Interview with Kai Schmidt of Funker Vogt-By The Elektrobank on 1/25/2000
PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS INTERVIEW WITHOUT ASKING FOR MY PERMISSION!

Me-1. This is a silly question, but how is "Funker Vogt" pronounced? Do you use German or English pronounciation?
Kai-I think the best pronunciation will be "Founker Fogt".

Me-2. Since it is the year 2000, when will the next Funker Vogt album come out?
Kai-The next Funker Vogt CD will be out in March. It is the new MCD "Gunman". Followed by the Album in April. The songs are all there they just need to get the final touch. The MCD will contain a 3 Versions of Gunman, an Instrumental and a Cover version. Instrumental and Coverversion will not appear on the new album.

Me-3. The sound of Funker Vogt has changed from album to album. What direction is Funker Vogt taking in terms of songwriting? How will the new album sound?
Kai-I think this time we have something for everybody, harsh industrial and also some songs which are a little smoother. But still we stay to our old traditions. Our old fans won't be disappointed and there should be also some songs for people which didn't liked our music too much.

Me-4. Has Funker Vogt ever thought of doing a song with Jens's voice undistorted, or has that been done already?
Kai-This won't happen on the new CD. But here we use quite a range of effects not only distortion.

Me-5. Did any of the members of FV and Ravenous have any formal music training?
Kai-Not really except you consider playin the flute or triangle in the kindergarten. Except of Tim, he went to the Scream Factory to evolve his singing capacity.

Me-6. You are the lyric writer of FV; have you ever thought of doing vocals on one or two songs?
Kai-Nope, maybe in my dreams, but not really. I am not a singer or performer on a stage. Once I had this nightmare that Jens became sick and I had to go on the stage. Everything went wrong and I was so happy to wake up and see that everything was just a dream.

Me-7. When FV performs live, there is no live drummer. Have you thought of using a live drummer when performing live?
Kai-Nope, cannot see a need for it. And it would just be too expensive. Right now our live crew has increased to ten persons. And we have to pay all these people and transport them to the concert. Getting a whole drum kit to the concert would be right now just too much of hassle. Maybe in the future, when we get enough money for a concert.


On to the side-projects-
Me-8. How did Fictional come about?
Kai-Gerrit was doing some songs which didn't fit for the other projects so after having four songs together, he decided to start a new project and worked on it. Means from this time he started to make songs for fictional on purpose.

Me-9. Who is part of Fictional?
Kai-That is only Gerrit, although I did most of the lyrics and Tim is performing as a guest musicians. But still that is Gerrit baby.

Me-10. The vocals are great in the Fictional album. Who is the vocalist for the band?
Kai-Gerrit is doing them, except for Dream of God and Blue Lights, that is Tim.

Me-11. How has the response been toward Fictional? Funker Vogt compared to Fictional?
Kai-Seems okay. It is just one release so hard to jugde. We got some songs on Compilation and they appear in the playlist quite regularly.

Me-12. When will the next Fictional album come out?
Kai-I don't know, don't even know if there will be another one. Right now we have to concentrate on Funker and Ravenous and maybe F11 as well.


Back to Funker Vogt-
Me-13. Is FV taking the Front Line Assembly route with multiple side-projects?
Kai-Seems almost like that, but no, at least not on purpose. But Gerrit is making his living out of the music, so he must have more than one project running. You cannot live by putting out a Funker CD once in while. And as he is not doing anything else, he has enough time to work on other projects.

Me-14. Regarding the records labels, will the new FV albums still be distributed by Metropolis records in America? And, is FV staying on Zoth Ommog, or are you going to sign with a different label?
Kai-Cannot say to much. Just that most likely there won't be another Funker Vogt release on Zoth. Staying with Metropolis is more likely but not 100% certain.

Me-15. This does not deal with FV, but has any German electro band won any type of music awards?
Kai-Don't know, depends on your definition of electro band. There are a lot of pop orientated e-bands which certainly have won awards. But if you consider only the underground electro szene, not that I know but still possible.

Me-16. Final question, where do you see FV in the next 5 to 10 years?
Kai-Up to now, it was getting better and better with each release. So I hope we can go on with this. I really hope that we can increase the amount of our fans.

I would like to thank Kai for taking the time to answer my questions.

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