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MINDJUICE
STALKERs Fresh Act – December 2007
Since their formation in 1998 MINDJUICE attracted interest in many clubs, concert halls and at local festivals. Visitors of their concerts will surely find no sleep that night, because MINDJUICE play sophisticated music that stays in your head! The band - Wolfgang Aschenbrenner (piano), Manuel Biebl (drums), Simon Thomas (guitar), Winni Rudrof (Vox), Roland Hindl (bass) - created a solid fan basis over the past years.
Even beyond the borders the guys made a mark. Their last two self-made works “Catharsis Theory“(2005) and the unplugged- EP “The Casino Sessions“ (2005), which don`t fall short compared to record company productions and are the best proof for their creative qualities as well. MINDJUICE draw from genres like Nu- Metal or Emocore and create a specific non-categorizable sound, which should be a hard nut to crack for stereotype lovers. Abiding their name they are vitamin C for your brain, live and canned! Basser Roland answered STALKER´s questions:
Just to have a quick imagination, how are the responsibilities shared in the band, how are you organized?
Without having planned it a constant structure had been built over the years. Although smooth transitions do exist, everybody has his individual talents and brings them into the band context – that´s what takes us further. Guitarist Simon is responsible for the creative part. It contains the visuals like logo designs, as well as the songwriting – at least most ideas are his, the songs themselves are created with the whole band in the studio or at rehearsals. Drummer Manuel is the one doing the technical tasks and sees about the stage-sound and CD production. That`s no mere accident since he very successfully completed his sound engineer- training and has his own studio (www.bieblrecords.de). The background work like dealing with the press, booking and tour- planning are on my side.
The switch from turntables to piano, seems to be a great change! Which are the reasons, maybe a small route correction?
In the end of 2006 things went flat for DJ Brocken. He couldn´t spare any more as much time for the band as he wanted. He was occupied too much with private life and job. But since he is someone who lives with the slogan “all or nothing“, he had to decide against the band with a heavy heart. But with our full understanding – as hard as the parting was, though. We continued as a quartet for a few months, but we realized quite fast that an important element for our sound was missing. No need to say, we didn´t want just a simple turntable-virtuoso replacement for DJ Brocken. That´s why Wolfi Aschenbrenner, who plays with Manuel at the hard rock-formation J.Steam (www.j-steam.de) too, joined the band. It surely hasn`t been a conscious forced change, but due to the sound the new man becomes more and more noticeable – not in a negative way, in our opinion.
Is there a Mindjuice- philosophy? What is it that characterizes you best?
We want to rock – nothing more, nothing less!
Is your music an essential outlet or more the classic hobby to you?
Does this have to exclude each other? This hobby is an essential outlet for everyone of us. But not only musicwise, the people around it as well. And it does not only refer to us five, but also to our friends and families, who support us, and the ones who come to our concerts, cause they like our music – as greasy as this might sound. At our concerts we can run riot together with others, can move many people.
The BRAVO-Question: If your band was an animal, how would you describe it?
First I`m thinking of a bear. Cozy and playful – but beware when he gets angry!
LIVE
Do you have any live- rituals, what tells you apart from other live- bands?
We don`t have any rituals. But we love and live our music. Our audiences` feedback proves it best: It`s catchy!
You always leave a more than satisfied audience, is there any recipe for a successful Mindjuice - concert?
We pay great attention to keeping our concerts equally intense. Just as if it would be the last one – to use a common clichè again. Cause even if there`s only one paying guest, this one person deserves to experience Mindjuice at its best.
How is your audience put together? Which type of fan is your favorite?
„Female, single, young and still searching…“ … just kidding. Our audience is even more than heterogeneous. That`s a phenomenon we ourselves can`t explain. Still we are lucky to attract punks, metal- heads, German- rockers, trendy- girls, emokids and classic- rockers. Primarily after the acoustic- gigs this development was again intensified. Only a kind of openness beyond all musical localism is what unites our listeners.
Your best live- experience – club, festival or concert hall?
Yes, yes and yes! – To pick one concert from over 200 shows is quite hard! – There have been more than sparsely visited clubs, but they rocked as hell. The Taubertal-festival weekend was a dream come true, the support-show for Mudvayne is a great memory, our recently finished mini-tour through Switzerland was the absolute hit!
MUSIK
Did you find a genre for your music or do you prefer “anonymity”?
As we outgrew from Nu Metal, which we correctly identified with before, we tried to escape into clichè- free anonymity for a while. Well, this didn`t work for a long time. Now we are doing mosh- pop! Simple, easy – and liberated from interpretation!
Do you have a users information to your music, for which situations of life do you write it?
Due to our rare free- time, that job and studies offer us, we have to take the songs just the way they happen. This may be a reason for our great spectrum. But never the less the tracks are a part of us, the expression of our band.
FUTURE
Are there already any tour- plans for 2008, again outside of Bavaria?
From January to March, April we`ll have a live- pause. On the one hand because of our jobs since three of us have intermediate or final examinations, on the other hand because we want to go to studio in spring. After that we`ll surely have such strong withdrawal syndromes that we`ll need to enter this world´s stages again!
Future dreams: Studio, unplugged, or will you maybe do a live-album?
We are currently collecting songs for our „Best of ONE- DECADE- MINDJUICE“! No, serious ly, we just recorded the song „Made to fly“, which you can find as a free download at our Myspace- profile (www.myspace.com/yourmindjuice). This one was a kind of “contract work”. The organisers of “Citytriathlon Amberg“ have asked us for a kind of sport- hymn, to put it like that, for their sport- event. That`s how “Made to fly“ happened – we now learned to like it. In spring we plan to record a EP.
Which are your goals? What would you think about a record contract?
We wouldn`t mind if someone would knock on our door and propose a good deal. On the other hand the band works quite fine still after nine years. So why should we risk our identity for those 15 minutes of fame!
Next year you`ll have your 10th band- anniversary, anything special planned?
Yep, and that`s top secret – of course!
On the acoustic- EP “the casino sessions“ you already presented your music unplugged, do you plan a sequel to it and can we experience it live as well?
Yes, it all began with acoustic- concerts, the CD followed later on. In that time we wanted to play at the Christmas market in Amberg at all costs – this naturally only worked unplugged. As the show was finally offered to us, we have immediately tested our songs in a softer version. About ten percent of our gigs are unplugged.
OTHER STUFF
Do your jobs deal with music as well?
Yes and no. As I already mentioned, our drummer Manuel works as a sound- engineer and has his own studio. Wolfi (Keys) currently does a quite similar job- training. I`m working as a journalist and write for music magazines or daily papers about concerts, bands etc. from time to time.
Your music has a very high compositional quality, did you have any professional training or did it develop within your musical cooperation?
Again: both! Manuel would be the one to be called a professional musician. He learned drums from infancy on and spent a few years at the Drummer’s Focus in Munich. Simon and Wolfi had lessons in the beginning, but also learned, as well as Winni and me, a lot by simply doing it. But we primarily profited from each other.
In your wildest dreams: with which band would you like to hear named in one sentence?
With „Juicer“, the ultimate Mindjuice- cover band from Ukraine!
How can interested ones contact you at best?
At best via our myspace- profile. Just write us an e- mail and then everything takes its course!
www.mindjuice.de
www.myspace.com/yourmindjuice
www.bieblrecords.de
Author: Katrin Dietl, photos: Mindjuice
Date: 2007-12-01
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