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Pleasures Remain was founded in June, 2000. Heike of Pleasures Remain was kind
answering the following questions.
Please tell me something about the
history of Pleasures Remain.
Where did you meet and how long has Pleasures Remain existed?
We've known each other for a long time within the electronic
music scene in our area. We also knew the type of music that
each one of us liked and we knew that everyone was making
music on their own. So, every time we met we always talked
about music and our projects and the stuff we produced. As
time went on we became friends and in the mid of 2000 a well
known band, friends of ours, spontaneously asked us to support
their gig as an opening act with a few songs at the Matrix in
Bochum, Germany. We accepted without thinking twice. So we
went to the 'secret sunflower garden', that's the name of
Matthias's studio at home and produced 6 songs. We put all the
ideas we produced on our own together and so it was possible
to finish the songs within a short time. So we played our
first gig as Pleasures Remain. It was planned as a
one-gig-project. But the gig was brilliant and we decided to
go on with it and now here we are looking forward to making
something special....
What are you doing when you aren't
investing your time in music?
Do you have other jobs, university? If so, which ones?
Everyone of us works full-time. Matthias works as an
IT-Manager, Ralph works as a Logistics Manager and Heike works
as an assistant at an administration office. So we are
financially independent and safe. We enjoy making music
without any pressure and we are able to produce that kind of
music we like, without looking for trends, hopefully earning
money with our music.
Do you also think about using German
lyrics instead of English?
Yes, we do. We are a German band, so it's obvious that we
sometimes use German lyrics. But it's very difficult. We're
producing pop-songs, so it's hard with German lyrics. Most of
the time our songs sounds like 'Schlager', the German kind of
'Country Music' with German lyrics. This sucks, so most of the
time we use English lyrics as you can see and hear. But
occasionally we play some melancholy songs live with German
lyrics, so the listener is able to hear the difference and the
approach works much better with that kind of song.
What are the sources of your lyrics?
Own experiences, disaffection with existing situations or pure
fiction?
A little bit of everything. In principle it depends on several
things. Personal temper, incidents we deal with and memories
as well. The idea for lyrics depends also on the kind of song.
When you're writing and / or producing a song there's always a
special atmosphere around you, which inspires you in a way
outside your control. So the melody gives you the lyrics, if
you know what we mean. The life you live is full of surprises
and occurrences and so you always find something to sing about
very easily.
Why have you decided to make
electronic music?
We mostly listened to electronic music during our youth, so
this kind of music had the biggest influence on each one of
us. Furthermore it is the easiest and best way to express our
moods and inner feelings. The variety of sounds gives you the
possibility and flexibility to find the common ground between
severity and coldness, warmth and romanticism. And if you want
you can make the songs sound like a rock song or like an
orchestra very easily. In a manner of speaking you have
unlimited possibilities.
You make real good melodic music with
an 'eighties' hook. Who inspires your music?
That's much too broad a statement. There are so many songs and
bands you hear and love over the years. We grew up in the 80s,
that's not a secret. We are inspired naturally through all
that stuff we've listened to all our lives. That's all,
nothing more. So we are not focused on a special band or
anything else. In the end we are inspired through many kinds
of music. You can start with A as ABBA to Z as ZweiRaumwohnung,
a German ElectroClash Project. How far these bands have
influenced our music, it's up to you and everybody else to
find out. At the moment we are inundated with lots of cover
versions of eighties songs. What do you think about covering
songs? If we cover a song, our demand is to reach at least the
quality of the original, or even make it better than the
original ('better' in our opinion). We can't achieve this aim
in our opinion, so we leave it >alone. It's a real shame, that
a lot of artists feel the need to produce cover versions. It
seems that they have no ideas at all. Isn't it sad? And if you
listen to these cover version, you better turn the radio or TV
off. Most of them are so bad, so we don't want to produce
another one. It's ok if you try to improve a bad song by a
cover version, but don't do this with the classics. However we
did try a cover version, but without success in our opinion.
So we do this just for fun for ourselves, not for an official
release.
Which audience do you want to reach
with your music?
We're making electronic pop music, so we want to reach as many
people as we can. We just want to make good music. If the
people like our music, that's great. We don't make music for a
group of people like the electronic SynthPoP fans, but for
everyone. Also our parents enjoy our music, really. But most
of the people, who listen to our music, are the same age as we
are, maybe a little bit younger, even those people who listen
to this kind of music most frequently. Surely we would be
surprised if the majority of our audience members were teens
or groupies, but that's very improbable!
Is it very important for you to play
live and feed off the audience?
Yes of course! Our first gig was like the foundation of
Pleasures Remain. We need the contact to the audience, we
really enjoy the time on stage, because we sort of get instant
gratification. This means, we get direct feedback, whether the
audience likes our music or not. That is what we miss at the
studio, so we're really glad to perform live as often as we
can. And in the end it's always fun to be on stage.
Do you think that Synthpop music has
any chance to exist beside the commercial German Soul and
Hip-Hop scene?
Good music always has a prospect of success and will survive
all trends. You can read in several online-magazines that
SynthPoP is dead or will be dying within the next few years.
What a lot of rubbish! The problem overall is that everyone is
trying to categorize music. SynthPoP is still alive, it's not
mainstream as it was in the eighties, but it's still alive,
not in the charts and the big clubs, but everywhere you can
find a place where you can listen to this kind of music. The
biggest problem is the major labels. They decide what's trendy
and what's not and they have the power of influencing the big
music TV stations. So it's easier for them to import Hip-Hop
and Soul from overseas, than to invest in new bands from the
local market. There're a few German acts in this genre, but
most of them started at small labels, bought up by the big
ones. In addition to that the Majors produce dance acts, most
of the time covering music from the eighties and also Boy- and
Girl-Groups. Most of these artists have never even seen an
instrument. But surprisingly and fortunately there's a new
subculture growing within the SynthPoP genre and bands like
Kosheen, 2raumwohnung, Tok Tok etc. reached the charts. But
the music experts don't call this music SynthPoP, oh it's
Electro-Clash!
What are your plans for the future?
Will you release a full length album under a real label?
That's not the first time we've been asked this question. The
fact is, that we're not sure how we can produce a full length
album in the near future. If we do, it has to sell to some
extent. But we're basically unknown, so there's no demand at
this time. But we're working on our level of awareness. And we
think about it sometimes, but it depends on so many things,
which are out of our control. At this time we are looking
forward to playing some gigs within the next month, that's
very important for us. We're still writing new songs, so every
concert will be different from the one before in regards to
the set list. Creativity is great, if you get respect for your
work from all sides. Last but not least we want to say
something about the labels. Out there, there are so many
"labels", that we're not really sure what their intention or
their function is. Most of them are nothing more than a
distribution center (if that). If you ask them what the
function of their label is (like promotion, marketing and
manufacturing, studio and CD production costs), they tell you
that you have to do this on your own. So we say, thanks a lot,
we do the whole thing on our own anyway, therefore we don't
need a label. And it works! The only problem is the label
code, so you get no airplay at radio. But we're not really
sure that anyone has been interested in playing our songs on
the radio anyway, until now. So we're reaping the benefit of
the work on our own. That's nice. Besides this, we're always
looking forward to what will happen in the future.
That's all. Thank you very much for the interview, live long and prosper!
Lets enjoy the below MP3s from their promo CD-single "Waste My Time".
The copyright in these sound-files is owned by Pleasures Remain, Germany. For all files I got
the exclusive authorization of Pleasures Remain. All sound-files are
only for private use. Any commercial distribution and copy is prohibited.
| Releases |
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Waste My Time (promo) - 2002
(read the review click here)
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