This article was automatically translated by AI.
Nina: Lemmy is doing better again. It was very stressful for him. He is a musician through and through and just has to be out on stage. The doctors predict that he will be on the mend again.
Your collaboration with him has been quite close from the beginning. How did that come about?
Jim: Lemmy met us during an interview at a radio show. The DJ had a CD of ours on the table, and he was thrilled. About a year later, we received a message from the Motörhead lawyer that Lemmy would like to visit us in Berlin to meet us in person.
Nina: It's also worth mentioning that the music style we were making back then around 1992 didn't really interest anyone anymore. At that time, alternative music was all the rage. But Lemmy doesn't give a damn about trends. He does what he likes and not what is currently trendy. We quickly realized that we harmonized very well together. We were on the same wavelength right away. And that's how it all came about.
You don't care about record labels and have now founded your own record label, Monongo…
Jim: That's not entirely accurate. We had several deals with record labels, but somehow they always went bankrupt. Especially at the time when we released "Peace Breaker," many labels went under due to all the downloading issues. Nevertheless, we had planned to get a contract with a label again, but then things turned out differently. We are quite happy with it now and are doing pretty well with it.
You have experienced the business with all its ups and downs…
Jim: Especially I had to gain a lot of experience long before Skew Siskin. When our first demos for the first CD were finished, we had, for example, hired a manager to deal our music to German record labels. That went completely wrong, and when we wanted to part ways with him, he sent us a bill for 150,000 DM. Welcome to the rock’n’roll business. The band hadn't even played a single gig yet, achieved nothing, but was already in debt up to its ears. Later it was found out that he only had about 20,000 DM in costs. Tell me, how messed up is that? I resolved it through my lawyer and said: You can have 20,000, but no more. However, it must be said that we from the beginning with Skew Siskin did not make the mistake of giving away rights to the songs to the record labels. All rights to the songs are with us.
How did you get into rock music? What is your backstory?
Jim: Nina and I come from the punk scene. She played drums in a Berlin punk rock band, and I was with the well-known Berlin punk band PVC. Then came the Neue Deutsche Welle, and the bassist from PVC smelled the opportunity and suggested we dissolve PVC while the band was still doing well. That was exactly the right move. I, on the other hand, fled from the NDW. (laughs) I then went to America and worked with the guitarist from Patti Smith and MC5. We played in the popular clubs in NY, and my world was in order. It's a really cool experience when your idol asks you about the chords of your song.
You, Nina, actually wanted to go into musicals before you became a rock singer?
Nina: Well, wanting… at around 18, you think about what you want to do. I then started studying at the University of Arts and worked at the Theater des Westens. At that time, I was already tattooed and was more or less the outsider there, but during that time, I learned a lot. Later, I came into contact with Udo Lindenberg through my mother's shared apartment (note: the actress Helga Fehrmann), and he asked me if I wanted to sing a duet with him on his album "Hermine." By the way, Marlene Dietrich is also on the album, whom Udo had to pretty much persuade to sing with him. (laughs)
How did you two meet?
Jim: In America, I saw how big and popular classic rock is there and planned to start my own band with a singer in the style of MC5 and AC/DC. Coincidentally, during a visit to Berlin, I came into contact with Nina through Udo, and we founded Skew Siskin. At first, I thought: What do I want with a musical singer?
We tried it anyway, and over the course of a year, Nina's qualities as a rock singer came to light. Udo initially didn't believe that Nina could sing rock. However, when we later went on tour with Black Sabbath, he was highly impressed and thought it was totally cool. (laughs)
What was the craziest thing you've experienced in your long touring life?
Jim: The craziest? When we went on stage and all the cables from the complete backline were unplugged. The band that played before us didn't want us to play because they were afraid of competition. So we had to rewire everything first. Then we always had someone guarding the backline and the mixing console. So much for musician friendship in Germany.
Jim: Then we once played as the opening act for Bon Jovi in Los Angeles, and the instruction from Bon Jovi himself was: All presences and highs will be turned down from the PA! It sounded so terrible. But our sound mixer, whom we had brought from Berlin, raped the mixing console and managed to get it somewhat right. I wonder what the world-famous Bon Jovi thinks of Skew Siskin? Is he afraid of us?? Even before that, there was already the aria: When Bon Jovi comes, everyone has to clear the backstage; he doesn't want to see anyone. And then came the instruction. Solos are not allowed, and the bassist and guitarist must not cross paths. That's too much action. (flipping the bird)
Nina: Those are instructions that are so bizarre. The craziest thing I can remember was with Phil Campbell, the guitarist from Motörhead, on the tour in 2010 in the UK. After the show at two in the morning, there was suddenly a commotion in the bus in front of us, and everyone ran out. I thought, what do they have? Hornets in the bus?? They then said Phil put a stink bomb in the bus. At that time, we all had the same gray buses, and he wanted to throw the bomb in and fortunately confused us. (laughs)
Jim: And we said: Phil, if you had done that with us, we would have dragged you in and locked you up… It was minus 10 degrees…
Matthias and Conner, you are new in the band. How did you join the band?
Matthias: I found Jim and Nina through an ad. That was in 2010. I didn't know Skew Siskin at all. I came by for the audition and was immediately very impressed by the studio. First of all, a huge Marshall wall. Then we played a song; it was so loud, and I hit it so hard. I was so exhausted afterward. My muscles couldn't keep up anymore. That was really crazy. I initially thought I had totally failed. The next day they said I should come back again. And that's how it all started. I then brought Conner along a year later.
Conner: Yes, I already knew the band before, ah Skew Siskin, I've heard of them during my metal youth. When I arrived at the studio, I thought: Wow, cool what's going on in Berlin…
Nina: Some people think that because I am the singer, I am the band. Then I say, well, because they think I stand up front and am the voice. But I couldn't do that at all if the bass, guitar, and drums didn't have the same impact, passion, and power behind them as I feel. That would be ridiculous. We need drivers, not passengers. That's why many other bands don't work at all. The feeling just has to be there, and it is simply there with the two of them. You can't just create that easily. Jim does it by testing people; he lets them play a riff for a long time and sees if they are into it. If someone is into it, that's worth much more than if someone plays it perfectly, is technically skilled, and you say: Wow, he can do that well. The groove and the feeling are crucial. Our music just has to swing. That's rock’n’roll. Jim and I also place value on it not being played so technically accurately. On tour, we also noticed that it works great and is a lot of fun. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Rock’n’roll doesn't work through perfection...
My God, we made a few mistakes here and there today too. No one notices. That also makes a professional musician that there is a certain looseness. Just the fun. Sounds terribly cliché now. But that's just how it is.
"Live is a bitch" is the song that brought me to you; I dug it up from the depths of my collection three weeks ago, and that's how I rediscovered you…
Nina: Really? Cool! Lemmy wrote the lyrics, by the way. We were just in the studio, had finished recording 3 songs, and I started writing lyrics. Lemmy happened to be in Berlin again. So I called him and said: Come by, we have 3 songs, pick one, and please write lyrics, do something. (laughs) He disappeared for a bit, and Jim drove him to the arcade at Potsdamer Platz. After two hours, he came back, briefly retreated to the other room, and the lyrics were done. I read through them and asked: Melodically, do you have any plan? Then he sang it to me, I sat back at the console and recorded the song. Lemmy then from behind while playing video games: "No, no... you have to do it this way!" And then the song was finished in two hours. Lemmy is like a machine; you put money in, send him off to play for a bit, buy him a few cigarettes, whiskey, and then he writes quickly. (laughs)
How do the albums differ from each other?
Spontaneously, I would say on one hand in the phases when they were recorded. On the other hand, in the changing line-ups. Sometimes we experimented more, sometimes we did everything more classically. We tried a lot at times, and then went on tour with Accept, then you hear a song like "Balls to the Wall" (stomps) and you think, wow, cool, that's just fun. Let's make a song like we did back then when we started. Really heavy, classic 4/4 beat. Riffs that really sit nicely on the drum track, and of course, there has to be a vocal on top that hits hard, yes. Not some lalala.
It has been relatively quiet around you; will we hear more from you in 2015? You have a new album in the pipeline.
Jim: Phew, I can't even think that far ahead. Now we're going on tour with "The Damned" and "Motörhead," and then we'll see. You can't ask us things like a major label that already has everything planned out. We're just muddling through. And we take a lot of care with the new record…
Nina: There is no pressure behind it to have to release something now. It would be nice if it were finished, but it isn't yet…
Jim: You know, a record is finished when it's finished. Period! Not before. No one is behind us. If you rush something out, you'll notice later that you made a few mistakes, and then it takes another year to make a new record. We also take that freedom; we don't want to release any garbage here. I also don't believe that we have ever done that. All CDs in the back catalog are still selling very well, even in the USA. We're about to hit the 10,000 mark.
Well, thank you for the detailed interview, and I wish you a lot of fun on the tour with Motörhead in November…
The interview lasted almost two hours. The people from Skew Siskin are totally down-to-earth and pleasant. I think it's great that they took so much time for me and fed me with so much information. It's definitely worth listening in and checking out the tour.
