The pandemic ravaged the world and the careers of many artists were no exception. Bands broke up, musicians retired and this was almost the case for Richard Z. Kruspe, who was on the verge of retiring from music.
However, instead of giving up, he decided to concentrate his efforts on finding himself and a reason to continue, which he found by going through his archives of the last 20 years and finding enough material to inspire him and keep him going. The result is 'The Persistence of Memory', his new album with Emigrate which will be available in the coming weeks.
How are you doing, Richard? How has cold Berlin been treating you in these pandemic times?
I'm doing pretty well. Well, I've had ups and downs lately. Fortunately, I hit the pandemic before it hit me hardest. I must say that I felt lost after our first stadium tour with Rammstein. I was lost in various ways and I had never felt that in such an extreme way. You have people all day long telling you how wonderful you are, how good you are at what you do. Your brain turns all that into a kind of dopamine and all of a sudden, you come home and there's no one to tell you; you're so used to that, you become addicted and when you don't have it, you go into a big depression. And for the first time I really felt it very strongly.
So for me, coming home and feeling that lost, it even got to a point where I was thinking about giving up music for good. I wasn't motivated, I didn't want to go to the studio, I didn't want to write anything, I was just lost in myself.
In the pandemic, everyone kept talking about "cleaning out their baggage," so I started digging into the past to listen to things I had written back then; the pause allowed me to come back to the present and be able to see a future. That's why the album is called 'The Persistence of Memory', because those memories brought me back to a future.
The name is also shared by a painting by Salvador Dalí, is it your way of describing the surrealistic times we are living in?
I mean, you're always looking for things, good names and 'The Persistence of Memory' helped me define taking those parts of my memories, to go back to my present. And once I was in my present, to be able to envision a future of what I want to do either with Emigrate or with my other bands and projects.
And the songs you are presenting for this new album are just material that you wanted to release from your archive or are there also songs that you wrote recently?
This time it wasn't like when you plan an album and you have new ideas and all that. The only thing I wanted to do was to find myself and find a motivation to get back to music in general, because at that point I was already thinking about not continuing to make music.
So for me, those old songs that I wrote 10, 15 or almost 20 years ago gave me the opportunity to get back into music.
On the last two albums, 'Silent so Long' and 'A Million Degrees' we found a lot of collaborations, but now we only have one (with Till Lindemann), why the change?
Well, to be honest is that I didn't have the plan to make a new Emigrate album. My idea was just a reunion with myself and I was inside a kind of "happy bubble" and at that time I felt perfectly comfortable hearing my own voice in the songs.
It's not like every time I make an Emigrate record I have to collaborate with someone. There are times when I have the free choice to do that, when I hear a song and I think I could make it better with someone else singing. But this time I wasn't ready to break that bubble that I had created, because also when you're looking for a collaboration you have to start a communication, you know, you have to accommodate each other's timing. It's a lot of organization and management. And for some reason I wasn't in the mood to do all that, plus I was happy with my own performance to tell you the truth.
You started Emigrate about 20 years ago when you moved to New York and somehow that city became your muse. Then, you moved back to Berlin, a totally different place, did this influence the evolution of your music?
Absolutely. Or what I mean is that every city, every department or whatever, has its own energy in every aspect. Some cities give their energy to your energy and that creates certain kinds of things.
You change, your energy changes. You grow, you change the way you think about things as you learn and your experience. The city probably goes through the same thing. At this point, I can say I wrote songs in both cities, but I can't remember which city I wrote each song in anymore, but I really think the city you live in is going to influence the way you're going to sound.
And you've also changed the line-up of Emigrate, -except for Joe Letz- does this also give a certain freshness to the band?
The idea of Emigrate has always been to be open to everything, because it's not a band or project that always has time to make a new album, it's not a normal band. I do it when I have the feeling of wanting to create something, to write something. It's an alternative project and basically I do it for fun.
The others of course have other bands, other jobs, they are not always available; so I depend on who is available at a certain time and I feel inspired by all those people who come and go. It's very normal and of course, having so many different people creating different energies, creates different results, of course.
Hey, as a curiosity, why if you've always had the tradition of having eleven songs on all your projects why do we only have nine now?
Oh... [laughs] That's right! [laughs] It's funny because at first I wasn't even thinking about releasing a full Emigrate album. What I really wanted to do was something extra. My first idea was to release a vinyl box set and put some extras on it. I wanted to put four or five songs in the box, but then I found more material and well, nobody expected - especially me - to end up with nine songs.
As I say, it wasn't planned as an album, but it ended up being an album and surely if I look a little harder I'll find two more. I remember perfectly when my engineer, Sky [Van Hoff] came in and I told him "Hey, we're just going to record four songs" and suddenly we already had nine and his face was like "I don't have time anymore! I've got to go" [laughs].
I think your skills as a singer have been improving over the years, do you feel more comfortable in that position than you did at the beginning?
It's like anything, you know, you get more and more comfortable and more confident in everything you do as time goes on. I remember the first time I played guitar and I was like, "What the fuck?" [laughs] I wasn't satisfied and the same for singing. The only problem with singing is that you have to listen to yourself and that's a very difficult thing to do.
I firmly believe that when you do something, it's just a matter of time... Besides, everybody can sing. It's just a matter of time so you can listen to your voice and get used to it. And then of course to have some pressure time....
Everyone has their own voice, everyone can sing. It's just a matter of you being comfortable with your voice and having something to say.
In previous years you said that you didn't want to tour with Emigrate to avoid conflicts with Rammstein, has this changed?
At this moment, I have no urge to do so. I still have the idea that Emigrate brings me the balance between both bands, it's where I can do things outside of Rammstein.
People ask me that all the time, including the band members (Emigrate) of course. I don't say "never" anymore, but at the moment I'm too busy doing this and that, trying to organize the next Rammstein tour which will start soon, so even if I wanted to do it I would have to do it in a long break and feel the need to play live again.
Also, for me, playing live is a very small part of everything I do. I feel much more comfortable in a studio, creating things, it's the magic moment for me. It's where things happen.
Playing live is fine, I have my taste for it, but for me where I feel happiest is composing, writing, recording, creating....
Your music has always had a tendency towards electronic and I have felt that lately you have had a certain predilection towards this genre. You brought Andrea Marino who is a DJ to Emigrate, you did the remix of 'Deutschland', how about your own facet as a DJ?
Yes! And I think that's one of the reasons why I made this album, it was to close a certain stage with Emigrate. I've always found the idea of making an electronic record irresistible, and I think this is the sign, I have the line open now that I have a DJ of a younger generation, who does different things.
I'm always open to learning, especially about what young people are doing in the electronic world, so I can definitely see myself making an electronic record with Emigrate.
Earlier you mentioned that rock and the rebellion that came with it are dead...
The way it is! Just because something is dead or not so popular anymore, doesn't mean I don't like it anymore. But from the beginning, I was always interested in all kinds of music and it excited me. For example, electronic music is kind of a German tradition, we have Kraftwerk and all those bands of that style that created that particular sound and I was very attracted to it. The fact of taking that kind of music and mixing it with metal always seemed very interesting to me.
The thing about rock, or any other kind of music, is that they have or had a mission. Rock was the music we used to rebel against our parents. I remember when I was little and I would play music; my parents would come in and say "can you turn it down?". Now, when my kids play rock I tell them "can you turn it up?".
The rebellion in rock is over. I think rebellion these days is more about the lyrics and that's why hip-hop is so popular, because the younger generation needs that feeling of rebellion. But hey! The next generation will also need something to rebel about so who knows if rock is back, but for now, it's not nearly the priority in the industry.
But it still has some great representatives like Metallica or Rammstein...
Yeah, but they're dinosaurs! Think about it, everyone in those bands are old people. We're old in comparison. Young people may listen to rock too, but they are more interested in other kind of rock.
The problem is that these giant bands don't have anyone coming after them. The time of bands that can fill stadiums is about to end. What is the last band that can fill a stadium that you know of?
Mmmm. I can't remember one...
Exactly. Maybe Muse is the last one.
Ghost, maybe. It's grown up a lot.
Yeah, but it doesn't fill a stadium. I'm talking about those giant bands. They're getting fewer and fewer every day and they're certainly going to end.
A more personal question. If you could go back in time and tell little Richard Kruspe, a child living in East Germany, what would you say?
I would tell him... Oh, how interesting.... I would tell him... Don't listen to your parents [laughs] And I would tell him that because they never believed in what I was trying to do, just like all the parents, especially in East Germany. In fact nobody believed in me.
I mean, there was no such thing as a rock star to begin with in East Germany. A couple of years ago I went to a school reunion and everybody kept reminding me that I kept saying I would become one, even though it was impossible in East Germany. Somehow, I would. I don't know how, but I really believed that I could do it and....
... You know what, I wouldn't tell him anything. If I could go back in time and say something, it would change the damn future so I'd better not say anything.
That's great, but hey, you became a rock star and after all these years, can you say you achieved all the goals you've set for yourself?
The most unfortunate part of pursuing something is that you're always going to have an emptiness inside you and it never goes away. No matter how much you achieve or how big a place you touch, you'll always have that feeling that you have to prove something to yourself or to other people. Maybe your fucking parents....
Thank you very much for your time, we miss you very much in Mexico.
Oh, thank you very much. We'll be there next year I don't remember if it's September or October a couple of times.