Kreuzberg nights
Sven Regener comes too late. He does not like that. Sven Regener is a polite man, so he prefers to say: "I'm sorry, I'm stuck. That's another asshole!" A courteous person with a very clear language. And although he has been living in Berlin intermittently for almost 30 years, his scratchy slang sounds like New Vahr South. Or to Hamburg-Altona. Typically north German just. Sven Regener comes from Bremen.
In "Ex'n'Pop" Sven Regener has not been around for ages. The tinsel of New Year's but.
There he was born on 1 January 1961, where he grew up, learned classical guitar, later trumpet, piano and electric guitar. For convenience, he went to high school to the Bundeswehr, moved to civil service to Lüneburg, studied music for two semesters in Hamburg and moved with 21 to Berlin, "because of a woman".
"Berlin, that was the dark wall city at that time, from which one only went out to travel seriously." The dark had its reasons, especially in the lifestyle that Sven preferred. As a student and musician, he lived mostly in the parallel universe of long nights. The days dragged themselves "sleepy and hungover" until it was dark again and you in the "Café M". or met in the "ruin". In the mid-80s, this neighborhood was the adventure playground of the art and music scene. The Neue Deutsche Welle had rocked here and again, international artists such as the Australian Nick Cave worked in the city, in whose band The Bad Seeds played Blixa Cash, founding member of the avant-garde rocker Einstürzende Neubauten. "When I came to Berlin with my trumpet in 1982, guys like me were desperately wanted, so come on 'risk', they said, we've got a gig, we'll give you a sign, and then you'll just play along." Two hours later, Sven was a member of the band Zatopek, with whom he immediately recorded a record - which infected him incurably with the Rock'n'Roll virus. Sven dived into the scene and drifted through the night.
But today is a bright day and Sven, meanwhile 47, marches off sleepily with too big strides, his arms spread out from his body, like a cowboy through Schöneberg. Black suit, dark blue shirt. The eyes look piercingly through an extra-large horn-rimmed glasses. It's cool. He steers aimlessly towards the mint green shop door of an inconspicuous residential building on Potsdamer Strasse. The "Ex'n'Pop" is located directly opposite the Berlin Social Palace, a nasty building sin from the 70s. Formerly the shop was called "KOB". Here was Sven Regener's Element of Crime 1985 their first appearance. A dark rocker nightclub with a long counter, a tiny stage, and a scraped-out mini-cinema behind it. One of the last authentic of countless West Berlin bars between Kreuzberg and Charlottenburg. Even today you have to ring if you want to be let in at night. Even more during the day.
Is life a bottle or a barrel that you have to fill somehow? "
Ed opens up. His voice is even more creaky than Sven's. Life as a night caterer and temporary tour manager of the drink-hard British hard rockers Motörhead has left its mark. "What does love do, Ed?" - "I have a new girlfriend," he says. "Finally one who is already 40 - great! No longer bother with the young things. Sven grins knowingly. He himself is a long-time family man. Married, two children, apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, weekend house outside, middle ages Mercedes. Rock solid. "Do you have alcohol-free beer?" Ed looks doubtful. "Are you sure?" Beck's used to be the currency. Beer and cigarettes, talking stupid things, making music. After Zatopek, other bands like the New Love came. "We played what everyone was playing back then: low funk, no funk, punk funk, fun punk ..." But experimenting with musical styles in some band projects was sometime too little for Sven Regener. "I wanted more: writing songs, right songs with a beginning, a middle and an end." So he founded the band Element of Crime together with the guitarist Jakob Ilja and the drummer Richard Pappik, named after a Swedish thriller series, whose commissioner eventually becomes a criminal himself.
He loves terms such as single ticket, beverage market or multi-purpose pool
Element of Crime, 1985. Sven is the guy on the far right.
Element of Crime is the first band in which Sven also sings himself, first English, from 1991 with the much acclaimed album "Back then behind the moon" almost exclusively in German. Ilja and Pappik are still there. For 25 years, each of the 14 albums sounds different - but always after Element of Crime. "That's just the idea of a band to stand for a certain style, this time we wanted to sound like a Southern rock band.But that we are still unmistakable and immediately recognizable, I expect us high. "Which of course is the best way to work: the music is always invented first - together," and then there's just something to do what you can sing " His lyrics end with Sven's ability to work as a team member, often telling complete stories in his songs, giving precise reflections on life, love and the seemingly banal of everyday life, and he loves terms such as a single ticket, beverage market or multi-purpose pool used to narrate his romantic episodes in a poetic way that is unique and surprising. "Sometimes I think, how come I get that kind of shit? All you have to do is wait until you find the right words for the melody. You get them for free, and then you have to see what you do with them. "For example, 15 long-playing records, film music and hundreds of concerts in ever larger halls.
It was a long way to go, and it's a small miracle that the band even got that far. On the radio Element of Crime does not take place until today. "What's being played there should not bother, it has to be consumable without being noticed, like Reamonn, for example." So mainstream. But not: Quirky-melancholic pop and chansons with influences from blues and folk that make Regener's trumpet sound like foggy shanties, Mexican mariachi music or a circus band. "We knew that we did not make music for the fast mark, in the beginning we were super-poor and there was no guarantee of a happy ending." Until the first advance on a record deal, all the band members were working to make ends meet. Sven among others as "Tippse" in the science center. "But that was the good thing about Berlin: you could live here like this, with very little money - an apartment cost 80 marks."
Perfect for sagging and hanging
With its special island location in the middle of the GDR as a democratic enclave in the communist block, the city had a strategic status that the West did not want to give up. Economic or cultural commitment was subsidized. Citizens' lives were sponsored with Berlin allowance and low tax rates to keep the city attractive as a living space. Not a few suspect behind the learned all-round carefree mentality of the Berlin the reason for the still wafting over the city phlegm, "which was perfect for slackening and hemming was suitable".
In his early thirties, Sven was asked more and more often, where this should lead with his music and his life. "But our art was not an eccentric hobby, it was what I wanted to do and what I did best." And anyway: "What becomes of one, how one lives - that is still the most important topic for most people, but one must endure this conflict." Which in turn is an important topic for Sven.
Daylight and non-alcoholic beer - oh yeah, the times, they are a changin.
The question of the life content also brings his novel hero reliably on the palm. "Life content, what should that be?", Mr. Lehmann asks in the film of the same name. "Is life a bottle or a barrel that you have to fill somehow?" Christian Ulmen plays Herr Lehmann, and his language, his gestures, his lewdness are strongly reminiscent of the author of the novel. But Ulmen is not a Regener and "Herr Lehmann" not his autobiography, Sven points out that. "It was not about telling my life, I already know that, so I would have bored myself to death." And anyway, private matters definitely do not belong to the public. His thoughts and how he sees things, yes, he thinks. And obviously this is also the audience. Since "Herr Lehmann", who has sold nearly two million copies on his own, the award-winning screenplay for the film and the two successors of the trilogy, "Neue Vahr Süd" and "Der kleine Bruder", Sven Regener probably does not need to work anymore and could again devote himself entirely to sagging and hemming. "But I did not have to work that for 20 years." He just needed to wait for the right words. And they can appear as songs everywhere: "On a Sunday in April", "Outside the window", in the "Edeka of horror" or with a beer at the bar of the "Ex'n'Pop". Even if it is now alcohol free for a change.
Occurred under difficult conditions
Oh yes, the old stories - in a place like this they are all right back.
"Was not there a second entrance there?" Sven asks. Ed nods. "There's even a small garden by now." Of course, such an important place of the past brings back memories of the old stories. For example, how the bassist of some band became aggressive. "We threw him out in the front," laughs Ed, "and he came back in. Later he fell off the stage drunk." - "Well," says Sven, "but that was always so close that even as a trio it was not easy to stay up." Especially not under difficult conditions. And they were often complicated. Sometimes so much that the beer went out."Then someone had to take the subway to the East," says Sven. "This was easy with an ID card." "From twenty-five marks compulsory exchange in Intershop got a lot of vodka." Sven looks suspiciously at the Flensburger Frei in his hand.
On his new album there is a song about it:
That the beer in my hand is alcohol-free is part of a demonstration. Against the dramatization of my life situation. But on the other hand, one says that the pig system is keen on sober wage slaves. That's why there is also a whiskey, because you must never give in to it.
"One is coming" from the album "Always where you are, I'm never" (Universal)
