"Krone" interview

Parov Stelar: “Linz deserves the Lido Sounds”

Cheers at the home game: Marcus Füreder aka Parov Stelar thrilled around 23,000 fans with his new show at Lido Sounds.

(Bild: Andreas Graf)

As a local hero, superstar Parov Stelar closed Lido Sounds on Friday evening with a brilliant set. In an interview with "Krone", he talked about the advantages and disadvantages of the home advantage, why he wasn't seen at festivals in the past and how he recently used ChatGPT.

"Krone": Parov, you've had a lot of big gigs in your life. What does the gig as a local hero at Lido Sounds in Linz mean to you?
Parov Stelar: A great pleasure, but I also felt a lot of nervousness. Playing at home has its own special flavor, you have to be able to hold your own. At least two beers more than usual. (laughs)

You adapted the program for that.
We worked for a long time to put together a completely new program for 2024, both acoustically and visually, which we performed in this form for the first time in Linz. A mixture of hits and unreleased songs. I wanted to take a contrary approach and present unreleased songs live for the first time. Song piracy with mp3 theft no longer exists, so I thought about what's important in the live business at the moment and what stands out from the digital madness that's currently flying around our ears. So we play six new songs.

Do you think it's important to organize such spectacles not only in Vienna, but also in cities like Linz?
Absolutely, and Linz more than deserves a festival like this. Linz is a technology city with the Ars Electronica Center and what could be more fitting than a festival like this. It still needs a bit of work to make sure it goes down well with people. Even if not everyone likes it, there will always be supporters and opponents, otherwise it will be boring.

You played your first home game in March at the completely sold-out Posthof in Linz. How does a huge gig like the one at Lido Sounds differ from a relatively intimate one like that?
Maybe we should commission a study of the different levels of nervousness. I was also very nervous at the Posthof because, on the one hand, it was a new program and, on the other, people were closer to me. You are more vulnerable. At a gig like the Lido, you feel a greater responsibility - also towards the organizer. When you look at everything that's been set up there - you don't pay for it out of petty cash. People pay a lot of money for a ticket and have earned the best show. You can't push certain thoughts away. But if you go in with a full heart, nothing can happen.

You've also been physically living in Linz again for some time now. Does that make the gig a different kind of home game?
Definitely. My daily routine was as follows: I took my son to school, picked him up again, cooked for him and then hung up the washing. (laughs) Very typical for such a big festival. I had to laugh about it myself, because that's very cool. I heard the Kings Of Leon the night before up to my place on the Pöstlingberg. I thought: "Very nice, tomorrow I'll be working there myself". (laughs)

Were you a festival animal when you were young?
That was so long ago, there were no festivals back then. (laughs ) My first concert was Michael Jackson when I was twelve. I was young 35 years ago. Were there festivals back then? I don't know. Concerts, yes. I think the Sziget Festival in Budapest was one of the very first.

You are also a painter and generally a very visual artist. Is this aspect becoming increasingly important in your overall music package?
Let's put it this way: a good quality painting is not automatically a good CD cover or poster. It has to be designed differently because it has to catch you. Visuals are important for every artist. There is a flood of new releases and I notice that most new acts lack a face and an image for success. A David Bowie didn't just make music, he was a guy as a whole. He was formed by his image, his look, his fashion, his music and also his interviews. With most acts today, people don't have a face to go with it - for that reason alone, visualization is immensely important.

Social media portals destroy a lot of the charm of the music. Do people want to see what their heroes are wearing at home in the morning?
You speak from my soul. But I wouldn't put that directly under visualization, even if it is the new form of it. This is another area where the big artists differ from the rest, because they think about how to deal with it and how to realize the theme. Let's stay with David Bowie: If he were still alive in 2024, he would still find a way for people to be interested in him without him presenting his fried egg in the morning. That's where the real artists differ from those who just follow what comes to them at the moment.

Do you first think about which song you're going to play during a stage show, or is it all about the visuals, which you overlay with the appropriate song? Or is everything in flux anyway?
Of course it's about the songs, they always come first. Gerd Schneider, who has been part of my team for almost 20 years, is mainly responsible for the visuals. On the one hand you have lighting, on the other video and you have to coordinate everything with each other. This is only possible if you have the final song list beforehand. You can build on that.

Your EP "KissKiss" is now 20 years old - so you can speak of 20 years of Parov Stelar as a success story. As an artist who is very much focused on the present and the future, how do you deal with such retrospectives?
When you have a 20-year-old child, it's out of the woods and you don't have to look after it as intensively as you used to. But if you have a newborn that needs all your attention at the same time, you put all your focus on it. You want to make it go. The anniversaries really get me down. We asked on ChatGPT how to deal with a 20-year anniversary without looking old. (laughs) There were great answers all round. As long as we don't sell heart blankets for merchandise, it's still okay with the anniversaries. (laughs)