INTERVIEW: Before Kloten Festival, May 1984
Notes: A well meaning, but hard to understand
German speaking Swiss
girl interviewed the band. Her questions
are denoted with
‘I:’.
I: "I just told People, umm, That you are using
mostly
acoustic guitars, and ah, not any synthesizers,
and this is very
rare nowadays, and why do you use no synthesizers?"
Mike: "Well we just tend to think of ourselves
as a band that writes
songs, songs are written on guitars, songs
are written by human
beings, not by machines. You know, we
do the synthesizer a
little bit, but only as a musical instrument,
not as something
to take over the people, because music
is about emotion, and we
show out emotions live on stage, that’s
what it is all about.
I: "So you are a real live band then, and we’ll
see you tonight, but
what is, what are you doing tonight? In Switzerland
you are not
as well known as in England, how do you conquer
a new audience?"
Twist: "Play live basically."
I: "Play loud hehe…"
Twist: "No, live, playing live"
I: "What does it mean"
Twist: "It means we enjoy playing live shows,
which is what we are
doing tonight"
I: "And then you come over to them?"
Twist: "Oh yeah, yeah, definitely"
Dave: "Just want to say hello to Switzerland
basically, ’cause we
haven’t been here before. Hello"
Twist: (laughs)
Mike: (laughs)
I: "You are compared to great groups like U2,
Clash, and even The
Rolling Stones and Who, so what do you think
of that?"
Mike: "We don’t mind, if you are going to
get compared, get compared
to the best,… you know, as we are a song
writin’ band, and
all groups who have great songs, we pride
ourselves that we
have, and, ya know, if we’ve been talked
of in that company,
that must all get well for the future."
I: "But…is Alarm different to other groups
now coming from
England?"
Mike: "Were here in Switzerland, and their
not."
I: "Ok, let’s play live..but a, you were touring
with The Pretenders
and the U2 in America, how was it?"
Mike: "It was a great opportunity, ya know,
we are alive band, and
that gave us an opportunity to play live
in front of somebody
else’s audience, ya know, we went out there
to nick the
audience, and we managed to establish ourselves
as a headline
act in America in our own right, and we
hope to be doing that
here in Switzerland tonight, it is our
first ever live concert,
although we did the ???? Pop Festival once
but that was miming,
but now we are here to show what we can
really do as a live
group."
I: "You told me before I talked to you, you
are still fans from U2
and
so on, and how do you show this, that you are
fans?"
Dave: "Well, we always have been, and we
always will be fans of music,
we appreciate all different kinds of bands,
we just like to
feel
that we can be like everyone out there
ya know."
I: "Ok let’s go, huh"
Notes:
The Alarm go out and play a short, but good show
including the songs:
-Declaration
-Marching On
-Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke?
-Howling Wind
-Third Light
-The Chant
-The Stand
-68 Guns
-Bound For Glory
This show is available on a few different bootleg
CDs, for example:
-The Alarm, Live in Switzerland 1989
-The Alarm, Live In Switzerland 1984
Transcribed by Steve Fulton, 4-16-95
Publication::Publication:transcript
Author::none
