The
Richies
This article originally appeared in NFH #22 in
the winter of 1992.
Sometime last spring
I opened my mail and mixed in with all the bills and the odd record for review was an lp
by the Richies called Spring Surprise. I didn't look at it too carefully at first;
it had a goofy looking sleeve with a picture of a ceramic frog and a title lifted from the
Monty Python skit in which a cop busts a candy maker for selling chocolates with names
like Anthrax Ripple, Crunchy Frog and, yes, Spring Surprise, a
confection which, when bitten, releases twin steel bolts piercing both cheeks. It's a good
skit, but it's not immediately obvious that this sort of comedy translates into good punk
rock. The press release with the record promoted the band as the "Monty Pythons of
punk". I thought to myself: this can wait. So it did.
So my surprise was
great when the day came that this frog stared at me from the top of the pile of records
that must be endured and I put it on the turntable and heard this fantastic brand of
punk pop that instantly brought me back to the days when I first heard Ramones classics
like "Rockaway Beach" (compare "Sweating In The Summer Heat" by the
Richies) or "I'm Against It". The Richies may not be the first, but they are
sure great at this sort of thing. Like the Ramones, they have a wide range of variety in
the way they approach song writing; so there's ballads, pop songs, punk songs, and
hardcore songs, but all of them have that big and simple guitar attack, straight ahead
drumming, and technically unsophisticated but otherwise outstanding vocals that made the
Ramones so great. And what about all the Monty Python foolery? Well it turns out there's
one track with a Python influence, and it's a cool one called "Hell's Grannies"
that sounds fabulous.
So I dug out all the
now-buried promo literature that came with the record and called up the US branch of their
German label, We Bite America, with the intent of securing the Richies first lp and an
interview. Soon enough I got a copy of the equally brilliant Winter Wonderland and
the address for singer/bassist Axel Schulze (isn't publishing easy?). And yes, Winter
Wonderland also features a song that cops its idea from the Pythons, but there can't
be anybody who likes the bands covered in NFH that doesn't swallow "Fish
License" hook, line and sinker. But most of their songs have a humor of their
own...this is a band that writes some of the most disarmingly funny lyrics, so much so
that they can stick in a song with the lines "Baby, baby I'm really hard/You can meet
me in the dark" and it comes across as just a bunch of silly fun and not some big
headed metal posing. The record titles themselves form an obvious sequence (you can see
the next two coming), and Winter Wonderland contains the great sight gag of the
band members standing in a lush tropical forest with the title boldly emblazoned across
the photo.
As luck would have
it, Axel had planned a vacation to the US with his girlfriend, so we arranged for him to
come through San Diego and spend a night in the NFH offices. They had started in Seattle
and drove the length of the west coast in 8 days, including a two day stop in San
Francisco. Nothing terribly eventful happened along the way, but after leaving San Diego
they had their car broken into while seeing Melrose Avenue in Hollywood and had everything
they had with them taken. US hospitality strikes again.
Anyway, we sat around
my dining room table listening to some demos of songs Axel has been working on for the
next Richies record and conducted an official interview. Axel is a really congenial sort
of guy, very easy going and easy to talk with. He seems aware that the Richies have an
ability to write some very cool tunes, but at the same time he seems very unimpressed with
either the band's playing abilities or the complexity of the songs. "Do you
get those lyrics?", he asks as the tape plays. "Nah, nah, nah, na-nah-nah-nah.
It's just a drum computer...I made it for the guys so that they know how I want it to
sound. We all make demos...we all write separately...we don't jam together, we just go and
say "That's my new song, so let's play it!" The drummer writes the most. He
writes 50%, I write 40% and the guitar player writes 10%. But the song "Surfin' And
Roddin' With Jan And Dean" is from our guitar player."
NFH: Demos are
funny because you usually can't really play all the instruments you're trying to use.
Axel: But
that's the good thing...you don't have to be a musician, you don't have to be perfect on
the instrument.
NFH: Yeah,
just get the idea down and let the other guys do what they think they should with the
song. Did you play the guitar on this too?
Axel: Just in
my flat, you know, but it's just one chord, you know. It's a lot of fun; you don't have to
break your fingers, you know?
NFH: How long
have you been playing?
Axel: Since 87
maybe? I don't know, me and the guitar player played together in a band and we mostly did
German punk songs from Die Toten Hosen to other early German punk things. I don't know how
familiar you are with German punk...it's a pretty unique thing with German lyrics and a
political left wing thing. It was too difficult for us...it was simple, but we could
hardly play anything. And so we thought about the Ramones records...we had It's Alive
and we thought that's a great record, so we tried to do it. So we started to play It's
Alive along with the German punk songs. We wrote our own songs in German, too, but
after a while we were so impressed playing the Ramones sort of thing that we started
writing our own songs in that kind of style. We just have a few tapes with German vocals
of songs of the Richies, but we have redone some in English and that was kind of fun.
NFH: Do people
care whether you sing in English or German over there?
Axel: That's a
problem...I think our lyrics are really funny and sometimes they are bad, but I think they
are good, you know. We really care about the lyrics, but the problem is that Germans don't
read lyric sheets. We said in the contract with We Bite that we want to have lyrics
printed on the records, because that's the way I like records, so we can read and hear.
And I don't think that in Germany many people care about the records, but we have had
reactions from outside of Germany, from the US and European countries and they always like
the lyrics. I think it's OK!
NFH: I listen
to a lot of European bands...bands that sing in English even if it isn't their main
language, and they often don't write such good lyrics. Sometimes they're funny or
interesting, but it's got to be harder to make rhymes.
Axel: Yeah, it
is, but we have a lot of experience with such things.
NFH: There was
one song in which you had a line about people from East Germany?
Axel: Yeah,
that's "God Take Me Out Of This Life". We thought that it would create a real
scandal but no one really cared. We played in the east part of Germany and we thought
"Now the scandal will take place and some East Germans will come and we'll get beaten
from the stage". But unfortunately nothing happened...no papers with "Richies
Scandal In East Germany" or anything like that. I think it was after the wall fell
that the East Germans...there was a lot of fun made of them because they're funny people
and they speak in a funny accent...
(His girlfriend looks
appalled...)
NFH: She's
shaking her head...
Axel: Yeah,
but it was not that we think they're bad or stupid or anything like that, but it was just
a joke to sing about the East Germans. Because no one did that in Germany, surprisingly.
No one made records about that even though it was a big step in the political thing. But
we just tried to make it in a funny way and I think it's pretty good.
NFH: I would
have guessed that when the wall came down people on the east and west would think that the
people on the other side were the same and then later find out they weren't.
Axel: But in
West Germany there were so many people that really liked it that the wall came down. They
really appreciated that, but on the other hand there were many people who said, "Oh
the East Germans, stupid bastards, leave them there with the socialism, and it's OK for
you." But it was just fun, that song.
NFH: It had to
be an interesting time in Germany.
Axel: Yeah, it
was on the TV every day, there was something happening and we couldn't believe it that it
was going to happen. But the Germans aren't so patriotic that it would be the case that
everybody would have a flag on his roof or something like that. I think Germans with the
experiences of the world war and the Jews and other things have become unpolitical.
They're political in things like parties, but not German Fourth Reich or anything like
that. And many people in the punk scene were against the coming together because they saw
in the socialist part in the east not a good thing, and they had fear that a big Germany
would be too strong and that there would be a new Fourth Reich, but it's just a bigger
state now. But if you think of when Cuba becomes a new state of the US a lot of people
will say "No, no, don't make that!" And it was like Cuba and the US, I
think...East Germany was like Cuba, because it was like another country.
NFH: Where did
you play in East Germany?
Axel: Well we
played in a lot of little towns. We played in East Berlin and also in the countryside...I
don't know the names really.
NFH: What's it
like playing there...do they like it?
Axel: Well,
the PA system is like a stereo...it's not as big as this one (points at my stereo), so
it's not like you play and hear anything. And the people outside can hardly hear anything,
but it was great fun...they were all totally drunk there. The only thing they do
there...it's so depressing with the streets all grey, and there's nothing going on, so
they just drink the wholeday. They were wearing Exploited shirts at the show and they were
just drunk...all farmer's daughters and boys, all drunk. We were like outsiders from
outerspace, but we're just from Duisberg, West Germany, but it was really funny.
NFH: Have you
played outside of Germany?
Axel: Yeah, we
played in Holland and Belgium and we will make a French tour in October for nine dates.
And other than that just things around Germany, in East Germany and the Benelux states. We
could have toured Italy, but it fell through so we have to try next year to make more
European dates.
NFH: Are you
known in those places?
Axel: Yeah we
get letters from some countries, but it's just one or two from France or one or two from
Spain. But it's OK...we're not such a big success in all of Europe, but it's funny to get
a letter from France and have someone say something about your music. You go "who is
this crazy guy talking about our music from France...you can't even get the record
there!" That's really funny. And we get some from the States...like ten or so. And
from Finland, surprisingly we got a lot of fanzines writing to us for interviews and we
thought "Finland? What's that?"
(At this point a
Richies cover of Husker Du's "Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely" comes on.)
NFH: That's
you singing right? There's two tracks of vocals here?
Axel: I think
there's three.
NFH: Is that
what you did on the records, you doubled the vocals?
Axel: Yeah,
that's the big thing. Everything sounds much better when you double up the vocals.
Normally people who don't make music don't know what's going on on records, and they just
feel it's a good voice when it's just four voices over and over. It's really good. We take
a lot of our time for the vocal thing because it's really important. It's better to put
four or six vocal tracks on it than just one. It could be good to do just one, but we find
out that it's OK to do five or six when you can remember the first vocals and sing it
along. We wanted to do more vocals and more backing vocals on this one, but at the end the
time runs out. I think it's more raw than the first one. For the first one we had such a
book of overdubs and such things that we wrote down before, and the second one was more
improvising and at the end we said "Oh what the hell, we wanted to do something with
this song, but what the hell, I can't remember now." So we didn't have enough time.
Each record took us a week, and that's OK, but we wanted to do so many overdubs that we
didn't get done.
NFH: Is that a
week of 8 hours a day?
Axel: Yeah,
ten I think. In Germany the studios don't make twenty four hour things. After ten hours
it's like "I'm finished, I have to go to bed or I want to see television", the
engineer says. And then it's over and you have to go and sit around and decide that
tomorrow you're going to do this or that while this guy is drinking bear in a bar a few
blocks away. But it's OK, it's his job, you know.
NFH: I think
when you're in a band it's hard to do anything useful if you work more than ten hours
anyway.
Axel: Yeah,
after two days you can't hear anything at all in the mix and it's just fortune if it
sounds good or not. When you're at home you can't redo anything. On the first one there
were five mixes that were so bad that we redid them. We said, OK, we'll pay it but we want
to redo it. The first one's were more poppy and we had some keyboards on it. We canceled
them because they were too strange and too bad in the mix. But we tried to make things
like some keyboards in it, because we're a punk rock band but we're making records so we
can try to make some big things like keyboards and tons of backing vocals and that's
funny. Because live we're just raw, we're just a bad live band, we can't do backing vocals
because our guitar player can't sing very well, and on record we have these good backing
vocals. All these people are expecting a good live show from us and we're just three
people thrashing like the Ramones, you know. That's really good. But we try to make our
records as good as we can in the shortest time possible, and we were really satisfied.
NFH: You
haven't done anything since Spring Surprise?
Axel: We have
these demos...we have ten good songs together for the next record, and by the time we
record it it will be 20 so we can choose the best and it should be out in April or so next
year, and we want to call it Pet Summer, a little bit of a relation to the Pet
Sounds album of the Beach Boys...we tried to make some surf songs on it. I don't know
how it came out.
NFH: So you're
going through all the seasons...
Axel: We had
to do one with summer, and I thought of Pet Sounds and it seemed like Pet Summer
could be good. We want to try the artwork like the Pet Sounds thing; you know how
they are in a zoo with all those llamas.
NFH: Have you
seen the surf movie, Endless Summer? That would be another good name...
Axel: No, I
haven't seen any surf movies. People are always telling me about surf movies and B-movies
of the 60s and I haven't had the chance to see one! Have you heard of a movie where the
Wilson brothers play in it...either Dennis or Brian has a lead role in it? Maybe it's not
true. I never read about it in the books...I've got books about the Beach Boys and I never
read it in there, so I think maybe it's wrong information.
NFH:
(listening to tape) Hey, that sounds good!
Axel: Yeah,
it's like a glam rock thing with the hand claps.
NFH: The
Ramones do that on some of their stuff.
Axel: Yeah we
did some on the Winter Wonderland record, but they're hidden in the mix. After you
mix it you think that the overdubs are too low. When you have the mix no one who isn't
related to music can hear it...it's just, oh, what have we done there to the left side of
the sound...what's that, and it's a shame, but it's OK.
NFH: Tell me
about the Exploding White Mice tour...
Axel: Yeah,
that was really nice...it was at the time we had made our first album Winter Wonderland
and we were pretty young in the scene. And it came out one month after the tour. The tour
was divided into two parts a month apart, and the album came out in the middle of these
two parts, and they came with a tour manager and they all were totally long haired
monsters. They were all crazy taking those dope things...but they were funny, not the hard
things, just hash or something like that. And we were just three guys from Duisburg in
Germany. You don't know what it means, but people in Germany know what it means to come
from Duisburg. The population is just 500,000 but it's not a big city like Hamburg or
Dussledorf or Munich or something like that. And yeah, it was a funny time, because we
were in our van, a totally shitty Ford van and we'd be driving and the Mice drove in front
of us rock and rolling around in their van with legs in the air and smoking and drinking
Jack Daniels bottles one after the other. And after that we thought, oh, crazy guys,
what's going on on the tour. But after one or two days we made close friends together, and
it was really fun, because they didn't know what we are and we didn't know what we should
think of them, and after two days we shared the drinks and the catering together and then
it was OK. And it was a really funny time because it was their first time in Europe and
our first time with crazy Australians on tour. And they were pretty good live. The tour
was done well. There was one gig where there were six or seven hundred, and in Germany for
independent music that's pretty much. For us it was a big audience and we could sell a lot
of records in the second leg of the tour. And you know, one month after the tour it was
OK, but six months after the tour we thought, oh, could we see the Mice again? It would be
so great, why aren't they here? We sat in the evenings together listening to their
records and drinking and then there's this record with the half side live and we played
this all the time and imagined that the Mice were playing here with our eyes closed. And
then we tried some hash, too, because they did it all the time. But they weren't there,
and that really brought us down.
NFH: It's
really funny because they have a hard time in Australia...
Axel: Yeah,
but there are only five cities in Australia. But they get a lot of good reviews in German
papers and press. They should come to Germany again, because now is a good time for them.
The name is famous there. It would be a good time, because the shows are not so good in
Germany...it's just the Seattle thing happening there.
NFH: What are
some other good German bands?
Axel: Do you
know the Box Hamsters? They are pretty good; they have German lyrics and it's like an
emo-core type of thing...emotional hardcore. They're really punky and they've made four
records or so in the last couple of years. You know Noise Annoys...you had them on the CD.
NFH: Die Toten
Hosen? Are they good or are they just a joke?
Axel: Yeah,
Die Toten Hosen, they're a legend. On their last records they sold like a million or
something.
NFH: You're
kidding!
Axel: No! You
don't know that? They're totally mainstream now. They were the fathers of German punk.
They began in 1980 or 1979 and they were really independent and had their own label. And
they grew and they sing in German and then there was a time when kids related to this kind
of music...there were some other bands like it too. It was a kids' movement and suddenly
they went so big they filled big halls with 10,000 people. For the punk scene it was kind
of strange, because they were big in the beginning of the 80s; they had a thousand people
at the shows and everyone knows them but now they are mainstream and they're in big
papers, they're in TV shows, and their singer Campino is now really known and his opinion
is in the big papers like Der Spiegel or Schnell. They've got big stories
there. It's really strange, they're out of everything, and they fill as big halls as Dire
Straits and their gigs are sold out within minutes. And the music hasn't changed so much.
They don't really have hits in the singles charts, but their albums do very well. But
they're the only band, and it's kind of crazy because they are so big and the other things
are so small. It's not a big movement. It's a phenomenon. But everyone says they are still
the same guys, but for me I don't think about Die Toten Hosen because it's too far from
me. But the kids like them. It's strange...everything gets harder. Here the music gets
harder...the whole rock and roll thing that's coming up now, the mainstream bands are rock
and roll bands...they do music done in 1972 or whatever, but it's not the type of pop song
that was famous years ago, and in Germany the harder things like Die Toten Hosen with
offensive lyrics, they sell half a million copies. But it's just one band.
NFH: How do
your records sell?
Axel: Oh we
sold a few thousand of each in Europe. I don't know what's going on here in America. But
it's pretty good for a German band. Normally you sell a thousand records and you have to
be satisfied. But if you're like us, 5 or 6 thousand or so, it's pretty big for a German
band. I don't know if that's a lot for an American band, but in the independent thing it's
pretty big, I think. But we're not big stars or something like that, don't think that.
NFH: Do German
people grade you harder because you're a German band?
Axel: Yeah,
that's the thing. If you're from America you have all the doors open. If you're from
Germany, you're imitators, and they treat you harder. All the time they complain and you
have to make statements why you sing in English, so we just don't talk about this anymore
to them. We jsut want to play music. We started in German, now we sing in English, and
it's OK. We just don't think about it. I know I think a little bit in English when I make
the lyrics. I don't think in German terms or English terms. It's just normal for me to
write in English, but I could write in German, too, I don't know.
NFH: (Points
to picture on back of the Spring Surprise lp) Who's this guy?
Axel: Oh, it's
the sheriff of Brookhousen. It's an area in Duisberg where we live. The area where our
drummer Peter who writes most of the songs lives. It's a small place with a lot of Turkish
people; many Turkish and Spanish and Italian people living there. And there's one
policeman in this area and that's him. And he knows everyone in this place. It's a really
hard place. Everybody in Duisberg goes Ooh, it's Brookhousen where there's a lot of crime
going on. But that's not true. He's the only policeman and everyone says hello to him and
he gives sweets to the children. He's really funny. Not all policeman in Germany are as
funny as him, but he's OK. And he was very friendly to us and was very impressed that we
put him on the record. But we didn't play the record to him, because then he would put us
in jail or something. We just said, it's a nice record, here's the cover for you, be
proud. And he said, oh, yeah, thank you. I think he thinks we're a kind of blues band or
something. And this got us a lot of reactions in Germany because a German cop on the
record...everyone wants to know what's that, what kind of band are you? And we just say
it's kind of fun. You know there was an Octoberfest thing going on and there was a parade,
and he was going first in the parade with a musical instrument...I don't know what it
was...it makes a lot of noise with cymbals on it...and we said take a second for a shot
and we said OK and we made this shot, and we said oh, OK, go on, bye. But it's not so
funny in Duisburg.
NFH: Do you
know what's going on with the label in the US at all?
Axel: I dunno.
They tried to bring out records of other bands like Negazione...you know them? Their's and
ours were the first...it was like a test thing, and I think it didn't work so well that it
sold thousands of records. But I think it depends on the money; if they want to put more
money in it then they'll bring out more records. I think they will make it one or two
years testing in and look if it works. But it's a division of a German label, and I think
it's pretty hard for them. I don't know if they'll survive here. I hope so. They have some
good bands on the label, too. Some thrash things we don't relate to, but I think they will
try in the next few years to get the label set here. I don't know what's going on with us.
I hope that our next label is licensed by We Bite America here and that they put it out,
but otherwise we'll put it out on your label, no problem!
Axel: Well I
read something in the paper from another band who said it's just like we thought it was
from the movies. And it's a little bit like that. But the ice cream is good. We've tasted
a lot of Hagen Daas ice cream.
NFH: That's
supposed to be European ice cream.
Axel: Yeah,
Danish. Somebody said I sound like I have a Danish accent on the Winter Wonderland album.
Is it true?
NFH: I
wouldn't know a Danish accent from a Chinese accent.
Axel: Oh.
NFH: Have you
seen any bands at all?
Axel: Yeah, we
were in Eureka...
NFH: In Eureka
you won't see any bands!
Axel: No,
there was a gig...there were three bands and the first one was like 12 year old kids
playing good music, but we went on to drive to another village to see some bars and drink
some alcohol because it was an all ages show and there was nothing to drink there, and we
were too tired to go back to the show. So we went to the motel and we haven't seen any
bands here. But we'll see one tonight...the Fuzztones.
NFH: What else
should we talk about?
Axel: I don't
know, just I like it here.
