First of all, I'd like to congratulate DEINE LAKAIEN on completing the tour dedicated to the band's 20th anniversary. What were your expectations, and were they met?
We had always dreamed of doing a tour with a full orchestra, and that dream finally came true. We prepared all the arrangements ourselves. It wasn't difficult, considering that my colleague Ernst Horn is a professional conductor and composer. You might be familiar with similar experiments by various rock and pop bands playing with a symphony orchestra. In my opinion, very few of them got it right. So we approached things from a different angle — we simply re-composed our electronic material using classical instruments. And of course, we chose the RIGHT orchestra. These people are true professionals. The more we played together, the better we understood each other. But I can't say the tour's success was solely our achievement. The audiences at the concerts were wonderful too. People embraced the experiment, and that means a great deal to us. Now that it's all over, we believe we'll be able to repeat the tour in the same lineup in the future. However — you never know how life will unfold. We'll see. In any case, we can always revisit the past — the new DVD "20 Years Of Electronic Avantgarde" is already available.
How difficult was it for you, as a vocalist, to adjust to the new, "live" setting?
Not difficult at all. Of course, performing with an orchestra has its nuances, but during rehearsals I fully settled into the new role, and after that I didn't experience any problems. On the contrary, singing with live accompaniment is an unforgettable and very important experience for me.
Speaking of rehearsals — how did the tour preparation go?
We had only two rehearsals before the first show. Both took place in Frankfurt. However, tour preparation had begun long before that — as I mentioned, the rehearsals were preceded by a tremendous amount of work arranging the songs for a symphonic context, splitting up the scores, sending the sheet music to the musicians, and so on.
Were you satisfied with the technical setup at the venues where you performed?
This time we played in all kinds of places: from opera houses to sports arenas. But absolutely everywhere, the technical crew worked with such dedication that we were 100% confident in the sound. I'd especially like to highlight our performance at the Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig — the acoustics there are simply indescribable! That was probably our best show of the entire tour.
A few words about the new DVD — "20 Years Of Electronic Avantgarde." I understand it was released both in a standard format and a special edition. Could you tell us more about the latter?
I think you mean the box set — 3 DVDs + 2 CDs. If so, the first two discs contain the concert video, which is also included in the standard edition. The CDs duplicate that recording in audio format. The third DVD contains various bonus material: a selection of music videos, a tour documentary, and several ancient live recordings. The quality of some of them is terrible, and the casual listener or viewer won't find much of interest in them. Nevertheless, it's our gift to the most devoted fans of DEINE LAKAIEN.
The previous DVD release from DEINE LAKAIEN — "A Concert That Never Happened Before" — made some people wonder whether you might return to the sound of your early albums on future releases...
(laughs) That concert, "A Concert That Never Happened Before," was played, filmed, and released purely at the request of fans. The thing is, we only started performing live in 1991, and many songs from the debut album had never been performed at concerts at all. So we decided to hold a show in an unusual format: just the two of us on stage, with nothing but old synthesizers, playing only songs from 1987 to 1991. In doing so, we repaid a longstanding "debt" to our fans. We have no plans to repeat that kind of experiment in the foreseeable future, and it certainly doesn't define the future direction of DEINE LAKAIEN's music.
A new album — when and what will it be like?
Hard to say. Right now we're very busy, as we're performing concerts all across Europe and planning to visit russia again in the spring. On top of that, I'm working intensively on another solo album, so new material for DEINE LAKAIEN only exists in rough sketches at this point, and it's too early to say when it will come out or what it will sound like.
What about a new record from the Veljanov project?
It's almost finished recording. At the moment I don't have a contract with any label, but I hope the album will hit the shelves before the end of 2008.
Great! And one last thing — something you've always wanted to say but nobody ever asked about...
(laughs) Now that's a very interesting topic! I'm rarely asked about football, even though I'm a die-hard fan. Just the other day — during the russia–England match — I was rooting for the russian team, and I have to say: YOU GUYS DESTROYED THEM! Congratulations!