"Krone" interview

Niedecken: “Bob Dylan is a polymath”

A career of his own that sometimes refers to Bob Dylan: Wolfgang Niedecken

(Bild: Tina Niedecken)

Wolfgang Niedecken wrote German rock history with his band BAP. Today, he pays homage to his great hero Bob Dylan with his "Dylan Journey" and pianist Mike Hertung in the Mozart Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus. We met him in advance for breakfast to talk in detail about his relationship with "His Bobness".

"Krone": Wolfgang, your performance tonight at the Vienna Konzerthaus as part of your "Dylan Journey" is the very last after more than 100 concerts including a reading. An appropriate setting?
Wolfgang Niedecken: During Corona, I was finally able to write the Dylan book for the Kiwi music literature series, where artists write about those artists who have impressed them the most. I wrote very subjectively, because nobody needs a ten-thousandth biography. When the book was in print, the Hamburg Literature Festival called me to ask if I would like to do something at the Elbphilharmonie to celebrate Dylan's 80th birthday. So I wanted to read something from the book and sing a few songs in English or Kölsch - the world languages have nothing in common. (laughs) But I didn't want to do it alone, so I called my old friend Mike Herting, who I've known longer than BAP has been around. He's the pianist for special occasions and was immediately keen. So we developed the program, but when we were finished with it, we knew that one gig wouldn't be enough. So we called concert organizers and had a few dates put together - which turned into more than 100 events. It all developed organically, without a lot of pomp and fanfare. It started with Corona, social distancing and masks, and people enjoyed the music. Everything felt so warm and nice - as if they were in my garden. My main job is still with BAP. Let's see where it all goes from here.

After all, the "Dylanreise" is taking you to Vienna. You've already performed here and there with BAP, but relatively infrequently and on a smaller scale.
We can't go to Vienna with the production we're touring with in Germany as BAP - we always pay extra for that. The last few times we came with small cutlery and adapted a bit, but of course we're bigger at home.

Is the "world language Kölsch" a bit too strange for Austrians?
No, but I think that's also because Vienna is closer to Hungary and the Czech Republic than Germany. What's more, you Viennese have your own scene in my sector, from which you have also learned. Ludwig Hirsch, Wolfgang Ambros and co. We got to know them all in the early 70s, when we weren't even thinking about performing with BAP. A guy from my former girlfriend's shared flat told me that there was a guy in Vienna who made music similar to ours - and then he dug out the album "Hoffnungslos" by Wolfgang Ambros, on which our long-time drummer Jürgen Zöller played. It's still my favorite album by him. It's melancholic and pessimistic. The Viennese tend to do that, whereas the people of Cologne are more cheerful. But the Viennese like to party just as much, only perhaps a little darker.

Like you, Ambros and Hirsch were very close to Bob Dylan and admired him. Did you also talk about Dylan among the "Dylanologists"?
I got to know Georg Danzer far too late. I always thought he was very arrogant, but when I met him for the first time, he was incredibly sweet. To the outside world, he always radiated distance. I always got on well with Ambros. He can grumble a lot, but once you've got him, it's good. (laughs)

Unlike many other fans and supporters, you met Bob Dylan twice in person. The well-known saying "Never Meet Your Idols" didn't apply to you?
The meetings were pure coincidence. I didn't make an effort for years and I could have lived with not meeting him. The first time it was a film shoot for the BAP movie, where director Wim Wenders told me that Dylan would be playing in town that evening. He was married to Ronee Blakely, who was on Dylan's "Rolling Thunder Revue" tour. I knew Wim knew Dylan's music and Dylan was into Wim's movies. So we went and he kept nodding over to us. Afterwards there was a conversation between grown men who were talking about the Prussian kings. That interested him at the time. Dylan is a kind of polymath who is very interested in everything and can turn anything into song material. As an artist, you travel the world like a dry sponge and soak up everything.

The second meeting happened when I gave him a lap steel guitar. Tom Petty's guitarist Mike Campbell told him that the Duesenberg company had created a very special lap steel guitar, which Dylan found interesting. He called them and ordered one. They called me and asked me if I wanted to hand it over to him in Saarbrücken. After the concert I waited backstage, he came up to me beaming with joy and gave me the Ghetto Fist. People didn't even know what that meant back then. (laughs) When he unwrapped the guitar, he was like a little boy who finds a new locomotive under the Christmas tree - it was pure joy. He was interested in earthly things. Like how to tune a guitar. There was no accompanying person to keep an eye on him, nothing. The two of us stood in the backstage neon hell and chatted a bit. He could have been shit, but it was really nice and informal. I met a lot of my idols, they were all great. I was warned about Chuck Berry and he was really obnoxious. But at least with everyone and not just me. (laughs)

You had your musical awakening with Bob Dylan as a child or early teenager. Was Dylan a new dawn for you in the 60s, when everything in Germany and Austria was all about the perfect post-war world and casual pop songs dominated? Did he bring in the necessary edges?
Until the Beatles came along, I wasn't interested in music at all. There was church music, hiking and marching music and pop songs. The old people listened to jazz and Dixie sounds. There was nothing for us youngsters. When I was 13, the second Beatles single came out. It had "From Me To You" on one side and "Thank You Girl" on the other. What was that? Then we saw what they looked like in Bravo. What's more, they did everything themselves and there was no pop guy dancing in front of the big band. That all impressed us. We played Scouts in the Forest and the next day Beatles. A year or two later, Dylan came along with "Like A Rolling Stone" and that song completely blew me away. As a fan of Paul McCartney, I naturally played bass in the first project - what else? We were playing a concert at a school party and our singer at the time canceled because he was finishing school. But he brought "Like A Rolling Stone" with him and had written out the lyrics and translated them into German. Then we heard it and I realized that someone else had to play bass. I wanted to write songs like the guy with the sunglasses. That was my big bang. The Beatles were my first role models. You dressed like them and tried to grow your hair long, which wasn't easy at boarding school. But "Like A Rolling Stone" starts with a hit on the snare and then it takes off. It still gives me goosebumps today. That song changed everything. Dylan sang about things we had absolutely no idea about. Incredible combinations of words that the Beatles didn't have at the beginning. They were more like pop lyrics.

Was Bob Dylan the big bang for pop and rock history for you - despite the Beatles and the Rolling Stones?
I think so. I'm also a big Stones fan, no question, but Dylan's lyricism is the origin of many bands that were later inspired by it. The Kinks were also very good, but very British. Ray Davies was a great storyteller, but he didn't orientate himself musically towards America the way Dylan did. But you have to look at history as a whole. If you go way back, the blues is probably the folk music of Mali. (laughs)

Did Dylan impress you more as a lyricist than he did as a musician?
It's crazy what songs he composed. You don't know exactly who all helped him, because I don't think he invented the music itself. He's no Caruso vocally either, but he has a very unique way of handling his art. Over the years, we have also learned that he has never conformed and has remained authentic - even in his mistakes. He only ever did what he wanted to do. Of course there was a midlife crisis, which also affected Bob Dylan's life, but that's the way everyone is. Why shouldn't he have that? He also had a time when he no longer knew what to do. Bono from U2 helped him a lot when he put him in touch with producer Daniel Lanois and the spark was suddenly there again. "Political World" from the 1989 album "Oh Mercy" was outstanding.

For you as a big fan, what were the biggest mistakes associated with Dylan?
I could have done without albums like "Self Portrait" or "Nashville Skyline". I was also unfaithful to him back then. I didn't have a big budget for records, so I preferred to buy Led Zeppelin's "IV". (laughs) I went to university for five years and then did community service, so I went out for meals on wheels with someone who stayed with Dylan. He introduced me to "Blood On The Tracks" and "Desire" and that brought me back. He said I had stopped listening to him at exactly the wrong moment. It's good that he led me there and I thank him in the book.

You yourself are very critical of religion. How do you deal with Dylan's heavily Christian phase?
Religion and sexuality are private matters. It's only when you start to proselytize someone that it gets strange.

But it's no longer a purely private matter when someone brings these topics into the public eye, as was the case with Dylan.
The cover of "Saved" was terrible and the lyrics are church music. But the music is brilliant gospel choir. The three backing singers and the fervor in his voice are brilliant. "Slow Train Coming" before that was also an excellently produced album. "Shot Of Love" was also nice, but then there were some where you could tell he was uninspired. You don't know exactly why, but you can work it out. On "Down In The Groove", "Death Is Not The End" is a good number. On "Knocked Out Loaded" we have "Brownsville Girl" and that was it. But he realized that himself and then came the despair - until Bono gave him redemption. (laughs)

Does it make a good fan to take a critical view of their hero, like you do?
Definitely, that's essential. I've seen so many terrible gigs of his. He once played at the Festhalle in Frankfurt with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Roger McGuinn. The concert was good until he came on stage - then it was terrible. But that's okay. You should always be critical of yourself and your idols. If something wasn't good, then it wasn't good. Sometimes I have the feeling that Dylan needs a good friend to tell him that he can't do it like that and that he should stay at home rather than go on stage if he doesn't feel like it. But no one will probably dare tell Dylan that.

In 2019, Dylan addressed the audience again for the first time after years of live silence - at one of his two concerts at the Konzerthaus, where you are also playing tonight. He was outraged that people were taking photos of him with cell phones and this report made the front page of Rolling Stone. What could you get angry about on stage?
Well, Dylan doesn't want to be photographed. But that's been the case long before there were smartphones. He doesn't want to have shitty photos of himself distributed and that's a form of vanity. Of course, it's also annoying to be constantly flashed. Personally, what annoys me most is when the police harass my sensible audience. I also admonish the stewards when they get out of line. It makes me lose my concentration so much that I can no longer do what I want and need to do in peace. Nobody benefits from that. It happened on the current tour in Stuttgart, but otherwise very rarely. I was a bit Trapattoni-like there, which wasn't so good. The impulse control should have come through. (laughs) But I understand that they have a difficult job, but sometimes you really are too strict with people. Like when a woman turned on her cell phone light during a ballad and was swinging along - just like sparklers. She was then constantly admonished and that was really excessive.

Do you think Bob Dylan deserved to win the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature?
Yes. When the decision was made that morning, my phone kept ringing. I wasn't prepared for it, but I said that it would have been justified if he had only won it for "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall". I stand by that too. Songs of this quality - for example "Desolation Row" - are incredible works. How many people he got behind him with it, who he taught to be interested in something. For me, these songs have opened up a whole cosmos. Listen to "Desolation Row" and read the lyrics - you have to look into it much more closely. If you look at the secondary literature, you'll see what's connected to it. Without Bob Dylan, I would probably never have studied painting.

But is Dylan also to blame for the fact that you formed your band BAP?
Of course, he is also to blame. The songs I played in pubs at the beginning and which made me the "Südstadt Dylan" influenced me early on. I had his curls and a harmonica back then. I took my cue from Dylan's early talkin' blues. If you come into a pub in Cologne with sad songs, people turn around at the bar and drink beer - you can't get them like that. Even though there are many miles between him and me, he was definitely a good teacher.

The question about your favorite Bob Dylan album is probably obsolete. How is a fan supposed to decide?
I've studied Dylan so much that it's difficult to say. He became really interesting with the triple jump "Bringing It All Back Home", which was semi-acoustic, "Highway 61 Revisited", which had "Like A Rolling Stone" on it, and finally "Blonde On Blonde". That was all released within a year and I would always mention those albums first. Later come "Blood On The Tracks" and "Desire" and then it gets difficult. The Lanois productions are great and the mature work is so great. Nobody expected anything else to come. His last one so far, "Shadow Kingdom", was also fantastic again. But if you put a gun to my head and made me choose an album for the desert island, it would probably be "Blonde On Blonde" - because it's a double LP. (laughs)

A "Rolling Stone" is not just Bob Dylan, who is still touring in his 80s - you are also far from going into artistic live retirement ...
As long as you enjoy it and are physically and mentally able to do it, it's great. It's a nice way to live. I don't know Dylan well enough to say why he's always on the road. I'm sure he's been through a lot in his private life, but that never gets out. The "Chronicles", his biography, contains what is intended for the public and there is nothing more. He deliberately keeps it under wraps, because as Bob Dylan you don't want to end up in the yellow press - that's unworthy. His son Jakob Dylan doesn't say anything either. At some point he said that when he hears "Blood On The Tracks", he hears his parents. (laughs)

Because we briefly touched on the subject earlier - what would you say to Bob Dylan if you were a good friend of his?
I would only say something if I had his trust. You can't ambush someone. I would ask him about many things he has done. As a father of four children, I know that you never go and give your opinion on any subject without being asked. You only do that if you are asked. I think my children really appreciate that about me too. I wouldn't be a know-it-all with Dylan either. But I want to know a lot. What's it like composing the songs? Who worked on them? I've recorded with people who have worked with Dylan, like Larry Campbell, but I don't proactively ask them. I'm not one to intrigue or claw out in any way. If they tell me something, then it's good. If not, then not.

Are you toying with the idea of taking this "Dylan journey" again later - perhaps in a modified or adapted form?
There's now a new program: "Between Start and Finish - Songs and Stories from Life" - that's the working title. But the "Dylan Journey" exists now and when we feel like playing it again, we'll play it. It's an experience every evening to play with Mike because he's musically perfect and the joint realization works so well. I can play rhythm chords well, but he holds everything together. We haven't had one evening where we were annoyed or didn't feel like it. Maybe we can play twice in one city. On Saturday "Between Start and Finish" and on Sunday another "Dylan Journey". If people want to come, they'll have more. We are extremely flexible because we only have two cars. In one there's me, my wife, the dog, two guitars, a small folding table and the backdrop. In the other, Mike, our sound engineer and an electric piano, in case there's no grand piano somewhere. We're very close to the people and that's wonderful. That brings me back to the storyteller. I'm a painter and I sing in a rock band - but the generic term is storyteller. When we were on the road for our film, Wim Wenders once said: "Just write "Heimatdichter" on the hotel forms" - which I did. (laughs)