In this interview, the flower garden tell us how they experienced the first years of their career, how they think about masculinity and how they always manage to produce emotional songs “in the most flowery way”.
I can still remember exactly how I heard “Paris Syndrome” for the first time two or three years ago – and how a buzz started after the version with Paula Hartmann at the latest. How did you experience this turbulent start?
Rayan: The last few years have happened to us rather than that we somehow forced them ourselves or planned them by a long time. We banged from a happy coincidence to the next. That was kind of magical, this start to this music world. At the same time, this was associated with this great concern for me: I had no musical background, Sammy and I had never really played live before and I sometimes struggled with the imposter syndrome.
Sammy: When we came on stage for the first time, we didn’t even know what was happening to us. We were never really in time because we never had to be before. Rayan was always at the first show at the first shows, which was immediately seen, with me it said differently. I didn’t eat anything hours before and I was really bad. But we did it, it worked and since then we have been doing everything we can to do the concerts even better.
Anyone who describes your music usually does this about Rayan’s voice and emphasizes them as a unique selling point. I have to admit that I also find the instrumental very out and good. So first asked in your direction, Sammy: You are the music and sound manager, so to speak. Was it difficult for you to get even more into this role? Polemically said, a well -known producer could have come with a hitgarantie who pushes you into the background and says, “I’m getting Rayan big now” …
S: Boah, so there were definitely ups and downs with me. Above all, because I often do not go the conventional way in the studio and we will probably make our songs in the most flower -comfortable way. When I was able to look over my shoulders with other people, I saw that a lot works differently. That intimidated me at the beginning, but at some point I noticed that the ideas especially count. For example, take a song like “Sun in August”. I know exactly that nobody could have done it like us.
In the meantime I’m very proud of it – but that was a process. It is basically still. Rayan and I, I think both were not born with a lot of self -confidence and we were really taught us as children. We first had to fight for being proud of our work.
Rayan, your voice and texts develop a very direct emotionality that would not work so well with another singer in my opinion. At the same time, the sentences are very simple and directly and would look almost a little cringy for others. I have to think about Judith Holofern’s thinking, who once said about the text: “It is always easy.” How easy or difficult is this for you in the songwriting process and how do you notice what works lyrical and what could maybe be too much?
R: I’ve always had a tendency to drama and overdo it – I’m just a drama queen! [lacht] I am very sensitive and I was always told in childhood and youth that it was something bad. I never became encouraged, To let out somehow, but through Sammy and writing I have now found a place that allows me to let these emotions run wild. That is why the text letter is not a difficult task for me, but with the most beautiful part of this process. I try to crop too much as possible.
I find artists like Lil Wayne or Jay-Z very inspiring, of which they say that they don’t write down much, but come into the studio without finished texts and then just start rapping. Of course I already had Writing sessions in various studios. Then there were very professional people who have laptops full of files, words and text blocks that they can puzzle them together and then polish them as required. It was somehow impressive, but almost too mathematical for me. I have the feeling that part of the soul of a song dies every time when the words “topline” or “noma rhyme” fall. That’s why I try not to leave any space with us, and simply free snout out of our stomach what is in my heart. So far we have been driving very well.
S: I appreciate Rayan’s will to express himself very much. When I realize that it is exactly what he feels and wants to say, it doesn’t matter whether I find it a little Corny or would say otherwise. I don’t interfere. I generally believe that producers often make their own film too much on the inside and the artist: want to subordinate their vision inside. Rayan and I have just killed each other well over the years. For example, I think the song “Dark Black” shows the best: It works seven minutes and I think it feels like three and a half minutes. The text is always in the foreground, but if it is not sung, production always comes out – and it should be the same.
R: Samy and I have hard confidence in our taste. We know intuitively what we find cool. We have always exchanged very intensely about art and music over the past few years. So we have a common denominator and a creative connection that I cannot imagine with any other person – and that’s why we actually have a pretty smooth way when it comes to the question of how a song should end. But you also have to say that we are not 100 percent aggreen And always find the exact same solution. But in 80 percent of the cases it is the case.
That sounds pretty healthy. In the end I would like to talk to you briefly about the topic of masculinity. I notice that your audience is very mixed and when you look at the comments under your videos, you can always see young men who feel very understood with you. It seems to me a little as if you offer a different picture of men with your kind and your music – one that does not have to rely on hardness to be cool. How do you see that?
S: It’s nice that you say that because we actually want it a little. We lacked such male models in school. So at some point we just thought between imposter syndrome and presumption: let’s try to be role models. It feels very nice that many kids now really perceive it. We really get a lot, very emotional feedback-personally, by email, via Insta-DMS. Often also from young men.
R: We want to make music for kids who are like us. We were already a little out of the outsider in our small town and had to go our own way because the conventional youth groups had no acceptance. You were never the cool and that’s why I preferred to be on the Internet twelve hours a day and listened to bizarre music than I met with any people to smoke Shisha. With our music we would like to show that it can also be cool to be the loser, to let out his emotions or to admit weakness. Preaching is the basic theme of the music of flower garden. And of course we hoped that the day we are the cool will come.
In my time in music journalism I was allowed to work with some people who were the epitome of coolness for me. Funnily enough, three quarters of them were more likely to be the outsiders or those that were not very attention. Until they flourished …
R: Yes, full. I think there is a connection. We also make our music for exactly these kids. Thinking school is the whole life – and if it doesn’t go there, it always goes on like this. That was a trap in which I also stamped in my school days. I wrestled with really dark thoughts – also because I don’t have the easiest childhood. Today I would like to say to my then: “Hey, it goes on afterwards somehow – and even really going on!” Back then I never thought that my life was doing this 180-degree gym. Sammy will remember: I felt there in the 12th grade five times because it all got me so finished. I just didn’t know where to go with my life. And now to see what Sammy and I can do – that just fills me with pride. We were at the 1Live Krone a few months ago – that was one thing that I always watched as a child with big eyes. And suddenly you sit next to people like Sido, and he also knows you and later raps on your album. That showed me: it is possible to go his way after school. And that’s why it is very important to us to convey this further.