KMFDM Conclude 2nd Decade Together! - Page 3

SK - Yeah, we should never have redone it. I mean, it was kind of like a courtesy. I happen to know the owner of that copyright and I had no idea that it was his copyright when we used it. But it was like, hey dude, you gotta take this out of action, this can’t circulate any longer, otherwise we’ll have to slap a lawsuit on you. Unfortunately, we just went in and messed with the track. We should never have done that. That was definitely a regrettable thing.

PITRIFF - It’s a shame, because it came across great, you know?

SK - Do you think Ministry got clearance? I mean, their new album starts with that thing!

PITRIFF - (laughs) I don’t have the new Ministry yet. I didn’t know they used that!

SK - Yeah.

PITRIFF - Well, tell me a little bit about the KMFDM power structure, the monster riffs, the electronic foundations and stomp beats, you know, the past few albums have really been aggressive.

SK - Right, what do you want to know about it, how it happens and stuff?

PITRIFF - Yeah, exactly, when you guys organize it together.

SK - Well, it’s very hard to say. It’s always like this or it’s always like that. Every song has a sort of, like, a bit of history that is kind of unique, and shapes the song as well. Some tracks start with a guitar riff. For example, “WWIII” started with that little banjo intro and after that, we were like, okay, now where’s the rest of the song? (laughs) Four of us that do the writing, Lucia (Cifarelli), myself, Julian (Hodgson) and Andy (Selway), and between the four of us it just kind of gels and happens in an organic kind of way.

PITRIFF - Definitely. Now, I would have to say KMFDM’s mission statement, and I’m borrowing a quote from your site, is to ‘rip the system.’ How would you elaborate upon that, as far as ripping the system?

SK - Well, ripping the system is essentially what we…not without sort of detours here and there, came to do. We completely eliminated the middle man, we’re not on a label anymore, we own all our shit. We own all of our merchandizing, our publishing, and we successfully ripped one system, the system of you know, music…major labels and that kind of stuff, the whole exploitation and the whole unfairness of the business. We took control of our own entity and our own fate.

PITRIFF - So what kind of things happened to you in the past? I guess, what, record labels screwed you, managers screwed you?

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