Mod.: How did you make it into the music business, did you already learn to use music instruments when you was young?
Michael: At the beginning I worked as a DJ and as a DJ you are only playing music from other artist for the peoples and after a time you want to show your selfmade music to the public and not only music produced by others and so I started to work more and more in a music studio to produce my own music.
Rick: I startet rather early. With an age of 5 years I startet to learn how to work on a piano, when I was ten I created my own small band and with an age of 15 years I was already part of local known bands and finnaly when I was 18 I meat H.P. This was in 1986 and since this time we started to work together in music, we started to produce music with a lot of people and this went up into the creation of our first band called Celebrate The Nun, a Rave Project. celebrate The Nun had limited success only. We had one ore two successes in foreign countries but in germany Celebrate The Nun was almost unknown and not successfull. The time with Celebrate The Nun was kind of our learning process. After a while we got our first music studio. Once we produced a track that was used in an argentinian daily soap as the title opening and due to this we recived a lot of new contracts for producing music for others. The money that came with this contracts was use to buy our first music studio.
Mod.: In 1993 you had your break-trough when releasing Hyper Hyper. With this song you polarised in a big way. The Lyric "Hyper Hyper" was taken from Ultra Sonic's "a##l Rythm".
Rick: The Lyric "Hyper Hyper" was taken from Ultra Sonic this true. It was not planned to make Hyper Hyper a commercial Song. If Hyper Hyper has been planned to be a commercial song we would have taken a blond haired woman and a black man as a singer because this was the recipe for commercial music and success in the beginning of the 90's in europe.
Hyper Hyper did not fit into the commercial music business back in 1993. You have to imagin that this was a song that stopped twice in the middle, accompanied with the screamed words "Hyper Hyper". Music Business Companies would have said "what the f##k is this?" when presenting the song to them. But we wanted to produce this song because we wanted to. it was kinf of an impulse produce this song.
Mod: So it was not planned to make this song for the Euro Dance Music?
Rick: Well "Hyper Hyper" is everything but it is not Euro Dance. Saying "Hyper Hyper" is Euro Dance is the same like saying Blues Rock is Heavy Metal. Euro Dance got its own recipe: You take a rapped strophe and a singed refrain. The Artist Mr. President or Erotic is the best example for Euro Dance.
We have been inspired by the Rave Scene of Hanover. Many english DJ came to Hanover together with their own MC. MC's are still usal in england nowadays, esspecially in the Jungle- and Break Scene.
Inspired by the MC's in Hanover, back in the early 90's, we produced Hyper Hyper.
Mod: In Hyper hyper you are saying hello to a lot of well known DJ's. Did you ever get a feedback from some of the DJ's you did put into Hyper Hyper?
Rick: Well we had both kinds of feedbacks. Their has been DJ who said that it is great to announce their names in the Sonh hyper Hyper because this makes them more known in the music scene but their has been also DJ who where not very happy about announcing their names. A very good example is Marc Spoon who was not very amused about his announcement in Hyper Hyper. You have to rememeber, back in this time H.P. and I have been little ravers. We do not planned to wotk in the foreground of the music businnes. It was planned to work in the background, producing music for others. Hyper Hyper was not planned it kind of a gag and I remember to a sunday back in 1993 when we did sit in the studio and made brainstorming because we needed something special for the song Hyper Hyper which was already produced. And at this time their was a music show called "The Steven Mason Show" and in that Show Steven Mason greated the european raver posses "Big shouts to the Berlin posse ... Big shouts to the Hanover posses" and kind of this and we thought that it would be cool to make the opposite and let the ravers great the DJ's instead of the DJ greating the posses.
It is great to polarising peoples with our music but when Hyper Hyper was released it was a strange feeling to get all the bad critics. At this time we thought "...he, we are only small peoples who produced a hit that became a huge success, we did not make bad things and now we are commercial music idiots due to this...?" but nowadays we got a huge fan base and this makes us proud.
Mod.: How do you create a Scooter song, do you start with the music and then the lyrics? What is the recipe?
Rick: Normally the music itself is the first we creat and then we create Lyrics and Hooks for the already created music. mostly you already got a scenario in your heat about a song as H.P. has a lot of times. Move your ass was such a kind of a scenario. H.P. came to me and said, ...Rick I got an awesome Lyric. I scream Move your ass! and then we put a screaming crowed into it and than base drums .....
H.P. is the man who mostlöy gives us the ideas for a new song, he is the crazy creativ man who is kind of responsible for the song creation.
Mod.: Your output of music is awesome. Once you released two albums within one year. how do you make this? Are their already half produced songs in your drawer? Either you produce a track very fast or you got already half produced tracks in your drawer otherwise such an output is almost impossible?!
Rick: We got only a small amount of already created songs in our "drawer". For example Neverending Story. The HPV Refrain of Neverending story was already recorded some years ago by us but we did not know a good idea what to do with it. This was the only stuff left in our "drawer". So almost all songs are new songs and this is good. We produce songs fast because in the dance music businnes trend are comming fast and disappear fast and due to this it is not possible to produce an album within 3 years as f.e. Rock Bands do. We want to put the newest trends into our music and when we would produce an Album for 3 years the trends we put in it would have been already gone and the album is not up-to-date anymore. And thats why our output is so big. We want to be as close as possible to the trends.
Mod: Before this interview we already interviewed your support act and we started asking about Scooter and in almost every answer was H.P. in it. Is it a problem for you that many peoples think about H.P. when hearing Scooter whilst you are kind of in the background?
Michael: Now it is no problem becuase a band need someone who is polarising, who is the frontman and H.P. fits perfect into this. You need peoples who look crazy instead of boring and H.P. is very good in this. For example his hair. Due to his hair is very good recognizebale on the street. I think H.P. is one of our success secrets and you have to accept it or not and I for myself accept this, I got no problems with this. You NEED such peoples otherwise you got not a successfull band.
Mod.: What is your motivation to go on with Scooter?
Michael: Leave this room and have look to the crowed and our fans and you will see our motivation!
Mod.: It is very surprising, your got fans in every age. Their are fans who are 15 years old and fans who are 50 years old. Are you proud about having such a strong and mixed fan base after 15 years?
Rick: Absolutly!!! It is great, when beeing on tour you get a lot of feedback from the fans. The first row is everytime occupied by peoples we already know by name. The first row consists of peoples we know well. It is kinf of a huge family and this is great!
Mod.: Scooter on Stage, it this kind of a rave?
Rick: Yes kind of. It is more a mix of a rave, punk and rock. Peoples going crazy!
Спасибо The-Flying-Dutchman'у