Diary of Dreams: “Explorers of the horrors of the human mind…”

DIARY OF DREAMS

Μουσικοί εξερευνητές των τρόμων του ανθρώπινου μυαλού!

Οι Diary of Dreams είναι ένα απ’ τα κυρίαρχα αυτή τη στιγμή συγκροτήματα της dark σκηνής, με τη μουσική τους να χαρακτηρίζεται από τη μεταδοτικότητα των συναισθημάτων που προβάλλει, που συνήθως αντικατοπτρίζουν μια βαθιά μελαγχολική διάθεση, μια sublime γοτθική ατμόσφαιρα που ο δημιουργός τους, ο Adrian Hates, δεν έχει πάψει ούτε στιγμή ν’ αναζητάει μέσα στα άδυτα της ανθρώπινης ψυχής και του νου. Κατά την προσωπική μου γνώμη (αλλά και πολλών άλλων) είναι επίσης το σημαντικότερο συγκρότημα που ανέδειξε ο χώρος από τη δεκαετία του '90 κι έπειτα, κάτι που σαφώς οφείλεται στη χαρισματική προσωπικότητα του Hates, που παρόλα αυτά παραμένει καθ’ όλα «γήινος», ζεστός, φιλικός και με καλή αίσθηση του χιούμορ. Μέσα σε δώδεκα χρόνια δισκογραφίας, οι DoD έχουν καταφέρει πολλά: επτά εκπληκτικά και πετυχημένα album και δύο mini-album (έτσι αποκαλεί ο Adrian τα album επτά κομματιών), τρία mcd, δύο συλλογές (η μια δυσεύρετη, καθώς κυκλοφόρησε μόνο στη... Νότιο Αφρική) και πρόσφατα, ένα live από την περιοδεία του 2005 (‘Nigredo Tour’), πρόδρομος της οποίας ήταν η συναυλία στην Αθήνα, πριν από την οποία δόθηκε η συνέντευξη που ακολουθεί, που όπως και το έργο τους συνολικά, νομίζω πως έχει διαχρονική αξία.

Στην Ελλάδα έχουν ήδη ένα μεγάλο κοινό και διατηρούν πολύ ζωντανή σχέση μαζί του, αφού έχουν βρεθεί αρκετές φορές κοντά μας– μια πραγματικά πλούσια εμπειρία για όσους έχουν σταθεί μπροστά στη σκηνή, την στιγμή που ο Adrian εμφανίζεται, χαιρετάει ευγενικά και... ξεκινάει να ονειρεύεται.

Η συνέντευξη που ακολουθεί δόθηκε σε ένα καμαρίνι της μουσικής σκηνής Gagarin, λίγο πριν την πρώτη τους συναυλία μετά την κυκλοφορία του τελευταίου album του συγκροτήματος, "Nigredo". Πρόκειται για ένα concept album, το δράμα ενός υπαρξιακού αναζητητή, που περνάει μέσα από έναν γιουνγκικό εφιάλτη για να βρει τον εαυτό του εγκλωβισμένο σε μια τραγική σχέση μεταξύ πέντε μυθικών προσωπικοτήτων. Τα δεκατέσσερα κομμάτια του μοιάζουν με πράξεις ενός θεατρικού έργου, μια νεο-γοτθική ροκ όπερα σ’ ένα σχεδόν φαουστικό κλίμα! Το Nigredo βρέθηκε στην πρώτη θέση της λίστας της ανεξάρτητης σκηνής σε διάφορες χώρες της Ευρώπης και γνωρίζει ακόμα παγκόσμια επιτυχία.

Ευτυχώς, όλα δείχνουν πως το «Ημερολόγιο των Ονείρων» έχει ακόμα πολλές λευκές σελίδες που περιμένουν να γραφτούν...

(Για περισσότερες λεπτομέρειες αξίζει μια επίσκεψη στην επίσημη ιστοσελίδα, www.diaryofdreams.de).

Jonathan Bright

(Το εισαγωγικό κείμενο μαζί με μέρος της συνέντευξης σε Ελληνική μετάφραση, δημοσιεύτηκε το 2006, στο περιοδικό Strange, τεύχος 87)

The following interview with Adrian Hates and Gaun:A took place in Athens, on December 4^th, 2004.

Jonathan Bright: The last time we’ve met, I remember telling you that I felt glad for, at last, after a long time, there was an important personality on the scene…

 

Adrian Hates: Right, I perfectly remember. It was in the entrance hall of this venue... 

J.B.: Indeed. Well…, I guess I was wrong, I should rather have said… five important personalities!

Adrian: (laughs) Yeah. Ok... I got the point.

J.B: So tell us about ‘nigredo’, the story of these five personalities and how much it represents you.

Adrian: The problem so far with this new record is in answering interviews especially concerning with the record itself. Its quite difficult, since the evolution of the record has taken a very long time. It took us like 2 years now to get to this point, where we haven’t really finished yet, with producing it whole in the market. And there hasn’t actually been some initial moment where we had a precise concept of what we wanted to do, the story just kept evolving over and over during these years. Gaun:A at the guitars and I, have been working on that, day and night.

    It was after Freak Perfume and Panic Manifesto, I sat down and listened to the old records again completely and retrospectively seen, I made a picture of what I have done so far and of what I would like to change, to improve or adjust to how my personal taste has developed. And, many people laughed at me for saying that, but I think that in the last records, there was a slight form of… friendliness left and this I wanted to get rid of, make it completely dark, with no compromises at all.

I wanted this record to be one line, one concept and that’s also the reason why this record has not turned out to be very 'dancy', because even a single dance track in the record, would have killed it. And I wanted it to be very continuous…

   Nigredo was born in a very early stage. And the characters and personalities of the story, the things that happen in the story, were basically the results of a long investigation time where we searched books, the internet, antique stores and all that stuff for the story details. Of old ancient mythologies that are not known, well hardly as known as ancient Greek mythology for instance, that everybody in the world knows, at least one or two Gods from the Greek mythology, even if they are pretty dumb. But I wanted something that is not known to everyone, I wanted something secret, something very ancient and unknown. And So I took my little pieces, bits and pieces from mythologies and created an own one with our world, with our faces, our characters, our stories, with our names and our logos and all that stuff…

J.B: Are the names real, or fictional?

Adrian: We made them up, and the logos as well. GaunA designed the logos and then we worked over them together and put them on, in the banners that you can see in the booklet, made them on huge banners, like five meters long, one meter wide, really very impressive. We even took them together with us to Iceland…

    So, the five characters, I would say have parallels to me, that’s for sure, but if I would have to compare myself to these characters, I would say I’m rather a metamorphosis of C’tharsia and of Tzerjanok.

J.B: I would think that you have something from all,

 

Adrian: possibly, yes…

J.B: …because that’s how it works in a novel. You know, Adrian a novelist acts exactly that way… there is a story and the characters, each of which reflects a different personality of the writer, which he probably extracts from his unconscious, and there, through the plot, he ties them up together to produce the story itself. What ever this might be…

 

Adrian: Yes indeed, I know what you mean, its good and there’s possibly truth in that, but bits and pieces… You have to keep in mind that part of, is also Gaun:A’s, too. Gaun:A and I worked together, since it is a story of that size, even though its not written very long in the booklet, we have the story, the complete story, from a to z. And that took ages. If I have had to do the whole story by myself, I would still sit in the studio today just working on…

J.B: Tell us a few things about the concept.

Adrian: The very most interesting part about it, in my eyes, is that every reader of the concept, of the mythologies that we have put together, will have a different idea, a different understanding of what is going on in the story, since it is very open. The way it is written is very vague… You know, if you have a long history with the band, if you know what the band has done so far, how we work, you will have an easier understanding of what we are trying to say. But I made it on purpose, that it is hidden and secret, because I wanted to include the reader in this concept and make his thoughts part of the story. I didn’t want to just tell a story like, you know, sitting in front of everybody and reading it out, I wanted them to be part of it, really…

And for me, what ‘nigredo’ is talking about is a journey, basically of the protagonist, which is C’tharsia, through a dying planet and of his experiences and doubts, his feelings and emotions concerning the human kind, his existence in general, his philosophy, his thought about home, about life, about his general being… There’s of course a lot of anger, hate, sadness, all these strong emotions that we have… you could on and on, I could talk about it for an hour, or two, for a day even and tell you details, but I think that to leave the story like this is a far more interesting way of experiencing it.

   But, in brief, there are five main characters and these five characters together are one very important concept and if you put these five together by yourself, you will figure out how the story ends and who Narthesia in the end is and where this virus, that in the end of the story, we talk about, comes from, and why it is there and what happens… And in our mini album that will be next the story will continue…

J.B: I was about to reach to that. But first we have this album, ‘nigredo’, that ends with a hidden track. …Is there a title for it?

 

Adrian: ‘Kult’.

J.B: Does it represent some stage in the story nearing the end?

Adrian: Unfortunately, as foreigners and non German language speakers, you have one disadvantage, you miss a part of the story, I ‘m sorry for that, but it is the two languages which I know the best and it is very interesting and very exciting to play with these two languages. ‘Kult’ for instance, is German and English at the same time, as very many words that are complete lyrics by themselves, very often have two meanings and these double meanings and bigger constellations of words is highly interesting and important to me. Its what it makes me feel there is another depth in the lyrics, much more than just the surface, I really like that, words between the lines…

J.B: So, in the end, there is this virus that will wipe out humanity? How do you picture the end of the world?

Adrian: The good part is that I wouldn’t say that there is a clear answer to that and the exciting part of it is that you can picture it yourself, but there are hidden messages especially in the end, especially in the development of the virus and in the last sentence but… I think we shouldn’t answer this question… Why don’t you make your guesses and your personal vision of what the end is?

Gaun:A : It’s much more interesting like that…

J.B: Ok, but I mean what do you think of the real end? …Do you believe in the immortality of the soul, for instance?

Adrian: I ‘m not sure if I believe in immortality, or mortality at all, Even though I don’t rather sound like it, I ‘m rather… realistic about existence and a lot of people have their concerns about my religious attitude and stuff like that, but I think it’s rather unspectacular what my religious position is about, because it’s rather boring, not much to really discover… (laughs)
    Besides, by answering such questions, you transfer a behavior, or a certain attitude, a certain characteristic to the reader, or a fan, that might offended, or might make somebody sad or disappointed and I don’t think that my personal vision on mortality or immortality, should alter other people’s beliefs.

J.B: Well actually the idea behind this question is that I had been drawing some parallel in my mind, between the ‘nigredo’ plot and the ‘Highlander’ movie, its concept. Where there is this ‘Immortal’, who has to challenge and fight all the other ‘immortals’, (which could just as well be considered as a fight with alter personalities of one entity) and, ‘in the end there can be only one!’, he has to be a unification of all, since he absorbs each one, by killing them and gets their power and their secrets, and finally he‘s left alone and he acclaims ‘I know everything’!

 

Adrian: (laughs) …There you go! There you have a nice story! That is wonderful! You can write that!…

(Adrian translates in German to the rest band) 

J.B: You see, there is some true behind these patterns. It not just an imaginary idea…

Adrian: Yeah! The funny part of fiction and actual writing is that there are not such clearly defined limits. Because its always a mixture of it all. You know, some things about what I even write about, that have happened to me in real life, go into the fictional part, other into the realistic, it’s all messed up. There’s not even one song that I could say, ‘look, this thing happened to us’, or it has happened to me, it’s all mixed up and that’s the interesting part of it.
…But about mortality, the only thing that I would say about that is that, either all life is mortal, or immortal! That’s the only thing that makes me very angry, when the human kind thinks that mortality, or immortality is a topic for human life only, while I think it’s a topic that concerns every living creature…

J.B: I fully agree with that… Ok, then, about one last question about the album’s concept. ‘Nigredo’ is an alchemical term, which means ‘blackening’, in Greek ‘melanosis’, deriving from Heraklitos, in 5th cent. BC, and represents the first stage of transformation, the ‘first death’, in alchemical terms, that one has to undergo in order to reach to a higher spiritual level. Psychologically, it is also the first act that one is facing while sinking and exploring his inner self, and only through this he will achieve in his quest for self- knowledge. My question is, do you -or you, Gaun:A, since, you’ve been participating in the concept- feel like you are undergoing that stage now, in real life?

 

(For a moment, they look skeptical)

J.B: …I mean, it’s like turning your eyes on the inside, your own darkness and through the darkness you struggle to see the light… But in the process, you have to confront all your fears, all your emotions, everything that lies hidden in there, all the terrors, your suppressed ‘Freak selves’…

Adrian: We did choose the characteristic of nigredo on purpose, of course, in the story, but I think, studying the real content or meaning of nigredo will only help one to understand the story. It’s not like you should transfer the exact alchemistic meaning into that.
  Let me compare it with something else… In the past, some of my main metaphors and comparisons were related to religious themes. Like Angels, Crown of thorns, and all these. A lot of people took that by word and thought ‘well, he’s talking of religious pictures’, but I was never talking of religious pictures! That’s the interesting part you know, taking this picture and draw something else, make something new. Because it is a strong image. Using a strong image and putting it in a new surrounding and shaping it up, with a complete new story… And that’s what basically we did with ‘nigredo’, we chose a very strong story and, we certainly read a lot of this very old…, philosophy, rather, because alchemy is a lot more than a science, and what we read there was so strong, that we kind of transferred it, into today’s concept that we were working on. So everything we learnt and studied about it, will be very helpful to get a bigger understanding of the entire picture, but you don’t have to stick to the alchemistic background that tells you to be precise wherever you are standing.

J.B: ‘Nigredo’ is of course the ultimate darkness…

Adrian: Cleansing self is important, getting off the dirt, of course. Very important pictures…

J.B: And ultimately that’s the quest of C’tharsia for self-knowledge

Adrian: Exactly, you can transfer that, but in bits and pieces… You can’t put the two ideas together and see that they perfectly much…

J.B: I know what you mean, there is some basis and then several imaginary ideas that evolve the story and make the concept unique. What I like with ‘nigredo’ is that it’s so theatrical, …I was describing it in one review, as a neo-electrogothic opera!

Adrian (grins). It’s very good! I’m not laughing because I think it’s ridiculous, or something, but because I admire the term. …It’s good!

J.B: On the other hand, you probably had to go against the music industry, which is quite brutal these days, and yet you have accomplished something difficult, you have managed to maintain your values without compromises…After ten years of existence, Diary of Dreams, year by year, come back darker all the time. …What should we then expect next?

 

Adrian: (Ha-ha-ha!) First let me say that what I always disliked, was that a lot of bands where only able to transfer darkness and anger and aggressiveness into bits per minute. Why does an aggressive song have to be extremely fast? I think its much more challenging and exciting to have a slow song that is extremely aggressive. It’s like having the anger in your body, but looking absolutely normal. It’s a subconscious thing, like it comes from below…
  For instance, ‘Reign of Chaos’, from the current record, for me is so aggressive, it has so much anger and wrath, and still it’s rather slow. Or, lets go back, in ‘one of 18 Angels’, we have ‘Rumors about Angels’, or ‘Chemicals’, which have a lot of aggression and anger in them, as well, and even in the saddest ballads there’s wrath, you know sadness and aggression are so close to each other… In one moment you are thrown back, you are totally sad and the next second, you get so angry, it’s a very interesting stage, a very interesting switch and putting that in one song, works…

Gaun:A : You know, I listen to this song ‘Reign of Chaos’, when I ‘m angry and after that I ‘m not angry anymore.

Adrian: It makes you feel better.

J.B: That’s also how the concept helps you, through the personalities… You have the warrior so you can speak to him whenever you ‘re angry and then you can move back to Thalamea and be calm. …That’s a nice trick for changing moods!

(Everybody laughs)

Adrian: Right! But returning to the actual question, I can’t tell you how we will try to become darker. I have a few ideas that Gaun:A and I, have already talked about, but it’s rather imaginery, yet… You know, its like at one moment, you have a small idea that pops up and you say, ‘hey, you know what we could do?...’ That’s how we approach it, not sitting here, planning, because, you know, we are still in the middle of finishing up a new record right now, the mini album which is within this close to end… If we wouldn’t be sitting here, we may have actually done it, through this weekend.

J.B: It’s nice to speak of a mini album with seven songs, because I remember another band that used to produce full albums with seven songs in each of them!…

(Breaks of laughters…)

Adrian: Picture this, as my personal attitude towards releasing seven songs in one album, it’s half of what we put on in an album.

(heavy background music, from another band downstairs, playing live)

Adrian: …Remember what I said about aggressiveness?…

J.B: You seem to be troubled by the cyber-cratic evolution of our age and the Philip-Dick-ian nightmare of a futuristic world that seems to materialize. Is music your way of resistance and of your refusal to accept such a world?…

Adrian: Very nicely put… Yes! In general, I don’t usually do that, but its one of those questions that I can answer with one word. …Yes!

He translates to Gaun:A, and he replies…

Gaun:A : Again, ‘Yes!’

Adrian: Characteristically we are this kind of people, from the way we are and the way we think and the way I look at things and the way I have my philosophy. …I would rather be in a room of animals, than in a room with human beings… 

J.B: I know exactly what you mean. I have a dog and I love it like a little child.

Adrian: I know… 

J.B: Since we talk of music, ‘goth’ has always been a refuge for romantics. What else is goth to you?

 

Adrian: Oh. It’s these terms again… The first time I came over here to Greece, which was quite a few years ago. I think it was in 97-98, and we met these people, the fan club representatives in those days who organized the concert, wonderful people. But when they saw somebody in black clothes they said ‘look, a goth!’ and I said ‘how do you know, he’ s gothic?’ And they said ‘look at him he ‘s black!’ I mean, not black skin, but wears black stock, etc.. But from our perverse German music attitude, he can be EBM, he can be electro, he can be dark alternative, he can be gothic, goth metal doom metal, how do we know he is gothic? Dark wave? I hate these categories to death!

Gaun:A : Or maybe he can’t see colors!

Adrian: Yes, just a colorblind man! (Grinning) Where’s your black shirt, then?…
I don’t know what ‘gothic’ is about. An Italian writer from a metal magazine has done an interview with me lately and he said something that was almost as big of a compliment as yours. He said that we at least gave back some pride to the term ‘Gothic’. And if somebody says that, well, I ‘m happy to make gothic! But in general, I wouldn’t say you know ‘gothic’… In Germany, a lot of people call us dark electro, dark gothic, dark pop, dark EBM, well, call it what you want, as long as you like it, I am happy!

Gaun:A : Well, usually it’s other people who tell us what music we make, and then we say, ok.

Adrian: We are musicians, we make this kind of music. You are the writers, you are the journalist, you tell us what we make!... (laughters)

J.B: Actually I‘ve been asking because I don’t know whether you are further into the whole philosophy of Goth, I mean the gothic culture, the way of life… You might tell me that ‘goth for me is melancholy’, which is acceptable just the same…

Adrian: No, actually my personality is about that! I am not fitting my music into a concept that others created. I’m fitting it into the concept that we have, of Diary of Dreams. And besides the fact that I have 3 pairs of jeans in my closet and the rest of my closet is black, you know, it’s very simple to do laundry really, but I love the color of black really, but that’s probably the most gothic part of me, the rest of my gothic-darkwave-electro-EBM self is in here (he points his head)

J.B: In the Diary of your dreams can you tell us your last entry?...

Adrian: Let me think, there have been some really have nasty dreams lately. If I sleep very little and work very much the dreams get nastier and nastier…

(Gaun:A, in German, reminds him of one…)

Adrian: Oh Gosh, yeah! My dreams are nasty, really! In the last dream I had, my tour manager jumped out of the window on the 3rd floor and I told him not to do it, and he jumped out. And he broke his leg and was lying on the floor like this, his leg twisted aside and he looked up and said… ‘I think I hurt myself!’ It was Albert. And I said ‘we better call an ambulance’. And it was very unreal, it was not this world, and we were locked in that room, that’s why he wanted to jumped. And I went to the computer, because in that world there were no phones. I could only type in the computer. I typed an emergency, and this email, you know how emails are, they have a subject, and I said ‘fuck the subject, this is fucking urgent!’ and I wrote it and it came back and said ‘you forgot to put a subject in it’. So I was sitting in there, Albert was screaming outside that his leg is hurt and I was trying to put this email in form. And these dreams you know, they ‘re pretty funny, I wake up and I smile, but there are some dreams which are extremely nasty!... And they are very confusing and very strange. But that was funny, you know every single time I wake up and write them down and tell everybody.

Gaun:A : This was funny, cause Albert was saying ‘I think I hurt my self…’

 

Adrian: That is so… ‘Albert’! I dreamed the way he really behaves.

J.B: What are dreams to you, generally?

Adrian: It’s difficult. Because sometimes I know that what my brain is dreaming, is waking something that messed up my day life that is something that I had suppressed and didn’t let out. But sometimes, or most of the times I have to say, it’s just that my mind goes nuts and it just does what it wants. It puts together things that I don’t know even why it puts them together, but it has a life of its own I think… And sometimes dreams can be very good, relaxing and I wake up in the morning and say… ‘Cool! Very very very dark and very very inspiring’ but sometimes sleep can be very exhausting, and in the morning I wake up and I ‘m more tired than I went to bed, when the dreams are too heavy…

J.B: Are you also a day-dreamer?

 

Adrian: Yeah! You know what ‘narcolepsy’ is?

Gaun:A : Ask… how much!

Adrian: The funny part about me is that if I want to sleep, you know, even if you would sit here, I could put my head down and in twenty seconds I ‘m gone…

J.B: You mean to say you are not sleeping right now? Thought I caught you in your sleep…

Adrian: I’m not sure…

Gaun:A : He was day-dreaming. I woke him up when you came…

Adrian: No really, day-dreaming is a big topic, because I can stare at something and dream, you know, with my eyes open…

J.B: Ever happened on stage?

Adrian: Yeah, often! Absolutely… Imagination is wild, I love imagination.

(Albert steps in…)

Gaun:A : So, what about your leg?

Adrian: How is your leg?

(Everybody laughs...)

J.B: Is there any vision of yours that remains unfulfilled?

Adrian: oh yes! There are quite a few visions about human life may be, or you mean personal?

J.B: Personal vision…

Adrian: You know, I have dreams, not specific visions that I work out, but things that I would love to be able to manage in my life, but if I don’t manage, well… it was just a dream… but I try to get as far as I can. Not careerwise or moneywise, but for my head. 

J.B: Nothing so important though that may torture you all the time…

 

Adrian: You mean like something very simple? Very realistic? Something that I would like to have?… I would love to end my life in a house by the ocean. That I would love to do! That I can say. The ocean, yeah… A big boat would be nice just the same. That’s realistic.

J.B: Well, maybe in your past life, you were one of the poor guys sailing on the Titanic, that would make sense!

Adrian: (laughs…) What’s that movie called?... There’s that movie, where a guy is born on a ship, a ferry that goes from Europe, London to America, back and forth, in the early days of America. And he as a child, suddenly is able to play the piano, as a God, and in his entire life, he does not leave this boat. And one day, after many years, the ship has turned to a ruin, everything rotten and the owner wants to sink it and he stays on board and dies with the boat. In the end it’ really cool, because the piano of course is sold, but he sits there and plays in the air and hears the music…

J.B: I think that in your music you explore the psychological horrors of the human mind! In that sense, as an investigator of the unconscious, I guess you could be called a…Carl Jung of music(!)…
(he laughs)
Have you ever had experiences with other kinds of horrors, I mean… external?

Adrian: Give me an example, what kind of horror do you mean, I mean, every human being has some horrors in his life… ‘Dawn of the Dead’, for instance…

J.B: For example, take ‘nigredo’ that we were talking before. In my research, I have concluded that it’s more that just a conflict with the inner self. Sometimes this darkness comes from the outside and the trouble witness has to face it like something external. Many speak of the ‘Shadow’ in cases like that. Generally, do you have any personal experiences with strange occurances, peculiar manifestations, paranormal things?

 

Adrian: I’m usually quite skeptical with that, because most often people that tell you stuff like that are just crying for attention. Because their life is so fucking boring that they need to make up stories more sensual. I mean why do most of the UFO stories happen in America?
   But what I have experienced is (he grins) …funny enough, it was in America as well, no kidding… It’s a ridiculous story, I don’t know, but anyway… There was this house, an old house and it had a gravestone as the first step and the grandmother who lived in that house told us we are not allowed to lift the stone to see what’s written on it. Cause she said that if we did that, they house would burn. And we laughed at her. And we lifted it and read it and… The next day the house was burning!... No kidding. I always look at stories like that like awful coincidences but to a certain extent it was funny… Because we were like, you know, looking at each other and… ‘Ooops!’

J.B: What about you, Gaun:A? Did you have any such strange experiences?

Gaun:A : People speak of the paranormal, but I think it’s mostly in your head. Like day dreaming. I‘ve seen strange things in my life but I think they were normal. 

Adrian: No really, there are a lot of things that we look at and we consider as abnormal, weird strange or whatever… But I’m not the kind of person that will look at you know, as you know… ‘…spooky!’ or such.
…The Euro is pretty paranormal!
(He laughs…)
I mean, if you look at the prices today, …it’s definitely paranormal!

J.B: I know, it really has upset the market and probably has made your life more difficult, selling cds, etc.

Adrian: Well, complaining about this isn’t really worth the time and the words since it’s not going to change anyway, so just accept it and fight your way through it… I mean, that’s part of our philosophy, too. Either shut up about it, or go right at it, head through the wall…

J.B: In front of me I see a young person, who looks quite nice, makes some fine art, runs his own company and actually is a successful businessman… Have you sold your soul to the devil, Adrian?...

Adrian: (laughs) That is a religious question my friend!... And answering this religious question, I’d say… yes I‘ve sold it, but I got too little money for it! That’s why I still have to work any make more money…

J.B: What is the devil to you, really, the whole concept of it?

Adrian: The ‘Devil’? You mean, that red guy, with the horns? …I don’t know, to me the ‘devil’ represents evil, in humanity. 

J.B: I am just giving you ideas… Perhaps your next project, should you wish to keep going darker and darker, could be called… ‘Faust’!

Adrian: I don’t know if you are familiar with the debut album. Mephisto plays a role in the first album. ‘To Conquer the angel’s love’ is about Mephisto. It’s Faust.
You have to understand about ‘Faust’ that us Germans we have it up here… (points on his forehead) Because it’s one the first books they put in front of you at school.
So you say ‘Ok I‘ve had enough’ There are a lot of German writers that we are fed up to death with. There’s another German writer that have extremely considered using lyrics from. He is autistic. And a couple of weeks ago, I read something to GaunA and didn’t tell him what it was, and he said… ‘This is cool. It’s something new from you…’ And I said no, it’s Dergan Zelin (J.B.’s note: I bet the name is mi-spelled -the problem with audio interviews…). 

    This guy is autistic, he cannot even write, his mother is holding his hand and he just moves his head to some direction, from key to key and he writes books like that. It’s insane! I mean, the books are excellent! …Poems! The good thing about it is that he is not aware of what he is writing! Because he is writing what he feels and he ‘s got his writing style, but it’s so strong, his image is so extreme, that he’s putting words together, inventing new words that don’t exist, but it’s so strong that you get the picture! They have printed everything from word one. From the moment he was trying to type, and the more upset he was, the faster he was typing and the complete words were messed up. There are pages where you can hardly read words, because he’s so angry. To me it was a very-very big thing to understand how an autistic person works in his head, how precise in his concept of consuming the world with ears, eyes… And you know, they put this kind of people in small prisons, as if they are nuts while they are completely clear in their head! Completely clear! It’s insane! In his documents, even to date there are listed thousands of autistic people in mental institutes that are brought in day by day, because they think they are just nuts! And they recognize precisely what is around them. ...That is pretty amazing!

J.B: I know what you mean. People have always relied upon their brain only as the sole perception center, and even I, through my own work, I have always been trying to show that this is wrong. We cannot only rely on our senses, our brain can perceive sounds, or pictures, but that’s not all. Brain for example cannot perceive feelings!
    Ok one final question, because I have to let you prepare for the performance. ...Do you believe in hope?

Adrian: There’s something about this in the new album. A very constructive sentence… I believe in harmony may be. Eternal harmony, that’s something I hope for…

J.B: That actually is ‘albedo’ which is the next step after ‘nigredo’.

Adrian: Sure. You ‘re right about it.

J.B: There is hope in the album, actually it’s one of the characters. But you, as Adrian, do you hope? Or is it just the melancholy that we see in your albums?

 

Adrian: I see hope for me, in a smaller theory. I would not hope for everybody in the planet, I have hope for my internal affairs basically. I don’t hope for human life or something…

Gaun:A : I don't believe in hope...

Adrian: Human life has dug its own grave, you know, humanity has to deal with whatever they confront now. It’s nothing that was done to them, they did it to themselves, so… I ‘m rather destructive about such theories, so I’m probably not a good person to have conversations about that… And I am very precise, for many people too precise. But it’s like I always say, when I have such personal philosophies or opinions, it’s not that I like to transport these ideas to others, to make others believe the same things I do. Its my philosophy, my personal philosophy and others should have their own…

J.B: Ok. I won’t keep you busy with talking any more, I shouldn’t be tiring your throat cause you soon have to sing and I ‘ll feel guilty… Thank you for your answers. And here’s a little present, as a symbol of appreciation.

I gave him a ‘moon-talisman’. I told him that I doubted that he believed in such things, but he really seemed to like it and said that he will hang it from the top of his bed, where he keeps many strange artifacts that he likes. I told him that it is specifically supposed to protect against phantoms of the night, to help obtain answers through dreams and intuition and to avoid all nightmares. I also told him to throw it away if he suspected that it worked, because then he would probably lose his inspiration…

(An edition of this interview translated in Greek was published in STRANGE magazine, issue 87)

Text Copyright Jonathan Bright, 2004, 2005