DERWEIL

Interview with HvG

Question: Your new album is called Derweil and is a so-called 'best of' CD. What's happening "derweil", or rather, "meanwhile" in your life?

Question: Since 2001 you have extremely successfully interpreted alpine folk songs in your style. From that came the albums Trad I and II as well as Ausland and a very extensive tour. How did you come to these folk songs, did you learn them from your parents?

Question: Let's now go to the very beginning of your career, to the first album Alpine Lawine in 1988. How did it feel when you had your first own CD in your hand?

Question: Your personal avalanche of success didn't really get going after the album Alpine Lawine, the album flopped. What happened afterwards?

Question: The time with the Alpinkatzen was, at two and a half years, relatively short, but very intense. What comes to mind first, when you think back on that time?

Question: You have a very special, personal relationship with Africa, you even lived in South Africa for 3 years in the 70s. In 2005 you travelled with your band to a concert in Timbuktu, from which the documentary Warten auf Timbuktu arose. In that you say of Africa, that the conditions there always upset you when you are there. That sounds like a love-hate relationship.

Question: How did you approach the choice of pieces on Derweil? Are they your favourite songs?

Question: We can't give away much about your future. Except perhaps for the answer to this question: when will you finally be seen live on stage again?

"Where each step is an adventure"

Hubert von Goisern takes stock with the 'best of' album "Derweil"

Your new album is called Derweil. What are you doing meanwhile?

Meanwhile, I'm doing nothing, that's also the reason for this compilation now. I hope that next year, there will be something totally new.

On the album are the best songs from 18 years. Did you imagine back then that your career would go like this?

The reality is somewhat crazier than how I imagined 20 or so years ago. I couldn't have dreamed that I would have such success. The way it happened was like an intoxication. And when intoxicated, you don't take things so seriously either.

What changed for you in this time?

Volume. That was much more important to me before. Now the breaks are ever more important to me. The moments where you can place a blank piece of paper between two sounds.

Did you learn music and the folk songs from your parents?

I didn't learn any songs at home, I don't come from a particularly musical family. I only became acquainted with the folk songs through friends in recent years. The scene actually never interested me, it was much to much of a closed circle. I wanted to live more of an open life.

In what time would you like to live?

The Bronze Age, the neolithic era. Where there's still nothing there, where each step is an adventure.

Many "protectors" of traditional folk music have felt provoked by your interpretations.

I felt the provocation within me at the beginning of the nineties, I also wanted there to be a parting of ways. With Trad I took my hat off to those who wrote such songs. I was then astounded, even a little hurt, I must admit, that so many people got worked up about it. For that was very puristic, it wasn't a pop music approach.

Do you listen to your own CDs?

No. When it's done, it's done.

So what music do you like to listen to?

I always hear music in my head, so I don't really like listening to records or the radio, because it covers everything up.

The first album Alpine Lawine wasn't much of a success.

At that time a producer was forced upon us, who had a requirement to make the music right for Ö3. When success didn't come, that was the crux of the matter. From there I knew that nobody knows how things are. If someone says to me that he knows how things are, he can take a hike.

What do you think of your greatest hit Hiatamadl?

Hiatamadl was an unbelievable door-opener and I still think it's a very successful production. When I hear it by chance on the radio, then I'm amazed time and again how cool the number is.

How do you regard this era of great success with Alpinkatzen today?

Full throttle. Just how you imagine life as a pop star. You fly through life. And flying brings with it the fact that you are lifted up. It's your own world in which you move, which has nothing more to do with normal life.

Another title of yours was also very popular: Heast as nit. How is your relationship with this piece?

They are the fine sounds, the quiet sounds, the intermediate sounds, where fantasy has much more room with the listener and the interpreter. In contrast, Hiatamadl is "bam and off we go".

How does songwriting work with you?

I don't sit there to compose and fit sounds together. It comes from playing and from the inner music current. When I am not speaking, then I hear music in my head the whole time. And with a musical instrument, the mechanics come into it, the finger automatically grasp certain sounds. And the task is to come away from that and to grasp where you have never before dared to do so. My thoughts and my fingers lead me through the music.