Artist: Four Carry Nuts

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Artist: Four Carry Nuts

Date: 10-28-00

By: Mindbender

 

Q: What were you doing before writing psy-trance? How and when did you start making Goa?

A: Tim: I started to play guitar when I was seven years old. When I was 12-13, I played in a couple of metal and rock bands. In 94 I started to make techno. A year later, in 95, I went to my first trance party. There I found the right people, the right music and the right place to play this music. Around 96 I spent 2½ years in an audio-engineering school in Frankfurt. After finishing that, I've lived like now, playing in parties and making tracks.

Detlef: I started making techno in 1990. My first records was released in 1992, called Gilgamesch. At the same time as making music, I started DJ'ing and I played in big raves in Frankfurt and Basel, Switzerland, for example. In 1994 was my first trance party, the VooV experience in Germany. In 96 I met Tim and we founded Four Carry Nuts. My musical basis is industrial and avant-garde music in Germany.

 

Q: Tim, why did you choose to work with your real name, as most artists have some pseudonyms?

A: Tim: Before I had different names. Different labels wanted me to use different names for their label only. When I was releasing my first track on Bim's label [Medium Records], I was thinking what name to use and he suggested to me, why not use my real name?

 

Q: How about you, Detlef, how have you chosen your artist names?

A: Detlef: When I was 12, I read a book "Gilgamesch Epos" [epos in English is epic]. I was fascinated about this book and the story and later chose the name to be my artist name. D. Fundation is a really a variation of my own name [Detlef Funder].

 

Q: Well, then there is Four Carry Nuts. How did you choose this name?

A: Detlef: Why not… [laughter]

Tim: I don't know…

Detlef: It sounds silly.

Tim: A lot of people think that it has a deeper meaning, but that's not the case.

 

Q: Are you planning to release a new album? If so, when?

A: Tim: We are working on a Four Carry Nuts album and I'm also working on a solo album. This might take some time though, because we are also doing different things, not only our music, like mastering and producing other bands, and then we can't work on the albums. We also work for Aurinko Records. We actually started to work on a Four Carry Nuts album two years ago, but we got interrupted. We got two tracks made, which will be released in some eight weeks from Aurinko Records as a 12". We're releasing them separate because the style does not fit with the new album we're making now.

 

Q: Which of your own tracks do you like the best?

A: Detlef: Can't say. I like many of my own tracks. It all depends on the mood. If I'd have to say something, maybe Donuts or Lucy (female).

Tim: When making tracks, I always try to make every new track better than the one before. Of one's own tracks it is really hard to say.

 

Q: You often use guitars in your tracks. Is it just your style or more?

A: Tim: The guitar is the normal instrument I play. I've played since I was young and it's just a normal thing to do, to combine the guitar with trance that I make. The guitar is a very powerful instrument, so it fits well with the full-on sound and I just like it a lot. I'd also like to combine other things, such like vocals or industrial sounds to psy-trance.

 

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your music? What are your main influences?

A: Detlef: Our influences come from different directions. My influences are from jazz, early German electronic music, like Tangarine Dream, Ashra Temple or Klaus Shulze. I'm always looking for new sounds and creating them with synths or software. My inspiration comes from myself, my feelings and my emotions.

Tim: My influences are rock, metal industrial and EBM [electronic body music]. Examples of groups would be Rob Zombie, Front 242, Ministry, Sepultura, Nine Inch Nails and Slayer. But I do listen to a lot of different stuff. My inspiration just sometimes comes. Sometimes I just get a certain idea and then I sit down and just do it. I can't really say where I get my inspiration. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't come… I like dark music and dark stuff in general. Sometimes I get my inspiration from this type of stuff, like horror movies.

 

Q: Tell us your recipe to make a good track .Is the same whether you work alone or together?

A: Detlef: There is really no recipe…

Tim: We're still looking for the recipe. Gilgamesch is techno-stuff. For myself, I prefer to make dark stuff. Four carry nuts is a mix of our styles. Detlef: I like more the techno-stuff and the techno-arrangement: monotone and hard, noisy sounds. My new project, D. Fundation is more a mixture between maybe techno and progressive trance. I've released a D. Fundation track on Bim's Floor-compilation.

 

Q: What equipment do you use to music?

A: Tim: There's really too much mention them all, but the ones we use most at the moment are Mackie mixing deck, Apple Macintosh G4, Nord Micro Modular, Nordlead Microwave I/II, Jupiter 6, TC Electronics Fireworks.

 

Q: Now you are playing together as Four Carry Nuts. Are you planning to be more focused on this project than working solo in the future?

A: Tim: Everything… everything… These are our main things. We'll focus on Four Carry Nuts and on our solo stuff.

Detlef: I agree with Tim.

 

Q: Any other future projects?

A: Detlef: We'll be producing other groups. We don't plan to do more than what we can do. We plan to keep the projects that we have going. That's enough. Also, it is important to have creative breaks and do something else than music for a while and then come back to music. We need time to focus our thoughts on private things. The breaks are usually pretty short though. From a few days to a month.

 

Q: Are there any other artists you'd like to work with?

A: Tim: We like to work with different people. It's hard to say specific names. We'd also like to work with people outside the trance scene.

Detlef: For example, we've done work with Joti [sidhu] and Dino [Psaras]. They are our friends.

 

Q: Do you DJ? If so, what type of stuff do you play?

A: Tim: I DJ, but I don't see myself as a DJ in the real sense of the word. I just DJ when people ask me to, but usually I play live. When I DJ, I mainly play my own tracks, music that I like or tracks from my friends, like Joti or Dino. Detlef is more the DJ of us, he's been doing it for some 50 years or so.

Detlef: [Laughter]. I play the music that I like. I've been playing as a DJ since 89. I started with techno back then. Now I play a mixture of between techno, trance, our own music and sometimes also progressive. I really don't like progressive that much, just some tracks. But they can fit into sets well, but then I often cut them. For me it is very important to do a good mix. I really like to play records and to give the people a good feeling and let them fall into the music. I like to make my mixes into "tracks" that several hours long, with their up and downs, intros and outros. That doesn't work well if you don't mix well or you don't mix the beat and mix too often the ambient parts only. That's why I don't like DAT. There's always a break between the tracks and I like when the music just continues on. I play CD sometimes, but I prefer vinyl, because of the better feeling with them. When you have a good feeling as a DJ, you can bring this good feeling to the crowd. I could talk about this for hours, but this enough.

 

Q: When and where was your best party and why was it the best?

A: Tim: I don't know what to say…

Detlef: Love Parade 1992. It was the most intense experience I ever had.

Tim: [After a long silence]… All that I can say is that I like to play in Japan.

 

Q: What do you think about the psy-trance scene globally?

A: Detlef: I think the scene is looking for new music. The music is all the time developing, with new stuff coming up, like progressive for example, and nobody knows where it is developing.

Tim: In my opinion, at the moment a lot of people are just playing one style. I think it is shame. It's better when there's a variety of styles. Sometimes it's a bit boring when the whole party is only one style.

 

Q: How about the evolution of the scene and the question of becoming more popular or staying underground?

A: Tim: Nobody knows…

Detlef: I think Goa has always been underground and will stay so for the next years. I think it's better. Music that becomes too popular is attracted to major labels and with commercialisation the whole energy and intensity of the music is lost.

Tim: People who go to party have a different opinion about this than a musician. I think most musicians think it is better if more people get to hear what they are making, but many people who go to parties, think it should stay underground. This is a very hard question for me…

 

Q: What do you think of the musical evolution of psychedelic trance in the last years. Have things got better or worse in you opinion?

A: Tim: In my opinion, for my style, it has developed to a style that I don't really like. A lot of this progressive and minimal stuff just isn't my taste. On the other hand, there are many different styles.

Detlef: In this progressive stuff, trance is going back to the old techno-way, like it was some 8 years before, but now it is better produced. Now there are new ways to make more varied stuff and better sounds. More and more creative people are making music around the globe. I think it is a very good development.

 

Q: What do you think about the development of your own music?

A: Detlef: The future will show. I don't know. It's a process like life itself.

Tim: I just can say that we are still on the way. We are still searching for the stuff we want to make.

 

Q: What is the craziest thing you ever did or the craziest experience that you've had?

A: Detlef: Study quantum-physics. Not at university, but I spend a lot of time at home reading these books and trying to understand them.

Tim: I don't know…

Detlef: What we do together is to create words…

Tim: I'm really quite a quiet person. I don't do that many crazy things.

 

Q: Do you have anything you'd like to say to your fans?

A: Detlef: Thank you to all our friends for supporting our music.

Tim: Have fun!

 

Thanks ;-)