What started as hip hop from the suburbs of Hamburg has grown into a phenomenon that is equal parts nihilist art experiment and hedonist party band. With flamboyant videos and big-budget stage spectaculars, Deichkind are challenging the pop aesthetic – German or otherwise.
Wheel met Philipp and Porky, longstanding Deichkind members and old school friends, at a coffee shop in Friedrichshain to ask them what they had to say to the English-speaking world.
By Ananda Pellerin and Victoria Ford
Philipp Grütering - We are Deichkind from Germany. We have a long history. We're superstars in Germany, also Austria and Switzerland.
Porky Codex - We have a little fan club in New York but we will never play there.
PG - We can't get out of our situation because we are too lazy to write English lyrics. We have one English song called You Got to Love Me:
You got to love me
I'll make you love me
That's it.
What kind of people go to your shows?
PG - Party kids from 16 to 25 who want to go crazy.
How long have you been doing this?
PC - We had our first top ten hit in 1999 in Germany.
PG - It was me and other people came and went but now we have six people on stage. Porky and I write the music and the lyrics.
PC - Then there's DJ Phono. We have a massive live show and we spend a lot on it.
PG - Our live shows are money burners. We have LED lights and pyramids and a big tank –
PC - and a mountain. We carry this around Germany all the time.
PG - DJ Phono is also developing a system where you can put 300 kilos of things and people on a plate and roll it over the stage in every direction. It has special wheels.
PC - That's why we are really famous but not rich, because all the money goes to this.
What are your songs about?
PG - They are about youth and representing, about chaos and reflecting reality.
PC - The last album was about destroying one’s self: alcohol, partying. But we want to get away from that.
PG - For example our most famous song, Remmidemmi, is about a rich kid whose parents go out and the lyrics are:
Your parents are gone
and you're having a party
Let's go!
Luftbahn is about love. It was a happy song but it turned –
PC - It's motivating!
PG - Yeah, it's motivating because the lyrics say stand up for love and don't cry.
The video for Luftbahn is full of musclemen and pyramids. It's not obvious that it's about love.
PC - It was always our idea to make a video we were not in.
PG - And it's also that Deichkind comes between mainstream and underground. Luftbahn is a really mainstream song, and then the video is...
PC - So mainstream that it's not.
PG - Everyone who knows us in Germany said, "why are you doing such a song?" We wanted to experiment with other genres so we did a pop song with a really strange video.
Do you come up with the visuals yourselves?
PG - DJ Phono does the visuals.
So you don't come from an art background?
PC - No.
Music?
PC - Yes, I've played bass and guitar for 15 years or so.
PG - He played with Ronan Keating!
PC - Shh, don't say that!
PG - It's good!
PC - It was just a TV show, a few gigs; I played for a lot of –
PG - I have it on video!
How has your music changed over time?
PG -In 2000 there was a big hype for rapping in Germany so we followed that. We were really normal Hamburg hip hop [?!]. We did that for two albums and had major deals with Universal. Then we got bored and had to do something. We decided to wear garbage bags and pyramid hats, I think it was 2003, and then we did Remmidemmi.
PC - We thought, “fuck it, we have a major deal, we'll take the money and run.” But this attitude was the key to our success.
PG - And this 'fuck off' style really astonished people. Many said, "Deichkind is over, they've gone crazy," and turned their backs on us, but some said, "wow they're so free, I can't believe it."
So what do you want to do next with Deichkind?
PG - Oh we always think about that, especially DJ Phono. He always asks us that.
PC - I'm just doing stuff and I don't think about it. I play guitar and I make music and I've made a job out of it without thinking about it.
What is your song Arbeit Nervt about?
PG - Works sucks! People who work don't want to work; they're sick of their jobs. We wanted to say, "even I am sick of my job as a rap star."
PC - So to answer your question, I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'm just here and I want to go on and I'm sick of this question.
Are you sick of being in the band?
PC - I'm just in the band and I wanna do my shit. I love it.
PG - Not always.
PC - Not always, but it's my triumph above working society. My parents said, "you wanna be a musician? That's bullshit." Well I'm not rich but I can live from it.
PG - We are always thinking about quitting the band but we're old and we have to go on.
You talk about ‘collabo-hustlers’, who are they?
PG - People who are annoying and want to do a collabo with you. They sneak backstage and say, "I have a studio and I'd like to make a track." We invented this word.
PC - We had a really bad collabo-hustler. This guy was like, "I have a connection with Wu-Tang Clan."
PG - But we knew he just wanted some bread from the table.
Is there anything else you want to say to your English-speaking audience?
PG - We are innovative, have a sense of humour, and we have a lot of discipline –
PC - We have masks and neon paint on our faces –
PG - We're successful, naïve, we make everything ourselves, and we want to think about what will happen in the future because of what happens now.
PC - I would like to say something to the English people: stay naïve and make money out of it. We are ready to come to England. And, I cannot understand how you can put Snickers into a deep fryer.
The visual feast that is the "so mainstream it's not" video for Luftbahn.
A glimpse at the garbage bag and pyramid chaos of a Deichkind live show
Deichkind. German superstars
