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Arriving on the U.S. music scene from Germany two years ago, Atari Teenage Riot have accomplished three seemingly impossible tasks.| They've wedded punk rock and electronica. They've made a media splash singing about left-wing politics. And most impressively, they've performed electronic music with more wild abandon and pure energy than most rock acts. Riot chief Alec Empire, 26, through his Berlin-based record label Digital Hardcore, has put anarchy back on the map. Backed by Grand Royal in America, Empire and his multi-ethnic, boy-grrrl bandmates -- Nic Endo, Carl Crack and Hanin Elias -- have recently released 60 Second Wipe Out in the hope of strengthening the revolution. As they proclaim in "Revolution Action": "It's time to live and it's time to die . . . "
You've said that Atari Teenage Riot and Digital Hardcore
spew poison into the system like a parasite. How?
The idea of this band is to spread the mid-range frequencies that
cause an adrenaline rush and a lot of aggression. People feel
excited and euphoric about this music. We believe if we reach
people on the emotional level, emotions create thoughts, and that
will spur them to action. Also, we are offending very conservative
people. By providing what we call anarchist energy, people can come
together and make a political change possible. We put fuel to the
fire.
Do you worry that kids who listen will feed off the music's
energy but ignore the revolutionary aspect?
A lot of people ask me that, but strangely enough I've never come
across people who take the music as just entertainment. In America
we met lots of 16-year-olds whose first contact with these ideas is
Atari Teenage Riot, so it's a different situation. I don't want to
judge people in the audience. But it's not like people are having a
nice dance party to a track like "Start the Riots" or "Death of a
President D.I.Y.!"
With the collapse of the Soviet system, even Vietnam and
China are trading with the U.S. You guys are maybe the only ones in
pop culture screaming for an end to capitalism. Do you feel all
alone out there?
No. The capitalist system has failed. More and more people live
like s---. Capitalism has no future. It means conformity. I reject
this American lifestyle completely. There are many great people in
America standing up for something good, but the basic thing is just
consuming. People believe that they have a free choice, but they
only have a consumer's choice.
Solutions exist. Corporations keep holding new ideas down, but
stopping this process only leads to death. We're all gonna die,
it's really simple. We have to reorganize our society and the way
we live. Otherwise, we're gonna die. We live on the back of the
third world. I can't agree with that.
What do you envision capitalism being replaced
by?
An anarchist society without a power structure where everybody is
taking self-responsibility. Capitalist values won't mean anything,
so crime will be reduced to very small levels. Everybody can have
everything. But people have to accept other people being different.
And the destruction of nature, why is this happening? Just so
people can drive faster cars? It doesn't make sense.
ATR has added a new member, Nic Endo. How did that come
about?
We tried with this new record to capture the energy we built up
during two years of touring. Nic Endo came into the band for the
Beck tour that we did. I was singing more and couldn't control the
machines at the same time. Doing these shows, she brought another
aggression level to the music. We really wanted to have that on the
record. We always want spontaneous live energy instead of some
cleaned-up programmed computer music that is not causing any
emotions.
What machines do you use to make the music?
We use an Atari computer as a sequencer -- that's why it's in the
name. We use a sampler and a Roland drum machine. But we don't take
the Atari out for shows. If it's live hardcore, the computer would
break down.
Are the guitars on the record played or
sampled?
All the guitars are played by myself. All of the noise is created
by us. But we want to keep that option of manipulating the sound in
the samplers, of reversing guitars and pitching them down, all
these things that make Atari Teenage Riot sound so different. Only
on one track was there a guest guitarist, "Your Uniform (Does Not
Impress Me!)" -- Dino Cazares from Fear Factory played on that.
What are your long term goals for ATR and Digital
Hardcore?
Atari Teenage Riot is a spontaneous thing, it could end any day.
People should know this. DHR is attacking the mainstream structure,
even though it's just selling records. We create freedom inside the
label -- creative freedom. We'll have a big impact in the coming
years. We make no compromise with our music. It is exactly how we
want it to sound. Two years ago, MTV Europe started playing the
videos from our first album that they had rejected. They said,
people are into this, we have to play it. We didn't compromise to
get on MTV. We give a s--- about them. But if people change for us,
then it is an achievement.
So you were performing in Berlin at an anti-fascist
demonstration against the NATO bombings, and the police attacked.
Then a full-scale riot broke out. What happened?
There were 30,000 people there and at the beginning it was
peaceful. There were 5,000 policemen looking like they were waiting
for something, to find a reason [to attack]. Their facial
expressions behind their helmets gave us a real enemy vibe. They
began attacking demonstrators. We saw policemen throwing stones at
us. Demonstrators were tolerant for a long time. A lot of people
were already seriously injured and others were holding up their
hands saying, "We don't want this to escalate." But the police just
went for it, breaking shop windows and throwing tear gas.
We are normally against violence, but if the government doesn't
leave us another option, we're not gonna let people go down to the
ground and nobody does anything. If there is no other way -- and
more and more it seems that ways to express your opinion are being
reduced by the police -- it is a situation we can't accept.
RODD McLEOD (May 18, 1999)