Beatmag interviews… Schneider TM

Lee Smith gets to grips with melancholy and rock’n'roll in the German electronic vanguard of Schneider TM

Dirk Dresselhaus, the man behind electro-coustic maverick act Schneider TM, is part way through telling Beatmag about his charming-sounding weekend in Barcelona, when a series of almighty crashes interrupts our pleasantries.

“Arrgh, my fucking house,” he cries. This is clearly not the first time something like this has happened. “It’s getting renovated. It’s been happening for over a year now and it’s still not right. It’s fucking annoying.”

Dirk’s continual rebuilding of his Berlin residence, and his patent exasperation towards the project, runs neatly in line with his approach to music. He likes to pick up scattered fragments of low-fi indie, atonal noise rock, lysergic hippie folk and breezy, brazen pop, and re-build them in a clattering, endearing jumble of his own making. And although his obsessive nature and bewildering arrangement of ideas is apparent on even a cursory glance over his decade long-recording career, it’s with his latest offering, Skoda Mluvit, that he’s decided to open up and let his music act as some kind of emotive catalyst for series of what he refers to as ‘difficulties’ in his recent life, as post tour tedium, relationship problems and a bad motorcycle incident all began to take their toll.

“Yeah, the new record was really quite painful to make,” he ponders. “Normally I like to keep this kind of information to myself, I don’t like to speak about it. But on this occasion, having a hard time was quite an inspiration for the music.”

Whether or not Dirk’s troubles have found a genuine release in his latest work remains uncertain. Despite his friendly, talkative nature, his conversation often veers towards his lack of faith in today’s culture, and his anger at world events – a refreshing sense of individual responsibility in the often-apathetic world of alternative electronica. Indeed, between the lines of Skoda Mluvit’s shimmering refrains, there’s a distinctive melancholy, or tiredness, sighing quietly all the while.

“I suppose you could say it’s melancholic,” he concedes. “But if you open your eyes and look at the world, you can get pretty melancholic. It’s so fucked up in design, it’s getting worse and worse and worse…maybe I’m allowed to think like this, because I have eastern European blood, and eastern European people are very melancholic. But in the music, I certainly don’t want to forget humour. That’s very important too.”

Although Dirk is now solely in control of studio output as Schneider TM, on stage he’s accompanied by longtime partners and friends KPT Michi.Gan and Mek O’Bamm. Their last tour, replete with tales of rock n’ roll debauchery, tripping in the desert, and partying until they fell over, had a deep impact on Schneider’s subsequent approach to performance.

“In the beginning, I never wanted to play live shows as Schneider TM. I wanted it to be a pure recording project. But then we played, like 200 shows in under two years and had a really amazing time. So I really can’t wait to play out again now.”

His long history of experience in noise rock bands seems to reinforce his current sense of isolation as a solitary producer.

“I’m a little bit fed up with doing it on my own. With the last record, I collaborated on lots of tracks with other people, but they just popped by mostly. The two or three tracks where we worked closely together were my favourites, I have to say.”

So why doesn’t he work more closely with band members all the time, then?

“My dream would be to have a good, functioning band, but experience shows this is hard to do. There are always problems with egos. But in a couple of years, yes, there will be one big band!”

Despite a prolific recording career, Schneider TM remains best known for his cover of The Smiths’ ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’, which was recently voted as one of the best cover versions of all time by The Wire magazine and attracted praise from everyone from John Peel to Jarvis Cocker. Is it frustrating to have a huge but virtually untouched body of work behind you, yet constantly be remembered for one single song – and a cover version at that?

“It’s not frustrating. But I did this version with my friend Michael (KPT Michi.Gan), and for him it was frustrating because although we both did the remix and did the same amount of work, Schneider TM got all the credit. It’s funny though, everyone seems to know this cover version, but we didn’t sell that many copies!”

Is that because of internet file sharing, perhaps?

“Yeah, it’s all on the internet. I mean people don’t know what they’re missing out on with the full package. I’m totally fine with music being spread on the internet, though – it helps music travel on its way, and that’s what music is supposed to do. Anyway, sometimes people would come to our shows and they only knew that one song, and they’d be pretty surprised because our stuff can get a bit freaky. But I wouldn’t say that cover version is the most interesting thing I’ve done. It’s OK though, and it did bring plenty of attention and benefits to us.”

Dirk’s assertion that Schneider TM can get a bit ‘freaky’ is certainly true. For the latest album, though, the bizarre noisiness has been reigned in for a much looser, more amiable collection of disparate moods.

“This record just happened, I didn’t have the time or the nerve to think about a clever move,” he explains. “I was using less brain here than usual, for sure. I want the music to be honest, as it comes out. On ‘Pac Man Shopping Cart’, we just hit record twice and use those two takes of me singing and playing. And we were on acid!”

Chemically inspired or otherwise, the album’s undeniable appeal and charm doesn’t avoid the underbelly of wistful longing that characterises much of Scheider TM’s best work. Does Dirk foresee a time when his art will actually make him genuinely happy?

“I’m happy the album is finished. There’s so much bullshit music today, it makes it harder. If you want to do honest music, it’s harder. But I’ll keep doing this until I die. I have a diverse life, I meet interesting people… it’s just living, you know?”

Like the eternal renovations to his house, something suggests that Schneider TM’s project is far from finished.

Schneider TM’s album ‘Skoda Mluvit’ is out now on City Slang

Filed under: Interviews, Music by Flexmaster Nylon
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