2023-06-01 11:58:53
After six years, LAUSCH are loudly back with the new album “Love & Order” (Noise Appeal Records; Release: June 2nd). As with previous releases, you can’t help but ask yourself in the face of this stadium-sized voice and the extremely catchy rock hooks: why aren’t LAUSCH much more successful? Sebastian J. Götzendorfer spoke with frontman ALEXANDER LAUSCH (guitar, vocals) regarding the decision to sing regarding love, creativity via detours and the idea of a LAUSCH album at the age of 60.
You haven’t had a release for a while now. How was the process of creating your new album “Love & Order”?
Alexander Lausch: At the beginning of the pandemic, we made the decision not to play live, but to focus all our energy on writing new songs. The priority wasn’t actually that an album would come out of it. We just wanted to use the time productively.
Back then, I worked out ideas on the guitar relatively blindly and from the gut and then sent them to Matthias from Vienna in the Waldviertel. He in turn wrote his parts from the gut. I was often confused or surprised at first. In the usual rehearsal room songwriting process you can express your thoughts directly, here you just had to accept a lot. At times it was quite “out of the comfort zone”. Ultimately, it was quite inspiring to work on the material in this way, because following almost twenty years of making music together, you are of course looking for new ways of inspiration.
That means this “remote” songwriting process was also conducive to your creativity. What was just going through my mind: I often find it interesting – from an artist’s perspective – how much time elapses between the moment a song is written and the moment it’s released. How old is the oldest song on “Love & Order”?
Alexander Lausch: I think that was even before Covid. We had completed the last tour in 2018 and then actually wrote new songs right away.
Did you already write some of the lyrics five years ago or what is your process like?
Alexander Lausch: No, not at all. We focused extremely on the music. This led to the interesting approach of having zero lyrics or vocal melody, but kind of getting an idea of the mood or vibes of a song – a bit like instrumental music. Only when everything was finished and I was gripped by this album panic, which always comes when the label has a deadline, did I sit down in my studio with ten songs and within four weeks I wrote all the lyrics and sang everything. Some of the remaining material has actually been there for two years. I shoveled out the time with the clients in the studio and said to myself: „Let’s do it!“
It’s an interesting disconnect when the instrumental material is so old and the lyrics are very current.
Alexander Lausch: Well, it’s a bit like someone else wrote music for you [lacht]. It was very exciting, because sometimes I really didn’t know exactly how the songs came regarding, but often used the recordings of the riffs unchanged from two years ago. That made it very refreshing for me on the one hand, but also a bit confusing when you think to yourself while singing: “Is this really my band?” Just such a strange “disconnect” on another level. But that ultimately motivated and drove me creatively, because there was no other way.
“I would love to write timeless lyrics.”
I’m interested in the topic mentioned, because the long breaks between songwriting and release sometimes raise the question of whether the musical output then creatively reflects what’s on your mind as an artist. And in the case of texts, that would be even more bizarre in my understanding: if you publish a text from 2018 then 2023 and you probably no longer agree with the thoughts from back then.
Alexander Lausch: I can understand what you’re saying, but for me the creative process itself is decoupled from the content of the lyrics. Here I am creatively working on thoughts that are not only relevant in a specific week in 2020, but rather have a higher priority for me. I then pour it into a mold.
The musical process is then the opportunity to carry these thoughts to the outside world. The thoughts that I’ve been carrying around with me for maybe 15 years can now be found on a record, refined. It’s a very high standard, of course, but I’d love to write timeless lyrics. At least for me personally they should be timeless. The music is then the outlet for it.
This ties in perfectly with my next question: what are the lyrics of “Love & Order” regarding? It’s also a meaningful title for an album.
Alexander Lausch: The overarching theme is probably not to be found so much in the individual songs, because some of them are very individual. One song is my first attempt to write autobiographical lyrics.
Which song is that?
Alexander Lausch: This is insignificance. It’s regarding the relationship with my father and the family history and how I’ve learned to deal with that. There are other songs that relate directly to the Covid pandemic and how people deal with exceptional situations. Each song has its own thematic blocks, which are summarized and then end up once more with the album title “Love & Order”. And this album title means to me the following: life is chaos, life is disordered and life is random. And “love” in the broader sense means to me the possibility of bringing order to this chaos.
For me as a songwriter, it’s a development to address love at all and to sing “Love” – that has always been a no-go for me. You don’t sing “Love” and certainly not in German. Love in rock music, that’s kind of hair metal or something…
“For me, as a songwriter, it’s an evolution to even address love.”
You mean because it’s such a big word?
Alexander Lausch: Yes, exactly. But now it makes sense for me to sing regarding it. Since I’ve finally defined for myself what it means: Love is bringing order to chaos. And thereby perhaps also creating the possibility of providing a breeding ground for further inspiring and productive chaos from this order in the chaos. Like the start of a cycle: chaos – order – chaos – order – … The glue in between is love.
Can’t love also be very chaotic?
Alexander Lausch: Absolutely. I work on that, for example, in the song “Glitter, Gold & Acid”. “Glitter” as fresh love, as chaos, as confusion; “Gold” as strengthened and discussed to reflected love and “Acid” as toxic love, change and fear of annihilation.
Because you mentioned earlier that the three of you have been making music for almost twenty years. How has your music developed in your perception over this long period of time?
Alexander Lausch: For me, the question always arises as to whether I have simply developed personally through my musical socialization over the past twenty years. How do I feel regarding our genre or regarding riffs and beats? When is a guitar solo appropriate and when is it not? The perspective on this has shifted once more and once more in the genre.
In any case, the development also happens quite automatically through the change in living conditions. For example, that we now tune everything down a whole tone, simply because my voice has changed. Or maybe I’ve been writing in the wrong keys for years. Now that’s a very technical approach. But also on a semantic level. I’m certainly better able to engage with topics such as self-reflection, love or interpersonal relationships than I used to be. In rock music it is often said that everything has already happened. There are always the same chords and riffs etc. In my opinion the difference lies in the personal approach that inspires the content.
Can you still remember what topics you lyrically occupied 20 years ago?
Alexander Lausch: It was very much an attempt to put my thoughts in order [lacht]. Now that’s a fun arc. The texts were much more tricky and associative – because sometimes I mightn’t get my thoughts straight to the point. The lyrics were much more onomatopoeic. Today I can, I believe, name thoughts and feelings better through my life experience.
There are three of you in your constellation as a band right from the start. Very few bands manage to have a stable line-up over such a long period of time. How did that work for you?
Alexander Lausch: I guess because I’m an extremely social person. For me and my band, it’s more valuable to see what happens creatively with the people who have shaped me over a long period of time, if you spend more time together. Instead of saying: my goal as a musician is to make a breakthrough in a genre, and for this I look for the people who are most likely to help me in terms of success.
It’s not that my band mates can’t help me, but they have different jobs and phases in life and our common denominator is ultimately making music. Labels or agencies sometimes say things like, if you really want to break through, you have to go abroad or to America for a while. Yes, it may be. But my social environment is much more important to me.
“I would like to know what it’s like to release a listening album at 60.”
Is it then the plan for the next 20 years to continue playing this style of music with the same band?
Alexander Lausch: So if my colleagues want to do it too: yes, definitely! I imagine it to be extremely exciting to go through different phases of life with a project like this. I’d love to know what it’s like at 60 listenrelease album. That’s extremely exciting!
Finally, what are your plans for the current album?
Alexander Lausch: We’re playing the album release show on June 2nd at the Rhiz in Vienna. Two festivals are then fixed for the summer. In autumn we’ll do a small tour of the federal states in Austria with another gig in Vienna.
Thank you for the interview!
Sebastian J. Götzendorfer
++++
listen:
02.06. Rhiz Vienna, Album Release Show
++++
Links:
listen
Listen (Facebook)
Noise Appeal Records
1685805560
#GLUE #LOVE #LISTEN #mica #interview #mica
