MORGEN ES WIRD SCHÖN…greater than life

19. Apr, 2011 in English Texts, Front Page, Interviews, Musik

Just to be clear: This isn’t any kind of a biography. I am absolutely not suggesting you an interview with facts. Frankly I don’t even know what this is, but I believe this article contains something about a music band called “morgen es wird schön”.

I can’t say I know Peter Obroni and Dirk Egon Schätzler very well, but I’ve heard lots of stories about them. Some say, they used to be Sports Journalists. Some say that once Dirk was one of the Estonian Fashion Queens in the late 60s and also Kasparov’s biggest enemy. Oh and I absolutely heard couple of people saying, Peter was an art transporter for a while, probably a “legal” one. On Tuesday, we had a chitchat at their studio with a very tasty pasta (thanks to Peter) and then an “outdoors” rehearsal for their show on the 29th of April at the Ostklub. So here we go!

“morgen es wird schön” by Sia Kermani, WWW.SIAKERMANI.COM

The Chitchat

Lora: How did you guys meet and started to make music?
Dirk: I’ve actually started to play the guitar on a tennis record when I was around 13. At that time, I’ve also started to write songs. Unfortunately I could never sing, but my parents could not tell me that, because they were completely unmusical. I sang anyway and played guitar, but after some time I left out the singing part and just played the guitar, and tried to create songs.
Peter: This is the reason, why he engaged me. We were both photography students at the Düsseldorf Art School, and we knew very well, that we could never be good photographers. So one day, in a class, we bumped into each other, where I had an intensive nose bleed.
Lora: Oh this is like a love story!
Peter: Well it’s more like a blood story. So, we’ve started to share a squat room in Düssedorf, tried to make some music there, and it worked out. Though, at the same time we’ve realized Düsseldorf is not the city to make music.
Lora: And why is that?
Dirk: Well Düsseldorf is a very rich, fashionable and clean city. It is the only city in Germany, which has more income than “outcome” (in the sense of “spendings”). The city was “stuffed” with art and business people, and the “music times” were already over.The only people, who were still there, were Die Toten Hosen, and we had nothing in common. So we figured, that it was time to leave Düsseldorf.
Lora: How did you decide to move to Vienna?
Dirk: It’s our destiny to be here, actually. First we wanted to go to Cologne, but you know it’s not that far away from Düsseldorf, so we thought of Berlin. Berlin on the other hand was too much in the East and there were no direct flights between Düsseldorf and Berlin. So we said; why not Hamburg? Unluckily there is a sea in Hamburg, and we both don’t know how to swim, so we were really afraid of Hamburg. We had to find a city, where we wouldn’t have to cross any big ocean or river.
Peter: We’ve started to move to the East. First to Frankfurt then to Munich and then to Vienna, and we couldn’t move any further because we had no passports. We are talking about a time, when Hungary and Slovenia and all those Eastern countries still weren’t members of the EU. Eventually we had to stay here.
Dirk: Also, we had a friend here from the Düsseldorf Art School, who had some “tax issues”. He had to run away due to these issues, and this way we got his flat. It’s a place for us to concentrate on our music and performances.

“morgen es wird schön” by Sia Kermani, WWW.SIAKERMANI.COM

Morgen es wird schön only consists of Dirk and Peter. Peter sings and plays the trumpet, while Dirk plays the guitar and the piano. They absolutely do not want to fit their music into one particular genre. They believe this will limit, whatever it is that they are doing. Yet, they can’t say that they are opened to everything. They do not want to make big changes. Dirk says “If you’re known and loved by one kind of music, if you have a certain “image”, it could be a problem to change this particular image.” Therefore we mainly mentioned the context and mathematics of their music, and not the genre.

Lora: How do you describe your music, the context of your music?
Dirk: We mostly talk about inner subjects, inside topics, such as: every kind of love, every kind of being under pressure, every kind of not feeling well with yourself, not feeling appropriate to society, but also sketches from our daily life; like the song “Red Raincoat”. There is a girl in this song, who wears a red raincoat and walks across the street. I just saw and wrote a song about her. The thing is, she didn’t even wear a red raincoat. I invented that afterwards, because a red raincoat is much more beautiful, than a yellow one and also much more unusual. So this girl, whom I saw on the street, has reflected my inner personality, in the way I’ve regarded, in the way I’ve talked, thought and felt about it. She was a walking mirror to me…
Lora: So you’re the one who writes the songs?
Dirk: Most of the music comes from my side, but it would be worthless without Peter’s influence. For us music is about harmonies. I am completely in love with them. We try to develop a certain atmosphere and situations by harmony. Music is always kind of building bricks onto each other and each time reaching to a different feeling. The chords and feelings should merge into each other, so that we can get a deep and complex structure of feelings.
Lora: Any favorite musicians?
Peter: We love Queen and The Velvet Underground.
Dirk: Their music never grows old. That’s what makes them so lovely. We like the opera also, arias and so.

We continued talking about how do they make money. I found out that they earn money only by making music. Yet, they do not even think, that money is something you need. “If you have nothing to pay for, you don’t need money.” Dirk says. Makes sense, though everybody has to pay for something. Interestingly, it seems like they don’t. Afterwards we’ve started to talk about the problematics of love, asking ourselves “Will you care about love, if you have nothing to eat?”. We’ve reached nowhere. Dirk, who’s a true romantic said: “you can’t compare hunger with love.”

“morgen es wird schön” by Sia Kermani, WWW.SIAKERMANI.COM

Lora: The name of your band- morgen es wird schön – there has to be some story behind it!
Peter: It goes all way back to the Düsseldorf Art School actually. After the crash, Dirk said so gently to me: “Morgen wird’s besser sein.” That was said for my nose in that case.
Dirk: …and we’ve changed it to “morgen es wird schön“, because we don’t want to judge other peoples’ days. If you say morgen es wird besser, it says in the subtext that today there is something wrong. But if you say schön…Well I don’t even know what does “schön” mean…
Peter: If you say it will be better, it means today is not the best day, but tomorrow will be beautiful can also mean that today is beautiful as well…
Dirk: It can also mean that, no matter how it is today, tomorrow will be good.
Peter: Yes!…also, better is too melancholic, that’s why we’ve changed it to beautiful.
Lora: This is exactly what I take out of your music. There’s a positive melancholy all over!
Dirk: Melancholy is something, which always makes you look forward. There’s nothing better than to have a nice melancholy inside of you, and to look forward for better days.
Peter: Well, I can’t even avoid from being melancholic. My Slovenian background makes me a natural melancholic singer. Eastern European mentality is very sad and very drunk. All the time I sing under pressure, which consists of my inner pressure.
Lora: So you think you can make people cry, while you sing?
Peter: Hopefully!

About the disguise issue:

“morgen es wird schön” by Sia Kermani, WWW.SIAKERMANI.COM

Lora: So you paint yourselves on the face while you perform. Why?
Dirk: It is this clown-esque image, which Peter had at our first concert one and a half years ago. He wore this mask just to have a little disguise, to not really be himself, not to be so nervous. So it was a great idea, and I picked it up for myself. If Peter is white on the face, I couldn’t be anything else but black. All of this painting issue has now turned into some trademark.
Peter: If you look someone directly in the face, it is to me unrealistic. But with such image, you can identify yourself better with that person. So you see this clown figure, which touches you somehow and lets your perceptions interfere with your feelings. You let something outer reflect to your inner. A clown figure brings lots of emotions with itself. This make up allows you to be less assailable. I think firstly people have to orientate themselves with this figure, before they do it with our music.
Dirk: …but still it goes very well with our music. There’s an intimate relationship between us, our music and the painting on our faces. When someone can define himself by these masks, then he can build a personal connection to our music much easier.
Peter:… a connection which is unfiltered and also with less prejudice.

While we were doing all these talks, Sia Kermani was taking our photos (thanks a lot Sia!), the sun was shinning, and we were absolutely joyful. The conversation has moved on as we were eating the pasta. After the dinner Peter and Dirk got prepared for their “outdoors” rehearsal by putting the paint on their faces…I think I don’t have to tell you more about the rest of the day nor what I mean with an outdoor rehearsal, as you can already see them on the photographs. Nevertheless, I have to write one more thing: When I asked them about the reason for playing in the subway, Dirk replied: ” Why not do it in the subway? This is the most embarrasing place you can ever imagine.” I believe everything seems to be a challenge for morgen es wird schön. If they are too shy to be on stage without drinks, why shouldn’t they sing in a train with no drinks?