When was Engelsstaub
formed? How did this happen? How did the first years go?
Engelsstaub was originally
formed in ’92. It first happened to be a solo
project of Mark Hofmann (me), but then later he was
joined by his sister Silke and brother in soul Janusz.
The project was very successful from the beginning. The
limited edition 7" "Unholy", released in
’92, sold out just in a couple of weeks. Then later
the 2 albums "Malleus Maleficarum" and "Ignis
Fatuus: Irrlichter" did very well and the strange
thing is, they still do well. The project was from the
beginning under a lucky star and so it is. Apart from
releasing the albums, we also played some very successful
live shows around Europe, but mostly in Germany.
What does the name
Engelsstaub mean?
That’s kind of simple. I
liked the German translation of "Angeldust"
which is a slang term for cocaine. It sounds totally
different if you translate it into German and gives the
name a lot of spirituality.
Could you tell me some
more about the title of your albums? Why have you chosen
for Unholy, Malleus Maleficarum, Ignis Fatuus: Irrlichter
and finally Anderswelt?
Unholy- the name was chosen
for provocation against Christian religion, which pray to
false prophets and surpresses the individual thinking as
well.
Maleus Maleficarum- it is
linked to the book of the same name, a proof of the
brutality and the merciless behavior of the Christian
church. The album itself is linked to the feelings and
emotions of the poor and the lost souls, the burial of
our inner demons, the hurting of feelings.
Ignis Fatuus: Irrlichter- an
Irrlicht in lore is a soul of a dead person, which can’t
find rest and you can see it flashing in some nights.
With each song on this album we release a light.
Anderswelt- there’s not
much to explain, as the meaning is pretty simple. It’s
the view of our world seen through the "spiritual
eyes" or through our third eye.
Do you feel your music has
changed through the years, in which way?
Our music has developed over
the years. One reason is that our technical possibilities
have developed, we have now better equipment in our
studio, which leads to better results, but gives you also
more place and freedom to work on ideas. The other change
goes along with the spiritual change we have gone through
by reading the right literature. At this point now our
music is more organic and ethereal than before, more
true, it is us.
Between your second full-length
album and Anderswelt was a silence of 5 years (if you
forget about the re-release of the MCD "Unholy",
with no new tracks on it). What’s the reason for
this? How long do we have to wait for a next album?
The silence wasn’t meant
to be that long. One reason was of course running the
label, but apart from that I need the presence of a
feeling and of course the presence of silence and spirits
to work on the music. I don’t know yet how long it
will take to release another album. At least we’re
planning to release an EP-CD in January ’00.
Your 3rd
full-length album Anderswelt is finally out. I think one
of the qualities of this album is the great unity of the
songs. With Anderswelt you want to create a complete
different world than the daily reality. All this makes it
almost like a theme-album. Was this your intention?
First I need to say that we
don’t create a complete different world than the
daily reality. Anderswelt is our offer to the listener to
see the world with different eyes. All is present, but
you need the right "look" to recognize it. But
you’re right, Anderswelt turned out to be a theme or
concept album. It wasn’t our intention. We don’t
write songs with an intention. It’s more that we’re
working on a song and when this work is done, then we
know about emotions that are caused by this song. It’s
all a kind of puzzle: the idea, the music, the lyric, the
recording process and finally the mix. In every step so
much is happening we can’t control, but finally we
were lead to the concept.
What do you think of the
real world we are living in? Is it necessary for you to
be able to escape to a dreamworld/ anderswelt once in a
while? Is the Anderswelt your own dreamworld or is it (partly)
based on an existing mythology? What is different from
the real world?
And again, we don’t
create a dreamworld or a place to escape once in a while
and Anderswelt isn’t our dreamworld. All we’ve
collected for the album is real and based on literature
we’re grateful for having the chance to access it.
In a certain way it was brought to us through dreams and
through different kind of energies. Dreams are another
level of reality, no fiction. All is hidden, but there
are a lot of truths, warnings or hints in dreams, brought
to us in symbols, you just need to translate these
symbols and you’ll learn more about yourself your
life and everything around you. In dreams you’re
able to enter certain and hidden levels/ regions of your
consciousness.
I hear many different
styles of music and influences from other (ancient?)
cultures in this album, like for e.g. Scottish sounds (due
to the bagpipes), Celtic ones, tribal rhythms. What makes
you interested in those other cultures and other times?
In one way we use the variety
of sounds to give a song an authentic look. Furthermore
you need special sounds for realizing acoustically what
you want to express with the song. Of course, when you
work with ancient instruments you can make a time travel
much more easier. Our interest in other cultures raises
the spectrum of influence on the music. The deeper you go
into the cultural background one finds out that the
different cultures have more in common than we would
consider. In regards to the "other times" you
mentioned, some centuries ago, even if mankind wasn’t
at the step of evolution we’re right now, people did
have much more a sense for spirituality than today,
because today everyone just deals with ones own life,
technology rules. The people of today lost respect for so
many things, e.g. nature or life itself.
When I listened to this
album the first time, I indeed felt like I was in another
place! I live in a crowded city, but I felt like I was in
the middle of wide, green lands with lakes and green
hills and all that, and I felt very relaxed. Is this what
you want your listeners to feel? How do you feel about
nature, because I feel this element is clearly present on
this album.
There are a lot of people out
there who have the same experiences. We can’t say
that this is what we want the listener to feel. Feelings
are something very personal. If we are able to evoke
feelings like this, we feel honoured as this speaks for
the power of our music and it is a proof that music is
multicultural passes frontiers and needs no language. And
you’re totally right, nature is very much present in
the album. Nature has so much to give to us, but we’re
not able to see it. Nature is the earthbound power, which
rules over us. We should have more respect for nature.
Even we are so educated and progressive, nature is always
able to show us our limits, to show us how weak we are
even if we’re able to control weapons or to outwit
nature in some aspects. Nature is a gift, it helps us to
live.
In "l’appel de
lange", you adapted a poem of the French poet
Rimbaud. Personally I don’t know this poem of him.
Could you tell me what it’s about and why you wanted
to use it in one of your songs?
The poem itself hasn’t
much to do with what we want to carry with the song. By
the time of recording we searched for a few lines which
fit to the music. Silke has a lot of surrealistic
literature and she came up with the idea to check some
poems of Rimbaud. She had a special one in mind and that’s
the one we adapted, made it fit to what we want to
express.
You have always been a
quite unknown band. For this album, much promotion is
made and you are album of the month in Orkus, which you
even mention in your advertisements. What do you want to
achieve with this album? Do you want more people to know
you, even when there would be many new fans that would
not understand your music, but do buy it, because they’ve
heard so much about it?
Here in Germany, the band is
well known as we had some dancefloor hits, which are
still kind of popular. The Orkus vote is a good thing as
Orkus is the most popular magazine over here. So this
vote helps to push the release a bit.
Recently we had it that there
were some guys who read our interview in Orkus and they
were so impressed what we have to say and bought the CD.
And again they were really impressed. This is an effect.
We have never had the intention to achieve something with
our music. In the first case we do the music for
ourselves. It’s part of our life. If the release
also attracts other people who are able to share our
music with us, we’ve created something special. The
more people react on our music, the more special it is
for us, because there is an invisible connection between
the listeners and us.
All the Engelsstaub
members were once members of Madre Del Vizio. Now you all
have left this band. Does it still exist without you?
What was the reason to join/ start Madre Del Vizio, which
makes quite different music than Engesstaub, and what was
the reason for leaving this band again? Are you or any
other members involved in other projects now or would you
ever consider devoting yourself to something else than
Engelsstaub again?
The band excists without us
but remains kind of unsuccessfully, I think. When we
started the band, times were different. The reason for
leaving the band was that there was neither a personal
unity nor a spiritual so there were no basis for a
fruitful work. None of us has the intention to work on
other projects as ENGELSSTAUB affords the full attention
to be so intensive.
In ’92 you and Janusz
Zaremba started Apollyon. You once said this label was
initially brought to life to translate your own musical
projects. Was it so hard to find a label you were
satisfied with or have you started it with another
reason?
We’re doing and dealing
with independent music and we always want to be
independent with the music we do. We need our freedom to
do everything we want. There is no other influence on our
music and work than ours. That’s what we need.
Apollyon exists about 7
years now and has released some very good albums by e.g.
Ataraxia, Ikon, The Deep Eynde and of course Engelsstaub.
Nevertheless, it looks to me like you want to keep things
on a small basis, preferring quality over quantity and
making money, is this true? Do you still see any
progression in the future, or is it not your intention to
grow more?
You’re right, we prefer
quality over quantity and making money. On the other hand
we have the control over sharing the time between the
label and the band. We don’t have the intention to
grow more, but we do have the intention to stay on this
level and to invest more time in our own music. That’s
what we really want.
Are there any bands that
you have signed that you feel particular proud of? If it
was up to you, which bands are on your number-one list to
sign?
No, we’re proud of all
the bands, which are actually on the label, otherwise we
wouldn’t have signed them. Right at the moment,
there’s no band available to be put on our No.1 list.
Last year it was Shadow project (and we were all most
happy about the release of "From the heart" on
Apollyon), but now…
Isn’t it very hard to
combine Engelsstaub and run a record label? If you can
still find the time, do you have other interests, like e.g.
literature, philosophy,…?
To combine label and the band
is pretty hard, but I think we’ve finally managed it.
In our free time we all spend most of it with reading
good literature which is the basis of all things to come.
Do you have a personal
definition on making music? Has it changed because you
are running a record-label now?
There’s no definition on
making music. Always be true to yourself.
Engelsstaub’s music
is often compared with Death in June. Personally I don’t
really think that is true, because your songs are better
structured and have often a darker atmosphere and you
have of course a completely different image. What do you
think of this? Do you like to be compared with other
bands? How would you describe your own music?
Some people who don’t
understand, need to put a stamp on things they don’t
understand. These are the people who aren’t able to
catch the spirit of music. We don’t like comparison
and we think Anderswelt we don’t give them a basis
for it. We always find it hard to describe our music,
because there are so many different aspects in it. In
German we would say Weltenmusik, but I haven’t found
a suitable translation for it…
Engelsstaub’s lyrics
are full of spiritual references, like Christ, angels,
god, Satan, heaven and hell, blasphemy,… How do you
feel about religion? What do you want to express with the
lyrics? Do you want to bring a certain message with
Engelsstaub?
In the former releases there
were always some references to religious symbols. In a
sum, it was always to be understood as a critic against
the Christian church and their proclamations. There’s
nothing wrong if you believe, but you should be free to
choose in what you believe. You have to be able to form
your very personal believe, no matter if it’s linked
to god, Allah or Buddha. If you take "religion"
away you will find out that all the different "gods"
are synonym for a cosmic power/ energy which the horizon
of our mankind’s mind isn’t able to understand,
everything has to be reasonable. We have a few people out
there who have special knowledge…
In most of the newer lyrics
we are speaking of that power/ energy using symbols to
make it understandable to our listeners. We tell about
the hierarchy of those energies. But we also tell about
personal energies like emotions or feelings, putting them
in a more wider background than the personal experience.
In ’95 Engelsstaub
released "In Amoris Mortisque" together with
Ataraxia, a limited 10" with Medieval music. Could
you tell us some more about that? Francesca from Ataraxia
has told me you have plans to do something similar in the
future? When can we expect this and how will this sound
like?
The intention to release the
10" was to release a piece of music with a Medieval
touch and a cover/look with no regards of the costs
involved, something unique for those who have the
knowledge.
The project Francesca
mentioned is an Ataraxia-only release with strong
Medieval music, not a split thing again. By now I don’t
have very much information about it. It’s especially
for the German audience as the gigs the band played here
were very successful.
Engelsstaub was supposed
to play on this year’s Wave/Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig.
Many people were looking forward to see you playing live.
What was the reason Engelsstaub were canceled? Will you
do other performances in the future now your new album is
out? What can we expect from your live-performances?
As regards Leipzig, we never
agreed to play there. Of course, we were asked to play,
but the promoter spread wrong information. We would play
live, but we have the difficulty to convert such a
complex music and state of mind for stage performance.
For a live performance we need to create optically the
same we have already created musically.
To end this interview, do
you have any last words?
