Hello. introduce yourselves to those who haven't heard of you, please.
Girls Under Glass is Volker Zacharias - Vox, Guitar, Axel Armes - guitars and bass, Hauke Harms - Electronics. We are from Hamburg Germany.
What do you hope to accomplish with your band?
To be the greatest band in the world! No really to make great music with integrity not just do anything to sell a million copies. We hope to leave a legacy of great music that people will appreciate when we are no more.
You've done a madonna cover... what made you decide on madonna?
We have done many covers over the years, "Down in the Park"(Gary Numan), "New Gold Dream"(Simple Minds), "Halloween"(John Carpenter) amoung others. We cover titles which are compelling to us and which we can make our own. This title had the potential to us to be another great Girls Under Glass classic. I guess we will know this come the August release date.
Your sound has elements of rock, electro, metal, industrial and several other genres. what would you categorize your sound as?
We came out of the German gothic and wave scene in the 80's, then worked in the more traditional industrial and electro genre in the 90's covering guitar driven as well as the syth pop side. So we have covered the entire spectrum of underground music, however the Girls Under Glass sound is very unique unto itself. We have a clear identity even though we have covered so many areas. Everyone knows what GUG sounds like(after they hear us of course). We have yet to spawn any clones as of yet.
Who are your biggest musical role models?
Well since we have covered Gary Numan material, he is one of the heros of the band. Gary has been on the underground electronic and wave scene for decades and a pioneer of the genre still going strong. Of course we respect all the german legends Kraftwerk etc.... as well.
Who do you want to tour with?
We have been on the road and festivals with so many bands over the years Sisters of Mercy, Project Pitchfork and all the big names in the darkwave area. We do look forward to the June 1-4 WGT festival Leipzig Germany where the best and brightest bands of Europe will be on public display.
Is there a message you think your music makes?
It depends where we are emotionally in our life when we made the music. Our songs run the complete human emotional cycle, from feelings of anger, love, hate, fear dispair and depression to joy. Overall the theme of most of our music to date has been angst ridden again due to our experiences which we express through our music.
Halloween is my personal favourite song by you :o) do you have any favourites?
Thank you. We were urged by our label to make this cover for a horror theme compilation that never came into being. So instead we put is as the opening track to our first US release. We all enjoy making good cover version as we stated but our own music has the most special meaning to us.
What are your opinions about napster?
I think the small label artists are getting hurt by it. We can not survive if we have to pay to record records and then people take it for free on Napster. Labels and artists only make royalties if someone actually buys the music. Some say that Napster is a great promotional tool however if you have a good website and or online marketing company promoting your band you can effectuate the same results without giving away the store. Big bands/ artists who sell millions of copies are not hurt by Napster as much as the small indie bands as the percentage of free music to sales is much higher. Most non hit records (90% of what is released every year) sells less than 1000 copies, so the indie bands get killed on the free Napster songs. So far we counted 92 GUG tracks on Napster and we do not see anyone who downloaded a free song go buy the records. Like the old american saying "why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free"
Well thanks for the interview! good luck! (you can make any other statements /comments here if you'd like too)
We want to thank all the fans that have been with us throughout the years and supported GUG by coming to our shows and buying our releases. We look forward to our August release "Frozen" on Van Richter with a infamous Wolfsheim duet, Das Ich remix and of course Madonna cover. Please come out and see us June 1-4 at the WGT festival Leipzig Germany Please also visit our website at http://www.vanrichter.net/gug.html for all the latest band news.
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