Russian Support (RS): Hi Sven! It’s a pleasure to have another talk with you after all this time :-)

Sven Friedrich (SF): It’s a pleasure for me too :-)

RS: At the Amphi festival this year you had a premiere: the very first acoustic set in the Solar Fake history, and it turned out amazing! How did you come up with this idea? And how were you chosen for the line-up of the festival’s closing event?

SF: Well, the idea was born when the organizers asked us if we could imagine to play there and if we could do something special. Then I was listening to what the other participants are doing, especially VNV Classical and I thought we should do something similar, but not the same. I didn’t want to break the atmosphere, but I also didn’t want to do the same a VNV, so I thought piano as the main instrument + acoustic guitar + some simple keyboards + sometimes some beats… that’s it. But all this was initiated by Amphi Festival.

RS: Surely the audience couldn’t predict the setlist for acoustics, but still many of them had been waiting for the songs like “The Line of Sight” or “I Can’t Remember”, which would have sounded even more wonderful. What did the choice of songs depend on?

SF: I just didn’t want to play the expected songs, because it would have been boring, I think. That’s why we tried to play songs you would not really expect in this semi- acoustic arrangement, like Pain goes by or I hate you more than my life… And of course our time was limited to 40 or 45 minutes.

RS: Other artists from the scene have experimented with this too, and it turned out a wonderful experience, e.g. acoustic compilation of Diary of Dreams. As you were rehearsing for your show for so long, do you think you could make a special album out of this?

SF: I acutally didn’t think about making an album out of this, but I think we’ll maybe do this again, with a more extensive setlist ;-) And I hope, but I don’t know, if Peter Heppner will join us again ;-)

RS: There is a particular reason we’ve mentioned Diary of Dreams: there are two shows with Adrian Hates in your plan. How did it happen, that you (and not someone else) were chosen as a support act and later a participant of Free&Easy Festival? How close is your contact with Adrian?

SF: We’re not in very close contact. I can only speak for myself, but I really respect and admire Adrian for all he was doing in the past. So I think it fits quite well. But that’s not the reason why we play at Free&Easy Festival. The reason is that Suicide Commando can’t play, because their singer had to cancel due to an operation on his knee, I think. And for the Goerlitz show with Diary of dreams I actually don’t know who picked us, the band or the promoters…

RS: By the way, at Free&Easy you’re a headliner! I think, it’s the first experience of the kind for Solar Fake. How does it feel?

SF: Really strange. I mean, it’s free entrance, but I’m really unsure, how many people will show up. It’s summer time and it’s festival season… so fingers crossed…

RS: In the interview for the Mexican Support you mentioned, that you might find the 3rd member for Solar Fake soon. Now there are two people on the stage again, isn’t it enough?

SF: Yes, for now. I didn’t really mean to find someone soon. I just keep looking. But if we stay 2 on stage, it’s really fine as well. I won’t force it…

RS: Anyway, the 2nd member now is Andre, your good old shadow friend. As far as I remember, he joined you for the first time last year, during the tour with Peter Heppner. And now he is a rightful member. Why did you choose Andre to play with you, back then and later on?

SF: Actually, at the first time he was the only one I could imagine to do it perfectly. And he did. Later, when Frank had to cancel shows due to his disease, it became really grooving and we thought, even when Frank returns André should stay in for the live performances. Now Frank had to quit completely, so it’s real luck that André was there. I think it’s really good and powerful on stage.

RS: In the past SF used to look quite balanced and relaxed on the stage. But now you’ve got an enthusiastic colleague, who dances, sings along to “One Step Closer” and shakes the keyboard stand so, that it rolls from side to side a little bit. Is anything else going to change in the shows in the nearest future?

SF: No, at the moment not. I’m not sure what we’ll do for our next tour. For that we have to sit together with our crew and discuss, it’s also a matter of costs. But we want to give our high energy to the audience. That’s our goal. And by now it works really well.

RS: Whatever place you visit, you always mention having lunch or dinner. How about a special column in your tour diary: “Meals on tour”? You could tell the readers a bit more about the food you have there, or perhaps recommend a nice meal in the place you’re staying for a show :-)

SF: Yeah, that’s a good idea. I think André is doing something like that on his private Facebook profile… But I’m not really sure if it’s really that interesting… Now I’m on the plane to Munich and I’m just hungry ;-)

RS: There are some certain kinds of food singers can’t eat before a performance, in order not to spoil the voice. For example, they shouldn’t drink alcohol or milk with honey. Some specialists advise to drink herbal tea. Do you have any special rules for your voice concerning food and drinks?

SF: Yes, I can’t eat chocolate or something like that before the show, because it makes the throat slimey… no sparkling drinks, not much fat, just light things, like salad or fruits. Herbal tea or coffee is fine, but basically I drink much water.

RS: You’ve mentioned, that now you can do whatever you want with your voice. How long have you had singing lessons? Do you practice classical singing (e.g. through scales) before shows and recordings?

SF: Not classical, I’ve been educated in Jazz and Pop vocals. But of course I do excercises before the shows, it’s essential to have a good intonation. My vocal education took about 6 years.

RS: We’ve always been joking, that IF just in case you decided to retire from musical business, you could join a church choir and sing chants and anthems, because your voice would fit perfectly ;-)

SF: Well, I’m not sure, if I would do that… I think when I quit singing I just make music without singing myself. I don’t think I would join a choir…

RS: Would you like to try any extreme vocal techniques to make a song more expressive?

SF: No, I think I can do everything I want with my voice, I don’t think other techniques would make it more expressive, but different.

RS: And as for recordings, do you record your vocals completely at your home studio, when doing all the sounds etc., or do you record the voice and the music separately at different studios?

SF: I’m recording everything in my studio, which is more than a home recording studio. In the songwriting process I just record guide vocal tracks and just before I start the mixing session I record all the vocals for real ;-)

RS: Is there any song you’ve ever written, which took you a year or longer to complete and to reach the perfection you were looking for?

SF: No, when a song takes me too long until I’m satisfied, I just throw it away. „Change the view“ took me quite a while. Just a short time before I would have deleted it I came up with the synth hookline which actually saved the song ;-)

RS: What should an artist do, if he/she got stuck with a song or a text for more than a year?

SF: I always throw these pieces away… If you’re stuck, don’t waste time… that’s what I do ;-)

RS: As we’re on the subject, let’s say, there are two types of creativity. The first one is, you write upon an impulse, upon an insight, like in a state of trance, when words and sounds come easily, and you’ve got a masterpiece in the end. The second type is, when you work on an idea for a really long time, constantly add or change something, and you’ve got a masterpiece in the end as well. Which way is more genuine? Which one works best for you?

SF: The pefect way for me is in-between. You have to see that there are several steps until a song is finished. The composition, the arrangement, the lyrics, the production. All this needs quite a lot of time. The composition is the most intuitve part and it’s the fastest, even if I always change something even on the composition until I’m done with the production, which ist the last step. The arrangement also takes a while, to create the perfect sounds for the song. Lyrics is another subject. I write the lyrics in a quite late stadium. Until then I’ve heard the rough demos very often and already formed a subject or certain phrases… The production then is the masterpiece of this work. To get it all together without overloading it… very intensive work… You see, it’s not made in a day or two… So when I’m already stuck in the very beginning I simply stop wasting my creativity on something that isn’t really good…

RS: We’ve read, that you always throw away some staff when composing an album, e.g. you threw away 14 (!!!) ideas out of “Reasons to Kill”. Do you delete them forever, or do you give the pieces the 2nd chance sometimes?

SF: Usually not. When I start writing new songs I want to write new songs and not continue with ideas that I got stuck with… I mean, when I say I threw away 14 ideas I don’t mean complete songs. It’s more fragments that could have become a song, but they didn’t… ;-)

RS: I would say, it’s just this self-criticism of yours… Considering your skills and life experience, I can’t really imagine any bad stuff coming from you :-)

SF: Oh yes, of course. I think it’s just important to identify the bad stuff early enough ;-)

RS: Also sorry to see, that SF doesn’t have any video projections anymore… You were going to make some for the “Frontiers” album, but they never turned up. Apparently, you’ve decided to reject the idea at all. How about sharing the old projections on your YouTube channel, like Project Pitchfork or IAMX did?

SF: Yes, maybe it’s a good idea. I think these video projections are taking the focus too much off stage. In the early days of Solar Fake it was very good, because it’s been so new… only 2 guys on stage and nothing to happen, like I was used to from my Rockbands… But now we can fill the space on stage much better I think… no need to hide anymore ;-) I think if we do something like that in the future it has to be more used like a light show with LED walls… but that’s so expensive that we still can’t afford it.

RS: You say, that before choosing the name “Solar Fake” for this project you had some other variants in mind. Could you remember what they were?

SF: Yes, but I won’t tell you ;-)

RS: I would really love it, when SF started writing in German too someday, even if German might not fit your sound. Why limit yourself with the language? You German pronunciation is so peculiar and soft, it’s a pity you’ve left it behind.

SF: Yes, maybe I’ll do it someday, but at the moment I’m just tired of bad German lyrics that flood the scene… I don’t want to be part of it and it just makes me want to write in English instead of German ;-)

RS: Some bands write songs, which have the same title as the band’s name, e.g. In Extremo with a track called “In Extremo” etc. What if you wrote a song named “Solar Fake”, or “Fake Sun” (or “Falsche Sonne” ;-) ), what would it be like, musically and lyrically? Is it real to compose such one?

SF: Maybe I should have done this for the first album ;-) I’ve had many traditions with album titles, always different for zeraphine, DS and Solar Fake. I think, if I ever write a song called Solar Fake it must be extreme in a way… don’t know in which way ;-)

RS: Your lyrics present some images, which work for your identity and help recognize your style of writing. The song “The Pages” has an image of a book of life someone’s looking through. Can it be a kind of a sequel to “Your Hell Is Here”, that also contains an abstract image of a diary? Are the two songs connected in a way?

SF: Yes, not intentionally, but yes. I like that kind of picture, the blank pages of a life…

RS: “Stigmata Rain” is a peculiar thing, its lyrics differ much from what you normally write about, and some people mention, that they can hear an “erotic touch” in it. It could also be a good soundtrack for a horror movie. Could you explain this song to us just a little?

SF: It’s written from the view of a psychopath. That’s the obvious part. Between the lines it’s a kind of anti- religious… belief helps, but not in the situations you would really need it, because you can’t fight your fate or life in general…

RS: Some songs include metaphors about horrible things or disgusting images, while the music is encouraging, uplifting and catchy. How do you reach the balance between ugliness and beauty? Do you think such dark images can help to express certain values in life better?

SF: I don’t know. I just think that the world and life just isn’t very positive and light, that’s why I’m making these weird lyrics ;-) I think…

RS: You say you can’t fill an album with harsh electro only, which can be considered a destructive kind of music. Funeral doom as a genre is destructive enough, but so is dark electro, even if it’s written by a person, who is quite happy in a real life. Where is the limit of destructive feeling for your music?

SF: There is no real limit, but for me it’s just boring to hear just the same style throughout a complete album. I like it when an album develops and changes from the first to the last track.. That’s the simple reason why I wouldn’t just do harsh electro only.

RS: In general, your texts present two opposite states of vision: on the one hand, growing completely blind, the loss of vision/focus— and, on the contrary, getting the clarity of view, being no longer blind. Have you ever experienced physical blindness yourself?

SF: No, luckily not. But I sometimes try to imagine how it feels. To sharpen the other senses…

RS: Another topic you deal with (and not only in SF) is about lost memories, erased pictures, forgotten faces… To me it looks like these images were taken out of dreaming at night. Is there any song by any of your bands, which was inspired by a dream?

SF: I actually don’t remember a song which was inspired by a dream… I usually don’t remember my dreams either. I use this image to express the wish to forget or the wish to remember…

RS: Are there any topics and themes, which you would never ever write about?

SF: I don’t think so, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never write a completely positive text. This somehow feels wrong to me ;-)

RS: I asked you once, if you might want to write instrumental tracks for SF, but in the end you needed the vocals again. What would you think of writing instrumental music now?

SF: I don’t know. Maybe in my next composing session I’ll find the perfect instrumental track… I would not delete it ;-)

RS: While staying in Berlin, we accidentally saw Paul Landers in a restaurant :-) How often do people recognize you in the street, or in the shops and offices, or when you go out?

SF: Yes, it happens quite often. I mean not as often as a famous actor is recognized… But everywhere… at gas station, at the airports, in supermakets… but it’s no problem, as I said, it doesn’t happen as often as a superstar has to deal with it ;-)

RS: There is a great difference between being lonely and being alone, alone from the crowd, so to speak. While loneliness is considered a negative thing, being alone is in fact hard to reach and besides it is never cheap. For example, travelling, when some people choose expensive, but comfortable trips, where they can enjoy everything away from others. So if we speak of this comfort of being alone from the masses, how important is it to you?

SF: I really like it and I absolutlely enjoy it. Especially when I travel. I’m not the kind of socializer, I don’t need to talk to everyone and I’m also not very interested in the stories of strangers, because most of the time they’re boring and just want to talk about themselves. But who cares… I also don’t like to talk about myself, so I think I’m quite incompatible to those people… ;-)

RS: A quotation of Indian wisdom says that if you love the humanity, in fact you don’t love anyone, because it’s easier to love something abstract, than to love real people. Is it more honest and sincere to love concrete people— and to be against the humanity in general at the same time?

SF: I don’t know if it’s sincere. I can love a special person but hate mankind. It’s no Widerspruch to me, because what this single person does is nor equal to what mankind does…

RS: When we look at you comparatively in all your three bands, we’ve got a feeling, that we see three completely different people. Do you feel it this way too?

SF: No, I don’t. But to others it might seem like that. Maybe it’s because I am most enthusiastic with Solar Fake, still ambitious with Zeraphine, but finished with Dreadful Shadows ;-)

RS: How did your family and friends react back in the past, when you as a teenager started wearing dark clothes and make-up?

SF: My friends were all Goth or Punk, so it was just the normal outfit to wear makeup, skirts and funny black things. My family was not really amused at first, but they got used to it and accepted and respected me. My parents in particular always supported me, even if they didn’t like my outfit very much in the beginning. But they were very nice.

RS: There are a lot of names in the European dark scene, but which tendencies can you see for its developing in the future? Are the any promising young bands, which could be your successors?

SF: I really have no idea. But I really don’t hear very much new music from this scene. Most of the established artists that I like are rather old, but still make very young music.

RS: If you had more time and money, what else would you do to express yourself? I doesn’t have to be connected with SF, may be a film, a painting, whatever.

SF: I think music is the only way I can really express myself. I’m not very talented in painting or other things. I also do animations and filming, and this is a kind of artistic expression as well, but I think music is the best way for me…

RS: Well, that’s all for now! Thank you so much for your time. Don’t suffer about the final words, this time we’ll take over again ;-) It’s incredibly great, that you’ve found yourself with Solar Fake, and we can only hope that you will keep it up! Also greetings, best wishes and big hugs from all the Russian supporters, and best luck on your future performances. See you!

SF: Thank you for your great support, I hope to be back in Russia soon! Have a good time until then, bye for now ;-)