Interview with Kai Schmidt - by Apostasia Magazine
This interview is courtesy of Apostasia Magazine. Since this is not my interview, if you want to use it please email them and ask for their permission. Visit Apostasia Magazine.

What is currently happening in the Funker Vogt camp?
We are quite busy, working on new Funker Vogt releases and as well on our other projects. Then we wanna play one or two more shows this year, but only festivals, no single gigs. What else can I tell you, actually that is all what's going on right now. And we certainly thinking all the time of our future, we dont wanna stand still, always think of ways how we can improve everything, our live show as well as our upcoming songs. We wanna reach more and more people with every release and up to now this was working quite well. And we are planning to do a small US-tour, we went over to the States for two shows two months ago and it all went quite well, we have really cool fans over there, so we wanna do more shows there.

But how do you think you'll be able to reach more fans when, as far as I know, most promotion is into the EBM scene where you are really known already? Would it be interesting if your labels tried to promote you in other "extreme/alternative" scenes?
That would be very interesting, and as I already said, we are always thinking of our future and of new ways how we can improve our music, so that we can keep our old fans and reach new ones as well. So I can promise there is still a lot what we can do and will do to keep our fans dancing.

There is a new double CD coming out, what is there to tell about this one?
Ok, the new CD will inlcude four sections and this will be also reflected in the artwork, we have one maincover and 4 single covers for every single part of our whole concept. The box will be called "t". That is quite simple but this should reflect the continous process we are working at and also the whole concept of the CD. "t" is the physical symbol for time and as our last release was called "Maschine Zeit" which means machine time, this should symbol the close relation to our last CD. 3 parts of our upcoming double cd box will contain remixes from "Maschine Zeit" and 1 part will contain 4 completely new tracks. The four parts will be called "NeuZeit" (the 4 new songs), "MaschinenZeit" (pretty harsh stuff for the dancefloor), "TraumZeit" (soft versions of our songs, dreamy and spherical) and the last part is "EndZeit" (remixes done by other artists: Das Ich, Noisex, Beborn Beton, And One, Lame Immortale)

And if I got it right there will also be a new MCD released within a not too distant future, which is supposed to contain some computer game!
Yes this is right, we will take "Subspace", most likely the first song on CD one of our box. "Subspace" is the name of the video game, for which we produced this song. The game is an online game, a deathmatch, where everybody is playing against each other. Actually we planned to put a playable demo of the game on our MCD, but this will not work as it is a multi user game, so we decided to put a video-track for "Subspace" on the CD containing scenes of the game. I am really curious how this will look like.

Which label are these CD's going to be released through?
Bloodline and Metropolis. We stick to our past.

You haven't performed in Scandinavia as far as I know. Why is that?
We did play on the Arvika festival (Synth/Alternative festival with countless bands if you didn't know - ed) in Sweden last year and that was pretty cool. We wanna be back, but it is always a question of time and certainly money. Right now we travel with a crew of 12 persons, and we have to pay them all. But I think we can arrange a small Scandinavian tour in the near future. The crowd at the Arvika festival was just great.

How do you do when you perform live? Do you have the music on DAT as most electro bands use to have, or do you perform some of the music live?
Certainly we have it on DAT, the only other option would be using a sequencer, which has almost the same effect in the end but the DAT is saver. The music is too complex, you certainly know that it is impossible to play everything live, but we certainly play live as well. Both our keyboarders really play during the show and the guitarist as well, so I would say we are a real live band. It would just be too boring only pretending playing live, although I know some other bands do so.

Remixes is of course a belowed subject in the electro scene, and Funker Vogt has done quite a few up through the years! Do you know how many you been doing all in all?
I would say about twenty, but cannot come up with the actual number.

What is it in doing remixes that you enjoy?
It is the possibility to put your own mark on a song from a different band, and it is also the challenge to give this song a new perspective, to do a new interpretation, I wouldnt say to make it better as this is subjective, but to turn in in something new almost as good as the original.

When you remix other band's songs, is it the bands themelves that approach you or is done by your own initiative?
It depends but mostly the bands approach us, or we suggest a remix exchange.

Funker Vogt has undoubtedly a very extreme sound. Never been interested in doing something a bit more easy listened and overly catchy, just to see how it would be?
Wait for our new release and you might be surprised! But actually this is kind of a trademark for a Funker Vogt song, and we really don't wanna change this too much in the future. If we wanna do something more easy listened and overly catchy we will do it with our other projects.

How is the new material different from your previous music then?
Just wait and see :) It is just something new and a little bit different, we worked with new vocal effects again, and the music also got a bit more complex, but still danceable. But I have to say that these 4 new song are not an example of what the next CD will look like. It's just a link between the old CD and what will come.

Are you open for majorly different music personally, or do you stick to electronic music?
The Funker members and the live crew come from really different music styles. Gerrit comes from the electronic music, Jens used to listen Hardcore guitar music but got used to electronics right now. Our live guitarist is also playing in a ska band. So you see we are pretty open to different styles.

Despite the extreme and uncompromising sound, fans in the electro industrial underground claims that you are on a very mainstream level and just putting out albums in order to make some cash. Do you have a response to these rather silly comments?
All I can say to this is that we do the music we like, if people think it is already mainstream that is up to them. If we would be into it just for the money, I think we would make other music. There are easier ways to make money with music than doing Electronic Body Music or whatever you may call it. We stick to our roots and always try to improve our music and go new directions but not forgetting were we came from.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to hear Ravenous. How is this project different from Funker Vogt?
Oh it is very much different, especially the older releases. It is the calmer and maybe as well the darker side of us, whereas fictional goes more towards real, but hard synthypop.

I would like to thank Apostasia Magazine for the interview.

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