Jan's Feet Interview
Click to viewI love this interview and have watched it several times and I wanted to share it because I think it's adorably hilarious that Jan's feet are just barely touching the floor. He moves his shoes around so that the side touches and then he moves it again and he crosses his leg and then his knees on Juri's leg and...you get the drift.
So I said, hey, if I'm sharing this, why don't I translate it for everyone else? I realized two things very quickly: 1) Linke doesn't give a damn about this interview and mumbles so badly that I have to replay his parts three or four times and then read the French to figure out what he's saying and 2 ) I've been watching Jan move his feet for over 7 and a half minutes. What the fuck is wrong with me? Seven and a half minutes?! I watched this video TWICE before I started translating it. That's fifteen minutes of staring at Jan's feet. And I don't have a foot fetish, I promise.
I just...ugh. Here's the interview: Some of the French questions came out kinda sketch because I've only taken two years of French.
Interview with Nevada Tan
Paris
10/07/2007- July 10, 2007
Franky: Hi, I’m Franky and I’m the singer for Nevada Tan.
Linke: I’m Linke, the bassist.
Juri: I’m Juri, the drummer.
Jan: I’m Jan, the DJ.
David: I’m David, the guitarist.
Timo: And I’m Timo, the MC.
How did you all meet?
Franky: Timo and David know each other from kindergarten. So it’s been almost 16 years. Jan went to school with Timo. Linke comes from the same area (place) as the guys. David and I were almost neighbors. And I met Linke on the internet.
How did you start with music? (How did you come to learn music?)
Timo: When I was six, David and I began to play piano (or synthesizer) together. But I stopped. In fifth grade I began to play guitar and that’s when I began to write lyrics, too.
David: Like Timo already said, I began to play piano when I was six. I also began to play guitar in the fifth grade (looking at Timo, so also meaning as well, at the same time). When I was little, I would spend all the time playing. I had a small keyboard at home since I was three or four and I would bang around on that.
Jan: I started first playing the guitar. But I quickly went looking for another instrument to play. I loved watching DJ’s and said to myself, I should start doing that (I really want to do that; I should learn to do that) and from there on, I haven’t wanted to do anything else.
Juri: For me, I began when I was five years old. My father built me a drumset out of a small p- (Juri turns an imaginary pot over as he stumbles over the word)
Jan: Cooking pot-
Juri: Pot and I (mimes banging on the pot) banged on that and I was completely amused. And that’s how I started with the drums.
Linke: I began to play guitar when I was five or six. Yeah, so that’s how I started. Music came afterwards, so…yeah.
Franky: I began to play the guitar when I was eight or nine years old. However, my professors told me I should spend my time learning to sing more than playing the guitar (Di Note: I’m not sure the construction exists in English; essentially: My professors told me I should do singing instead of guitar because I was better at singing).
What messages do you want to get across with your album?
Timo: There are things about the school system, there are (messages) about having money and working your way up, about conflicts, family conflicts. There is also a theme about classic love of relationships (Di Notes: his tone says he’s bullshitting and the rest of the guys are grinning, so I dunno that he’s being serious), of feelings.
Linke: You could say the whole theme is about everyday life and teenagers.
Timo: Yeah but not the teenagers-
Linke: No, the problems that everyone has.
Are your songs about yourselves? (Your songs, are they autobiographical?)
Timo: Yeah, a part. Each one, not exactly, but most of them, yeah.
How do you create a song?
Timo: That depends on when it happens (the moment, time, German Mal, French fois).
David: It is very variable. So, with us, it’s one time the classical songs. The composition begins in the rehearsal room. Juri begins with a beat (tune, rhythm) and Linke says, hey, that’s cool (super cool, awesome, German geil) and immediately starts doing something with his bass, and they begin to jam (Di Notes: sorry, it’s an English loanword). Then I get my guitar and then we work on the melody (the base) of the song. Afterwards, Timo starts writing. And that is how we do the classical songs. (Jan leans over) The others- oh yeah, we also have a DJ! Who contributes a lot! Most-
Timo: Most of the time-
David: Most of the time it’s different. The songs are written on the computer. And then we use the internet to communicate at home. Everyone has his own ideas and then he uploads that and sends it over the internet. Um…and then the others can look at that and write (Di Notes: lots of hand movements and facial expression; I swear, David thinks the internet’s magical) what he thinks about it.
In your album, which songs define you the most?
Timo: “Niemand Hört Dich” and “Revolution”. Those two. “Niemand Hört Dich” is just the typical song of Nevada Tan, the classical Nevada Tan song and “Revolution” expresses our opinions perfectly.
Who has influenced you musically? (Which people are your influences?)
Timo: It’s difficult to say since we’re six guys and we all have fairly different tastes in music. You can’t just say, “oh, this group has inspired us, we want to sound like them”. Yeah. Franky likes to listen to singer-songwriters. Linke, rather a lot of American rock from bands nobody really knows. David likes classical and plays the piano. Me, I listen to hip hop. So we listen to lot of different things, you can’t really say.
There isn’t a leader in Nevada Tan. Who (what?) is important to you?
Timo: Uh, yeah, we see each other all the same. We’re in a band. We are a band.
David: Yeah. (Ha! Duh. Um…yeah. German tja)
Timo: We’re six friends in a rock band. We’re all the same.
Frank: Most of the time we like to do (what’s not often done) in photos, so the drummer is in the front, which other people don’t do, or the singer is… We’re not a, a-
Timo: Boy group.
Frank: (laughs) Yeah, boy band. We are not just a band, we’re six friends in a rock band. No one is more important than the other.
Most of the group has side projects. Is there something (else?) that you’d be interested in?
Timo: No, actually. Not anything worth talking about.
Frank: We want first to concentrate on this band, on us as a group.
You are giving your first concert in France tonight. How do you feel about that?
Frank: This is honestly going to be interesting. This is our first time playing in a foreign (non-German speaking) country. We’ve played once in Switzerland but that’s still in the German-speaking so it’s still not, it’s-
Linke: Not-
David: Yeah. It’s almost Germany. This is the first completely foreign country and we have absolutely no idea how this is going to play out, what the audience is going to think.
What kind of relationship do you have with your audience (public) when you’re on stage?
Frank: We aren’t the kind of band that goes straight on stage. We’re a band that goes out first and meets the fans and then a half hour later we go on.
Timo: We don’t really have a plan of what we’re going to do on stage. It depends on the vibe we get from the audience.
A word for your French fans?
Timo: Hey, all our fans. We want to say that we’re really, really excited to be here and to talk to you here on Street Team (the French site hosting the interview). It’s really cool to speak to you on the internet and we’re really excited to meet you!