"Krone" interview

Wanda: “Want to run until we die”

For two years, Wanda faced setbacks and crises - now the core trio is once again looking optimistically towards a promising future.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Universal Music, Luis Engels)

The road to the new album "Ende nie" was the most arduous yet for Austropop heroes Wanda. However, personal setbacks and crises have given rise to a resilience and togetherness in the band that is second to none. In the big "Krone" talk, frontman Marco Wanda gives an insight into his emotional world, talks about his changed touring behavior, Bob Dylan in Austro music and his approach to esotericism.

"Krone": Marco, your guitarist Manuel Poppe has described the new album "Ende nie" as a kind of debut for Wanda. Apart from the tragic deaths of keyboarder and friend Christian Hummer and your father, is this also due to the fact that you have experimented and changed more musically than ever before?
Marco Wanda: It really does feel like a debut in terms of how it was made. It was the very first time that the three of us had made music together and everyone who has heard the album so far thinks it's good. That's not bad at all. (laughs)

The heaviness and emotionality of the first single "Bei niemand anders" (With Nobody Else) broke away a bit over the long haul of the album.
The songs were written over a period of about a year. In this respect, the record naturally has a kaleidoscope of emotions to offer, because nobody stays in the same mood for a year. A lot can change. For me, the album teeters between sadness and euphoria, there are many feelings side by side. It's not like "Nevermind" by Nirvana, where everything was created from one psychic cast and you realize that a certain feeling dominates the vibe. But it was never like that with us, all of our records have windows into a wide range of emotions.

Although on "Nevermind" there are huge differences between songs like "Territorial Pissings" or "Something In The Way".
Originally, however, the album was recorded with distorted guitars throughout. There's also an electric version of "Something In The Way" on the Internet, which is insane. The acoustic version that we hear on the album is just a drag.

During the year-long process of creating the album, did you realize early on that you were developing a lot as a band?
I realize before every record that it will sound different. Life moves on, time passes and you evolve. Every album is a blank slate and you can't really control where it goes from there. That uncertainty has been heightened by working with Zebo Adam as a producer for the first time. We didn't have a clear vision of what we wanted it to sound like. We just knew that we wanted to record it stripped down and clever and nothing should be over-arranged. We were constantly forcing each other to reduce sequences and focus on less. Until everything fitted together like cogwheels.

Reducing and leaving out the "fat" is certainly difficult for artistic work, because you want to implement all the thoughts and ideas in the best possible way.
It's not that difficult for me. (laughs) I've always liked to get to the heart of things.

Does the song "Kein Ende nie", which can be described as the title track, stand for the distant horizon in a positive sense, like the meaning of the album "Ende nie"?
That's always a matter of interpretation. After ten years, I still find it incredibly difficult to come up with my own interpretation of my lyrics. In the end, they are just texts.

Do the levels of meaning in your texts change over time?
I am not a writer. I read interviews with female writers and I am so impressed by how they master their own literary meridian like a map. You always get the feeling that they have a kind of interpretative authority over their work. As a musician I don't have that and ultimately lyrics are a supply to find melodies. A lot of what I compose is like Herbert Grönemeyer: the lyrics come into play very late and at the beginning I just hum along or have a kind of fantasy language that leads to the melody. My relationship to my lyrics is practically non-existent. As soon as I've written them, they no longer exist. When I'm on stage, they have already become music when I sing them. I then feel the music and not the meaning of the lyrics. Only very occasionally with some lines that really mean a lot to me.

Your fans and listeners in particular draw a lot from your lyrics and interpret them meticulously.
That makes me happy. Anything that stimulates the mind in this cultural wasteland is wonderful. (laughs)

In the song "F*** YouTube" you celebrate the good old CD in a subordinate clause. Is this linked to personal nostalgia, or a hidden message that you shouldn't just be guided by playlists and AI algorithms, but should let yourself fall into whole albums in peace?
Each of us has an insignia by which we measure how the times we live in are changing. For me, that was the moment when I realized that CD players were slowly being removed from cars. That's when I realized that the world has changed a lot and I can no longer deny it. (laughs) I grew up with CDs and I really regret their disappearance. I associate a lot of my childhood with them and still enjoy listening to them in my private life.

I've been told that you shouldn't give up your CD collection because the tracks might one day become as valuable to collectors as vinyl records.
Really? I can't imagine the CD making a comeback. It's too bulky and too big as a data carrier. Kids want to carry their whole lives in their pockets. I don't think we'll ever see people walking around with a Discman again - even if it would be cool.

Is your relationship with YouTube ambivalent?
Not at all. The song is a tribute to YouTube. After all, we're singing about the word itself, which says a lot. I've heard that the song is blocked and not allowed on YouTube. But the song isn't about YouTube, it's about someone being in a situation where someone else is playing a song on the platform and this song triggers the person. They can't stand the song right now and therefore say "Fuck YouTube". But that's not a general attack on YouTube, especially as we're one of the last bands to spend their entire promo budget on videos. We shoot such expensive music videos and have been feeding YouTube with one masterpiece after another for ten years.

Is this love of music videos also rooted in your childhood? Because you still belong to the "MTV generation"?
At the beginning of my career, I was shocked that music videos were part of the overall band context because I always thought they sucked. I found it very difficult to translate the medium of music to the medium of video. But I have a great love for film in general and found my way into it as a kind of cineaste. In our videos, I can express myself as a kind of "hobby director".

In the context of the song "F*** YouTube" - which song can you no longer listen to yourself because it triggers you so much?
It's a mystery that will be solved if you listen to the record in the right order. I won't give it away, but Swifties would unravel it now. (laughs)

After the famous single "Bei niemand anders", there is another incredibly emotional piano ballad on the album, "Ich hör dir zu", which goes straight to the heart. Why did it take so long for the combination of Marco Wanda and the piano to finally come more into focus?
Well, we had a keyboardist and pianist in Christian for ten years. Since this position was vacant, I wanted and had to fill it. That has brought me a lot as a musician. I've really warmed to the piano and think it's a great instrument that allows you to express yourself in a completely different way to an electric guitar. An electric guitar is either an electric phallus or the gateway to a mediocre ballad - there's very little in between as a songwriter. For real guitarists, there is of course a broader palette for expressing themselves. But the piano opens up completely different avenues for me. I can work on keys in a completely different way and I learned the piano as a child.

Both songs consist of an incredibly intense emotion that is transported. Is the ballad something like the supreme discipline of rock'n'roll?
The ballad and the anthem are the absolute supreme disciplines. "We Are The Champions" or "The Show Must Go On" by Queen, for example. It's not easy, you don't write something like that for breakfast.

Although, according to you, the single "With Nobody Else" came together magically quickly.
The final strike did, but for me every song has several lives beforehand. A lot of songs are originally ten numbers that I condense into one. "Bei niemand anders" also had a few other variations and, interestingly, it started on the guitar. I was stuck there, so I went to the piano, where the song finally developed.

Do you need ballads and solemn numbers to be able to convey more depth in the songs in the end?
That's a good question. If you want people to boogie and laugh, then no. If you want people to cry, you have to sit down at the piano. It touches the heart in a completely different way, even a songwriter himself. It's very difficult to sit down with a guitar and write something that makes me personally cry. The fact that a song moves me personally is an important selection criterion. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't even show the song to Manu or Ray.(laughs)

That's the last point of certainty. The intimate moment when you finish a song in your own home and soul. After that, every single step is only carried by doubt, uncertainty and a feeling of inadequacy. I don't want to overdramatize that because it doesn't affect the quality of life. It's just a process of my life, writing songs. If everyone likes it and they sing along to it live at some point, then you know the idea wasn't bullshit.(laughs)

But don't you focus on the initial certainty when you get unsure?
Yes of course, you always have to think back to those moments with yourself. If you couldn't do that, you would never show a song to others. My goal isn't to do something outstanding, because it's enough for me if it's not shit. As soon as I realize that, I'm satisfied.

Do you sometimes experience bitter setbacks internally? That ideas that you thought were very acceptable are rejected by the others after all?
So far not really, but four songs were thrown out for this record when we realized in the studio that they weren't good enough. It wasn't no shit, so out with it. (laughs)

On "F*** YouTube" you sing about Mercury retrograde, otherwise stars, the sky and the horizon come up again and again. Are astronomical and astrological themes particularly appealing to you as songwriting metaphors?
Personally, I'm not an esoteric person at all, but I'm inspired by people who have access to esotericism. There is nonsense esotericism, then there is esotericism that exploits its audience emotionally and financially, but there is also ancient esotericism that belongs to humanity and not to a conspiracy publisher.(laughs) This esotericism inspires me, because it would be there to support us if we needed it. But for me personally, it's not enough support. When I hear a term like Mercury retrograde, I always imagine us humans as a forest with its crown reaching openly into the sky, waiting to be influenced. Or trying to explain something with a supposed constellation that they don't understand. The basic assumption of esotericism is that you are not responsible for all your emotions and actions because something is influencing you. Even if you don't know what it is.

In the deepest sense, this is a release from a great deal of responsibility, a relief. We humans definitely need that and I think it's very okay as long as it remains harmless. But my view of life is completely different. I have the feeling that I am responsible for absolutely everything that happens to me and nothing happens for no reason. Unless I get run over by a streetcar. Then I might have an unconscious suicidal urge, but I don't think so. Fate can break into life very brutally from the outside. Esotericism doesn't help me that much as an explanatory model.

Does your attitude also mean that you retrace and question everything that happens to you?
Where necessary, yes. If an interpersonal relationship is in tatters, then I have to ask myself what responsibility I bear for it and what I did to allow it to get this far. Apart from that, I don't ask myself too many questions - except whether the washing will dry in time before the tour. That's been one of the most important questions for more than ten years. (laughs)

But questioning yourself about things that didn't go smoothly is worth a lot. I would say that not that many people do that in reality.
The album process taught me to question myself. The four of us had very interesting interpersonal dialogs with producer Zebo in the studio, where I really learned a lot.

In your lyrics, you seem to question a lot of things and see things from a mature, adult perspective. Is the quick thrill of things in life really no longer so important? Do we need more depth now, as the song "Therapie" also suggests?
Yes, indeed. These are life issues for me, also in relation to our career. The band got to the top so quickly and it went up so fast, you had to process that first. There is this eternally boring and yet so significant image of marathon vs. sprint. What we do has to be a marathon, not a sprint. In a sprint you exhaust yourself and you could run a marathon for decades, that would be great. It's not about winning, but we want to run until we die. (laughs)

Conversely, does that mean that you as a band no longer live as fast as you did a few years ago?
That's no longer possible. If only because the concerts have shifted so that we play fewer but bigger shows. About five or six years ago, the hype was more of a calculated booking of small venues so that the queue would form from the city center to Floridsdorf. As a result, we played so much that I get dizzy when I think about it. I recently watched the Lil' Peep documentary again. He went so far that he died on tour and I understood that.

When you play 180 shows a year under the most terrible indie conditions, full of power and without rest, it can quickly become dangerous. I'm incredibly happy that this sprint is over. Our whole working environment has changed. Everything is now set up so that it can happen for longer and there's more maturity. As cool as it is that rock'n'roll is a bit dangerous, it's not so cool in the middle anymore. (laughs) When you're young, the lifestyle still works somehow. The amount of drugs, alcohol and impressions your body can sweat out at a certain age is impressive.

But you can definitely be described as a bon vivant who enjoys a glass of wine and doesn't say no to the next cigarette.
I like to sit and let my mind wander. If that defines a bon vivant, then yes, I am one.

Doesn't life on tour have to get healthier as you get older?
As I said, it's more biology that makes everything healthier. This body can no longer hold a bottle and a half of booze. If that were still possible, there's a very good chance that I would continue to do it. (laughs) But there came a point in my life when I realized that it was no longer possible. Fortunately.

Back to "therapy" - for many people, just being creative is enough to make them feel better. Can that really be enough, or should you also seek professional help?
I had a fascinating moment with my own therapist. She told me: "Therapy is not for everyone". (laughs) I went around the press for a year explaining to everyone how important therapy is and then she tells me that. Since then, I don't know if I should talk so much about therapy. (laughs) But I also found it kind of relieving. It can be so much therapy. It's an intimate, personal and very individual thing. In some areas of life, therapy can be a good first step, but not a solution. Then again, there are phases of life where a good vacation or an evening with a friend is better. In my life, making music is a kind of permanent self-therapy. It always has been.

In the studio and on this record, we as a band have processed the grief of the last few months. During the last few interviews, however, I noticed that the threshold from processing to re-traumatization is quickly crossed if I talk about it too much. At some point, it's no longer good to deal with these things too much. For me, everything has actually been said about the personal themes on this record. When I read through more recent interviews, I was shocked by myself. Am I so ruthlessly honest or hopelessly naive? Or both? I no longer see the greatest need to talk about the background to the record.

That's difficult for you because you have to talk about a record in these days and weeks that deals intensively with topics such as death and grief ...
That remains an interesting problem for me. I don't have the greatest desire to talk about it, but I get asked about it a lot. But that's part of it and you have to find a personal way of dealing with it. I don't think much of putting up certain barriers in press work. You have to answer for what you do. But you also have to find a way of dealing with it yourself. Are you still comfortable with it and does it benefit the public? I have the feeling that everyone already knows how "Ende nie" came about and that everyone has long since taken something for themselves or not. I don't know if there is any added value. From now on, the music and the album speak for themselves. It deserves to be heard because it's not just about death and loss.

Apart from the interviews, do you fear that some of the songs might retraumatize you? After all, they are very personal, intimate and direct.
Not that. For me, our music is simply soothing. I really enjoy listening to the record myself, which wasn't always the case. I was recently back in the studio where the album was made and I was standing in the place where I had sung everything. That was an intense moment and I immediately thought to myself that I don't necessarily have to stand here every day. But it was a nice trip because we had great conversations. 80 percent was conversation and 20 percent was making music. That's how it should be. Music isn't everything, it's also about developing personally through this work.

Has "Ende nie" changed the three of you as core band members and the close-knit team around you in the long term?
That's a process that has been going on for two years. "Ende nie" was a building block in our growth as a group, but what we've been doing for two years now is talking to each other as best we can. For ten years, the Wanda train traveled at such a high speed that the wind became so loud that we could no longer understand each other's words. Now that we are taking a break at certain stages of our lives, we understand what we are saying and learn to communicate with each other. It's a process that stays with us and doesn't go backwards. You can't explain it at any point. Neither in a band structure, nor in friendships, relationships or in the family.

Does the song "Ich hör dir zu" speak to this? Putting oneself aside, recognizing the needs and wishes of others and maturing oneself in the process?
The "I" in this song lyric has a certain grandeur because it admits that someone else knows better. There is a certain greatness in not being right. It's become fashionable to always be right everywhere - we've all wanted that for a few years now. It wasn't like that for a long time, but now it's overflowing. We are competing with a lot of interpretation systems such as Google, with groups and movements that claim to have found the truth or with radical thought patterns from outside. Ultimately, this can only trigger an inferiority complex in all of us. We try to be right where we can be right. What's left to be right. (laughs)

Are there any areas in your life where you are always right or at least believe you are right?
No, not really. Maybe in the series "Columbo", I know my way around that very well. (laughs) I studied the Celts for a while and scientists are still puzzling over why they disappeared. If we don't know that, why should we know anything else? (laughs) But I've never been interested in the supposed truth, I find the discourse more exciting. I'm more interested in what others think.

Isn't it also about putting up with things? As you have to in a democracy, even if you don't like some things?
Let's put it this way - the social pact works and we are still a democracy after all. We can still tolerate dissent, different opinions, ideologies and views. But under no circumstances should we play with them and should not put them at risk.

Has the process of questioning yourself become more important to you?
Since I realized that I am responsible for everything that happens to me, I am also responsible for everything I do or do to someone else.

You've also experimented a lot vocally and in some songs you sound in a way that people aren't used to hearing from you. Was that a conscious step for this album?
This is certainly due to the fact that I have many more opportunities to change scales on the piano. I sing very softly when composing and then realize in the studio that I'm often too high. Perhaps this results in a broad spectrum of singing.

Are you sometimes surprised in retrospect at what your voice is capable of?
That's a good question. Probably yes. It's totally amazing for me to make an album. It's the sixth record we've made and it still surprises me that it sounds good and it's not shit. I'm happy that we've come so far and have six albums whose quality I can't doubt. There are certainly a few bad moments, but on the whole it's all absolutely fine.

(Bild: Luis Engels)

In the song "Immer OK" you sing "there's nothing wrong with being like us" - is that the Wanda "us"?
That's the typical Wanda projection momentum. The listeners have to decide for themselves which We is meant. I don't want to get in the way with the interpretative sovereignty of a writer, the lyrics don't just belong to me.

The songs "Immer OK" and "Niemandem was schuldig" are also musically connected at the end. There is a direct bridge between the two songs.
That was Manu's idea, which we didn't have at the beginning. We were all very enthusiastic because it flows nicely. The part at the end has something of a symphony about it. The Beatles once wanted to make an album so that it was all one song, but they never realized it.

You can definitely say that the Beatles have taken up their space again on the new record.
The Beatles are omnipresent in all music that was made after 1963. (laughs) I still recognize them in our music too. There's also a lyrical homage to Oasis in the booklet - a little Easter egg. Maybe there are more things like that to discover and maybe one day I'll write a book of revelations about all the hidden clues on our albums.

The beginning of "Ich hör dir zu" even reminded me a bit of Gert Steinbäckers masterpiece "Großvater" ...
Interesting. I'm always happy when you hear something typically Austrian in our music. I doubt whether there ever was such a thing as typical Austrian music or whether the whole of Austropop wasn't ultimately a collective attempt to be Bob Dylan. (laughs) Nobody can take away the wordplay that we and many of our colleagues in Austria have. It comes from the Viennese song and from Jewish wit, the Jewish pursuit of wisdom. For me, that is typically Austrian. Not losing your sense of humor in a sometimes appalling world - even if it's gallows humor at worst.

Would it be conceivable for you to be an active member of a contemporary version of Austria 3?
Phew, I don't think that's necessary. There was that and that's it. I think the development of the Viennese song is in wonderful hands with artists like Nino aus Wien or Voodoo Jürgens. Find singer personalities and figures like Ambros, Danzer and Fendrich. There is a reason why this constellation has this status. It happens once every 100 years and it hasn't been that long. (laughs) What nobody can take away from us as a generation is that we have all made music history. We'll see if it lasts. This music still has many good years ahead of it and I'm very excited to see what comes next. We're all rich and old and saturated now. (laughs) At some point the next generation will have to take over, that's life.

Is it a serious concern of yours that you might degenerate into an archivist of your own creativity in the distant future? The first best-of is often such a sticking point for a band ...
I don't worry about that. I just want to be able to carry on doing it, as long as it's all good. It never goes without saying. In order to do it like this, a lot of things always have to work, be right and remain coherent. It's a hell of a lot of work to be able to make music at this level - but it's also a lot of fun.

Wanda live in Austria
Wanda live can be celebrated a few more times in Austria this year. On June 23, Marco Wanda and Co. are headlining the Vienna Danube Island Festival with free admission. On July 19, they will play in Graz's Freiluftarena B, on August 2 at the Szene Open-Air in Lustenau, on August 30 at the Kufstein Fortress and on December 21 they will once again play a big Christmas show in the Wiener Stadthalle. Tickets and all further information about the top shows can be found at www.oeticket.com.