KMFDM Conclude 2nd Decade Together! - Page 7

PITRIFF - (laughs)

SK - And I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case, but I don’t know, that was a phase in the nineties, where I just sort of railed against MTV and all this that it’s become utterly unimportant to us.

PITRIFF - Mmm hmm. Well, the next thing I have is the MDFMK thing. I mean, you quietly snuck into the scene and right back out again with it. Was this kind of like a silent wink to the fans that KMFDM would soon be back?

SK - It was more like a sort of, um…KMFDM needed to break up for awhile and give everyone space to figure out what to do next. I didn’t want to depart too far away from, you know, my KMFDM entity, my little baby, so to speak.

PITRIFF - Right.

SK - But I figured I would just reverse the name and that’ll be that.

PITRIFF - It was cool, but it took awhile for word to get on the street that it was out there. There were so many people who were like, what the hell is that? I was like, dude, it’s KMFDM backwards! (laughs)

SK - (laughs) It was just something to do in the meantime, we wanted to do a really electronic kind of project, like…contrived little thing, and so we got ourselves a budget and locked ourselves in and the good thing that came out of it was the collaboration with Lucia.

PITRIFF - Yes.

SK - Who wouldn’t be in KMFDM now if it hadn’t been for MDFMK.

PITRIFF - So, I mean, obviously she’s hung with you since then, but how’s she working out for you? I know there’s been a lot of personnel rotation, but she seems to have some staying power, just by listening to her.

SK - Yeah, I mean, she’s definitely my favorite female vocalist of all time and as far as the lyrical stuff she does, I think it really fits and complements the stuff Raymond (Watts) and myself are doing, so it’s very good. I’m happy with the lineup as it is right now and I think it’s a combination or constellation that is here to stay for awhile, hopefully.

PITRIFF - Yep. Let me ask you this; during the Columbine tragedy, do you think KMFDM was headhunted or scapegoated like Rammstein during that whole ordeal where everybody was looking to blame someone?

SK - Well, the fact is this: those two kids were definitely not Rammstein or Marilyn Manson fans, they were definitely KMFDM fans. The thing was, the media really started a witch hunt because obviously the whole thing was so mind-boggling, nobody could really deal with it at all, so people started to look around. What makes people do this kind of shit? Or it could be rock music, it’s like the old idea, oh, that Black Sabbath song is making people suicidal, blah blah blah. I think the good thing that I’m really proud of to this day, is that I never really reacted to that. Dan Rather’s office called my office, you know, and was like, ‘we think you should go on the air and make a statement,’ and I’m like, ‘I have nothing to say, this is obviously and completely a bogus context you’re putting us in,’ and you know, as long as I’m not accused of anything officially…in other words, as long as the FBI’s not knocking on my door, I treated it like, ‘this is your story, not mine.’

Article Author: Chris Akin

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