In an interview, Rocko Schamoni talks about his circular saw accident, deaths in the area and his 40th stage anniversary – why he continues despite everything.
Do you have to do everything just because you can? The infamous Hamburg entertainer Rocko Schamoni always threw himself into everything – and pulled himself out again. A lush work between the chairs. On the occasion of the gala celebrating his 40th stage anniversary, we talk to him about the turning points of a multiple career.
How are you right now?
ROCKO SCHAMONI: Fate just played a trick on me. Last summer I injured myself badly and ruined my left hand with the circular saw. Part of the thumb is missing and the index finger is no longer functional. This changed my whole life because I can no longer play the guitar. Disc pottery as a ceramist is also no longer possible. There were also deaths and serious illnesses in the immediate vicinity. I feel like the good Lord just shit in my open mouth. But the strange thing is that I’m still somehow fine. Art pushes me all the time, says: “Don’t stop, you have such great ideas!” And that’s true. I have an incredible number of plans and am involved in such great processes that I can’t and don’t want to let even the hardest blows get me down. Crazy – I’m feeling pretty good.
You started out as a punk, but quickly moved away from punk music as an aesthetic. Why not just stick with a sound for life like the Toten Hosen?
It was clear early on – around ’84 or ’85 – that I wasn’t a shouter. I tried to sing like Schorsch Kamerun from the Golden Lemons, but it gave me a coughing attack. Furthermore, in the debates we had in Hamburg back then, it was clear that you couldn’t stay at one musical point. Frank Spilker from Die Sternen arrived with funk, I suddenly discovered Sly Stone and we just played around with old and new sounds. It wasn’t possible to stick to punk rock. At that point I just let the music go with me. In the hot phase of the late 80s and early 90s, self-producing electronic music emerged, the musician Hans Platzgumer moved to Hamburg and we got samplers. My curiosity was unbridled – I wanted to swim through the sea of music, dive and see what was lying around.
Another turning point was when it became clear: music is not just a passion, but at some point also a profession.
When I was 14 or 15, I wanted to be able to earn money with my own art. I really admired people who had achieved that – that’s how I wanted to live. Later, I could hardly make a living from my music. The public then decided they wanted a different area of me. Fate gave me double, triple, quadruple the audience after I changed genres. In Düsseldorf, for example, I always played at the Zakk with my band – six people, with brass instruments. We performed in the small hall at Zakk in front of maybe 140 people. When my second book “Dorfpunks” came out, the big Zakk was finally opened up to me, which could accommodate 450 people and where I would have loved to be able to fit in with my band.
Your readings sustain you – you had to put music on the back burner at the end of the noughties.
That was very frustrating. Music is the most important experience of my life. For economic reasons alone, I could no longer maintain this, and it was clear to me: If I want to maintain my standard of living, I have to go on tour with books. Of course I enjoy my readings and am grateful to the audience that the halls were and are so full – wonderful! But I’m still sitting backstage and waiting for the others from the band, but they don’t come anymore.
With all the changes, what are the constants for you?
It’s perhaps the only constant in my life that whenever I’m done with something, I immediately jump back in between the chairs. I just directed a play in Basel, “The Knights of Ergot” – a play about the life of Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD. When I came back, I asked myself again: “Am I a theater director now?” I’m pretty good at that and it turned out to be a great piece. But then I started making music at home and recorded a song called “The Spirit of Fritz Teufel”. I immediately thought again: “Musician – that’s actually me!” But three days ago I started writing a new book and it hit me: “Dude, this is awesome! The topic is fantastic, I must be a writer!” Then it occurred to me: I consistently live between all stools. This is an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. Because I never reach a plateau where I can be at home – and that’s how the world treats me. I don’t belong to any of these camps, I’m not invited to any writers’ conferences, I’ve never been awarded a music prize. I don’t even show up at the Frankfurt Book Fair, even though my books sell well. I live in a parallel world.
I would like to address one turning point: the 2020 pandemic and what followed from it.
I saw this as a maximum turning point – for me, but also for the world, for society and, last but not least, for the artists of this country. This is something extremely dramatic that will haunt us for a long time and is also reflected in the political election results. With the pandemic, if you will, the disaster began – especially since this will not be the last crack of this kind. Because what has happened since then is overwhelming us all. The Helter Skelter started with that.
Adaptability has always been central for artists, but the current upheaval in the cultural segment is primarily about regress.
Yes, this decade saw the start of a process of destruction that drained an incredible amount of money, energy and passion from the culture. Especially by American Big Tech.
With these positive words: What have you come up with for the anniversary shows?
I play my biggest hits, but also songs that I haven’t touched in ages – sometimes for 35 years, like “The Tiger in the Night” from my first record. I’ve put together a small band and it’s fun to reinterpret my music with them. In the end, it should above all be a showcase of works. I also read stories that I wrote when I was 19 and have never performed them before. A big entertainment gala that tells the story of the last 40 years.
