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TRAD II TOUR 2004

Beer tent? No thanks!

Berliner Morgenpost 25th April 2004 | Peter E. Müller

Pop rebel from the Alps: Hubert von Goisern makes yodelling a global event - and gives folk music back its dignity

He takes his thing seriously. He respects the traditional songs, yodels and country dances of his Austrian homeland - as he meets each folklore of this world with curiosity and respect. He is just misunderstood too often. At the high point of success with his band Die Alpinkatzen, it most rankled with Hubert von Goisern that of all songs, his rousing rocky song Hiatamadl was promoted to a long-lasting phenomenon at the Oktoberfest-Wiesn. Beer tents, no, they're not his world. He looks for closeness to musicians, no matter whether from Tibet, Tanzania, Egypt - or the Salzkammergut.

When he last made a guest appearance in Berlin, Hubert von Goisern demonstrated with his band how highly modern, how contemporary, how engaged the folk music of the mountains blends with blues, rock, world music, Caribbean elements in his songs. When he now returns to Berlin, he will present traditional almost with exception, the songs and yodels of his two CDs Trad and Trad II. With Hubert von Goisern, folk music gets back its dignity, which is so incessantly clapped away by countless folksy schlager musicians.

He is not someone who goes on field research with the utmost care into mountains and valleys and looks to see what can be dug up there in terms of traditional folk. "It is rather chance which confronts me with these songs," says Hubert von Goisern. "They are melodies that follow me. And sometime I have a good look at them." You feel: this man expresses himself primarily through his music. He speaks with care. He considers for a long time. He searches for the right words in order to make the beauty and fascination in simple folk songs like Dirndl woaßt nu den bam or über d'Alma comprehensible.

Yes, he takes these songs seriously. "I can't do anything with making the material ironic," he says. "I also don't like cabaret. When I play music, then the sounds, the sequence of notes, the harmonies spark off something and when I feel that I'm getting goosebumps, or that I'm suddenly far, far away, then the music playing becomes independent."

For the recordings of Trad II, he moved with his musicians and the whole studio up to 2100 metres above sea level on the Krippenstein in the Dachstein massif. Far from all the solemnity of civilisation, in cloister just for the music. "When you're up there on the mountain, you come into a raised position," he says. "It doesn't matter to you, what's happening in the valley down below. And apart from that, as von Goisern says, he and his musicians could go skiing undisturbed in the recording breaks.

Now it is certainly not the case that the man, who's really called Hubert Achleitner and comes from Bad Goisern, plays the old songs faithful to each note. He carefully peps them up, makes them his own. A harmonica blues sounds through, and a steel guitar harmonises in the best way with the classical raw material. "My personal approach actually excludes zither and dulcimer and such things. If I want to sing and play these songs, then it must be what I like." Back in the middle of the eighties he played together with a slide guitarist. "The American folk and country music has a very great relationship with our tradition. It was the emigrants who took this tradition to America. In addition came what the blacks brought with them from Africa. Thus the whole thing got a depth and width we don't have here."

Hubert von Goisern respects traditions, but is not someone who would blindly take over what is handed down. That means he often offends professional customs protectors. "Tradition is always something exclusive with us. To that extent, I already carry a spirit of provocation inside. Sometimes a spirit of destruction too." In folk music, for Hubert von Goisern it is above all about the expression of a sensitivity of life, about the story you have experienced. It is just the languages which separate instead of connecting. "I can only speak English and German," he says. "When I meet an Italian who can only speak Italian, I'm stranded. But when he sings or plays an instrument, then I imagine that I know what he wants to say."

"It works when I can enchant myself"

www.donau.de April 2004 | Text: Mechtild Angerer

Relaxed conversation over sausages and beer on the banks of the Danube

Hubert von GoisernOn the 1st April, Hubert von Goisern made a guest appearance in the Audimax and brought the audience to boiling point. Before the concert, over sausages and beer in the Regensburg Wurstkuchl, the artist spoke to the Rundschau about his music and the programme with which he is also making a stop in Schwandorf on 8th August - our tip: get your tickets in time!

Mr von Goisern, when did you decide that you would be a musician - was there a musical "awakening experience" in your childhood?

No, music was always something completely natural for me. As a child I bathed in feelings when listening to music, in the beautiful sounds, from the radio too. And at home in Goisern back then, I had the feeling that everyone played at least two instruments - it must have been similar, after all, in my homeland there were seven brass bands! After a concert by one of these bands, I was certain that I wanted to be a musician - at that time I was five years old.

And then off it went with the systematic musical education? After all, you play a number of instruments - in the current programme, apart from the Styrian, there is also trumpet, guitar, flugelhorn...

It was not as systematic as that at all: I taught myself most of them, apart from a few years of trumpet, guitar and clarinet lessons; and of course I played in the town band.

That explains the strong homeland reference in your music - but where does the desire for sound experiments come from?

I occupied myself with that during a degree in electro-acoustics and experimental music - the meeting with the avant garde was really fascinating. But after one semester, that was the end - I really didn't like the attitude of the people there, it was all too narrow-minded. For me, music is something open, not a terrain with boundaries.

Border-crossing also shows up very clearly in your newest programme, Trad II, which ties in with Trad I. Folk music in rocky clothing - doesn't that bring a number of admonishers and protectors of the good and true into the arena?

Of course there are many who turn up their noses at folk music with electric guitar and drums. But I don't see that as tragic - a century ago, there was the same discussion when the accordion made an entrance into folk music as a new instrument. Nevertheless, in the long-run it is important that you play the melodies in a way that touches you - and not on what instrument they are played, and whether or not this all comes straight from the same mountain village.

In the programme, how much is actually by Hubert von Goisern - the melodies stand firm, don't they?

I withdrew quite a bit as a composer in the programme. I tried to arrange the folk tunes in a simple, cautious way. I didn't want to make any contorted rock pieces out of them, put on shrill costumes, but draw out the musical essence from them as I feel it.

What is the most important thing for you when making music?

I try to perform magic with my music. When I manage to enchant myself, then it works. Music gives me the feeling of vastness, when I play and it's good, like a medium with something greater, I reach another level of consciousness.

It sounds almost as if the audience isn't so important to you?

No, that's not true - the audience has a fifty per cent share in how a concert will turn out. Nevertheless: I above all play each concert for myself.

Do you want to make something happen with your music?

Yes. I want to make myself feel good. I cannot seriously mean that I possibly want to shake someone up with my lyrics with the pure folk music programme - with earlier programmes, that admittedly looked different. It is important that I can identify with what I do.

Do you have musical role models?

Loads! With Miles Davis, the constant search for the new fascinates me, with Puccini and his operas, I love the romantic, almost kitsch intoxication of sound; I am growing ever more fond of Verdi as an opera hit composer, the magic of sound and the innovation with Steve Reich captivates me. And then there's still Mozart, Beethoven, the Viennese Strausses and Richard Strauss, Bob Marley, Wyclef Jean ...

Apart from your folk music, you have also worked extensively with non-European music. Do you know in what direction you will continue after the Trad II tour - connected to the homeland, innovative, border-crossing?

The tour comes to an end on 11th September and then I will first have a two year break from the stage. I will withdraw, compose, but what really then happens, or rather in what direction things will go, I still don't know.

"Switzerland is very far away"

Berner Zeitung 28th February 2004 | Text: Tina Uhlmann | Photo: Keystone
Hubert von Goisern

Hubert von Goisern is on tour with traditional songs. As one of the first rock musicians, he experimented with alpine music 15 years ago - a definition of the position before the concert in Bern.

Where did you learn to yodel?

You can't learn to yodel. You are either born for it or not. Personally I listened to it from a cassette - somebody slipped it to me and on it was to be heard a female yodeller, who really impressed me. I then wrote everything out, sound for sound and syllable for syllable and transcribed it down into my pitch. Yeah, and then I went to a remote place, where nobody could hear me and practised.

Why should nobody hear you?

Well, because it is always an impertinence when somebody is practising. Certainly not for the person in question, but for everybody else. It's the same with instruments. My daughter for example, she plays the violin...

... and you yodel. How does that feel? Similar to singing?

Yes, it is simply one of many possibilities to use the voice musically. But you can only yodel quietly with great difficulty, you have to always give full thrust, so therefore you need somewhat more courage for yodelling than for singing. Yodelling is something very solo. You have to consciously decide to make how you do it important when you yodel.

At the end of the Eighties, you were one of the first rock stars who began to work with alpine music. Where does this genre stand today?

In a very different place from 15 years ago. Back then there was a real dam burst, at least in Austria - something had been bottled up. There were many groups who were suddenly interested in their own folk music and got it moving again. It's moving today. You are not breaking taboos any more when you yodel.

In Switzerland too, there are ever more people from jazz, rock and pop, who are on the track of alpine music. Are there contacts across the country borders?

Only very few. There are some great Swiss musicians in Vienna. And currently the Swiss guitarist Max Lässer is with me and we are rehearsing for the upcoming tour with the Trad II programme. I would wish for more such contacts. But the free communication of musicians is much smaller with us than in the Anglo-Saxon cultural area for example. Switzerland is very far away for me. Geographically too.

Geographically?

Yes. I mean, you are there quickly, but when you have a destination in the mountains, you can sometimes drive complicated routes for hours, for what is a very short flight.

That's down to the nature of this area. In Switzerland, the musical styles can sometimes vary in the extreme from valley to valley - just because the valleys were barely joined with traffic routes for a long time, despite it being only a short way as the crow flies. Is it the same in Austria?

Absolutely. It's 30 kilometres from Goisern to Ischl and yet it sounds very different at one place compared to the other. Mind you, for outsiders, these differences are barely audible. I also experienced that when I worked with Tibetan musicians. For about a year I had the feeling of always hearing the same thing, until I noticed the nuances. But back to Austria: the differences there also blur gradually. I would say: thank God!

Why thank God?

Because it is not good when you want to stubbornly conserve things. So, as for example the people who criticise my music, have always criticised my music.

You call them the "200 per centers". Is their resistance a problem for you?

No, it was never a problem, on the contrary. I have always been pleased about these discussions - they always stimulated something. I was always in the way for these people. That empowered me - as the saying goes: the more danger, the more honour.

In Switzerland, there are written rules for how you should yodel for example. Is that the same in Austria?

No, it's not so crass with us. Fortunately.

Before the folklore-like TV formatting of folk music, there was still a "real", archaic folk music in the alpine area. In Switzerland for example, Rees Gwerder was one of its last representatives. Is there also such a "master" in Austria for you?

Yes - in the Salzkammergut for example. Fritz Toifl is a rock in the scene. He has never let demands be placed upon him. I am interested in what such people do, but I have always had to look for my own way.

On this way you have now arrived at the second Trad record with traditional pieces. Where do you know these pieces from - did you cut your teeth on them?

No, we barely sang at home. They have been pointed out to me during the course of my years as a musician, and the really good melodies simply remain with you. Then sometime they push into the foreground. And then it is also a type of exorcism, when you let them out loud, lend them their own voice.

You recorded Trad II on a mountain, the Krippenstein. How did you think of this place?

My father gave me the idea. I was visiting him and he told me that the hotel on the Krippenstein was locked up and was now standing empty. I was often there as a child. My father once participated in the building of the cable car and I worked for a winter at this cable car. We know the mountain. I wanted to go up high to record the record, but when, after a few discussions, we were given permission to set up our studio in the hotel, I was nevertheless the most sceptical of everyone taking part.

Why?

I did not know how the cloister situation would affect the music - in winter at 2,100 metres. I said to the musicians, it's an experiment, and if we have a good time and in spring come down again with nothing as an experience, then that's okay too. But then it just went so smoothly up there - it was a special atmosphere. The people came from Germany, Italy, Austria and Switzerland up there, looked around once, marvelled at the enormous view and - yeah, were involved.

Was this the first such experience for you?

I have already recorded on the mountain, in caves, when I wanted a natural echo for a certain piece.

Despite electroloops and slide guitar, Trad II sounds very "original". Did you never think of also working in original instruments - dulcimer, "Hexenscheit" (precursor to the zither)...?

I don't like dulcimers and I leave the alphorns to the Swiss. We include the Jews' Harp - an instrument which has a living tradition in Austria. I have orientated myself much more towards people. When I meet someone like Max Lässer, whom I like, whose way of playing music I like, then he is involved - and with him the slide guitar.

Lässer says that his experiments with alpine music are strongly connected with a very specific landscape. Is that right for you too?

Absolutely.

Do you suffer under the fact that the landscape is disappearing?

You mean it's being built on? That's just the way it is. There was a time when I sympathised with the radical conservationists. But in the mean time I have understood that such a thing does not work without elitist demand. I think that the mountains should be accessible for everyone.

"An act of piracy"

Der Bund 27th February 2004 | Text: Michael Sahli

Austrian folk songs; almost seriously meant - Hubert von Goisern is at loggerheads with the "music police"

Hubert von Goisern loves the music of his homeland. He says: alpine music also belongs to the open-minded thinkers and liberal-minded people. On Monday the man often called a denigrator of his own country makes a guest appearance with his interpretations of traditional country dances in Bern.

Hubert von Goisern, you play traditional Austrian folk songs and thus incur the wrath of lovers of folk music. What are you doing wrong?

These critics, of whom you talk, think that as a musician kindly keep to the rules. Rules which I evidently break in their eyes.

Which rules do you mean?

For example, they think the fact that I sing songs with one voice, rather than with three voices as in the original is a betrayal of the art. In their opinion, neither piano nor percussion instruments have a place in folk music. I have changed about a fifth of the lyrics, because the straddled, stilted language of the originals meant that you could no longer take the songs seriously. In short: people raise their fingers and point out the inaccuracies of my work.

You call these people "music police". Why?

Because they try to comprehend music scientifically, and then have no choice but to be somewhat "forced" in doing so. Because inaccuracies are of course the fiend of every scientist. But I am a musician and I don't like music which is scientific. These purists overlook the fact that every tradition must grow further. We have unfortunately arrived at a time in which the archives are given more attention than life.

At the beginning of the nineties, with the Alpinkatzen you stormed the charts with palatable alpine poop and yodels. On the other hand, your new interpretations of traditional songs sound correctly adapted. The meeting with hostility must have been much more violent back then.

Yes, it was much more difficult before. But back then, lots more people breathed a sigh of relief because they no longer had to be ashamed of enjoying traditional music. Besides, the critics had grown rather silent. However, the harsh attacks of the political left or the feature writers of the left intellectual newspapers particularly hurt me. I had always felt myself to be a leftist. And still do today.

Did you feel misunderstood?

I simply wanted to take this traditional music away from the conservatives. I plundered their music stores. It annoyed me that everything to do with tradition should be the terrain of the right wing and stick-in-the-muds.

(Almost) everything real

NEW CD: In the nineties, Hubert von Goisern rode the wave of success with palatable alpine pop. He brought disco to yodelling and jazzed up folk music into the charts. Now von Goisern has returned to his roots again. With Trad II the widely travelled Austrian has now recorded his second album after Trad (2001), which orientates itself towards the traditional originals of his homeland. Recorded in an empty hotel on the peak of the Dachstein massif, an affectionate and winking homage to folk music has arisen, which has experienced a contemporary polish with drum loop, slide guitar and keyboard runs. (mic)

So you shared the same musical preferences with people, whose attitude you criticise. A delicate tightrope-walk.

It was less a question of taste. Much more an act of piracy and of pleasure which you have when you take something away from someone who does not have sole requirement of it. I smashed the building that the traditionalists had built around themselves. Mind you, the left thought that they had to be ashamed because of my projects, because so many people had asked about the translation of traditional music.

Could it be that you and FPÖ politician Jörg Haider, who comes from the same town as you, sing the same songs?

I don't think so. If Haider sang, he would not be as he is. For I firmly believe in the saying: "Where you sing, you easily establish that bad people have no songs".

Why do you hang on so stubbornly to these traditional tunes?

I quite simply like these songs. They haven't left my ears for twenty ears. They shouldn't be cared for in ghettos any more, in three voice ensembles, or folk groups. Not many people dare to go in on such homeland evenings. Because whoever isn't wearing traditional costume or lederhosen is treated like a leper.

You are widely travelled. First as a young man, when you were travelling for many years in South Africa, Canada and the Philippines. Why did you migrate?

I left Austria when I was 21 years old. The environment in which I moved, my parents, my then wife and her family were absolutely against me becoming a musician. So I packed up my things. After four years I got a divorce from my wife, then I began to play music.

What inspired you?

In the Philippines I visited the village of an old tribe, who lived far from civilisation in houses built on stilts. When the people there played music, the whole village sang, danced, drummed. Almost every evening. There I learned their music and their singing. I experienced music in its original sense and considered it a great deal.

What did you want to do with it in Austria?

I thought, when I am back, I will see if there is also something there too, something buried alive, this heart in Austrian folk music, which touches people and brings them together. I was then successful with that too.

You stormed charts, raked in prizes. You became a star. At the end of 1994 came the end with the band and you went travelling again. To Tibet, in various African countries. Did you have to air your head?

The actor Helmut Qualtinger once said, there is a death through recognition. I felt that. The hype around me and my band became too much for me. There were hugs from people I did not like. I also wanted to feel at home in other places in the world. And so it required trying something completely new. The recognition in my youth that tradition has something exclusive weighed heavily on my shoulders. Always the same chamois tufts and lederhosen, no, thank you. I already knew in my young years that I never wanted to be like that. The travels made it possible for me to be able to tolerate and esteem my Austrian homeland.

Rock & Pop "Anti-drugs to fundamentalism"

AP 25th February 2003

Hubert von Goisern and BongoFrankfurt/Main (AP) "There are wonderful melodies there, which in their simplicity are nevertheless very rich in content." That is the impetus for Hubert von Goisern to also sing songs from his homeland that way. The man from the Salzkammergut in Austria recorded his album Trad II (Blanko Musik) with his band high up in the mountains, at 2,000 metres - very acoustic, but also combined with slide guitar and other influences.

"Yes, on the one hand I have taken away the electric guitar and the rock element and made it a bit more traditional," he says in the AP interview. "But it is evidently exactly that, which shows the breaks more glaringly in my treatment of tradition." And adds calmly: "I see myself in any case more as the anti-drug to fundamentalism."

Von Goisern is now going on a big tour until far into the summer with his Trad songs, with stops in Austria, Switzerland and far over the River Main into deepest North Germany. Above all he wants to bring his music close to the people "who have a defensive reflex," because there can be a bitter aftertaste with tradition and folk music in the German-speaking area. "Because this whole past resonates, so that nationalism is connected with and the whole thing must stay as it is," he says in the AP interview. "To show them that folk music, the folk music tradition a priori is not political, but - it is beautiful melodies or melodies which are not beautiful."

When playing folk songs he has the feeling, that "it is also about an intimacy," says the musician born in 1952 in Bad Goisern. He is curious to see whether it will be communicated in a large hall. "In clubs with 500, 600 people I can imagine it well, but in places as big as the Frankfurt Opera House, 2000 or so people go - I am curious how it works. Because it is really something intimate."

On his journeys to Africa he has felt that tradition can be a protective armour. Tradition - from food to language, from music to literature - creates identity, but can be at the expense of an exclusivity which can go to chauvinism. "For it to really work, so that I really feel happy, I must also give up a lot of what I have learned: a routine-like life. The same goes with playing music. When I play music with an Egyptian, with a Tibetan or an African, then I must be ready to dissociate myself from a piece of my tradition. Because when they do it as they have always done it and I remain exactly with what I do, then we never come together. We must also give up a piece of our identity, abandon it and move ourselves across and accept something else. Then an understanding also happens because music is not bound to a language, but is a meta level of a language. When you open up it is possible that you can immediately communicate and establish a connection."

The last Africa trip two years ago was partly very painful because he was robbed of many illusions. "But it is totally liberating when they are gone. I also now have a more relaxed contact with my own tradition, with chauvinism which confronted me at home in Bad Goisern. When I think: yes, why should they be different from Senegal? I am not so reproachful any more."

And in any case: "I firmly believe that things are constantly changing. I am an optimist and think that they are changing for the better, for expansion. Everyone's horizons are simply moving further away. That is painful for some, but it is a fact."

World music from the Salzkammergut

Anzeiger Online 24th February 2004 | Text: Helga Schabel

Hubert von Goisern sings the folk songs of his Upper Austrian homeland so that people who otherwise have nothing to do with folklore hear them too. We met HvG before the beginning of the tour.

Hubert von Goisern comes to the interview in one of the better Zurich restaurants in a red quilted jacket. He left at home the "Goiserers", which get their name from Hubert's hometown of Goisern and which are synonymous with rural footwear in Austria. "I feel safe in the mountains," he tells us later. That is also the explanation for the unusual place in which his new CD Trad II arose and was then also presented: in a deserted hotel on the Krippenstein, a ski mountain in the Dachstein massif at 2100m beloved by the Austrian. "My father gave me the idea, one day at lunch he told me that the hotel had been shut for some time." His father regretted it because although a trained hairdresser, he had helped to build it himself in the post-war years and had thus kept the family's heads above water in this difficult time.

Cloister on the mountain

Now nothing could suit the son better. He ordered his whole team, musicians and technicians, to the mountain cloister in the snow-covered house with the ghostly atmosphere. All the studio equipment was taken up on the cable car a total of three times, because not only the recordings were done here, but also post-production and mixing. A year later Hubert is pleased with his brilliant idea: "We were with each other the whole time, nobody could run off in the evening, a very special atmosphere arose." And they even went skiing - at night by the light of a full moon. Is he a good skier? "Not bad," he says with his dry Upper Austrian mountain charm and spreads butter on his bread roll. Because there's only proper food later... Incidentally, Bongo, Hubert's four-legged friend, also enjoyed the unusual production place. He romped around and gorged on snow with excitement, whereas the nature-distant journalists rather groaned when summoned to the draughty mountain for the presentation. But in the end most of them nevertheless admitted that the new CD was especially successful, so warm and real and authentic.

Artistic freedom

Hubert von Goisern has recorded folk songs from his Austrian homeland, for which there was no more room on the previous CD Trad I. And that it is now those people, who usually keep clear of such music, who are listening is due to the fact that he instruments the old melodies originally, underlies them with a modern sound and sings them without any histrionics and far from anything kitsch with his raw voice. Sometimes it sounds like Hawaii or Asia. And Hubert von Goisern also takes his own liberties with the lyrics. He attributes pink and purple sunglasses to the Gamserln (Chamois) in the hunting song, lets them taste like marzipan and vanilla - that is his "revenge" on the shooting guild. "Because even though I know that there must be hunting, I still can't get on with this archaic urge." This free treatment of tradition is not esteemed by everybody. Therefore Hubert von Goisern employs the name of his hometown as his stage name (his civil name is quite simply Achleitner), but otherwise he has long held a distance from the village at the foot of the Dachstein (the Upper Austrian Säntis). "I would only get endless arguments there," he says and: "I don't let anyone tell me how I should play music."

Late starter

The stubborn man also reacts indignantly when you ask him about private things, about his earlier job as a chemistry laboratory assistant, his family. "That is unimportant, I make music and I speak about that in public." Incidentally Hubert von Goisern seems to be a late starter in other areas. He could only decide on the bond of marriage with the mother of his children when his son Nico had been going to school for some years and daughter Laura was also at school (private details which we could nevertheless draw out of him). At any rate you can get from him that at home as a child, he was the only one who played music, rock and blues above all. The Upper Austrian did not learn to yodel until he was 37. He went onto a motorway bridge to practise, "not just because at the beginning it sounds so dreadful, but because you can't hear yourself and therefore the feeling develops in the body, which is so important for singing right." Later he then found that the Tibetan monks also practise their ritual singing at waterfalls.

Later ministrant

The man who grew up in good Catholic tradition first became a ministrant at an age at which others already have ordination or something similarly desirable behind them. "When I was 33 I acted as a server for a year and a half at in the Augustine church in Vienna." Why there? "Because it was the only church in which the mass was still read in Latin. That is an abstract language for me. However I cannot pray to God the Father in German, this masculinity in religion goes against the grain for me and I reject it." Hear! Hear! The feminist theologians would certainly delight in Hubert von Goisern! Even though he left the church a long time ago, although he "thinks it is nice when people belong to a religious denomination."

Spiritual model

Is he a Buddhist? as relaxed as he seems, it could be good, especially as he knows the Dalai Lama personally. "No, I have never deeply occupied myself with Buddhism, but I have met the Dalai Lama on a few occasions." What fascinates him about the man? "I don't know anybody who has so many reasons to mourn and who has nevertheless never forgotten to laugh. It impresses me with what great seriousness and exclusivity he carries the responsibility for his exiled and oppressed people."

Friend Jane Goodall

Friendship connects Hubert von Goisern with another famous personality - with the soon to be 70 year old chimpanzee research scientist Jane Goodall. He has spent many months with her in total, in Africa, England, Taiwan. "I like her softness, her elegance, how she goes lightfootedly through the jungle dirt with bare feet," he enthuses and: "Jane Goodall and the Dalai Lama are, for me, models in handling adversities." He comforts himself over adversity by listening to music, "preferably Verdi, Schumann, Wagner and all Strausses". In contrast he rarely listens to popular music - even though he has models, Miles Davies, Louis Armstrong, reggae. "I have my music in my head, that is what sounds the strongest in me." And it immediately sounds out live for the fans again. This week Hubert von Goisern starts his tour Trad II in the German-speaking countries. Swiss guitarist Max Lässer is also part of the internationally cast five member band.

"I make holes in the bunkers because I can't stand the stale air"

14th February 2004 | Text: Sarah Marchant | Photo: Dachstein Tourismus

Hubert von Goisern and BongoDid you enjoy your winter break?

Well, there wasn't much of a break. I used the time to get my studio finished and then did the first rehearsal for the new tour. Then I had a short trip to Cairo to meet with Mohamed Mounir; we are planning a joint concert in Cairo. There is still a way to go until everything is settled, but - inshallah - we will continue our collaboration. It is only in the past few days that I have been skiing a little. That was wonderful. I visited Toni Rosifka at the Simony-Hütte and spent time at the glacier. It amazes me time and time again, how close this different, strange, tremendous world is. I have it in front of my eyes every day, but only when I step into it, does it open for my senses.

And are you looking forward to the year ahead?

Very much! It will be a great challenge to play a programme with these musicians which consists entirely of folk songs and yodels.

At the end of last year, you said that this tour would perhaps be the last for a while. Is anything in particular pulling you away from the stage?

The unknown is pulling me. I still don't know what will come towards me. In any case, I would like to break the rhythm. Since October 1999, when I began the work on Fön, I have been constantly producing and touring. I have the feeling that for the next creative period, I need Muse and that means time. I have a couple of vague ideas which I must let mature and develop.

To what extent are your tours a necessary marketing-evil for you?

I am at least just as much at home on the road as I am in Goisern or Salzburg, where I have my domicile. What I don't like are promotion trips. I do also gladly give interviews when the interview partner is curious and asks intelligent questions, but in a world of a flood of information and over-stimulation, I often feel that remaining silent is a greater challenge than talking.

When you spend every day on tour with a relatively small group of musicians and technicians, does it ever become too close and claustrophobic for you?

No, not so far. When I want to withdraw, that always works out somehow.

What is the best thing about touring and what is the worst?

I like everything - except coming to a tiny, loud hotel room and having no opportunity for getting a decent meal on concert-free days.

When you are on tour, does the routine stem the flow of your creative juices?

It is not the routine that hinders, but on tour I am orientated totally to the evening, the concert. The rest of the day is just ticking over.

How do you feel when you think about the coming concerts with the new band members?

In the run-up we are occupying ourselves exclusively with musical tasks. I am trying not to think about the concerts - that would just make me more nervous than I already am.

Two CDs, a film and now a long tour: is it your intention to extend the Trad genre any further?

I don't think about it. I don't have any plans. Perhaps after this tour the subject has been exhausted. No idea. Everything is possible. But after this project I think I first need a time out from folk songs.

If you had not had the courage to modernise these folk songs yourself, do you think that they would eventually be lost to a broader audience due to the rather unforgiving possessiveness of the "music police"?

It is much more the bourgeois nature of many protagonists that makes it difficult for many to take pleasure in this genre, the suspicion of the new, the strange, the rejection of every development. But you find this attitude with most traditionalists all over the world. You could also say that without this suspicion, there would be no tradition at all. I am one of those who breaks down fences, I make holes in the bunkers because I can't stand the stale air. For many who have never held their noses up in the air, it is simply the smell they call homeland, which gives them security. I decode the routine. That is how I understand the panic.