DAF – Gabi Delgado: The Last Interview

Gabi Delgado has passed away a few hours after publishing this interview. He meant the world to me, and he will be terribly missed by his fans.

Things indeed can come to a certain end.

Gabi Delgado, March 2020

For me, you are without a question the most influental German band. Many people would name Kraftwerk here, but in the end they still made more or less conventional songs. What did you do differently? What makes DAF so different, fresh and new? What is your essence?

The big difference is that we are track- and not song-oriented. At least in the beginning – with Autobahn for example- Kraftwerk also made music without a verse and chorus, but rather produced long sequences like DAF did. Another big difference is that the DAF machine is permanently sweating and just about to crash, like a plane where one engine is burning. Kraftwerk has more of an office-music feel to it, made with nice and clean machines.

Recorded calmly and with accuracy.

Yes, recorded very calmly. Another difference are the lyrics. Their lyrics are a bit strange, to put it nicely. Textually, Kraftwerk are completely irrelevant. But I don’t see the necessity to compare DAF to Kraftwerk just because we are both electronic bands from Düsseldorf, you could as well compare us to Kylie Minogue then. I feel much closer to bands like Neu! and Can.

I agree. DAF and Neu! are bands which are exciting and fresh to his day. Could that be related to you both being very unnostalgic bands?

Definitely. Right from the beginning we made it clear that we do not want to be rooted in any tradition, that we make music which is really new and not related to any musical tradition. Even when we had finished tracks that sounded fantastic- if they reminded us of something that had been done before, we just disposed them.

Don’t you think that conversely the fetish for nostalgia and retro – not only in music, but in every aspect of life- works as brake on every form of intellectual, artistic and intellectual development? Take the slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ f.e.

I think that history, and also cultural history, is cyclic. In these cycles there will always be steps backwards. And I would say that at the moment there happen a lot of steps backwards, especially in politics. But all nevertheless under changed circumstances. It’s like water from last year that comes down as rain again, but differently this time, and very likely somewhere else.

That’s why you also might not recognize it immediately?

Right. The world has changed a lot. A lot. But you are right, there is a certain retro trend in everything, politics, music, fashion… and everybody is waiting for the next glitch. Waiting for something new to happen. On the other hand we know since 1997, that every tonal sequences and harmonies have been completely exhausted. Mathematically, it is impossible to write a completely new melody, at least if you stay within the Western theory of harmony. So things indeed can come to a certain end.

Conny Plank produced all four albums of your golden era. What would you say is his biggest contribution to the sound of DAF? And what did you personally learn from him?

Everything that I know about music production. He never made a secret about his methods, but shared his knowledge generously. After finishing our work on Alles ist gut (*read our review here), I stood there for longer and completed an unofficial training his studio. Conny would give me little tasks and showed me how to do everything, starting with the very basics: microphony, equalizing, compressions, editing- I have learned everything from Conny. But he also taught me that you don’t just have to be 100% artist, but also 100% of a business-man.

So he was no hippie?

(Laughs) Oh, he was. Conny was a hippie. Conny was an intelligent hippie. The Coen Brothers should do a film about him.

DAF started as a five piece punk band in Düsseldorf. But punk pretty quickly bore you and you took it somewhere else, somewhere new. How did this transformation happen?

What I loved about punk was the energy, the provocation, and the DIY ethic, whereas the music was no more than poorly played rock’n’roll for me. I was more into James Brown and Parliament, funk and disco. We started with guitar, bass and drums as well, but also because we had no money to buy ourselves expensive equipment for 150000 Deutschmarks like Kraftwerk did. DAF was always Robert and me, and we had to tell the others in the band what we had in mind, with no satisfying results. But then we bought the first Korg synthesizer which was only 5000 DM- and then it happened very quickly that when the machines arrived …

…you didn’t need the humans anymore!

Right!

So you reduced the members of the group to the core. Reduction and simplicity is overall a powerful aspect in your lyrics and music.

Definetely. The German word for poetry, ‘Dichtung’, derives from the German word for dense and also means sealing. I think that is expressed very well. A lyric has to be dense, and denseness comes from reduction. When I say “I love you”, I do not have to say “I love you like a cloud in the sky over the green hills”. I just eliminate these embellishments and reduce it to the clear message, which is then strong, dense, and in the end more poetic.

It’s interesting that you mention James Brown, disco and funk, all music that has sex. Punk on the other side has sex in their name with the Pistols, but despite all permissiveness punk is not sexy. But DAF are very sexual, unhinged and raw.

Yes, James Brown has always been more of an idol for me than The Clash. Our music is body-oriented, we want you to move to it, to dance. Dancing is the movement that comes closest to sex.

Since ‘Der Mussolini’, people like to attribute fascistic vibes to your music. But there is also a strong paternal quality to your lyrics. Like in ‘You are so beautiful / You are so young / Always stay strong / Never look back“. Isn’t a certain paternal warmth & advise always related to totalitarian language?

Yes, indeed. That gets very rarely noticed about our music. I very often use the imperative- do this! do that! In the imperative there is of course totalitarianism, but it is also the father’s, or master’s, request that he offers to his ‘children’. And I think that DAF has often encouraged and calmed their fans. You can’t imagine what kind of letters I sometimes get, from fans telling me how comforting and soothing our music was for them. Most people instantly go like „Ceausescu, Stalin, Hitler“ when they think of DAF- but no. There is also the master, the father in our music, which in the end provides counseling.

And one is attracted and perceptive to that.

Exactly. I like the thought, and it is correct. But this gets very rarely realized about DAF. But you are right about that.

You went to London early on and took the city in storm. You played an infamous concert there with Wire, which is pimmortalized on the B-Side of your ‘Die Kleinen und die Bösen’ album. Can you tell us about that night?

We were actually the support of Wire. After we finished our gig in the Electric Ballroom, half of the people just left and the night was basically over- the crowd was enthusiastic, perplex and exhausted by us. Nobody paid attention to Wire anymore, it was like a complete blackout. But in the end we had a few Gin Tonics and peanuts with Wire and became friends (laughs).

Did that happen to you in reverse, that a support band stole the show from DAF?

No, that never happened to us. We function best with bands that are completely different than DAF, many make the mistake to book bands that are similar to themselves. We have reggae and dance-hall bands, slower music before we come and take out the whip.

What do you listen to currently?

I listen to all kinds of music, there’s good music to be found everywhere. I am an absolute fan of tecktonic, an electro dance genre with an arabic influence, that was born in the Paris Banlieues. There is lots of good music out there. I always tell the people: forget your alternative and new wave charts, expand and look outside of the box.

You mentioned the Paris Banlieues. You have your own migration story: as 8 year old, you and your parents left a middle class life in Franco’s Spain for a working class life in Germany. Later your father left the family and literally vanished. I don’t want to romanticize it, but with what did these experiences equip you?

I have a different view on the German language because of that. As a child in Spain I would often read American war-comics, in which the Germans were always depicted stereotypocally and negatively. Their language sounded harsh but also sexy to me. I always kept that certain view on the language even after learning German. Compared to my native language Spanish, it is an extremely precise and definite language. Cultural differences are also reflected in language. One example: the Germans will say something similar to: “A penny saved is a penny earned” , whereas in Spain they’ll say: “Oh, don’t pick that penny up, or you’ll never become rich!“. I constantly reflect on language, much more than a native speaker.

Wasn’t it also helpful in making you more flexible and brave? Not many would have gone that step and moved to London for a while. Most people stay in their safety zone.

Absolutely. It can be very good to change the environment. London was also the center of the music world back then. I often tell aspiring actors: „Go to Hollywood, what are you doing in a city like Frankfurt?“ Go to where things are happening! That might make things more difficult, but also easier.

And it’s generally good to see different cultures and countries. We’re so caught up in the Western European thinking and view on life, art, and law & order. It can be refreshing to see and adapt other rules. The truth is that in our privileged Western countries, you can do almost EVERYTHING and get away with it, you can even do that what is forbidden. People are just too cowardly. If you wanna smoke in the metro, then smoke in the metro! Just smoke! And if some guy walks up to you teach and instruct you on it, just tell him that you’ll kick him in the face and he’ll shut up!

You gotta be aware of the fact that a very free and pleasantly risky life is possible. Compared to other countries, nothing really will happen to you here. Still, other countries’ people take more risks.

Isn’t that what punk is all about?

Exactly. It excited me in punk to push the red button when it said „It’s forbidden!“. Just give in your childlike curiosity and push it and see what happens! It interesting.

Are there DAF plans for the future, like a new album?

We are planning a new album that we intend to produce later this year. I am looking forward doing something genuinely new, which is nevertheless totally DAF. It will definitely not be anything nostalgic like the 15^th remix of Master and Servant (laughs).

Is the glitch coming?

Maybe!

Interview by Saliha Enzenauer (March 2020)

(Read Gabi Delagado’s 3 Wishes here)