In the enthralling realm of industrial music, few figures loom as large or carry as much influence as Sascha Konietzko. As the visionary founder and frontman of KMFDM, he has sculpted a sonic landscape that defies convention and embraces the avant-garde with unwavering ferocity.
With a career spanning decades, Sascha’s indelible imprint on music reverberates through time, leaving an indomitable mark on the very essence of the genre he has coined “The Ultra Heavy Beat.” From pioneering groundbreaking sounds to fearlessly espousing ideologies through his music, Sascha Konietzko stands as a paragon of artistic innovation.
His latest work, Let Go, continues to captivate and challenge, cementing his status as a true pioneer within the industry. Join us as we delve into the enigmatic world of Sascha Konietzko, exploring the depths of his musical journey, creative philosophies, and the relentless spirit that propels the enigma known as KMFDM.
Sascha, how did you get your start in music?
I never intended to do anything with music, but somehow got lured into doing some sort of performance art installations. From that initial project, I slithered down the slippery slope into music and began fiddling around with synthesizers and drum machines. Next thing I knew, I had a record being released and received an unexpected invitation from Al Jourgensen of Ministry to open for them on a 45 date tour in late 1989. From that point forward, KMFDM became a household name in America and then the rest is basically just history.
Who were your early inspirations as an up and coming musician in the early 1980s?
At the time, I thought the music scene in general was so incredibly boring, and I felt like making music to create a juxtaposition of sorts to the shit that annoyed me, and make music that I enjoyed. And the idea was really to combine danceable elements, like four on the floor and kick drums, with super heavy metal guitar riffs and stuff like that. I wanted to be different, and that sound that we coined “The Ultra Heavy Beat” is what KMFDM has evolved to today.
Your amazing career has now spanned 40 years+ with KMFDM being known for its ever-evolving sound and socio-political themes. How do you balance staying true to your core message while also ensuring your music remains fresh and relevant with each new release?
Honestly, there’s really not much thought going into that. Our music kind of just writes and composes itself organically. I’m not looking so much for inspiration because inspiration is truly everywhere. I’m approaching my work with a sort of discipline. I go into the studio in the morning like people go to work. I go into my studio and I just start working on some idea, maybe just a tiny little sound snippet that I recorded somewhere and I just dedicate some time to it and I play around with it. After an hour or so, if it doesn’t really start ringing a bell, then I’d do something else. Maybe I do my taxes or walk the dog.
But out of a lot of little things, eventually some bigger things kind of start to take on a life of their own. A spark that turns into a small fire, and then I’ll start passing it around to my band mates, to Lucia our vocalist, Andy our drummer, and Andee the Guitarist. At that point, everybody throws whatever they have in mind at it. The drummer doesn’t necessarily do drums right away. Maybe Andy comes up with a baseline, then some crazy ideas just start floating around collectively and then things really start to change. Nothing ever turns out at the end like how they initially started. It undergoes a lot of change through those types of iterations, then again throughout production, etc. In the end, I’m sitting there and I have—I don’t know, 17, 18 tracks—and I’m going like, “okay, the best ones make it on the album,” and that’s it.
Music often serves as a reflection of the times. With the shifting global landscape—and literally the insane world in which we all now live—have there been any recent events or movements that have particularly influenced your songwriting or musical direction?
Yes and no. I mean, the world has always been burning. I remember my grandmother saying, “These times are terrible and you’re going out with these shredded jeans.” And I’m like, “Grandma, you just wait. One day people will go to a store, just spend money on shredded jeans.” Her reply was always, “I don’t believe that.”
Her generation went through two world wars and I grew up with the Iron Curtain not 20 miles away from where I lived. So, this imminent sense of danger and turmoil is not anything that is of recent years. It’s always been around. And I think that was a great part factoring into why a certain type of music came out of Germany in the seventies and eighties, this whole Krautrock thing, as they call it. It was really an approach to music that was not based on blues music, not on rock and roll, not on three chords, and it wasn’t classical music either. It was an experimental type of thing, and that really was my natural surrounding at the time that I was in my formative years.
How did that help you evolve your persona and subsequent sound?
The first album I ever bought was The Slider by T-Rex, and then I got into David Bowie and Alice Cooper and similar types of music. But early on I drifted into Krautrock like Can and Kraftwerk. Then came punk rock, and that really left an indelible mark in my mind because I realized all of a sudden you don’t have to be talented in a musical way to be on stage and be a rock star, you just have to have balls. That really set the tone. I had never sung on a song or anything before, but the first time I went into the studio and started recording shit, I just found that I had phenomenal energy and unknown powers—things that I had never thought were in me. I learned how to channel all of that energy and let it out through the music and ultimately on stage. And that was really empowering in a very good way.
The creative process is often as intriguing as the final product itself. Could you walk us through how your latest release Let Go came together for you, from its initial conception to the completed work as a whole?
Well, the one thing I knew at the very beginning was that Hyena was a sort of musical road trip of sorts. It spanned a variety of genres, taking our listeners from A to Z. I wanted to make Let Go—even though the title didn’t exist at that time—an even crazier journey. I was thinking about creating all kinds of interludes and possibly making some very short pieces. My vision was that everything was supposed to be cinematic in a way, evoking unique visuals and the like. And things often turn out different than you imagine it, but nonetheless, at some point, I knew that Let Go was done. The album finally had a beginning and it had an end, and that’s always been really important for me during the writing process.
Why is that so important for you?
An album is not supposed to be played on shuffle. An album is supposed to be listened to from the beginning to the end. An album has an end, a beginning, and it also has a middle. If you simply take individual songs out of it, they might be still enjoyable or whatnot, but as a conceptual piece, an album needs to be read like a book. You don’t start reading a book at the end and then go into the middle. You read a book properly from page one to the end, and that’s the way I feel about our albums.
What’s your favorite track on the album and why?
I don’t know. I like them all. I mean, one day I’m loving “Let Go,” the next day I’m loving “Airhead.” The following day, I’m loving the “Next Move” and so forth. Even though I’ve spent literally hundreds and hundreds of hours on making this album, I haven’t really explored it to its fullest yet. There’s always things that surprise me. And it’s difficult for me after spending so much time and then finally delivering the album to the label and then having it pressed onto CDs and vinyl, it’s difficult for me to then go back and evaluate it, but that’s also part of the process in a way.
Collaboration can sometimes lead to unexpected results. What’s it like to work with such a diverse and talented group of bandmates including Lucia, Andee, and Andy?
It’s perfect. We can work with each other without ever having to discuss things in person in the majority of cases. I’ve never really been in a proper band. I mean, I’ve never really spent time with people in a rehearsal room where we develop songs kind of together and drink beer and smoke weed, the typical way things might get done. I’ve always worked in a modular fashion with people, and that’s the wonderful thing about the current lineup. In this scenario, the music does the talking. I send something to, say, Andee Blacksugar, and he says, “Got it, I’ll have something back to you by tomorrow morning.” And I wake up the next morning and there’s something that fits like a glove.
Touring is a major aspect of a musician’s life and KMFDM has certainly had its fair share of memorable tours. Can you share a standout moment from your time on the road and what it is about touring that you find most fulfilling?
Touring and making records, they kind of go hand in hand. When I’m in the studio, I’m looking forward to being on the road, when I’m on the road, I’m looking forward to being back in the studio. Honestly, one sort of lives or thrives off the other. And whilst I’m on the road, I usually collect information and inspiration with a simple handheld device like a mobile phone or something. I record stuff, I just jot down ideas and then can’t wait to go back into the studio. And really, there isn’t all that much free time in between making an album and going on the road. It’s kind of just like, boom, this is done, and boom, we’re out on the road. Two months or three months when I’m back from being there, I’m sure to be back in the studio and just start working on something else.
Many artists have cited KMFDM as an influence in their music. How does it feel to know that your work has contributed to shaping not just a genre, but made an indelible mark on the musical landscape as a whole?
Well, it’s flattering, of course, but it’s not really important because I never bask in my own fucking glory. I don’t rest on my laurels. People ask me like, “Oh, so this is the 40th anniversary coming up. What are you going to do?” I’m like, “Not celebrate, but just strive for the 50th anniversary.” And that’s my mentality. When I’m not on the road, I hardly see people. I hardly go out. I never go to bars or clubs or anything like that, but being on the road, I’m just like the fucking animal.
Of course, if people say KMFDM is a great influence for what my band is doing, that’s great, and I’m always appreciative. But what is more important to me is when people write to me or talk to me and say, I’ve had a really bad period of things happening to me in my life, or I’ve come out of a great depression, and your music really helped me. Your music really empowered me, or your lyrics just helped me overcome a bad time. That to me is more important than anything else.
Vinyl releases have always been an important part of KMFDM’s DNA. Can you speak to the importance of vinyl as a medium in today’s musical environment and what it means to you personally as an artist?
Vinyl always has been important to me and KMFDM. It’s the media we’ve been brought up on, that’s what we grew up with. CDs are weird, sterile, and cold. Vinyl is palpable, physical, big, warm and tangible. I love the size of artwork on a vinyl sleeve. CDs are like stamps, vinyl is like a billboard screaming at you!
When we master specifically for vinyl as we always do, there’s a certain anticipation of what it will sound like, that we’re very carefully attempting to preserve. Vinyl can be like a fickle racehorse in the best sense!
Finally, having cemented your legacy in the music industry, what advice would you give to emerging artists who draw inspiration from your work and aspire to leave their own mark on the world of music?
That’s really hard because KMFDM is where they are today due to endless amount of coincidences and sheer luck. A lot of our successes were a result of simply being at the right place at the right time. If I were to offer up any advice, I think that would simply be to check yourself out in an honest way. If you think you’re good enough, if you think you’re really good, and if you believe in yourself, then you can reach every possible goal. You can move mountains. But if you’re crap, then you really have to be honest with yourself and say, “I’m crap.” Because we’re being inundated with too much crap these days. I mean, everybody now is a music producer and everybody can put out stuff. And more is not better, quantity is not quality, and some of the shit I’m hearing that people send to me is just like, “Oh my God. I mean, what are you thinking?”
And keeping the door open for others in the music industry?
I’m always for keeping a door open because the door was held open for me more than a few times. Like I mentioned earlier, when Al Jourgensen from Ministry invited us to open for them during their The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste tour. Sheer luck. I mean, I got a postcard from Wax Trax Records in the mail and it simply said, “Call me.” And I was like, “Oh my God, it’s so expensive to call the United States.” And I blew 30 Deutsche Marks in less than two minutes on a simple conversation where they invited me to Chicago to join them on their tour. I realized this may be a once in a lifetime chance, and somehow I went to a bank and I scrambled a loan together and got everyone on a plane. And yeah, that was it. And if I hadn’t acted on that moment, reading that postcard, then you and I would not be sitting here talking to one another.
KMFDM’s Let Go is in stores now. On vinyl.
PHOTOS: MATTHEW BELTER
