PLASTIC ASSAULT Interview

Slambook: Can you explain the origins of PLASTIC ASSAULT and some of the ideas that went into the final product on We Score?

Gabor Andrae (of PLASTIC ASSAULT): The Founding of PLASTIC ASSAULT is just the long overdue execution of what I had in my mind since my time in school. At that time I started with an Roland W 30, my first sampler, an incredible machine for that time, but just ridiculous compared with today's standards. Something better wasn't affordable for me, although I bought it used, so I teamed with my friend Fasko, who already owned an Ensoniq ASR 10 Sampler, and who went to the same classes like me. We both felt the same way, attracted to and influenced by the Industrial music of the early 90s, especially bands like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, as well as Leather Strip and the rest of the Zoth Ommog gang. So we started recording tapes on an old 4 track portastudio, but the sound quality wasn't satisfying me, because the recording equipment was old and fucked up, and so I didn't dare to send demos to anywhere. We also couldn't afford any studio to record us, so I slowly started getting pissed off. But after a time, I felt that something important was missing in my life, and I started seriously saving money, working in a factory in my freetime. I finished school and went to university, studying mechanical engineering. After a while the first pieces of professional equipment came into my range, and from then on my gear gave me more and more freedom to do what I had in mind. I finally found the satisfaction in sound and recording quality I was looking for for so long. Until today, my small project room has grown to a professional studio (proll!), and in spring of this year Mario Schumacher (Edge of Dawn) joined PLASTIC ASSAULT. Mario already helped me before with recording We Score, bringing in his equipment and know-how. I started working with Fasko again, so we finally teamed up to a never expected creative impact. We focused intensively on mastering and finalizing techniques during the last year, so we discovered that We Score was not more than a beginning. But the ideas, the hate and aggression being blocked for so long finally found a way out, feeding the small flame to a strong fire burning inside of me, making me feel like I could destroy all the fuckers I hate with a single smash. Although the songs on We Score deal with different subjects, they all have the hate against ignorants in common. The term "ignorants" fits very well to the kind of people most songs on We Score are about, because it describes their behavior independently from social or political aspects.

To me, ignorance, especially I combination with stupidity and arrogance, is the root for all human-caused disasters, because it disables the self-reflection and self-criticism mechanisms of a person, because the possibility of being wrong is ignored. No self-criticism, no fault detection. No fault detection, no fault correction. This (type of person) seems to be immune against logic arguments, and especially in case he or she finds out that the counterpart is right or of an higher intellectual niveau (which is ignored immediately), the reaction turns into a verbal or non-verbal display of power, The final product is a person psychologists call "asshole."

Unfortunately, these assholes are very widespread, and in case of being more powerful than you for any reason, they turn into a target of aggression and attack. I had to experience many times how it feels like when somebody else has fun of putting me under pressure, and enjoying his superior position which enables him to afford any arrogance he wanted against me. The (We Score) songs, "Strangled" and "Das Letzte Stueck Dreck" (the last piece of shit) are exactly about this. They're also showing the punishment that will follow when the time is right. "Shotgun Blast," for example, shows the shocking senselessness of killing for religious reasons, another grimace of ignorance. "!Splat!" is the soundtrack of an ego shooter video game, it illuminates the tightrope walk between fun and perversion, it also takes the piss out of these kids who can't handle it and start killing people after playing. "The Bite" takes a look on these people who slowly rot in their living rooms, in front of their TV talk shows, who lost their dreams, whose fire is dead. I had to watch different states of such a rotting process many times, and I'm shocked how fast it goes. People leave school, get married, get kids, get bored, get fat, start to drink. Start beating their kids. Start beating their wives. In the end they're living dead. And everywhere. The sample at the beginning is taken from Romero's classic "Dawn Of The Dead," it says: "Shoot him in the head. Shoot him in the head, man! Destroy the brain!" "Crackhead" was inspired by a documentary about crack-junkies in New York, it describes their restless hunt for still more crack, the only thought in their fouling minds. During my 3-month stay in Detroit I could watch these creatures in real life, and I must say, nothing was lied about this scene. "Pesticide" is simply an eruption of lethal fantasies after a real bad day, after being told to stop making this shitty music nobody will ever listen to. "Devotchka" is inspired by the movie "A Clockwork Orange" by Stanley Kubrick, it's about domination and greedy, dirty sex, it audiolizes total lack of sexual restraint, similar to "80Fotzen," which is about women as a source of sound.

SB: You mentioned something you called "80Fotzen." Could you elaborate a bit more on what it is?

GA: 80Fotzen is German and means 80cunts, because it sounds so much like songs from 80ies, from my point of view. I used only feminine samples in the song, turning from lust to suffering back and forth. Its very much sexually motivated. On the one hand it expresses my fascination about these strange creatures called woman, on the other hand it displays the pain a woman caused to me at the time I wrote the song (no, she didn't stick needles in my cocktoe while I was programming, I'm talking about mental pain). That's why the sample from Killing Zoe, "Eine Nutte bleibt immer eine Nutte", which means "a whore always stays a whore".

SB: The packaging of We Score immediately screams out Punk aesthetics. How much does political and social topics influence PLASTIC ASSAULT?

GA: Social topics, see previous answer. I try to stay away from political statements in songs, policy is boring me, because there is no party whose programs state what I would do if I had the power, at least rudimentarily. From my point of view most of these betrayers should be hanged in public.

SB: I enjoy the lethal content of the lyrics on We Score (at least the words in English). If you're familiar with them, what's your opinion of two other Industrial groups who followed this path, Klute and Psychopomps?

GA: I love both of them very much, the Larsen brothers have been a blast in their best years. I wish more EBM bands would learn a lesson from them. Their music is the electronic equivalent to hardcore bands like Agnostic Front or Slapshot, simply a boot kick in the face. Claus Larsen is one of my few idols left, he created so true lyrics. I hope he will be back soon.

SB: I also noticed in the CD notes your thanks to GG Allin. Are you a fan?

GA: I watched the documentary on him titled "Hated," and I have a few of his records. I was impressed how consequently he fought his fight until his death. But I'm also convinced that somebody who has such a small cock must be or become disturbed (in the end, he usually played his shows naked, which mostly never took longer than a few songs, because he started fights with the audience). But he was a real punk, he didn't care about whether the record sells or not. He didn't care about anything. He should not be forgotten. That's why the sample in the intro of "It's ok!" .

SB: Also in the CD liner notes inspiration for "It's OK!" is given to "the bubonix." Who or what is "the bubonix?"

GA: The Bubonix are a local hardcore band (www.bubonix.de), they went to school with me. Every show they play is a lot of fun. They rock my hometown and the surrounding area now for almost 10 years. During that time guitar players and drummers fluctuated a lot, but bassist and singer literally remained the hard core. Their song, "It's ok!" is a nice piece of rock 'n' roll, but I completely misunderstood their lyrics. At that (very drunk) show I heard that song for the first time, the refrain sounded very frustrated and sarcastic to me, like talking to somebody who is really pissing you off, like "c'mon, get off, it's ok! Leave me alone!" So the only thing I picked up from that show was the phrase "It's ok" and the refrain melody, which is originally played with heavy guitars and double-bass drums, and I started building my own interpretation around it. Unfortunately there was no recorded version of that song available, so I met Thorsten Polomski (singer) in his tattoo studio to write down the lyrics for me. Then he explained to me that it was a love song (yeah!), which blew up my concept completely. So I decided to write my own lyrics, I thought, let's see if I can turn that love song into a hate song. So I wrote the lyrics like I understood the phrase "It's ok!" in my very first impression at that night, only keeping the title and the refrain melody.

SB: We Score has several Industrial-Punk type elements. How much can you state about your upbringing and to what extent does it translate into PLASTIC ASSAULT?

GA: I can't complain about the people who were responsible for my upbringing, I had and have parents who love me, friends who stand behind me. But I was always a person who didn't tolerate everything, and I helped my friends when they were in trouble, as I expected it from them. So this led me into several fights and their consequences. But I never regretted what I did, I believe all of those I had to care for did deserve it. So the violence in PLASTIC ASSAULT is always a fair deal, too.

SB: The imagery you present, as well as the audio, seems to be effective in a shocking, remorseless tone.

GA: That was my intent. It was strongly reinforced and accelerated by the blazing resistance against the current Future-pop and dance-electro attack. I still feel sick after a while when I have to listen to this sometimes simply bad dance music they call "EBM." There are so many commercial Techno acts who can do this so much better. These people forgot about the cold fire that once burnt inside of this music, their music has no heart anymore. Now it's all about the money, songs are designed for dance clubs and big sells, and not for relieving aggressions anymore. This doesn't mean that all good electronic music should feel aggressive, but I can't get rid of the feeling that the music 10 years ago was simply done with more heart and good taste. Of course there are exceptions today, but why do they have to be exceptions?

SB: There seems to be an active campaign to remove the aggressiveness out of Industrial music. Does PLASTIC ASSAULT accept or struggle against the onslaught of Future-Pop?

GA: Of course we love Future-Pop. We die for it. And our ballad "Pesticide" is dedicated to all our cool VIP-friends, sponsors and DJs who helped us to get our first golden record. Special thanks to DJ Fistfuck of the KOZ/Mainz who plays this wonderful music for us all night!

SB: Do you see any hope for the future of Electro-Industrial, or is the genre doomed to self-censor itself into the arena of public acceptance?

GA: There will always be resistance. True people who won't take it anymore. People who don't give a shit. People who hate Synth-Pop. I strongly believe there will always be a real underground, a small bunch of people who won't take this self-censorship and the people who accept it. So the result will be a split again, like 15 years ago, when Techno split into commercial dance music and EBM. You can take the development in punk rock as an example, when punk went commercial with bands like Offspring or NOFX, joined by all the new (C)rap-rock-bands. What was left was an underground of real punks, who live this pissed-off sound. A group like this will always be there, in all genres.

SB: Does society need to be enlightened as to the real brutality in the world or should they remain in blissful melodic ignorance?

GA: It's not my intent to enlighten society, everybody who has eyes and ears can see and hear what's going on. But people won't care until they feel the violence and pain on their own body, as long as they have enough money or are far enough away to work around it, they won't give a shit. But I don't care either, so they better stay away from me.

SB: What are some of your thoughts on the terrorist attacks on the US in September 2001?

GA: I was shocked that day, probably like everybody. I thought now it's time for WW3. I had to think about all the helpless people who had to die innocent. Watching people jumping out of the windows was the worst. I was thinking about the damage that shit caused to the world. I mailed my friends over there and asked if they were alright. I tried to imagine if my relatives were in one of the buildings or planes, but I also knew the US would defend themselves with all their power. It dramatically showed that global interests can also cause global threats, and how important it is not to act arrogantly in global policy, even or especially as a superpower.
We have a serious problem here in Germany with the integration of the Islamic immigrants, because the majority of them don't really want to integrate. Besides social conflicts caused by the unsolved integration, radical groups can easily hide between these people, who slowly create their own ghettos in big cities like Hamburg and Berlin. When it came out that some of the terrorists lived in Germany for a long time undiscovered, the ignorance of our government about this problem suddenly received attention. Long overdue anti-terrorist programs were realized, the police and secret service promised to be supported with more money, training, rights and equipment. Now, One year after, most people don't really care any more. Probably we need a plane in one of our own towers to understand the problem in its full size.

SB: A few of the tracks on We Score broadcasts an obvious Frontline Assembly influence (Caustic Grip era). Even though this is a regressive angle for Electro Industrial, it's still refreshing considering the current state of electronic music.

GA: Concerning We Score, it's true. It's very strongly influenced by Caustic Grip, which I was listening to almost all the time during working on We Score. But the way changed during the last year, away from the Caustic Grip sound to faster pogo beats, with powerful basslines and less effect-driven vocals and less complicated structures.
We now try to concentrate the impact to less tracks in the song, making each of them stronger. Because one of the reasons why We Score sounds so much like older FLA stuff was the fact that nothing NEW sounding like this was available for me, so I had to do it by my own. Now I slowly get saturated by FLA, because I miss the brutality and speed Hardcore and Punk has.

SB: Would you ever consider covering a Frontline Assembly track?

GA: I can't think of that now. FLA want to express completely different things with their music. They're further away from me now than some hardcore band. Additionally, I was disappointed by the FLA show at the WGT Festival this (past) May, but that's another chapter (see www.mindphaser.com). On the other hand it would be very difficult to re-interpret something as perfect as a song from Caustic Grip, especially when the same techniques are used. But we're thinking about covering some punk tracks.

SB: What music or discs currently lights a fire under PLASTIC ASSAULT?

GA: Currently I listen to a lot of Hardcore and Punk like Agnostic Front, Slipknot, Sick of it All, Slapshot, GG Allin, The Exploited. I like also a lot of local German underground Punk- and Oi!- bands, too much to list here. It's the kind of music I grew up with.
During my three months stay in Michigan this summer I had also a lot of fun with my old Ministry and NIN records, as well as with local bands there. My electronic favorites are The Invincible Spirit, Nitzer Ebb, Tommy Stumpff, Leaether Strip and Front 242. There are a lot of other EBM bands who have songs that touch something very deep inside of me, but this is too much to list up.
Unfortunately there is just very few new EBM stuff out I really like, compared to the pleasure I have with the music listed above. Exceptions are E-Craft or Dupont's "Ukraina," for example.

SB: Can you offer a preview of the next PLASTIC ASSAULT disc?

GA: As mentioned earlier, the new album will be much faster and harder than We Score. What we try to do is create simply the most violent electronic music ever, without any compromise. It's my only way to get along with this pop shit that contaminates so many good places and people. Probably we will loose this fight. They make the big sells. They have the money-and the power. But I can't sell my soul to this. I just can't.

SB: I heard that earlier this year there was some sort of shake up with the Bloodline label, and a lot of groups abandoned ship. Will PLASTIC ASSAULT remain in place at Bloodline?

GA: They had problems with their distributor Connected. I will remain with Torben Schmidt, he's a very good guy and does a professional job. That means, as long as he manages Bloodline and Dying Culture, we will kill under one of these flags.

SB: Anything else you want to add?

GA: I really like your magazine. Stay as independent as you are. Don't give in. I hope the next record will give you the necessary soundtrack for this.

Gabor Andrae of PLASTIC ASSAULT spent Summer 2002 in the US (Detroit, MI). Slambook asked him to share a few of his impressions with the land of the free, home of the brave.

Concerning the US, I liked the stay. I got to know a lot of nice people as well as the American way of business with all of its advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately, almost the whole stay was overshadowed by serious changes in my family, so sometimes it was hard not to be home and help the situation. Two times I was on the edge of leaving. It wasn't my first stay in the US, I traveled the Southwest before, as well as Washington DC, NY and Florida. But it was the longest stay ever, and the first time I worked in the US. The reason was an internship in a company of the automotive industry close to Detroit. I believe now that somebody can understand the American way of life only after having worked there for a time. When you go there as a tourist you get to know only the chocolate side of this country. There are lots of improvements Germany could take over from the US, but there are also a lot of things over here which I am happy about that they are not American-style!
I always had a very close relation to the US from my childhood, because I was a big Star Wars fan and admired Industrial Light & Magic for their milestones in SFX technology. I also amassed a huge collection of action figures and vehicles. A lot of these collectibles were available were available only in the States, so I had to make contact with Americans very early, and the first trip followed closely. Altogether, it was a nice hot and successful summer.

Six Things Gabor Liked About The US:

1. American Oldtimers. I've got a '70 Opel GT. But it pales in comparison with the Firebirds, Camaros and Corvettes of that time. They're animals!

2. American porn mags and movies. The upper class ones are way better than over here. I took a huge pile with me :)…

3. 24 hour/7 days a week supermarkets. Over here everything but gas stations and bars closes at 8pm and Sundays.

4. American radio. Amost every style has its own broadcaster or show. Over here radio makes you throw up after ten minutes.

5. The American way murderers, rapists, child molesters, terrorists and other scum is treated. Over here the penalties are a slap in every victims face.

6. American Hardcore. Nothing comparable on the planet.

Six Things Gabor Didn't Like About The US

1. Food. Dear Americans, how can you live from such a lousy bread? How can you put that much sugar in your bread? How can you put sugar in almost everything? It took us 3 weeks to find an eatable variety.

2. Beer. Dear Americans, how can you drink such a piss? You should come over and get a real beer!

3. Alcohol laws. Somedays I had the feeling life in America starts at 21. The result is, because teenagers can't go to bars or clubs, they meet at home and drink there. Because boredom is bigger there, they drink more. I've never seen so many alcoholics in one place like in the area I lived. Being charged for drinking beer on the street was also something I had to get used to.

4. Tempo limits. How can a country with such far distances afford tempo limits??? If you drive that slow its no wonder people fall alseep while driving.

5. Patriotism. Nothing is bad about loving home or patriotism in general. But a friend I got to know there said: Most Americans are not real patriots, because they don't do much for each other. Real patriots don't have to tell themselves being patriots all the time. Concerning the majority, he's absolutely right.

6. George Bush. No comment.

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