Alec Empire Interview

Berlin-born electronic music maverick Alec Empire reinvented the hardcore punk scene when he formed the cult nineties band Atari Teenage Riot with fellow Germans Hanin Alias and the late Carl Crack. Blending anti-establishment guitar fervour with toxic sampler distortion and an ear for strangely catchy rock anthems beneath the noise, ATR and Digital Hardcore Recordings (the influential record label Empire set up) created an entire sub-genre of subversive digital song-writing.

A hugely prolific producer, DJ, performer and label head, Empire’s released many records under pseudonyms, including Jaguar, Death Funk and LX Empire, though since ATR split in 1999, his most famous work has been that released under his own (albeit not real) name. Looking and sounding like a sharper, less polished, Trent Reznor with the old school guitar grind of Ministry or Godflesh, Empire embraced the role of industrial metaller with gusto.

His latest record, 'The Golden Foretaste Of Heaven', is currently being toured with the current incarnation of his live line-up, The Hellish Vortex. The outfit still involves long time collaborator, noise-monger Nic Endo, though the new sound is very different to Empire’s previous, more abrasive, work, embracing a somewhat softer (though not soft) tone and a more personal touch than before. Hell, there’s even a little space made for optimism; something almost unheard of in the DHR back-catalogue.

Having never seen Empire himself smile before (the onstage persona is that of prowling, scowling, metal predator), it’s interesting to now meet the smiling, jovial Alec.


So, Alec. How are you? You seem well today.

Good! I’m happy! For a change.

Is this why you’re blonde now?

I was always blonde! I’m a German, don’t forget.

Are you psyched up for the tour?

It’s been a while since we last played the UK as a band, though I’ve done some DJ sets. Yes, I’m looking forward to it after some of the shows were postponed.

Why the postponement?

Nic Endo had some kind of an inner ear infection. She was told if it was left untreated, her hearing would be permanently damaged, so we had no choice to wait a while.

What are the live shows like nowadays? I remember seeing you in 2006 when it was a very intense show.

Our live show is constantly changing, with different line-ups and different shows. Some are heavier than others, and some less. What I really want is that because a lot of fans travel a long distance to our gigs, we don’t want to repeat the same show over and over again. I don’t want to be one of those bands that say ‘this is our promotion tour now: this is what we’ve practised and this is what you’re gonna get’. We don’t wanna do that. I want our average show to be something special. If you have the crowd in one place, it’s always different wherever you go, and you should play to that.

Have you been DJing much lately? Anything planned in the UK?

I think my agent told me there were four requests: three from London, and people want me to DJ in April. I want to spin all this new stuff. We’ve been having all these parties in Berlin the last year. It’s become a really intense sound now, which is different to my older stuff but in a way, everyone’s dancing in this kind of cold, cocaine dancing style, which is really intense. In Germany, the dance is so different to the more happy-go-lucky European electro style.

The new album sounds less abrasive than the previous stuff, and almost mellow at times. Is this because you’re happier now?

(laughs) I’m enlightened now. The thing is, what I’ve tried to do is mix some of the harsh early sound of before and mix it with a more traditional songwriting approach. I wanted to avoid certain sounds and styles, for example guitar sounds. Before, I almost had kind of like a Slayer type vibe but I also like all kinds of sounds and wanted to reflect this. To me, to do the same thing again is almost boring. To do that song about eyes (1000 Eyes), which is a seven minute slow song, was really satisfying because some of the hardcore fans were more pissed off than they would have been if I’d done a noisier record. I kind of like that approach. I do so many things at the same time, it’s inevitable my stuff isn’t going to always sound one way. You can compare three Atari Teenage Riot albums in terms of sound, but my solo stuff is really changing. I want to do another heavy album with a different name. Bug on My Windshield is in your face, with a different, colder energy, a little like Gary Numan, whose music I’m a fan of. Gary Numan has been so influential with rock and with electronics and people tend to forget that sometimes. Plus, he’s also a really nice guy!

What’s all this on the press blurb about the ‘New Sound of Berlin’?

Empire:This is the journalist’s term that came up in Germany. We kind of liked it and decided to pass it on! Saying something is a new sound provokes people, and gets a reaction. We love doing that. When I went back to Berlin after being away for a while, the city was extremely different to the Berlin of the eighties I grew up in. There’s been all this redevelopment for the World Cup and everything and I wanted to build a bridge between now and back then. It’s got obvious eighties references, but I don’t want it to be simply retro. I listened to Gary Numan and Lou Reed but I don’t want my stuff to sound too similar to them.

So what’s the traditional sound of Berlin?

Berlin’s been a techno sort of place and the vibe’s really been changing, and getting a much colder sound. A lot of this has been down to the drugs. Cocaine’s around and stuff like this. Berlin’s always had this harder edge. In England the dance music’s often happy and characterised by ecstasy almost, a bit more hippy. England’s always ‘Let’s get together, have a fun time’ etc, whilst Berliners often go to places by themselves, hang around in these places by themselves in the dark. There’s this weird, minimal sound. You know, you’re on your own trip or something.

What was it like growing up in the city? Much has been made of its influence on your music.

My musical roots are almost directly linked to the coming down of The Berlin Wall. I grew up in West Berlin, which was surrounded by The Wall and because of this, my childhood had a very claustrophobic atmosphere. We had to go through borders with cars getting searched etc. I don’t know what it was like outside of the city or anything: maybe they got to go out to a lake or something, but not us! This was what we grew up with. I’d walk to school past the wall, with soldiers holding guns, looking at us from observation towers. Of course, that kind of shapes your life. There’s a whole new city right next to you with people listening to different music, wearing different clothes, everything. When the barrier to that new city is broken down, that’s something special.

So how did ATR emerge from the city?

When the wall came down, I met Hanin (Alias, the singer from Atari Teenage Riot) wearing an astronaut’s costume, wandering around this deserted area next to the wall. (laughs)Y’know, that’s a strange way to meet. Right there, Atari started.

Surely it wasn’t all stern guards pointing guns at you as you tiptoe through rubble. Is it true you used to break dance?

(laughs)That’s true! I got an award for being Berlin’s number one breakdancer when I was aged eleven! I do incorporate a bit of into the shows nowadays as a bit of a joke, when we play Robot L.O.V.E. Some get the joke, and some don’t.

I also heard you guys kicked Courtney Love out of one of your shows. True?

Kind of. We didn’t throw her out of the gig, but we did refuse her entry. She wanted to get on the guestlist, but we wouldn’t let her!

So, we’ve dealt with break-dancing and Courtney Love, y’know, the important stuff. How about we move on to politics? What do you think of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government?

Yeah, she’s great. (laughs and shrugs). It’s all going to hell! It’s all Le Tigre’s fault. She’s like Thatcher or something, y’know. People say the economy will get better with her, but it’s not really happening. I don’t want to blame her: I think it’s a general problem of this society. People know my opinion on this and I think we should all live differently. I don’t know. We have to find a new way. It’s not quite as bad as Thatcher, with the yuppies and everything, but the minority still make so much profit at the expense of the majority. I don’t think we’ll see something like Duran Duran come out of it. The similarity is this idea that you’ve almost got to manage the people somehow, like a resource. This mentality is a big problem. So much potential is wasted and talent going to waste. The education system’s going wrong for everyone. Even if you’re right wing, they’re not doing the right thing!

Looking at your tour schedule (the tour begins on Valentine’s Day) and reading some of the personal lyrics in the new record, am I right in assuming you’ve fallen in love?

(smiling broadly) I was always in love! That’s why I was ever in Atari Teenage Riot. People misunderstand our thing. Any revolutionary does what he does out of love, and I’m no different.


So, there we go. He’s always been a lover, not a fighter. Judge for yourselves by listening to Alec Empire’s new record, The Golden Foretaste of Heaven, released now on Eat Your Heart Out Records.

11th February 2008.

Written by Nick Aldwinckle.