The Goettingen-based band Guano Apes has made it into the Top Ten. CHARAKTER (Goettingen city magazine) spoke with drummer Dennis Poschwatta about teeny magazine nonsense, fleeing from fans, and possible challengers to the Apes' crown.

CHARAKTER: In light of your success, why are you playing at the Old City Festival at all, and then not even on the Main Stage?

Dennis: Definitely not because of the money. We just wanted to play at the Old City Festival because it's our home and we grew up here. Outside and for free; it's great, everybody can come. Actually we wanted to keep a low profile in Goettingen, but the last gig was half-a-year ago. As far as the stage: On Saturday we play in Baden Baden too, and we wouldn't have fit into the concept for the Outpost Stage on Sunday. We just hope it won't be too crowded in the Prinzen Street.

CHARAKTER: The video channel, Viva (German music video channel), voted you guys as one of the top 5 live acts at the Comet Prize Awards, alongside the Rolling Stones for one. What kind of significance do you place on an award like that?

Dennis: It's weird. On the one hand, that's a kind of worship ceremony for the T.V. industry, the whole music industry. They're trying to build up a German alternative to the MTV Awards. But it is an honor if you're picked as Best Live Act and you stand together with Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones, Guildo Horn, and Rammstein. It's just nice. When we get a prize Henning always says, "Ah, just another dust collector." I see it a little differently.

CHARAKTER: Earlier, when you dreamed about being famous, what was the biggest difference to what it's like in the reality that you're experiencing now?

Dennis: Somebody told us once before that Rock 'n Roll is 90% waiting, and none of us could understand that then. We all thought the guy was nuts. But it's true. You're always waiting. You drive around for hours to an Open Air, wait around for hours for your gig, play for 45 minutes, and then drive off again.

CHARAKTER: Aside from the waiting, what bothers you the most about fame?

Dennis: Sometimes interviews can be a real pain in the ass. Especially when no real conversation develops, when someone asks you for the five-thousandth time, "So where did you get the name from?". Sometimes you're just not in the mood and you switch on to the Auto Pilot answers. And sometimes (laughs), giving autographs can get on your nerves, like recently at the "Best of Local Heroes" gig in Meppen. We had parked directly behind the stage, but if you just wanted to get something out of the bus you had to plan on at least twenty minutes. Kiddies were just standing around all over the place screaming for autographs.

CHARAKTER: Is it still a surprise for you that people want your autograph?

Dennis: At the beginning it was very strange. I was pretty embarrassed myself, and I just thought to myself, ëmy God, why does he want that'? But it makes people really happy, so of course, we're happy to make ëem happy. Personally, I'd never ask anyone for an autograph. By the way, the situation just got worse and worse in Meppen. Afterwards we were walking around the city center to try to shoot some video footage, but it was just impossible. There were twenty, thirty kiddies hanging on to us the whole time and they wouldn't leave us alone. A photo here, screaming there. We ducked into an over-18 video arcade in the end so they couldn't get in. Then we played pool and shot our video stuff there.

CHARAKTER: Do you worry about being turned into a purely teeny band by Bravo (German teeny mag) or Viva?

Dennis: Yeah, at first it was a question as to whether we wanted to do something with Bravo at all. But if your single is No. Five in the charts, then Bravo hunts you down anyway. If you don't cooperate with them, then they'll just write what they want. So we decided to do something with them - and anyway, why shouldn't the kiddies be inspired by a guitar band once in a while instead of NSync and the Backstreet Boys?
Unfortunately, despite giving them an interview, Bravo still wrote what they wanted, with the complete boulevard-press treatment. We've become more reclusive now though. But last week there was another Quartett Game (in Bravo); it was so horrible. The Kelly Family, Backstreet Boys, Echt, N Sync, and then all at once Guano Apes, four cards with our pictures in between. (Shakes his head in disgust.)

CHARAKTER: What is the dumbest thing that was written about you up to now?

Dennis: That's easy: That "Rain" was written as Sandra was lying in her hotel room on tour and was missing her boyfriend, Peter, 23, sports student. Whoever that is. That was in Bravo, of course. And that on our tour of Austria and Switzerland we used every free minute to hit the slopes and go snowboarding. Also a fairy tale. Aside from that, we suddenly all got younger. Stefan was suddenly only 18.

CHARAKTER: What is your relationship like with the media?

Dennis: At first you had to suck up to them, then they started to come to us, and finally they all pounced onto Sandra. At MTV I gave Kimsy (MTV Europe VJ) a pretty hard time, because she only ever talked about "Sandra and her boys". At Bravo TV the same thing. Sandra only had to fumble around in her bag and the reporter would stick a mike in her face. We place a lot of value on the fact that we're a band.

CHARAKTER: So much for the dark side. What was your nicest experience up to now?

Dennis: It was a real highpoint that we got through the tour last year. That was really stressful, and we had imagined it being much easier. It was almost thirty shows in November and December, and we got pretty wasted the first few evenings, until we noticed that it couldn't go on like that. We learned a lot during that time, especially Sandra, who just lost her voice at one point.
This year (1998) it was the Rock am Ring Festival, our first big festival. We had imagined God knows what, and at first we were really disappointed because the bands before us had had to play to only about a thousand people in front of the stage, and all the others were just standing around here and there on the site. Then we got warmed-up and came back to the stage ñ all at once the place was packed, maybe twenty, thirty thousand people, it's hard for me to guess.
We went on stage and they all started jumping around and screaming, it was hard to believe. And then this huge crowd starts singing "Rain", all out of time and out of tune, it was insane. And as the record got into the Top Ten at the beginning of the year, we just stood around with our mouths open, dumbstruck.

CHARAKTER: After all the success of the past year, do you feel like you're under pressure with the next record?

Dennis: No, the record company already told us more or less clearly, 'We don't want a quick album, we want a good album.' You have to take all of this performance pressure that you put yourself under and just throw it away, otherwise you can't be creative enough. Now we have to find ourselves again as a band. On tour you're always really tired and you get lazy with the writing. Your head is empty. Since October, we've rehearsed together maybe five times. The first rehearsal after the tour was such a disaster that we all went back home after half an hour.

CHARAKTER: How do you imagine the next album then at the moment?

Dennis: I think it'll be straighter. We don't want to mess around with electronics as much. If there are any loops or stuff like that, we want to try to do them with acoustic instruments. At the moment there's five, six songs, and afterwards we can add a Hardcore-Polka or something!

CHARAKTER: When is it coming out ?

Dennis: When it's finished. Maybe next year in the Fall.

CHARAKTER: Your first big break was winning the Local Hero competition from Radio ffn. This year, you sat on the jury in Goettingen. Eat No Fish from Einbeck, the winners, are already being compared with you. Are they your successors?

Dennis: I think Eat No Fish are really good. The band has potential, they have songs. I know this irritating situation very well that they're in now, where they're being compared with us. With us at the beginning, people said that we were the German version of No Doubt or Skunk Anansie, and that's of course totally ridiculous. Eat No Fish do a lot with electronic beats; that's a completely individual style that doesn't have much to do with us. It's also a harder type of music, with a frontwoman and three others. But that's it. That's really everything that I can see in terms of similarities between us and Eat No Fish. In Germany there are probably thousands of bands that look like that. If that's supposed to be a current trend, then I thinks that's good, and anyway better than techno-junk or stuff like that.
Aside from that, it's time for more women to break through in rock music; although we don't see ourselves in the band as man or woman, just as musicians. Except for the fact that Sandra gets her own room on tour!