Random Bits from Sascha Konietzko

Courtesy of: devohag@aol.com (Devohag)
Date - April 27, 1995

  1. The NIHIL tour starts in l.a. and will end, roughly, in the winter. They will tour Europe for the first time in five years. The first European dates have been confirmed for, Sascha believes, the 26th of June. The reason they haven't toured Europe for so long is because they never had any "real distribution over there." Sascha's not particularly excited to be going back to Europe; however, he seems very excited that they will be touring Japan, where he has never visited.
  2. DINK IS OPENING FOR KMFDM. Sascha and the rest of the band didn't feel like choosing the opening band this time, so they left it up to their management. Therefore, their management chose Dink as the opening band.
  3. Sascha "never liked ANGST very much." Thus, his goal for NIHIL was "to not make a record like ANGST." An example of his desire for perfection lies in the fact that he spent around "eight or nine months" writing 30 songs for NIHIL and selected only ten of those songs to be on the album.
  4. Sascha doesn't have a favorite cut on NIHIL; instead, he has his favorite "moments"--the brass section solo in "Disobedience;" the Hammond organ part and guitar solo that accompany the Ronald Reagan bit ("and this is what this country's looking for now") in "Search and Destroy;" and the section in "Brute" "where it sort of goes from this guy that's in jail ... sometimes he's sitting in his bunk and thinking about his youth ... and then the ten, fifteen seconds that follow."
  5. Raymond Watts got back in touch with Sascha in 1993, eventually asking Sascha to do a Pig remix. That resulted in KMFDM vs. Pig. Sascha enjoyed working with Raymond, so he invited him back for the NIHIL project. Sascha remains ambiguous as to whether or not Watts is back for good.
  6. At this time, Sascha's favorite album is Chris Connelly's SHIPWRECK. He also likes to listen to classical music--one favorite being Mozart's Symphonies 40 and 41.
  7. He may do more stuff under Excessive Force-"I think I want to"--but for now all his energies are directed towards the KMFDM tour. In winter, when the tour ends, he will be starting another KMFDM album, which, he thinks should be out around September of '96.
  8. No, he doesn't really like Pigface's music. but--to make things clear--he says this in a most diplomatic way.
  9. Sascha didn't commission Brute to do the artwork for NIHIL simply because he wanted a change from what was becoming a "formula." Francesca Sundsten created the cover art exclusively for NIHIL after Sascha gave her some early versions of NIHIL's songs. Obviously, he's quite fond of her art. FYI: Sundsten is Bill Rieflin's wife.
  10. It doesn't bother Sascha when people classify KMFDM as industrial, but it surprises him it that people would compare KMFDM to bands like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, with whom he sees KMFDM as having little in common. He also stresses that the notion of competitiveness between "industrial" bands does not exist.
  11. The first time En Esch wore a dress on stage was around '89 or '90.
  12. The reason En Esch keeps his head bald evokes the recent occurence in which Genesis P'Orridge jumped out of a second story window to escape a fire. In early '90, En Esch jumped out of a fourth floor window of a burning building, "and he was almost dead when he came down." Evidently, the fire singed his hair and in appreciation of his fated survival from that near-death experience- "he stayed bald."
  13. "Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode" is one of Sascha's favorite anagrams, even though he says that he doesn't hate Depeche Mode.
  14. Sascha wants to be cremated when he dies because he doesn't like the idea of a person's body sitting in the earth. "I think if someone's gone, they should be gone," he says.
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