Interview: Mouse On Mars

We’ve discovered that the diet of a Mouse On Mars consists mainly of paradoxes and ironies. Thus, it is not surprising that the fecal secretion of such a displaced creature would consist of wonderfully absurd gems of futuristic pop.
Ask how they feel about the electronica genre after 15 years in which they themselves played a pioneering role in the progression of the art form, and Jan St. Werner sneers his objection to the very question, “We’re not too interested, to be honest. As a genre, I don’t think it’s very rewarding.” He emphasizes that MOM uses electronic equipment – samplers, sequencers, synths, midi triggers and so on – as tools to make their own style of music. Indeed, MOM members have crafted careers manipulating these instruments for various audio projects: beyond MOM, the three members variously produce music for films, installations, orchestral performances and more.

Jan elaborates, “There is so much you can do without having to get a facelift every three years to make it to number one on Billboard… If you do something that is weirder, more absurd, more edgy, you are more likely to get invited these days to travel abroad, perform your thing, your special view, maybe to a small audience of sometimes even only 30 people, but you can travel and you can make a living from it… Now everyone thinks that everything has to look like MTV and everything has to have that particular R&B beat to it or electro-clash make-up and these little adjustments to make it fashionable and then you can make it… but it’s not like this at all… Chances have grown so much in minor, very absurd, very idiosyncratic areas, and I think that’s what we represent in a way. We’re not like Kraftwerk. We don’t have to maintain our status no matter what; we don’t have to make our “Showroom Dummies” at some point to make us recognizable. We can just come up with whatever and we will be fine.”

Ask them about why Germany has been such a rich breeding ground for early electronic music and again, they push their response to the extreme limit: projecting as far back as the prehistoric origin of music before admitting that for electronic music, on an intellectual and, to a certain extent, commercial level there was a certain competition between France and Germany on who was first. Jan highlights early German electro-acoustic composers and music theorists Karlheinz Stockhausen and Herbert Eimert, as well as the output of WDR Studios. Germany was also where some of the earliest synthesizers were invented, like the Trautonium in 1929. Yet, eventually, Jan confesses, “As a kid, I hated electronic music. We were into guitar music basically.” Andi adds, “I just listened to my father’s records, like Gershwin and The Kinks.” It turns out that this is what the Goethe Institut desired in a headliner for this edition of the festival: a visceral, manual performance of innovative music, where man subjugates machine and not the other way around.

Ask MOM about food however, and we get a straightforward response. Andi and Jan first met each other at a health food store, and surprise, surprise, they love Indian food. Jan praised enthusiastically, “We eat it for breakfast. I want it before I go to sleep, and I want it when I wake up.” Unfortunately, it seems Jan’s stomach still had some adjusting to do to our local environment, and Jan fell sick the next day. Although a follow-up MOM set at Turquoise Cottage as planned was not possible, Andi and Dodo obliged a couple dozen digital music enthusiasts and budding electronic music producers to a workshop. For about an hour, they generously responded to questions as specific as what software they use (lots of different stuff) and how they use it (very brutally) to vague questions about “inspiration” and “aesthetics” (just use your ears). They seemed just as curious about the workshop participants’ fascination with electronic music as the participants were with Andi and Dodo, who got a taste of the old school guru treatment, respect.

We hope Jan got well soon enough to enjoy the rest of the Subcontinent tour. Look forward hopefully, not just to more Mouse On Mars gigs in India, but many more Indo-German cultural exchanges of the independent flavor.

Mouse On Mars played the Goethe Institut on March 21, 2009. We were there.