was probably ahead of its time, but people simply did not understand it, also because the language had changed. It wasn't that direct anymore. Then came ‘Schach ist nicht das Leben’, which featured more instruments. You had FM Einheit from Einstürzende Neubauten acting as producer. I assume the Neubauten were an important influence for you, right? Let's put it this way: we don't sound like Einstürzende Neubauten, but the Neubauten were one of the Germanspeaking bands that I really liked at the time.‘Haus der Lüge’ is one of my favorite albums. I liked FM Einheit because he was the drummer at the time. He had already left the band by then, but I wanted to strengthen the rhythm section.That was not something we had considered particularly important in the previous years. FM Einheit was actually interested in working with us because of the ‘Blue Album’. I believe that ‘Schach ist nicht das Leben’sold well, but you were still disappointed with the sales figures. You then stated that this was due to illegal copying of CDs. It went completely wild at that time. People copied the CD. Although the popularity of Goethe's Erben increased during that time,although there were more spectators, sales figures continued to decline.That’s a difficult situation.We had put a lot of money into it.‘Schach’was a very expensive record. FM Einheit did cost us some money as a producer,and the studio was expensive. It is of course a problem if the recordings become more and more expensive, and ultimately fewer people buy the product as a physical sound carrier. You have always had the ambition tomakemusical theater. This was fully achieved for the first time with ‘Kondition: Macht!’ from 1998. - 21 - We have also succeeded in this to a certain extent with ‘Schach ist nicht das Leben’, but not as consistently as with ‘Kondition: Macht!’. ‘Kondition: Macht!’ was really written strictly as musical theater, with a different role for the text, and also a role for dance and dramaturgy.The musicians also had roles. We performed it for the first time for three evenings in a row in Berlin. That was a huge task. We rehearsed and prepared for one year for something that was then performed during three evenings. I also remember the concert of‘Schach ist nicht das Leben’ in Belgium. That was in Mechelen, and it was very theatrical.You gave jam to the people, therewas the crown and the throne. So that was already staged as a musical theater? Absolutely. That was not a normal concert.And our concerts today are still not normal. When we made this ‘dystopian time journey’ in Waregem, through the history of Goethes Erben, there was also a certain dramaturgy in the way we presented it all. There was a ‘chest of memories’ on stage from which I practically retrieved these memories. You have played a lot of‘Nichts bleibt wie es war’. I believe that was also your biggest commercial success. Did ‘Nichts bleibt wie es war’also have a dominant theme? With ‘Nichts bleibt wie es war’, Mindy and I decided to include our side projects Still Silent and Erblast in the record. The song ‘Nichts bleibt wie es war’ actually comes from Still Silent. It was originally called ‘Shockwaved’. We made a German version of that. ‘Was war bleibt’ was originally a piece by Erblast,but we nowwanted to play it with the band. We simply wanted to put that together. ‘Nichts bleibt wie es war’ was much more widely perceived at the time through the collaboration with Peter Heppner on www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be Photo © Luc Luyten / Who Cares
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