every American guy knows. But we learned a lot about the lifestyle and the terrible bread and the good partying. There are very good things over here, now we want to go back and teach the Europeans to have some more fun in their lives. Since they’re locked in between the Americans and the Russians they have not much reason to actually party too much. They are very terribly scared. They have a big hammer and sword in the neck up there. They are locked between these superpowers.

Even in Switzerland, which has been neutral for years?

Switzerland is like birdshit already on cowshit. It’s just a little bit bigger. It’s very small and right in the middle of Europe— and whenever they try to make the big fireworks, then whether you’re neutral or not, nobody gives a shit. It’s just going to go boom-boom and there you go.

Do you worry about nuclear destruction?

Absolutely! I very much hope that everybody keeps the shape of their heads together. That’s why I hate to see a whole generation growing up thinking that there’s no future. Because if you begin to think that, then you are really calling for the end. It’s a big suicide thought, because there’s always a future even if it looks as shitty as it can be. You always live, you wanna stand up and do something new. Those no-future people will be 30, 40 and 50 one day and they’ll be making the decisions and I don’t like the idea of a whole generation thinking negative.

Do you think many kids think that there is no future?

There are always people who think that way. What I hate is people who are idols to kids giving interviews like that or being junkies. These kids are very easy to influence. And these guys giving really shitty statements about beating your woman and feeling like a hero are dumb and idiotic. They are so self-destructive. A guy whose life is dominated by the everyday one or two shots of heroin or cocaine—in my opinion he wants to do a slow suicide. And that idea can be spread, you can plant a seed in people that you don’t want to live, you can give them the idea that there really is no future.

What do you see in the future?

I’m not a prophet. You don’t know what you should not be afraid of, but when you are afraid of the future then you have already lost the battle. You just have to go on and believe. This planet is going to face a lot of problems. In the end everybody is going to have to help the other guy. Either we help each other or we eat each other up. There have to be major changes or the poor are going to rise up and kick everybody’s ass in the western world.

How will you fit into the future?

I don’t feel like being a political leader, at least not right now. I could be a rock ’n’ roll leader—I could be the meanest leader, but I would like to see people being not mean to each other. Not having this constant fear that everybody has to buy guns, not being so desperately— what is the word—paranoia about things. Why do people think they have to behave like this? They should just be satisfied that they are alive—that they could do without hurting other people. Do something that makes sense. You don’t have to kill and rob people to be successful. There are other ways to have a good time. That’s how it should be. What can rock ’n’ roll do to contribute to that kind of future?

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It started out a little bit naive in the ’60s—you know, peace and love. But there was something in that, really. But then it went in waves: there comes the agression, here comes peace, here comes war. Why can’t we organize it to have it under control? I can only try to be a living example of having the shit more or less together. It starts as I see rock ’n’ roll, that the image is not controlling you, you control the image. I don’t have to go onstage and suddenly be the image. I have to go there and have my good time for me. People either like it or don’t like it. People expect to see all the stuff and chains because I’m locked into their heavy metal image. I want to have the freedom not to do it and still be respected as a musician. Because I don’t want to do what they want me to do. You can call it freedom, you can call it rock, or you can call it being yourself.