Cluster

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Please welcome Cluster to the Red Bull Music Academy.

[applause]

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Hello.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

It’s nice to hear that applause for two guys as great as these. We could talk about their music from a number of perspectives, because their music has gone on to influence tons of music, such as industrial, minimal synth, dark new wave – tons of music I’ve heard over the years seems to spring from the music these guys and their peers created. I’m probably most qualified to speak on it from a hip-hop perspective, so you guys will have to pardon me as I indulge myself and talk about how I first found their music.

In the mid-’90s, when those of us who were intrigued by hip-hop started seeing producers buying records from Germany’s 1970s scene. The first records they were finding were those that were the most well-distributed. Can – I’m sure many of you have heard of Can – Embryo, Amon Düül, Kraftwerk, [Neu!]. Of course, there were legendary records that were related to these records, and many of us had heard of them, but these were the days before eBay, so no one was selling these records.

You had to be a guy in your 40s with ungodly sums of money and a network of psychedelic collectors to have even heard of the first pressing of Can’s first record, Monster Movie, which came out on Scheisshaus, as I was telling you the other day. Great label. On one of my first trips to Germany I was lucky enough to have stumbled into a record store and seen this incredibly packaged dark-looking record by this band Kluster, then with a “K.” These were bands you might have heard about, the internet was bringing a little more information to those of us who were interested. I saw it and it was prohibitively priced at about $1,000, which was about the same price as the guy was charging for the original pressing of Monster Movie. So, of course, I had to hear it. I had to know what it was. It hadn’t even crossed my radar. And, so, this is the track – let’s see if I can play the track I heard from the first Kluster album. This was called?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

“Klopfzeichen.”

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Which means?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Knocking sounds, like when you knock at the door.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Let’s see if this works.

Dieter Moebius

Very quiet music.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Yeah, very nice. No wonder you guys went on to create ambient music [laughter]. Maybe someone can help me while I figure out which channel this is supposed to be on. My DJ days are unfortunately long behind me.

(music: Kluster – “Klopfzeichen Pt. 2”)

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

That goes on for another 20 minutes and you could obviously hear why I was happy that I didn’t have $1,000 as I would’ve had nightmares for years if I had bought that record and listened to it. They went on to create a bunch of other records, which we’re going to speak about, but that record in particular came back into my life about three years ago when a group from San Diego who I was interested in signing, two kids in their early 20s, played me a song. And like the first album Knocking Sound by Kluster, they didn’t have any titles for their songs, and I put on the first song, and it was as much of a cover of that as I’d ever heard.

That was very impressive to me because I realized there was a new generation after mine that had discovered this band. When I was texting this producer on the label I manage, Madlib, and told him I’d be interviewing Cluster, he said, “That’s funny, I was just making a beat with a Cluster record, on Brain.” Of course, some of the later work. We only have a limited amount of time here so we’re not going to go through this duo’s incredible history, we’re only going to go through part of it. But I figured it would be good to start by playing you this, so we could try to put this into some context, play some songs from the landmark records they recorded throughout the ’70s. They’ve given their tacit approval to this approach. So, let’s begin. When were you born?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I was born in October 1934, before World War II.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Where?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

In Berlin.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And by the time you created this record, were you trained musically?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, I wasn’t trained. I was a physiotherapist before I went over to being an artist in the late ’60s.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, by the time you recorded this record you were in your mid-thirties?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And how about you, young man?

Dieter Moebius

I was in my mid-20s. I was born in ’44 in Switzerland, but I’m German, because my parents didn’t want to be in Germany at this time, as you can imagine.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, what was the catalyst for forming this group? Were there two of you, or was there a third person?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, in the beginning there was Conrad Schnitzler, a pupil of Joseph Beuys, a fine artist, very famous in Germany. I don’t know whether he’s famous here, but I think he is as well, everybody knows about him. The Fluxus movement in fine arts, he was the head of it and Schnitzler was a pupil of him. He was the one who collected the two of us to be in the group Kluster, with a “K.”

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

This was in Berlin now?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

In the mid-’60s?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

End of the ’60s – ’68, 69.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

There was a club, too, that you guys were a part of, an organization, a venue.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

The venue we built in ’68, and it went on for about one-and-a half-years, and when it closed the group Cluster was born.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And what was the venue called?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Zodiak in Berlin.

Dieter Moebius

And the guy Beuys, with whom Schnitzler was a pupil, his idea was that anybody could be an artist. So, what Schnitzler learned from Beuys is that anybody can be a musician.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, were you a trained musician?

Dieter Moebius

Not really, I played the saxophone, but not very well. My mother was a pianist, so I grew up in a house with lots of music, but more classical.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Now, one of the things that’s often said about your music, in reviews or in third-party treatises on your music, especially the music you created at this time, is that you can hear Karlheinz Stockhausen’s influence. Is that true, were you influenced by Stockhausen?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Not at all.

Dieter Moebius

I never heard anything by him until I was 50, perhaps. I knew his name, but I didn’t know his music. I got to know his music when we played a festival in Stavanger, in Norway, where he also played, so that was the first time I got to know his music.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So then, if you weren’t influenced by Stockhausen, you must have at least been influenced by Pierre Henry, the musique concrète movement in France?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Our biggest influence was ourselves, our lives and the way we were appreciate living, not really other musicians. We can’t count names, we listened to many people, of course. I listened to Pierre Henry and Iannis Xenakis at the time, just to know about them, not to copy them or do something that they did.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

That’s an interesting question then – what music were you listening to for your enjoyment when you’re making music like this in 1969?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Pop music, like Third Ear Band, Hapshash and the Coloured Coat. I don’t know whether anyone knows these bands anymore. Later on, Jimi Hendrix.

Dieter Moebius

Velvet Underground.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You were listening to Jimi Hendrix and Velvet Underground and making music like this?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Of course.

Dieter Moebius

We tried to imitate them [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Thank God you weren’t trained musicians, then. Another thing that’s been said is that there are similarities between your music and free jazz, although I personally don’t hear that. Is that a fair assessment? Were you listening to any free jazz?

Dieter Moebius

Not free jazz, I was listening to John Coltrane and later groups like Mott the Hoople, for example.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Chet Baker and this famous guy, Frank Sinatra. I liked it at the time [laughs].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s interesting to hear you guys talk about these pop influences, even though a lot of the music you refer to had much more of a sensibility than just being pop. This music, dark as it is, forces us, 40 years after it was created, to look back and say things like, “That you must have been influenced by the Gruppo di Nuova Consonanza in Rome because the techniques, the way you were recording, the styles were similar.” And you say you weren’t even aware of the group.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, we had to find our own tone, whether it really works. We wanted to be musicians, we didn’t know anything about music. We knew a little about music theoretically. But we had to practice in public, or wherever we played music, in the studio as well, to become aware of the possibilities of the material, to handle it.

Dieter Moebius

We had no intellectual approach to what we were doing, so we always rehearsed in public. We were always on the road in our truck. When we had somewhere to play in public, that was the only time we’d play.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, how was this first record recorded then?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It was one session in one night. This was one of the two records that came out. We played a concert for about two hours with one constant flow.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Where was this?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

In Cologne, with Conny Plank, our sound engineer.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Conny Plank, the producer and recording engineer. You guys all read the newspaper that was floating around yesterday with one man’s recollections of working with the legendary producer, right? We don’t need to explain who he is.

Dieter Moebius

He’s the guy who produced groups like Devo and Neu! and Kraftwerk and also – this is how he made money – another band, I forget the name.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

[Inaudible]

Dieter Moebius

No, no, an English or American group, a supergroup [pause]. It’s OK, he’s a very, very well-known producer.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, how did you create a record like that? Did you go in with synthesizers and Moog and things like that?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, we each had an electric organ. He had a knee violin, I had a cello, all picked up by microphones. But we didn’t use it to create normal sound, we had some tone generators.

Dieter Moebius

Wah-wah pedals.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Little effects machines.

Dieter Moebius

Echo.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Echo machine, yes. We just fiddled around with what we owned at the time.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And this was all recorded and manipulated live?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

I read somewhere that the way you knew to stop recording is when he raised his hand and signaled the end of a side. Is that true?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Possibly [laughs].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You mentioned a second album recorded during the session, Two Easter Eggs is the English title. I’ll play a bit of that, I believe this is track one on the Two Easter Eggs record.

(music: Kluster – “Electric Music & Text”)

Dieter Moebius

[inaudible]

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

He said it’s a nice short song, this goes on for another 22 minutes like this. Not understanding German at all, he could’ve been talking about anything, he could’ve been talking about baking bread or the end of the world. It sounded terrifying to me.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Incredible voice.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Yeah, this leads into the way these records were pressed and released, and why they’ve all turned into grails of sorts that we all try to seek out. They were pressed and released on a very small label that didn’t specialize in this kind of music at all, the Schwann label.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

The Schwann label, it was called new church music.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

New church music?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It was produced by the Catholic church.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, exactly how did you guys pull this one off?

Dieter Moebius

For us, it was an opportunity to get some records done without any record companies.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

The Pope just heard this on the radio and [laughter]… How did it work? How did you get funded by the church?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It was a cantor of the church. He listened to one of our concerts in a basement in Düsseldorf somewhere, and said that it would be great to put text over it from the ecumenical movement.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Oh, OK. So, the vocals were added afterwards?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes.

Dieter Moebius

And only on one side of the record.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Was that a deal you worked out with the church?

Dieter Moebius

We tried to have it all clean, but it wasn’t possible [laughs].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And is it true that they only made 200 copies of each record?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes, the first editions were 200 each. But in a beautiful cover.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Beautiful covers, both. Beautiful covers with inserts. These were really well-packaged, well-produced and, as you can hear, really good-sounding records. And this was just the beginning. There was a transition period where you split with Schnitzler, and recorded and released two other very rare albums. Was it as Eruption?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, it was with Schnitzler, the last concert we ever did as Kluster with a “K” was called Eruption. That was the name of the group he worked with all the time, Eruption. It wasn’t meant to be the name of the Kluster group, it was just the name of the record.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And somehow in the midst of all this you managed to get picked up by a major label. How did that happen? Philips signed you to an album deal.

Dieter Moebius

They didn’t know what they were doing [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

They had to have had some idea. I was positing earlier that perhaps one of the reasons they signed you is because they were investing a lot of money into an avant-garde series in France, based around the musique concrète movement, and making some very well-packaged, rather incredible albums, full of music like this. That was in France, of course, you were signed to Philips Germany. So, what did the A&R say to you when you turned in an album? Did you even have an A& R to help you develop the sound?

Dieter Moebius

What is an A&R?

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

It’s the person who works with you to develop a project before it’s released.

Dieter Moebius

Oh no, we didn’t have anybody like that [laughs].

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I think it was Conny Plank who managed it.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Did he have any relationship with Philips?

Dieter Moebius

No, he just recorded with us but we had to care about selling…

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We just managed to terrify the people at the company.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Well, let’s hear your first commercial release then, to see if we can discern any difference between that and what came before it.

(music: Cluster – Untitled)

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

This must have sold tons.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It didn’t [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

It’s amazing that you were able to get this record out.

Dieter Moebius

As I told you, they didn’t know what they did. They were in a strange situation. They had this group Can, I think, that was successful, so all the companies in Germany wanted one of these progressive groups. If you’re lucky, you get a contract, but without a lot of money, of course, and that’s how it happened to us. Philips took us for one record, and that’s the only one, of course.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You mentioned Can. Were you guys living in Cologne at the time?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Near their place, and Holger Czukay played with us on two records with Brian Eno.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

The later ones, but in the early ’70s, because this is ’71, were you aware of the music bands like Can and Embryo and Amon Düül were making?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Of course.

Dieter Moebius

At this time, we lived all around Germany. We left Berlin, which was an island surrounded by a wall and surrounded by East Germany, so we left this little island and went to Düsseldorf near Cologne and then to Munich, Frankfurt and all these West German towns where we met all these other groups, like Can in Cologne and Kraftwerk in Düsseldorf, and Amon Düül in Munich.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

And Popol Vuh in Munich, as well.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Now, this was very rhythmic, beat-heavy music, yet you guys never had a drummer nor a rhythm guitarist. Did you feel a pressure to create music that was akin to that which had commercial success in your own country?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We were never under pressure. We always did what we wanted to do. It just happened.

Dieter Moebius

We wanted to be commercial, of course, but we weren’t able to…

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You mean you wanted to be commercial with this music [laughter]. You wanted to change the taste of the entire world? They’d start listening to this. But, at the same time, you mentioned earlier that you were also listening to Pink Floyd.

Dieter Moebius

Yes, but I was also listening to Mott the Hoople and the first Roxy Music album, which was very successful and I went to a concert of theirs in Hamburg, one of the first. [To Hans] Didn’t we go together?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You managed to get signed after I assume you were dropped by Philips after the first record. They didn’t option a second record after the first, you mentioned that earlier. You were signed by Brain Records, then a fledgling enterprise based in Hamburg. But they’d got out some really serious releases before you signed, including [the first Neu! album. How did you get signed by Brain?

Dieter Moebius

Perhaps they didn’t know what they did? [Laughter]

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Again, again.

Dieter Moebius

Same old story.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

The Brain label later went on to be quite a powerful enterprise, but when they were first releasing records like yours they were still quite small and very independent-minded, so it’s not surprising they would pick you up. I was just curious as to how it happened. There’s a track on the first record you released on Brain called Cluster II, which is quite well-known among the psychedelic rock community, probably the closest thing you’ve done to a psych-rock jam.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I’m curious to know what track you mean.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Let’s play it.

(music: Cluster – “Im Süden” / applause)

Dieter Moebius

And so on…

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

That goes on for another 11 minutes, and believe me, I can listen to a fuzz guitar going through various effects and effects processors for 11 minutes myself. Still, although this is rhythmic music and you guys were making music that could be lumped in with your peers, it’s still lacking in any drumming. There’s no bass player.

Dieter Moebius

We just listened a little bit to a very fast drum machine on this track.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Whose idea was it to bring a drum machine into this music? Did it come from you? Did it come from Conny Plank?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We got the first drum machine, Drummer One P, the two of us, and we played with it live all the time.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

When did you buy it?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I don’t know.

Dieter Moebius

It was meant to be a drum machine for these guys in the dancing halls where you push one thing and it’s a foxtrot, the other is waltz.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

The machine would become the backbone for a lot of the later work you did, including your next project with Michael Rother, right?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Zuckerzeit was the next one, I think. Musik von Harmonia?

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Yes, that’s the one I’m talking about. Did that come after this?

Dieter Moebius

Almost at the same time, the same year.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Let’s talk a bit about this because many people who came to your music were introduced to it through the Harmonia project. So, can you explain how that came together?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

After Neu! split Michael Rother came to our place and wanted to join our group.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

That’s the guitar player from Neu!. Where were you based at this time?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

In a very beautiful place in the middle of Germany, besides a river, called Alter Weserhof in Forst. And it was a utopia.

Dieter Moebius

A house from the Middle Ages.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You guys bought a house there?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We didn’t buy it, we had to build it.

Dieter Moebius

The government gave it to us. It was a house that was historically protected by the government. You are not allowed to tear it down. But it was rotten and we had to fix it.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, Michael Rother comes there and grabs a saw.…

Dieter Moebius

He came after it was fixed [laughs].

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

He found a perfect situation, so he liked to play with us, and we played once, we had a concert in one of these big houses. It worked out well so we decided to found Harmonia alongside Cluster.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

This was a group that existed at the same time, you didn’t disband Cluster, you just decided to do collaborative work with Michael Rother and call it Harmonia. And luckily you were able to get signed by the same label and put together a record called Musik von Harmonia. This is sort of a bridge record between the early sound that we were hearing and the sound for which I would think you’re best known. There’s a track on this record, I don’t know how to say… [Makes several attempts to pronounce it]

Dieter Moebius

“Ohrwurm.”

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Thank you, man. Like I said to these guys before, I had to apologize 15 times before I even speak because I’m going to mispronounce everything I say. My record collecting buddies and I look at these German records and just butcher the names. Not on purpose, of course, but here is “Earworm.”

(music: Harmonia – “Ohrwurm”)

Now, that sounds very much like the thing that came before in my opinion. Did this song spring from the two of you, or was Michael a part of that as well?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It was more the Cluster kind of music, but Michael played an important role in it, the strong guitar in it.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

From the same album, this is the aptly titled “Watussi.” Musik Von Harmonia, 1974, Brain.

Dieter Moebius

Nice drum machine.

(music: Harmonia – “Watussi” / applause)

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

That’s mighty progressive for 1974, and I mean that in the best possible way, not in a wonky rock sort of way. That sounds like it could’ve been made in the studio here by some of these participants. So, whose idea was it to program the drum machine like that?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I don’t know who played the drum machine. Was it you?

Dieter Moebius

Could be. It was still the same drum machine. This was going out of the drum machine into a tremolo, an effect pedal, so it cuts it in a different way from [where] the real rhythm goes.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It makes it much more interesting.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

It sounds like you made a hip-hop beat by J Dilla in 1974, sort of. Anyway, I know you said you didn’t feel pressure but were you in any way reacting to the success of Kraftwerk or the first Neu! record in making music like this?

Dieter Moebius

Not like this, but the next Harmonia album, we very definitely tried to be really commercial. In a way, it’s the most commercial record we ever did. Then we wanted to go on tour with that program, but he and I don’t really like repeating the songs on stage that we have on the record, so we would have to rehearse and rehearse. We hate it, really, so now we improvise, always.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, was all this improvised?

Dieter Moebius

This was improvised but in the studio. We had a four-track, so you can still add some things later. But even nowadays, we improvise first then work on the song.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, this record was just you three doing you. You weren’t reacting to anything that was going on around you and trying to make a response in any way?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I don’t think so.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Well, after this record came out, or around the same time, you released the Cluster album Zuckerzeit. And on that album you quite evenly split the songwriting duties, if you can call it that because it was all improvised.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes, each of us did six songs.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Let’s play one and maybe you guys can figure out who’s behind this one. Is it James, is that how you say it?

Dieter Moebius

Yes, James.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

From the Zuckerzeit album, still approximately 1974.

(music: Cluster – “James” /applause)

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, whose is that?

Dieter Moebius

Myself.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

When I hear it, the first thing I hear is Ethiopian folk music.

Dieter Moebius

If you think so, if you’re half Ethiopian [laughter]…

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

But again, I assume you’re just doing you, am I right? Were you listening to any African music at this time?

Dieter Moebius

I don’t know if I was at this time, but for a long time I’ve listened to Indian and African music. Arab music as well.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Let’s play another song from the same album, “Hot Lips.”

Dieter Moebius

That must be Achim over here, he’s a very romantic guy.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

“Hot Lips” sounds kind of sexy.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

What’s the German title?

Dieter Moebius

“Heisse Lippen.”

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Sounds like something the dentist would do to you.

(music: Cluster – “Heisse Lippen” / applause)

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

“Hot Lips.” You estimate that these Brain records might have sold 10,000 pieces back then.

Dieter Moebius

Hopefully, but I told you that probably includes all the rereleases.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

10,000 total? In all formats?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

In a period of 20 years.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Well, they are still very obscure, hard to find. Not as obscure as the first ones we were listening to. But this is a short song, we didn’t play it in its entirety but it’s only a minute and 50 seconds long. It seems like while you were trying to make pop music, or while you were influenced by pop music and were, making whatever you could make. By this time, you’d figured something out, you put your finger on something and you were a little bit ahead of your time.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Good. Very good.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

The issue that comes with that is that oftentimes, if someone’s astute enough to pick up on something that innovators like yourselves are doing, he can swoop in and appropriate a certain sound and make it his own, just by being the first person to be paying attention to it. I’m referring specifically to Brian Eno, who you met at around the time you were creating this record. How did you meet him?

Dieter Moebius & Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We met him in Hamburg.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Oh, let’s talk together.

Dieter Moebius

Stereo [laughter]. We had a show in Hamburg, and Brian Eno happened to be in town. He came and talked to us in the pause in the middle of the show, and then asked to join us for the second half. We were thinking, “Ah, does this guy have come on stage with us?” Of course, we said “OK,” and then he decided to come and visit Cluster in Forst some months later. Or some years later?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, we invited him to come to our place and join us for a studio session and he came two years later.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, this would be at the end of his tenure with Roxy Music. He was striking out as a solo artist.

Dieter Moebius

He was beginning to make a solo career.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, he met you guys, dug what you were doing, then some time later accepted an invitation and joined with you in Forst. Was this when you were making the second Harmonia record?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, it was after Harmonia had already split.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, let’s talk about the second Harmonia record. You guys went back with Michael Rother and made a second Harmonia record, around the same time as he did a second Neu! record.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I don’t know about the second Neu! record.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Around ’76 is when you did this for Brain. You said this album that we’re about to play a track from, called “Deluxe,” was your attempt at making a commercial record.

Dieter Moebius

Yes, the whole project. You can see it on the sleeve, it’s all very sophisticated, and we even sang on the first track.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You say this with a bit of embarrassment almost.

Dieter Moebius

In a way.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, this is a new thing for you, you’re going in and for the first time trying to make a commercial record.

Dieter Moebius

If it had been a big success, perhaps I could have felt differently about it, but since it was not I can say that maybe we shouldn’t have done it.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Well, let’s play “Notre Dame.” You said earlier that this has more of a Cluster influence.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

That’s a nice track, yes, more of a Cluster feeling.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, this is Harmonia from 1976 with more of a Cluster influence.

(music: Harmonia – “Notre Dame” / applause)

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

1976... And the band split up shortly thereafter. Why?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Because we didn’t want to rehearse.

Dieter Moebius

Because we hated each other [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Could it be because, as you said yourself earlier, you classified yourself as a lazy musician?

Dieter Moebius

Lazy, yes, because we don’t rehearse. We just go in the studio and in three days we finish a whole CD. We are very fast, we play with mistakes, and we think the mistakes are really great, so we don’t go back over them.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And Michael Rother didn’t take the same approach.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Oh no, not at all.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, you parted ways.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We didn’t want to rehearse the same tracks over and over, it’s impossible for us.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

But you did manage to record some stuff with Brian Eno around this time.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We did two records with Brian, and he took over one of the most beautiful tracks, “By This River,” which I think has been covered a hundred times around the world. A beautiful song, he took it over to his first solo record, Before and After Science.

Dieter Moebius

Our houses in the country, where I still live, Michael as well, was directly by the riverside. So, Brian had the idea for this song when he was in Forst and saw the river flow by the house.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

The text was born as part of the Harmonia album and, later on, he used the same text as Cluster with Conny Plank.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

That’s something we didn’t mention actually, throughout all of this Conny Plank was your engineer. Was he a source of inspiration to you? He seemed to be an incredible man.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

He was a very, very good friend. He helped us to survive for a long time. We could live in his house in Hamburg, we had a great time in the studio. He had to earn his money, of course.

Dieter Moebius

I remember the group he also produced – Ultravox. That was quite a lot of money.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And around this time Brian Eno was producing for David Bowie, and that’s how this music that was originating from Germany spread out for the first time.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

That’s what people say nowadays, that he took a big influence from working with us, and being with us especially. The main thing was we liked each other. We lived together, we took Brian into the forest to pick up wood, to go shopping and cook with us. He had my first baby [gestures rocking baby], he was taking care of my first child and relieved us from restless nights. So, it was like a family and it’s all clear in the atmosphere of our music.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

How do you feel about the fact that when the Red Bull [Music Academy] guys want to get Brian Eno to speak, and he says, “I might have a free day in two years”? We’re sitting on the couch talking about this when he took a sound in many ways influenced by you and was able to become very successful – and I’m not saying you guys haven’t been successful, you’ve been successful in your own right.

Dieter Moebius

We just have some more hours than he has, that’s why we are here now [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, there’s no bad blood between you. You feel happy for his success and don’t feel like your influence has been underappreciated?

Dieter Moebius

Not at all. Why?

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

I don’t mean for the kind of people who are here, but in the general public’s eye, Brian Eno is this great producer who took a sound and spread it all across the globe, invented ambient music. But we listen to the music you’re creating and we hear these stories about the music you’re creating, how you were hanging out with him chopping wood in the forest, we must assume there was a big amount of influence there.

Dieter Moebius

He once said to me, “Don’t worry, Mobi. You will be rich one day.” Still hasn’t happened [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You don’t seem too upset about it, you seem quite happy about the fact you don’t have piles of wealth in the corner, based off this music. You seem to be happy with the music you’ve created and are still creating.

Dieter Moebius

Of course, at the moment, we are very happy about the new CD we made. It’s working very well, but it’s not enough to get rich. I have to tell Brian [laughs].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

After this album, you did one more for Brain. Or was this the last one?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I don’t know. What did we do for Brain afterwards?

Dieter Moebius

I did something, Sowiesoso we did, and I did something with Conny Plank.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, then you moved onto the Sky label for the last Cluster releases.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes, and some other labels. There was Inquisitive Records, and one in Barcelona, Nova Era.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

But you disbanded for a while and did solo careers in the ’80s.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Oh, yes, fortunately, we hated each other [laughs].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

I can’t imagine that’s possible. You moved to Austria.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I moved to Austria, but we still met for recordings. We made a very funny recording, I think it’s called Curiosum, on a four-track machine on a farm in the north of Austria in I think ’86. Then another one, One Hour.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And when did you reform as Cluster?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

2007

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And what was the impetus? Why did you do it?

Dieter Moebius

Because we loved each other again [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

But you’re not going to renovate another house in the middle of the forest, are you? Go collecting berries and all that…

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

The first reunion concert was here in London in a basement club somewhere.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And how was it received?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We just found it could work again. Now it’s really going to work again.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Yeah, you’re making new music and realizing there are leagues of musicians you’ve influenced across different genres that you might not even have been aware of until a few years ago.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, we hadn’t been aware, and we didn’t care anyway because we still like what we’re doing and we have fun doing it, and we don’t listen too much to what people are saying. We know what we are doing.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Do you still listen to any of these old recordings, do you ever go back and revisit them?

Dieter Moebius

Very seldom. Today. [Laughs] I was astonished to hear one thing I didn’t like.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Which one?

Dieter Moebius

The one off the second Harmonia.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You didn’t like that?

Dieter Moebius

No, although it was me playing the organ.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

I could go on and on and try to expand on your influence, but I think everyone here can take it now and ask you questions. I’m sure there are many and they’ll come from different fields. So, I just want to thank you for breaking this down for us. It’s been a great pleasure and now we’re going to open it up the audience.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Thank you.

[applause]

Audience member

I’ve always wondered, because I wasn’t even born in the ’70s, and we hear a lot about the German scene, people just call it krautrock. But what I’ve seen about you in documentaries is that there was obviously a common thing happening and the musicians knew each other, but was it a scene like you have in London, where people are working together and trying to make a specific sound? It seems in Germany you were just making pure music. So, how do you feel about the krautrock label, does it have any meaning?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Not to me, we were never really krautrockers at all. With Harmonia possibly, but Cluster never did rock or krautrock.

Dieter Moebius

But we are Krauts.

Audience member

But the thing is even Kraftwerk have been labelled as krautrock, even though it’s not rock music.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

But you bring up an interesting point. When people said Can were art rock, I always wondered what the hell was art rock. Are the Velvet Underground art rock?

Audience member

Velvet Underground have tracks that cannot be considered rock music.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

This is something we were talking about earlier. You said you felt there was a krautrock scene, it’s just you weren’t a part of it.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Of course, we were part of it, because we knew everybody from the scene, but each city had its own music community and all these guys were concentrated on their own stuff. Little collectives in Munich, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, the so-called Berlin School of Electronic Music – Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. The Düsseldorf school was Kraftwerk and Neu!, Amon Düül were more rock than all the others.

Dieter Moebius

Mostly, they all had the classic arrangement with a drummer, guitar, bass, singer. We were really different.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

It wasn’t like there was going to be a festival of guys coming together from these different scenes and calling it the krautrock festival.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Who invented it? Julian Cope?

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

It must have been before that, right? But I think we just accepted it as it’s just been used for so long to refer to a bunch of different sources of music. It’s interesting to hear about the scenes though, because that’s still going on today. Then, of course, you’ll have people in Los Angeles talking about a scene in London. And vice versa.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It works, even for us.

Audience member

What are your thoughts about your music being sampled all over the world, not just yours, but Kraftwerk’s? The whole krautrock movement has been a huge influence on electronic artists around the world, especially hip-hop artists. Why do you think that happened with German music and not music from another country?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It’s great, it brings us money.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, you have made money from being sampled?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

They have to declare, yeah, if you take big samples.

Dieter Moebius

But when they take little samples, they just do it. I do it as well [laughter / applause].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Aesthetically, do you like the idea?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

If it works, if it’s relevant music, of course it’s good.

Dieter Moebius

It’s happened once or twice that an English group and an American group really made a contract with us, because they’d used our songs for a record, but that’s really an exception.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

A related question, did you maintain control of your publishing rights and master recordings?

Dieter Moebius

Very good question. I don’t have any control.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I have about five publishers and nobody works, nobody is really doing what they should.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

But do they own it or administer it?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

They own it for some time, but they just collect the money. If they did something with it, it would be nice, but I have the feeling they don’t do anything. They don’t approach radio stations, theater or TV stations, they just wait.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And the master recordings that are all owned by Philips or Brain or Sky – they all own the recordings, or whoever they sold to?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

The Philips record we got back, it was re-released by Water Records in San Francisco. And many of my solo records were re-released by different companies.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Does the Catholic church own the first two? You didn’t do a contract with God for that?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I don’t know.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Next question.

Audience member

Hi, I’m Moises from Mexico. You mentioned, when you made the first Harmonia album, that you guys were living together in a sort of utopia. Do you think the scene you were in brought electronic music to pop culture? Because, before that it was only in the Radiophonic Workshop and the universities. Do you think there was a sense of utopia in the music?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I think so, yes. For me especially, the place where we made Harmonia and Sowiesoso was like utopia. It was beautiful, and I had to work like a farmer and go into the forest and chop wood and garden and repair the house just to be able to live in it, so it was like getting back to the roots of civilization. At the same time, I was able to do what I like most, music, and any minute I’d be in our studio with my Revox and an untuned piano, trying to find out…

Dieter Moebius

It was my Revox [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You guys really are like brothers. And did you feel like it was a seriously great place?

Dieter Moebius

Oh yes, you can’t deny it. It’s like he said.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

An exceptional place. It still is.

Dieter Moebius

It’s not just a house, it’s three houses. They’re from 1600-and-something, big walls, big rooms and the river, only nature all around.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No noise, no street, just pure nature.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And a bunch of drum machines.

Audience member

Do you think recent electronic music has lost that sense of utopia?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

I don’t have time to listen to recent music. I have to do too much. I have to work.

Dieter Moebius

Sometimes when we do festivals we get to hear modern electronic musicians. Sometimes they’re on stage with their laptops, and some of them are really great, but a lot of them have to have certain programs they can use. I don’t know, I feel it’s not so deep and warm.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

What would a live Cluster show involve? What was the process?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Back then, huge equipment – organ, cello, violin, guitars.

Dieter Moebius

Sound generators that are normally used by electricians.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It was heavy stuff, we had to work to bring it onstage.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

How long would it take to set up?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

More than an hour.

Dieter Moebius

Then we had all these cables that were always broken and you had to find out where the fault is, and repair it yourselves. Now it’s much easier for us.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

And it was just the two of you, you didn’t have any assistants?

Dieter Moebius

Oh yes, we had ten roadies [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

If you were chopping your own wood, you’re certainly setting up on stage live. Anyone else?

Audience member

Do you still work with just analog equipment, or do you use laptops?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

The analog equipment is heavy stuff.

Dieter Moebius

We’re happy we can now travel with the smallest gear you can imagine. We also use pre-prepared CDs that we always change, no one knows what the other one has. So, we improvise while playing a little bit like a DJ. We also have synths, but small, and Kaoss pads, and I have a sampling machine.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It’s a good thing we can travel with less heavy weight.

Audience member

Andrew from Canada. You mentioned that you improvise most of your catalog, if not all. Can you explain how you conceptualize your songs before improvising them? Obviously, a lot of it is avant-garde, but does it just happen, or do you have any concept of it before?

Dieter Moebius

No concept. Our concept is to have no concept.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

No song structure whatsoever – you wouldn’t even write out melodies or chord changes?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We’ve been working for 40 years now, we should know what we’re doing [laughter].

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Do you?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We do. Yes, of course. We are aware of what we’re doing.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

So, you write the songs out now?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

No, we write the songs on stage, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense for us.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You were talking about putting the drum machines through different tremolo effects to get a different beat out of them, so you weren’t always doing a foxtrot. That was improvised too?

Dieter Moebius

Of course, you have the idea to do that, then maybe next time you don’t do it. Or next time you don’t push the button foxtrot, you touch the other one. That’s all improvisation [laughter].

Audience member

There have been a lot of artists who were big in the ’70s coming back, and a lot of the time they play all the hits. We’ve been exposed to a lot of great music from the past, for very good reasons. But you guys aren’t doing that, you’re playing completely new music. What do you think of the canonization of artists from the past, and how do you think, as young people, we should take those influences, but also create new music and not get too tied down in that?

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

You shouldn’t get too fixed on the history of music. You should do it from your stomach and heart, not from your head. Listening to the richness of sound in nature is something you should be aware of, to select what you really want to do, to find your own tone language. That’s really the most important thing. Not listening too much to others, because then you get mixed up. Also with all this modern technology, it’s so easy to do something, but you never know whether it’s your music or a machine.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You bring up an interesting point. You guys are in your 40s now – just kidding – you’re 75 years old and you’re 65. I found this more in music than in film, but a musician who made his name in the ’70s and comes back in the 2000s and says, “I’m going to perform at festivals with contemporary artists,” the first thing they do is listen to what’s new and approximate that. And in doing so, the only way you can enjoy them is by picturing this canonization, this ideal you had of them a long time ago, because they’re not doing anything like it now, they’re just reacting to something. Whereas it seems you guys never reacted… well, maybe once or twice.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Of course, we are part of it.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

But you’re not downloading the top ten electronic music chart from iTunes to figure out how you can make music that mimics that… that’s why you’re still here, and we talked to people all over who say Cluster is back. I was talking to a producer from the BBC, buying some records from him, and I remarked that I’d be talking with you and he said, “I heard Cluster was back.” That was a nice thing to say, because it wasn’t qualified with anything, like, “They’re back and not doing anything that sounds as good as what they did.” Of course, it’s going to be different. It was just, “You’re back.”

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

We are there, still. We are privileged, we can do what we want to do.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

I don’t think you’ve ever had a problem with doing what you want to do. Somehow you’ve been able to flop through record after record of everything you want to do, execs be damned. Good for you, both.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Also, our solo careers – we’ve been able do what we really liked to. That’s the other part.

Dieter Moebius

Where the other partner can’t fuck your music up [laughter]…

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

You guys need a sitcom. The Odd Couple, Part Two. Any more questions?

Dieter Moebius

Thank you for coming.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Yes, thank you.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt

Cluster, ladies and gentlemen!