Well, you can imagine my surprise: I was listening to the German
radio show 'Schwingungen' on WDR1 radio, when it was announced
that Tangerine Dream won the listeners award for 'best artist of
all times'. Not only that, they called up Mr. Froese himself for
a live telephone interview during the show.
Well, I've tried to translate it for you, so here it is.
Obviously, I am not a certified interpreter, so aplogogies to
Edgar if some things are not 100% accurate...
Hilmar
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Thursday, February 17th 1994, 10:45 pm; the host of the show,
Winfried Trenkler has just played parts of 'Tangram':
W.T.:And now, the winner...on the phone. Hello Edgar, do I have
you on the line in Berlin?
... (some talk about setting up the phone connection)
My dear friend, you just know since a few minutes before
tonight's show what is going on, what the purpose of this
phone call is. I had just asked your agent for a telephone
interview tonight, which you agreed to do, and only a few
minutes ago I told you what this is all about. Therefore
again, now in public: Congratulations to you for this great
result of the poll. You are by far the most popular artists
of electronic music!
E.F.:That sounds very nice, Winfried. Also from our side a big
'Thank-you' to all of those that voted for us in this
category.
... (longer conversation about the 10th anniversary of the radio
show)
W.T.:Well, we don't just have 'experts' listening on the radio,
so let me say: Edgar Froese is the founder of Tangerine
Dream, and he is the one who has always been with the band
from beginning to the current day. he is the heart, the
founder, the motor, the one man who represents Tangerine
Dream more than anyone else. In the meantime his son has
joined the band and you are now a duo, and whenever
necessary you take additional musicians into the studio or
onto the stage, I think I put that in the right words, yes?
E.F.:Correct!
W.T.:You said a few years ago, after having won the YEARLY poll
for best artist every time, I think you won 4 or 5 times in
a row, you said in one interview here: 'Folks, please, why
don't you vote for someone else for a change?'. And that is
excatly what they did, since then, you have not been on top
in the category 'best artist', well, you are always still
among the top ones, but the listeners did exactly as you
told them. But now, looking back onto your lifetime
achievement (isn't that like with the 'Oscar' where the
'lifetime achievement' is awarded) and zap: by a wide
margin you are again ahead...
E.F.:Well, Winfried, that should please you more than anyone, it
shows that your show has INTELLIGENT listeners, can we
agree on that?
W.T.:Yes, you can say that, ...
... (long talk about the quantity and quality of votes
etc.)
Let's look at more current news. I have been told (you said
it before on the phone, and the news is already floating
about in the press): You have been nominated for THREE
Grammy awards all at once, can you descibe that to us
briefly?
E.F.:Well, that's easy to do. We have been nominated for the
best long-form video for our 220-volt-live concert in
Seattle a year ago, the second nomination is for best
album, also for our 220-volt-live album, and the third
nomination really surprised us the most, it is for the best
rock instrumental, and we wanted to do this as a joke
because we are still great followers of Jimi Hendrix from
the old days, so we simply covered 'Purple Haze' and we
used that during our American tour as the final encore, and
it was then also released and also appeared on the album,
and now it even got the nomination for best rock
instrumental, that was the real surprise about it.
W.T.:Just to add, the 'Grammy' is in the world of music the
equivalent of the 'Oscar' from the world of movies. So I
assume you will be flying off to the USA in the next few
days to sit in the audience and eagerly and feverishly wait
to find out if you will get one of the three Grammies.
E.F: Well, I wouldn't call it 'feverishly'. It is the third year
that we are part of it, but it is like that: On the first
day is the ceremony in the Radio City Music Hall in New
York, and thats an event where you can talk to all the
people that you don't get to see throughout the year, because
all the people from the music business are there, many
musicians are there, and if you know each other from
various tours and so on, it is always nice to have some
'insider' small talk.
W.T.:Yes, but after that, when the announcements are made,
aren't you real curious, or do you already know beforehand
what is going on?
E.F.:No, you don't know. Most people don't know this and many
think that it is all fixed and they also think that about
the 'Oscar'. But it is really like this: there is a lawyer's
office in Los Angeles, and all 'voting members' have to
send their vote there, and the results are kept totally
secret under notary supervision until one hour before the
envelopes are opened in the ceremony. It is impossible to
'buy' the information or something, and the academy that
prepares the whole thing really consists of musicians
only. It is really musician's business only, and if you
indeed do win a Grammy, it is not even allowed for a
representative of the record company or a delegate of the
band/musician to go up on stage to receive the award, it
HAS to be the musician himself. Otherwise it will rather be
sent in the mail...
W.T.:Obviously myself, all the people who are now listening to
this and all of your fans, we all keep our fingers crossed
for you, and hope that this will be a success for you. Just
one more information, you mentioned that you had been
nominated with the album 220-volts, but in what category,
you didn't say that?
E.F.:In Billboard magazine, there is a category called
'Contemporary Adult / New Age' and...well...with that
second term, and your listeners know that for sure, we are
a little bit at war with that term, but anyway, that's the
way it is, and it is in that category that we are nominated.
W.T.:Well, that is really the category 'Schwingungen' to keep it
simple...
E.F.:Eh, ....
W.T.:Edgar, before I let you go, and I've heard that you are
just this moment working hard in your studio...
E.F.:Yes, that's right...
W.T.:It is a regular custom in this show, whenever there's a
review show (like the yearly review, and of course this one
especially) that I am not alone in the studio. Sometimes we
have a musician, sometimes a listener that has been
especially knowledgable or has shown a lot of effort,
anyway there are two people talking to you, and the other
one here is Chris Hoeppner from Muenster, and he also has a
question for you.
C.H.:Good evening and congratulations, also in the name of all
fans. One question, that is also very important for many
fans: What is the future development in the music of
Tangerine Dream, also in the long term? Will you stay with
the more live-oriented and rock-oriented music, or do you
intend to someday return to the more...spheric areas, which
is where you come from originally anyway?
E.F.:It is very understandable that these questions always come
up, not just from you but from a huge fan audience. I would
like to take this opportunity to clearly say how we feel
about all of these issues. We believe that someone who
seriously works on his music, (and I ask you to take this
seriously and excuse me for saying it so directly) can
really only do the kind of things he can stand for, and if
we, today, in the year 1994, simply don't WANT to play the
music that we played in 1978 or 1975, then I ask you to
excuse us for that, but it is really a process of ongoing
development. The music that Tangerine Dream made in all
this time is a 'diary music'...our diary. And whoever wants
to read in this diary with us is invited to do so. We are
not upset when people say: 'Ok, we quit here, we don't want
to listen to this anymore, this is not our thing anymore',
...
C.H.:(interrupts) No, that is not the point. It is about whether
you think that you will want to do this ever again, or if
you believe that you are on a different track now which you
will stay on for some time?
E.F.:I can say one thing quite clearly: The times where the
music we made was called 'meditation music' are definitely
a thing of the past. I want to say this very clearly: We
will not do this type of music again! We believe there are
enough other artists, also in this field, that can play
that kind of music very well. I think it is also only fair
if the audience selects the music from there...where it finds
the things it wants to have and likes to listen to. WE will
go off in an even more experimental direction. The next
album that we have just begun work on will go into a very
different direction, we...
C.H.:(interrupts) On the new label?
E.F.:...nnnn...well, I don't want to say too much about that
yet. But musically, it will make a complete turn, and I
think that is the real adventurous thing about being a
musician: you MUST allow yourself the freedom to cut
right through the bushes, to march through the jungle for a
while, but also to walk on a wide street if you want relax
a while. I believe that this kind of fairness can in turn
also be expected from the audience. Even is this fairness
is not there...fine, the artist will have to do what he
thinks is right anyway.
C.H.:Yes, of course, this is how new music is created...people
trying out new things. One more quick question. You have
always been very active in the area of music for motion
pictures, made soundtracks for some famous movies, is
anything coming up there, any famous movie that you would
like to score?
E.F.:Our order books are full...but we won't do it! We haven't
done any film music in over a year now, because we noticed
that..., well, it is work like in an assembly line. You can
make a lot of money with it, and it is also quite nice to be
in that environment, people running after you all the time,
but one thing gets lost, and I have to admit that here, and that's
working with the things you really want inside. You always
have to listen to directors, producers, all this Hollywood
stuff, that's ok for a while, but when you come back to the
point where you ask yourself: why are you making music to
begin with?...then soundtrack music unfortunately gets in
your way. We will do it again once in a while, but at the
moment we have totally retreated from this business, and
want to get back to the things we once set out to do,
musically, and experimentally turn those ideas around with
the means that are available to us these days...
W.T.:We accept that, and I am sure our listeners too, that's why
you have been voted, still today. Edgar, taking you by your
words, we will always have the 'real' Tangerine Dream. That
is very pleasing to know. All the best and good luck for
your USA trip. Bye, and a productive night!
E.F.:All the best to you, Winfried and to your listeners. Bye.
---------------------END OF INTERVIEW ---------------------------------------