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Pink Cream 69 showed up to the interview with only drummer Kosta Zarifiou missing, drying off from the rain, the cheerful band said. For their singer David Readman this was the first time in Sweden, having joined the band in 1994, but the rest of the band has supported White Lion in '89 and Europe in '92 here before. Strangely David has never played a show in his homecountry England though. PC69 played a good show in Sweden Rock this year, eventhough the rain cooled down the crowd a bit and the dark clouds made some people leave. The band will be releasing a DVD in some point, including a whole lot of material. David says "We've collected bits and pieces and I've got my video camera everywhere. We've got something planned, but we don't just want to make anything to get it out there. We sort of want to connect the past with what we're doing now these days. This is something that's gonna take time. We're gonna get it from analogue to digital." They have added a second guitarist, Uwe Reutenauer to the line-up after the tragic news in 2003. Their guitarist Alfred Koffler has a disease by the name of focal dystonia in the left hand, which is not curable to this day and causes cramps in the hand and makes the motions complicated, partly even impossible. Uwe has played with the band for a year now "It's great to play with the band, I really like the guys." About his hand today Alfred said "It doesn't change. It doesn't get worse, but on the other hand it doesn't get better. It stays like this and I gotta deal with it. But recording is easy, if it doesn't work the first time, you can always try again. I think the band sounds better than ever like this, with double beats and stuff." What comes to writing music for two guitars, possibly making the music become heavier songwriting and productionwise, he says "It's quite hard to say, but I think he's slowly but surely becoming a full member of the band. It's hard to tell, since so far we haven't written songs together. But I'm looking forward to that, 'cos it's gonna bring other influences in the band. I think this will change." PC69 has never had much use for a keyboard player and to "hire a keyboard player to play these (few ballads) would be pointless, 'cos he wouldn't have a lot to do." David - Eventhough I'd say since Uwe joined the band as a second guitar player we still didn't use keys so much. This is my personal opinion, but keys are not needed that much these days. And now we've got two guitars and we have to get used to that as a band. We have to get used to the difference in the sound. We're perfectionists, we've tried re-creating (live) what we've had on the record. But I don't think you always need to do that. It's about the power, the vibe and the presence. I think that's a lot more important. What can we expect from the band then ? David - "Things are definately looking up. It's been a great experience. You could say we came back with "Electrified" and since then we've gone to Japan and Brazil and did a few records. Basically it's been a slow process to bring it back on a certain level where you feel good about it. Obviously me being the new singer in a way since the last ten years. But first I think you need to keep building on the guitar. But slowly and surely we're beginning to write new songs for our new record and first just basically to continue and keep building. And play festivals like these, where we get the chance to show what we do. I remember when we played Balingen for the first time, it was such an experience, it brought the band so much further than we've been going on the whole tour in Germany for three weeks. So little things like these brings us to the next step."
HOPE FOR NU-METAL; "THEY'RE GETTING INTELLIGENT" ! Looking back to what PC69 was ten years ago and if there's any difference comparing that band and those times to this day, he says "Definately. When I first joined the band a lot of bands were dying off because of grunge and whatever. We made a little experiment and moved in a different direction and honestly these days there's something going on, so it gives a chance for us and a lot of other bands to continue making music. Nobody really worries that they sound too old fashioned or too modern. These days you can do anything you want and if people like it they will buy the record. There's this certain freedom, but yet there's not this sort of real thing going on, like at the time when I joined the band. So there's this certain freedom, but I think people are getting sick of what is going on in the music business. Nu-metal and whatever it is, I think they're getting intelligent for the first time." Comparing the old vocals to when David joined the band, he says "when I sing the songs, it's basically how I sing. In the beginning I listened to the songs and tried to do it like Andi. But looking at these days it's not me, trying to sing like Andi Deris. Over the years it got sort of automatic for me to sing these songs. I love singing the old songs from years ago, it's a pleasure. I'd never heard the band before I joined it." "Thunderdome" was very well received by fans. Does the band feel that their sound needs a revolution to take it to the next level ? Dennis - "Recording is so normal for us, we've been doing the same thing for quite a while. We do very little experimenting. We haven't tried going to another direction. We play with Marshall equipments etc, that's what we do, no reason to change. We're not gonna have any dj's scratching in the background." It would be a dream come true to earn big money as a musician, but PC69 hasn't yet reached such a high level among the music lovers, which David finds "to a point, it's frustrating in a way. But I'm a musician, I do what I do. Of course things could be different, I could have a nice big house with a swimming pool, Jaguar and fly everywhere, but I think as long as you're doing what you want to do and you don't have to work in a bank or something, I'll never get a job in a bank, but that's the most important thing to do. That's enough." As a conclusion the press wanted to know if they're still in contact with Andi Deris and Dennis was quite blunt about the whole thing "We don't see him, he's very far away. We don't speak with him, we have no reason to. Thank you very much. Have a nice day." The press had already ran out of questions though, so it was about time to end the interview. The band still spent some time in the press tent though and showed no signs of being offended by the question. Interview:
Satu Reunanen, |
David
- We had quite a difficult day yesterday, we travelled about 19 hours
or so. So we had travelled this long and when we started we couldn't
believe that it was raining. Everybody's blaiming it on me, 'cos I'm
from England you know. But people started to come in and in the end
it was fantastic. (Earlier) we did Germany, Schwitzerland, Spain, Budapest,
it was about 3 and half weeks tour, but unfortunately we couldn't come
to Sweden. So this is sort of a territory we haven't ventured in, since
it's been a while the guys were here. I think we did a good show. England
is a great subject, ten years in the band and not one time in England
for me. But we sat the whole day in an Irish bar yesterday. It took
eight hours to finally fly to Sweden. It was sort of strange to be in
England and not to play a show. But hopefully we'll get the chance to
do that sometime. For me it definately would be a great experience.
Alfred
- We have lots of power on records, we have lots of guitar. But we get
along great. Uwe makes my life much easier.
