Society Suckers

Interview

- What was the direct influence to give you the idea of making breakcore tunes? What kind of music roots you have?

S: Most of all being alone with music! Being first struck by music i havent heard before. My parents are classical musicians, so i heard a lot of music in church and at the opera as a little boy. Later when i had my own room i'd listen to the radio and tape my favourite songs, i was making a lot of pop and videogame style music when i first got a computer when i was 14. so i tried to recreate some of the things i liked in music, trying to improve my skills. there was only one record shop carrying more interesting electronic music in town, so i started buying records there, looking for some of the more noisy music, with lots of elements inside to discover.

- Do you have any political policy or emotional concept for your tunes? If you have any particular concept for making Breakcore, please tell us.

S: Thats definitely got to do with our home town, former karl-marx-stadt, now chemnitz. when i was around 14, my best friend sebastian whos now the other society sucker took me to a techno party and later gabber parties started happening, so we discovered club culture. i was more of a hiphop fan at the time, and sebastian more into punk hardcore. we enjoyed the gabber parties more because of that harder sound, but we were put off by the fact that there was only straight up gabber at these parties and a lot of the gabber audience were really narrowminded skinheads.

We knew jungle but it didnt get played out. so we wanted to protest that numb hooligan attitude coming from the gabber crowd and tried to write some tracks that would feel just as hard and evil, but with broken elements. jungle was like sped up breakbeat music, but we wanted sped up jungle with punk riffs or broken kickdrum beats. it was weird to play the music for that hardcore crowd at first, the reaction was quite obvious, they were put off by the fact that it was non-straight beats and wouldnt dance, fortunately thats changed. thankfully people seem to be a bit more open minded to broken weirdness now, but i can see the same narrowminded attitudes appearing again with the breakcore crowd too. so i guess now the concept has become trying to break up boundaries within that, play all kinds of different tempos and styles all mixed up, with soul. music should make people feel good inside and be a repellent weapon to support them through their every day struggle.

Youtube : Society Suckers - Toxic

- Do you think that is there any relation among situation of world today and Breakcore music’s rapid growing? Please write your thinking.

S: well, sure. there seems to be an evolving underlying current through the short years with that music. in the beginning there was a lot more diversity i think,
many people have written on this, though. there were always manifestos, trying to sum up the state of what it is, i think in the beginning for us it had a lot to do with battling this ignorance stemming from the pop culture, being served something you dont want to have. some people acted like they were politically motivated, but werent really, some people still are, but most of that doesnt have any relation to the quality of the music, which is something i was always looking out for.

When the internet blew up around '99 it was clear that that whole culture was pretty much communicating that way and with the blooming of all these file sharing networks, things definitely developed into this music sharing direction, with people both making and listening to the music on the computer, downloading all the craziest things and remixing that, which sort of gave everyone the tool they always longed for, the entire history of music and pop culture available for free.

So of course there are people who dont relate that sound politically at all, clearly this speedy broken stuff is a great kick. after all, it was the just the perfect soundtrack for my teenage protesting too. but as i can say for ourselves as well, the pressure put on by our consumer oriented culture developed a more entrepeneur like business state of mind in the musicians, so i think artists are just trying to create something beautiful, the connection to social commentary or political motivation is definitely something that seems to be vanishing more and more.

- How do you expect the future of Breakcore scene? Do you think you are still composing Breakcore tunes after 10 years later?

S: this is a two part question. to anwer the second one first, we've been making that kind of music for 10 years now. i can see that that doesnt make the first question disappear though. back then we were always screaming "harder and faster!" to the dj. in the meantime a lot of things have been done before and there will always be new fresh producers, but right now i think everyone has this feeling that it has all been done before. i mean look at people like dj scud, panacea, christoph fringeli, all these old school cats. they all evolved, started out really noisy and turned it around to a their liking. even venetian snares doesnt always use full on distortion or hyperfast beats all the time, but i thats great, that adds to more diversity and leaves it to the new generation to try out what they would do with it.

Youtube : Society Suckers Live

I'm sure there'll be horrible retro raves in 10 years from now, but the thought of that isnt all that comforting. i have hope that maybe people will pick up live instruments again and maybe try to actually play that music, it has already started. we used to have this running gag "the london philharmonic symphony orchestra presents the best of joey beltram" and look, last month this french pianist puts out a cd of playing old school techno on piano. thats now, the future is tomorrow though. lets just hope that people dont forget where it came from. let me try another sinister joke: "warp records presents: the very best of breakcore volume 7". see? not funny. some already criticize the music for being a lot like circus clownery, i just dont wanna believe that yet.

- Which artists do you respect in Breakcore scene? And why?

S: really deep down, i highly respect mostly people that arent part of the scene or never wanted to be. they know who they are, because they'd rather do their own thing. for some reason people with that distant viewpoint seem to be more focused and to the point than people who just try to follow the crowd. pioneers with a vision, if you will. dj scud for example, for establishing the first blueprint of what a lot of people are doing today, still unmatched in arranging beats and samples if you ask me.slepcy for creating a blueprint for most of the very emotional melodic music and being able to actually perform all that with something else than a computer.

noize creator for putting east germany on the map with constant output and moving the music away from straight kickdrums, thus opening a lot of local peoples minds.

christoph fringeli, for being the mastermind behind datacide magazine, the only still existing fanzine that, even though released irregularily, deals with the music on an ideological level and beyond. another one of the few potent spokesmen with a message would be eiterherd, who i admire for his strong organizational qualities.

there are too many to be named, really. those are just some of the people that have been an influence on us.

- Please write any message to viewers who never listen Breakcore music.

S: i think by now the music seems to have broader exposure and most people have made up their mind already. if you feel like music you're listening to isnt rough enough and you need to get a stronger kick out of what you're listening to, give it a go, there's plenty of good "breakcore" music available. the quality control used to be better, so please dont give up right away, there are still good tracks out there. its certainly healthier than taking drugs and i know it makes me smile when i discover new music that i havent heard yet.

I certainly hope i did not depress you with my realist attitude and would be happy if you'd check out our website www.society-suckers.com for some mixes, perhaps our recent records on mental industries and my solo project "karl-marx-stadt", which i will be touring the UK with in april with chevvron of planet mu records.

Society Suckers : http://www.society-suckers.com

Written by Hirokit