"BLACK NIGHT CRASH - INTERVIEW"
An interview with Black Night Crash about their history and their debut-album, “The Late Reply”. We talked with Pamela Neff (drums), Carsten Brüning (guitar) and Ralf Brummerloh (guitar). Their bassist, Ilja Littau was absent.
 When and how did Black Night Crash come into existence?
Ralf: It started in 2005. I did not now Pamela then. I had known Carsten since Kindergarten and I was playing in another band where I met Ilja. I met Pamela through my brother. They had met in Mainz where they were going to college together. I called Pamela and asked Ilja and Carsten if they would like to join the band. All of them agreed and we started rehearsing.
Had you all played in other bands before?
Pamela: When I was a teenager I used to play in a band. We predominantly covered tunes from the sixties. That was in the Black Forest where I come from. Then I went to Wiesbaden and played in another band. My next band was Black Night Crash in Bremen – the best one until now! Oh, and I played the drums with Teenage Music International.
Carsten: I started making music rather late, when I was 18. First I took lessons, then I started working as a sound engineer and light operator, which brought me even closer to music.
Had you been a sound engineer first and then you started making music or the other way around?
Carsten: First I started making music and then I became a sound engineer because of my enthusiasm for music.
You all have jobs or study at universities. So Black Night Crash is some sort of hobby?
All of them agree.
If you were successful, would you start focusing on only making music?
Ralf: I would.
Pamela: Me, too.
Carsten: So would I. But we all agree that times have become really hard for musicians.
Your biggest success so far was winning the band-contest “Live in Bremen”.
Carsten: Yes, and it was the biggest show we ever played at, too.
Has it resulted in any benefits for you? Did you get more chances to play shows?
Ralf: Well – we were allowed to play three songs in Radio Bremen's legendary “Beatclub”. There is also a photograph from that event – us and Uschi Nerke...
Pamela: Additionally, we were offered to play a show in Liverpool at the “Mathew Street Festival”, and we were asked to play some shows in Bremen.
Was the album production a part of your victory at “Live in Bremen”?
Carsten: Yes, that was part of it.
Pamela: But we were able to decide where we wanted to record the album and with whom. The contest supported us with money and we got busy. There were no obligations.
Another question about Liverpool. What was it like?
Ralf: It was awesome. The audience was fantastic. But after every concert there are people telling you: “Hey, great show!”
Carsten: I really had the impression that they liked us over there. Whenever I took a look at the audience I saw signs of delight...
Ralf: …that's right. Some of them even sang along, though they could not possibly have known our songs. Well, maybe they already bought them on iTunes, or maybe the English are more likely to sing along than the Germans...
Carsten: Well, it was so much unlike German city festivals, where sausages and beer are the people's main concern. The whole city of Liverpool was full of stages and the people are really interested in music. Somehow they still seem to have a huge Rock 'n' Roll culture. You realize that when looking at the audience.
It is rather surprising, that a relatively young band committed themselves to stick to sixties and seventies sounds. How come?
Carsten: It doesn't surprise me, at all. And I don't think it is very unusual, because everyone's doing that.
Ralf: …particularly in Scandinavia. In Germany it feels as if we were the first...
However, Scandinavians seem to imitate the Beatles-sound more or less. You don't do that. You sound more like The Who, The Kinks and stuff.
Pamela: I think I know why. Because I look at it from a different point of view, since I don't write the songs. I think it's got something to do with the way the boys got to learn how to play the guitar. The kind of music Ralf likes to listen to is rather the old stuff and you really hear that in the way he plays the guitar and writes songs. I'm not sure about Carsten, though. But Ilja listens to lots of old stuff, too.
And what kind of music do you like?
 Pamela: I'm more an indie-girl, but you don't hear that too much in my drums. I've to admit that in the beginning the music we play wasn't my style at all. But by now I really got into it. I didn't know any of these bands. Whenever they were talking about Led Zeppelin I didn't know what they were talking about. I just knew bands from the 90ies and maybe from the 80ies. Ok, I knew about The Beatles but none of the other early guitar-bands such as MC5. But now I know them and I really appreciate their music.
Carsten: I, too, have an indie-background. That's due to my guitar-lessons. With Black Night Crash you find a lot of Blues-influence. I never learned how to play that. I copied that from Ralf. In my guitar-lessons I used to play along Rage against the Machine, Radiohead and The Verve.
So did you have problems adopting the style like Pamela?
Carsten: Yes. In fact, I really had difficulties with understanding a lot of things. The song “Looking at the Moon”, for example. This song is actually very old and I didn't know how to play it properly. Then we stopped playing it. When we were recording our album, Ralf said that we ought to pick up that tune again and record it. Suddenly I knew how that song worked. It was kind of similar with “Sonnet”.
That's the song with that Gershwin-allusion?
Ralf: Yeah!
You've been playing together for four years now. Did your style change somehow?
Carsten: Definitely. Today we write our songs differently. That's partly because we know each other really well by now, and partly because you get a wider range of ideas if you do that all together.
 Did you produce your album yourselves?
Ralf: Well, we were in the studio ourselves, we didn't let anybody play the music for us, like some other pop-musicians might do. We didn't mix or master it ourselves, though. But we did the rest of the production.
Carsten: Yeah, and we wanted a special sound. One that is absolutely analogue. We spent a lot of time in the studio working on that.
Ralf: Yes, we used tube-amplifiers and recorded everything on a 24-track tape machine.
Carsten: Of course we had some help from the outside, but in the end we had to decide what it was going to sound like.
So you didn't have a producer who tried to influence you?
Ralf: Dennis Rux, Trashmonkey's guitarist and producer, who recorded us, did give us some advice.
Pamela: But the songs didn't change too much from the way we play them live. We'll release our album on Bremen's online-label 'Fuego' by Friedel Muders.
So, a label that doesn't have a distribution?
Pamela: No. Our album will be available on CD, too. Friedel has made some special arrangements with Rough Trade so you'll be able to purchase our album on CD, too.
Carsten: By now Friedel's doing almost everything for us...
Pamela: He also works as a designer and he made the album cover, and he does our marketing stuff and the website.
Carsten: He also designed covers for Guano Apes, Oomph, and Such a Surge. Our cover is a little frugal though. We didn't have too much money. But it really does reflect our music.
Did you spend all your “Live in Bremen” prize money on the album?
Pamela: Yes, we spent most of it on the album production. In the end, it's probably going to be 90 percent.
Ralf: We were allowed to spend the money on everything we needed in order to make music.
Carsten: Well, it was meant to be spent that way.
When I saw you live on stage you sounded rather rough. However, your CD seems to be quite playful.
Ralf: That's probably because in the studio you can actually work with, for example, four guitars. Live you can only have two at a time. Plus, we were able to record guitars backwards, like on “Gone with the Geese”. You can't do that on stage.
So, live you sound much rougher?
Ralf: Actually most bands do: Live they really kick ass, but the record is never like the show.
 Do you like the result?
Carsten: That's a tough question to answer...
Ralf: …well, we have to say yes. Who would buy our album if we didn't? Yeah, it's the best album that's gonna be released this year!
Pamela: I used to read in interviews that bands said things like: Weeell, actually, the record doesn't sound the way we thought it would. I think you get that all the time.
Carsten: I always read: That's our best album.
Ralf: Only when they release a new one they usually say that the one before hadn't quite turned out the way they wanted.
Pamela: Yeah, right. Considering the money and experience we had, it turned out great. Hey, it's our debut. I'm looking forward to presenting it to our audience.
Ralf: An album is always a documentary, as well. It contains a period of the band's history. You shouldn't underestimate the things we learned when we made this album. I think in Germany we could really be trend-setters with this kind of sound...
Carsten: ...yeah, our sound engineer Timo Hollmann noticed that during shows. For younger folks it's something completely new. Sometimes he plays our music before concerts and somebody walks up to him and asks, “who's that band you're playing?”
Ralf: We mastered our album at a real veteran's place. He can look back on a long time of music-producing. He has seen most of the technical development that has been taking place. He had his own views on analogue and digital recording. It was interesting listening to him. I think we will consider what he said on our next recording. I wouldn’t want to have missed the experience we've gained with this album...
Ralf, you said, that the volume is the reason your music sounds dirty.
Ralf: Definitely. An amplifier sounds differently if you turn it up all the way.
Well, but if I listen to classical music really loud it doesn't become dirty, at all.
Ralf: Well, no. They don't use tube-amps and electric guitars. Your Hi-Fi-amplifier works actually similar to a guitar amp, but somehow it's still different. Although, if you turn up your Hi-Fi really loud, it distorts at some point just the same.
Do you mean it's the distortion that makes it dirty?
Ralf: Well, probably, I'm talking bullshit. But I think I once heard a Hi-Fi distort.
Pamela: Isn't that just overdrive?
So, a little distortion, a little overdrive, and what about you Carsten?
Carsten: A little crunchy, a little quirky. Not too tidy, not too tight. Sometimes a bit forward, sometimes a little laid back.
Ralf: Affectionately sloppy.
Pamela: (Laughs)
Carsten: Yeah, that's it.
But you've gotta learn to be sloppy, don't you?
Ralf: No, that comes by itself.
Is that a sign of lacking quality?
Carsten: (determined) No.Guitar-amps-distortion is done on purpose. Ralf who was the one doing first?
Ralf: Hendrix, Clapton?
Carsten: They didn't like that back then. The studio-technicians used to ask the musicians if they were out of their minds. But the musicians just replied, that it was supposed to sound like that. That was something completely new in those days. But this sound actually stayed the same. Some slight changes have been made, but that's where it came from.
Ralf: I think most important for that dirty sound is the blues influence that we've got. I miss that with quite a lot of bands these days.
You said that before in some interview, didn't you?
Ralf: Yeah, I keep saying that. I mean, listen to old bands or those retro-style ones like Mando Diao, The Hellacopters, or Selig. They always have this kind of blues-feeling. Just as, Cream, The Who, Hendrix... Loads of new band sound a little too clean.
You say your music sounds dirty. Is that the case on your CD, too?
Carsten: Although volume is important for that kind of sound, you can hear that attitude on your stereo, too.
Pamela: You really hear that there was no musical surgery done to our songs. They're exactly like we recorded them...
Ralf: Well, the album is something different than a live-performance. You just don't get the stage-sweat and that kind of noise you have on stage. That's why some songs were produced in a different way than we perform them live. But it definitely is our sound: It's entirely Black Night Crash.
The Interview was done by: Christian Emigholz & Pascal Faltermann
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