Maximilian Hecker - An Incurable Romantic

Great!

Hi!

Let's start straight away by talking about “I'll Be a Virgin, I'll Be a Mountain”. This is your fourth album, and throughout your musical journey I've always found a steady growth in terms of maturity.

Do you think this growth has made “I'll Be a Virgin, I'll Be a Mountain” an album that's somehow different from the previous ones?

...I don't think this record is all that different from the others. The intention is always the same: to write good songs. This record is definitely less orchestral, less epic, it's closer to singer-songwriter music than to the kind of sound a band might have, like with the first two records, for example. I can't say that a lot of things have changed...

Let's talk about the cover and the title. There are no virgins on the cover, nor mountains...

It's a painting done by a Finnish friend of mine (Liisa Lounila), part of a series of paintings she made called "Hurriganes". I had already chosen her paintings for the covers of two of my records and it felt right for my covers to keep going with her style.

I could sit here and try to interpret the painting, but I'd be doing it the same way anyone else would. You could read it as an apocalyptic scene and realize that, at that moment, everything, in the end, disappears and dies.

Mh... I wanted to ask you what virgins and mountains have in common...

They represent purity and eternity. You know, it's impossible to actually become a virgin - in the sense of purity - or a mountain in reality. They're metaphors that point to the opposite of reality.

Let's keep talking about the title for a bit. It seems to me that, for the first time, it refers to you yourself: the first record was called "Infinite Love Songs" and love songs are usually addressed to someone else, then we had "Rose" and "Lady Sleep". What happened in Maximilian Hecker?

Mmmh... Uhm... Sorry, bear with me: I need to close the window. Wait, stay there... So... every single song I've written so far is only about me, in the first person. It's always been that way and there's never really been a change. It's never truly been about someone else, not even when I title the record with a woman's name or when you hear me singing about "you" - it's always a person I'm focusing my attention on and directing my desires toward, but you're always seeing my point of view. I've always been an egocentric (smiles).

And yet, in "I'll Be a Virgin, I'll Be a Mountain", we find a recurring character you'd already talked about in "Lady Sleep": I mean Snow White. I'm starting to wonder who she is - whether she's a real person, or simply your Muse.

(smiles) ...That's a tough question! ...First of all, she's a character borrowed from a fairy tale... What fascinated me most is that she's suspended between sleep and death, and that paradox - a human being able to enjoy "eternal peace" - is only possible in that kind of fairy tale.

I imagine that everyone in the world has, in some way, tried to reach a better physical and mental state, to rid themselves of all their troubles. Obviously all of this is only possible before birth and after death, and since nobody wants to give up their life, in order to reach that "eternal peace", people tend to search for a kind of happiness while they're still alive. ...Yes. Mh.

I once heard you say that you treat words as just a tool for your songs and don't give them any particular weight. Do you still treat them that way?

No, I take great care with the use of words. I do my best. I realize that the meaning of words can change the mood of a song.

Everyone should pay close attention to words: you can't just place words to make a rhyme, because the listener will realize you haven't made enough effort to achieve a good result and that there's absolutely nothing behind the little song. The audience deserves to listen to an "authentic" artist, one who can be worthy of a certain credibility - only then will they be able to fully connect with the artist and finally start seeing them as a flesh-and-blood person, credible and worth following.

Do you get the feeling that people really manage to understand what's in your music?

Most people describe my music as “sad music”. Do you think yours is “sad music”?

Absolutely not: in my opinion, “sad music” is something else entirely. No, I’ve always thought, especially with this latest record of yours, that you make “melodic music”. It seems like that’s something that bothers you in particular.

Well, we all listen to a record to get something out of it, and nobody considers “sadness” a benefit, and there’s no reason for anyone to want to feel sad. Anyway…

Let’s go back to “I’ll Be a Virgin, I’ll Be a Mountain”; I find it’s the classic Sunday morning record. What does Maximilian Hecker listen to on a Sunday morning?

I’ll tell you, actually I don’t listen to that much music… I always listen to the same things and (smiles) I don’t have any one record I especially like listening to on Sunday mornings.

So you’re not particularly attentive to the current scene.

I’m too lazy and I don’t feel much need to discover new artists. And besides, you absolutely can’t trust magazines: every review I read that praises a band, I end up buying the record, and 90% of the time I find out the review was completely wrong. I no longer trust the reviews I read in magazines.

Lately I rely more on coincidences that lead you to discover new music. Lately I rely more on those, yes.

I saw you play live a few years ago. You were alone on stage and, at one point, you slipped in a bit of “Take On Me” by a-ha. Do you still play their songs live, or do you now have enough material of your own that you don’t need to resort to covers to fill out a set?

Sometimes playing covers can be a very interesting experience, but I tend not to play other people’s songs, I prefer to play my own music. What you heard was just a small quote, because, at the time, it amused me.

You produced Jeffrey Hayes’ record. Did you find producing a positive experience?

Um… Yes, it was. That’s probably my future, you know, once I’m fat and ugly. Yeah, I’ll become a producer.

It was an interesting experience, even though I don’t think anyone truly knows what “producing” means: I think it has several meanings, from “yelling at people” to “sitting quietly sipping coffee”. Even that can, at times, be considered “producing a record”.

On that record I played all the instruments Jeffrey didn’t play, and I made some changes to a few of the arrangements.

I’d say it was a start.

So will you produce someone else?

We'll see. It's not in my plans right now, but it's possible.

Maxi, we've come to the last question: the banal one. Look, I keep asking it because I've never gotten the same answer twice. Why do you prefer to sing in English rather than German, which is still your mother tongue?

I've always listened to American and English music, ever since I was just four years old, and "being creative" also means "imitating", so I "imitated" the language of my idols.

Have you ever happened to write a song in German?

Yes, two or three a few years ago, but I have no intention of writing songs in German to record: I wrote those just for fun.

Thank you, Maxi, for the chat. I hope to see you again soon, even though you're about to go on tour and Italy has been left out.

For some obscure reason nobody understands, this time we couldn't even pin down a single date in Italy. I hope one turns up between November and January. I'd really like to play in Italy, because I've always found a very attentive audience there.

Maxi, vielen danke.

Ja. Tschüs.

(23 October 2006)

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