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We came across this kind of music
and it was like...
you'd keep taking it to the limit
to see how much more was possible.
I started very early on
trying to make music with a Commodore 16.
Then with the C64 a bit more was possible.
And then, soon after,
I got an Amiga 500 for Christmas.
I had been taking music
from video games for some time.
That music had a big influence on me.
For me, the beginning was in '92.
There were two DJs, DJ Beat and Triple A
who organised Cosmic *** parties,
that was the title,
and they were among the first...
or the only parties...
One of the few series of parties in Cologne
where you'd get acid
and various US techno styles,
breakbeat and stuff all mixed up.
We played there and got the offer
to make an album right away.
And then it all happened in one go,
until one morning I woke up in Berlin.
It was a very revolutionary time.
I figured if I finish school,
I'd miss out on a whole lot.
So I decided to make music.
It was a very strange group of people.
I'd never met anything like it before.
Guys like Mike Ink who...
I don't know, who crossed over,
between a relatively German artistic world,
I mean, I didn't know any of this. I was 15 or 16.
Ingmar Koch looked like a cross
between a total Hippie and a Death Metal fan.
But he could also have been a gangsta rapper.
And Jammin Unit and all those people,
particularly in Cologne, which is more well known
for dressing up and going to Ring street.
It was actually broadening my horizon.
And most of all, at those parties,
anything was possible, and...
people were a kind of family.
It was really great.
Every day was like Christmas for me.
Even with those very crude, fast,
hardcore gabber pieces and stuff,
for us they were more about the fun of it
and not about some kind of hooligan
football rubbish redneck excesses.
Do you remember
when you first met Alec Empire?
I remember that very well.
It was at Underground in Cologne, it was dope.
They were a really nice crew.
Gina was there and Carl Crack
and all the other Cologne people.
The Bass Terror Crew played there.
Them and Carl Crack, that was wicked, amazing.
The combination of it.
And back then those distorted break beats
in that shape weren't really known.
Alec had done a lot of stuff
even before Teenage Riot.
Then I met Gina, Gina D'Orio
who is known as a member of Cobra Killer.
With her I had the band EC8OR.
Were you a couple then?
We used to be a couple, yes.
I was just about to talk about that.
We met and I performed at Eimer,
and everything went pretty fast,
so I thought, OK, I'll move to Berlin.
Whenever I come back to Berlin I always think
that it was a really good decision.
I came to Berlin in '95.
Within a few months
we'd finished the EC8OR album
and we went on a tour through Germany.
Then we went to the States
and then we got the offer
to play with The Prodigy in Japan.
Then The Beastie Boys offered
to release some of our stuff.
And then, I don't know,
suddenly we were in New York
and shopping for records with Mike D
and he said, the song We Are Pissed is wicked.
Then 2000 was over
and Puppet Masters started
and there were various other collaborations.
Yes, with Gonzales during that time.
Yes, and some of them were released
in England, labelled as "Jew Funk".
The creation process was really funny
because of those monophonic moog synths.
Gonzo had kept it a secret that he's a pianist.
We were sitting in the studio doing bass lines
which reminded us partly of G Funk stuff,
but we always had two bass lines
on top of each other.
Then he had that Jew Funk idea.
Then the structure changed a lot in Berlin.
The new Kitty Yo wave at that time basically
was rather strange for many
of the more established people here.
There was a lot of money around, of course,
on the side of the labels, which they pumped in,
and that rang in something new in Berlin,
an Americanism...
which hadn't existed in that form before.
At the moment, a lot is happening
in the electronic field and with MCs.
That's really great to see.
Also all that trap stuff
and the mix with post dub step
and bass and stuff.
It gives you proper hope.
Well, I did a lot for them, too,
for the Dhirty Six Cru.
In 2014, there'll be a new Ill Till album.
They know the name in the industry.
Basically I did a lot of stuff
for film, theatre and other stuff.
Last year, there was a thing in the Black Forest.
In Freiburg, called Elementarteilchen.
It was like my living room
and I was some kind of Michel Houellebecq,
I was actually more of an observer
conducting the people with the music.
So basically it was going well financially.
Up until the time when you finished the phase.
You never know.
Oh, I digress again.
It's all one big digression.
Those heavenly circumstances
which we once had,
you couldn't preserve that in that form.
If you look at all of Europe now...
And what is it that drives you?
It's the thing itself. And I'm glad about this.
Somehow, it's a life tonic for me.
Subtitles by Stephanie Geiges