This article was automatically translated by AI.
Olli: Since 2007.
Karl: I actually just wanted to make music again in general and felt like doing these BAD BRAINS things as a warm-up because I hadn’t made music for ten years. I thought I needed to get some feeling back, preferably with songs that I have some connection to.
Olli: I played in EMILS before, they broke up. We wanted to continue making music, so we formed the band SECRET 99 with Rotter and two other colleagues until 2004, which was BAD BRAINS covers based on the originals. Then we broke up, and years later I got in touch with Karl. He was looking for people who would like to play BAD BRAINS. And that’s how it developed.
King Kraut: What are the advantages of building on songs that already existed?
Toshi: That we have a template that we will never reach.
Karl: But that wasn’t an advantage in that sense. It was just something we wanted. What’s the advantage of your current girlfriend if you have one? You can’t really say that!
King Kraut: Yes, yes, I can say that. But let’s put it this way: What are the advantages compared to the approach of writing all songs from scratch?
Olli: The advantage is, if you want to see it that way: You have a set.
Karl: The plan was always to use these BAD BRAINS songs just as a starting point. But something always happened that prevented it. Changing bassists, illnesses, deaths. Toshi is the fourth bassist of this project.
Rotter: This project generally has too many bassists. SECRET 99 also had three different bassists. That doesn’t exactly speed things up.
King Kraut: Is it difficult to handle the bass for this music?
Karl: Not generally. You generally don’t find musicians for something like this very easily. If Olli were to drop out, where would we get a new one from? Not for these things. Not drummers either. They just don’t grow up with this sound.
Rotter: If you want to do BAD BRAINS, you need someone who knows it, who likes it, and who is also capable of playing it. Because it’s not that easy. You don’t have to be the incredibly studied top-crack for it, but you definitely have to play tight. A bunch of people say: "I’m up for that, sure, gladly!", then come over and say: "Oh. They’re serious about this!
Karl: With cover songs, many think of chart-toppers. But we don’t do a cover in that sense. These are quite complex pieces, and then you also have different vocals – you can’t just play it straightforward.
King Kraut: You announced that you would be making recordings, right?
Olli: We went out to the sticks last November and recorded new songs – of course just a rough version.
Karl: However, the vocals are still missing, the lyrics, everything. Next, we didn’t rehearse for a while, then there came a point where I realized – it had nothing to do with this band – I needed to take a break from a few things in my life. Because of that, I didn’t have time for the band again for the last two months.
But the very real other problem is: Those two or three hours a week, when it really comes to it, they go completely to keeping the set alive. The BAD BRIANS (Berlin hardcore cover band, played that day too – note from KK) have 120 songs, but they don’t have to rehearse them constantly because they are easier to master structurally. Our 33 songs or so, you have to play them constantly, otherwise they literally slip away from you. I can’t even tell you how we manage to fit in making new songs.
But I’ll claim that by the end of this summer, we will have three new finished songs that we will also play.
Olli: Otherwise, you’ll be running naked through Altona.
Karl: From my side, I at least want to prepare that. And if you hear that I ran naked through Altona, you’ll know roughly what happened.
Olli: That has a certain appeal too.
Karl: I’ll bring that.
King Kraut: We’ve recorded that, now it’s official.
Will there be more complete original compositions from KEIN HASS DA?
Olli: We would like to present our own set at some point. It will surely come through that it sounds a bit like BAD BRAINS here and there, but it’s not planned or anything.
(Brian from the BAD BRIANS stops by)
Karl (to Brian): I just claimed you have 120 songs and don’t need to practice them constantly, is that true?
Brian: 121.
King Kraut: Karl, you are more expressive as a lyricist in KEIN HASS DA compared to your other public statements. You present yourself as more vulnerable by expressing your feelings more openly. How does that come about?
Karl: The good thing about song lyrics is: Nobody reads them anyway. But when you sing, you can put all your energy and power into it.
Rotter: I wouldn’t say that nobody reads them.
Karl: Fewer people read the song lyrics than any of my silly Facebook posts. You can count on that. And those who read song lyrics are also more willing to engage with them. And not just write dumb comments underneath.
Toshi: Those are the ones who sing along at the concerts.
Karl: Not necessarily, but also.
At some point, you grow out of the age where you want to glance at the audience and see what slogan you can come up with that will resonate with everyone. Once you learn that you sing best when it comes completely from the heart, you start doing it that way. For me, the musical aspect is absolutely secondary. An old problem in the band. For me, what I feel when I sing is absolutely primary. I don’t care if I miss a note or if something comes across strangely, or if I look crazy while doing it. As long as the feeling is there in that moment. That’s the most important thing. And then comes the music.
Rotter: That makes you an entertainer, this basic attitude that you can die while singing!
Karl: Yes! It was just like that when I had this "heartbreak" in the last few months. In a few rehearsals, I sang three times better than usual. Because I was emotionally so tense, I had to put that into these songs.
Olli: You had the blues.
Karl: Yes, in a way. But you need to have song lyrics where you can pump everything into at that moment. If you say, "Beat the cops down" and "All bitches except mom", you can’t do that.
King Kraut: You’re not doing a 1:1 translation of Bad Brains lyrics. Have you ever tried to see what would come out of it? God songs?
Karl: Right. "We read the holy bible." That would be dishonest if I sang that. I believe I wouldn’t be able to sing it properly either. It’s not about the lyrics, about the words for me.
King Kraut: "Nation" also comes up often. If you were to translate it word for word into German, it would sound strange.
Karl: Yes... "NAZIon". But they mean something else. In English, that’s not a problem. "Black Nation", "Jah Nation", "Rastaman Nation", "Whatever Nation", it always just expresses that sense of belonging.
The term "nation" is historically not a bad thing. The German "nation" is very blood-based, ethnic. In French, however, "nation" doesn’t depend on your blood, but means: As soon as you are born on French soil, no matter what skin color you have, whatever, then you are French.
Lyrics from BAD BRAINS are of course religious to a certain extent. But religion also has positive roots in part. With the lyrics I’ve created, I’ve always tried to capture and understand the basic mood and direction that the original lyrics have; the energy that’s in them. And then connecting that with my own feelings and stories was the difficult part. And that it still sounds somewhat like the original. Singing word-for-word translations would be out of the question for me. In some songs, it could work. "Sailing On" or something. But try "She's Calling You".
Rotter: You can translate that too, but then it’s just... weird shit.
Karl: Balla balla.
King Kraut: What has changed in KEIN HASS DA compared to your previous bands?
Toshi: Our age, for example. That happens to almost everyone.
Olli: For me, it’s the quality of how you have to play to convey it. I used to play in punk bands where we would get drunk beforehand. That wouldn’t work here at all. You have to be very straight. That was a completely new experience here.
Today everyone has something to do, each of us has jobs going on, which wasn’t necessarily the case before. Today we have a rehearsal date, have little time, and then it’s all about rapperti rapperti rapperti.
Karl: The experiences are mostly positive, and a few negative. The positive thing is that we waste less time than before; but that can also be a disadvantage because wasting time can spark creativity. But the reliability is much more extreme than it used to be. Although we were half as old back then, the band is live more agile, more energetic than we were back then. That’s very funny.
A disadvantage is that everything has to sit very precisely because we have very little time. Because of that, no new songs come up during performances. Just letting things flow and seeing how they develop doesn’t happen.
Rotter: I have to say, the metal band I was in before, in terms of our current discipline and focused working style...
Olli: ...that was a punk band in that sense!
Rotter: Definitely! That was "Punkband³". When the singer showed up, he had already had a bottle of vodka in him, poured the second one in the rehearsal room, lay sprawled on the couch, and made comments, half of them were never there for rehearsals. That’s why I threw in the towel there too.
Now I’m out with these guys, at least it’s worth something to me. You do performances, you travel around, you rehearse purposefully, trying to do things, there’s discipline. People are on time for rehearsals. And if someone can’t make it, they let us know.
Karl: That fits quite well with the vibe of BAD BRAINS music. There’s this feeling: Seize the day, have energy, get going, do something! Fly! It’ll work out somehow! Especially this jitteriness that this music has, you can really only achieve that through hard rehearsing, otherwise, you can’t pull it off. Otherwise, you have to make different music.
All good bands have rehearsed until they drop. The BAD BRAINS even had their own house where they made music every day. Sure, it was a bit more relaxed then. But believe me, you learn something there!
Rotter: I met with a band back then six days a week in the rehearsal room and we practiced. Some really intense songs came out of that, really complicated stuff. We had the time for it. Nowadays, that would be impossible.
With Karl Nagel, KEIN HASS DA has an extroverted singer and scene celebrity; he doesn’t act as a provocateur here, but is initially an artist in conversation, constantly searching for a vent for his thoughts. The rest of the band is the experienced unit that ensures the sound is played precisely. A bit surprised by the unusual interest in their music group, the four gave me a nice interview while the Kreuzberg MyFest was booming nearby.
After initially clarifying identities (Karl: vocals, Olli: guitar, Toshi: bass; Rotter: drums vs. King Kraut: BILD newspaper), we got started with some hard-hitting facts.
