STUDENT: So, how was it then, were you discovered, or did you strive for something like that, or...
BLIXA: No, actually... I'd say that the climate at the time around 1980 was better suited to start anything than it is now. Now, you'd probably have to be discovered, I don't know. Back then, it wasn't really relevant for me. It sort of went by itself.
STUDENT: Well, how did it go...
BLIXA: How do you make something go by itself?
STUDENT: When I try to picture that today, if I'd tried to form a band, and then play some type of music, I don't know...
BLIXA: You'd probably suffer from an enormous oversupply of other people doing exactly the same. Even if you'd try to do something different, I mean, there are always a lot of people forming a band at any given time, playing music and... In terms of climate, I'd say that, at least around 1979 to 1980, there was a lot of crap around that nobody gave a shit about anymore, and anything else was welcome, so in that sense the climate was different. If I started today, I might not stand a chance to establish myself, doing what I'm doing now.
STUDENT: I know that you're making your music with air hammers and buzz saws, I don't know how you got the idea, but I also know that you...
BLIXA: I think that it certainly didn't have anything to do with music education here.
STUDENT: I mean, I've heard that you had a bit of trouble at school...
BLIXA: Also true.
STUDENT: And that you'd been asked to leave, so to speak...
BLIXA: This my revenge, so to speak, that I'm here now. I had to obtain permission from Mr. Volkhard Rohde, who is still the headmaster, to even set foot in this school again. Because it had been noted on my school certificate that I be banned from entering here. So, it was a sort of challenge, returning here, at the official invitation of the very person who banned me in the first place.
STUDENT: Weren't you a little bit sorry about it, I don't know, graduation is a good goal somehow after all...
BLIXA: Is it?
STUDENT: ...or have you just had enough?
BLIXA: I don't know, the ability to look ahead, to say that I needed to graduate or didn't need to, just wasn't at my disposal at the time. I was only trying to establish myself and my individualism as anarchically and as radically as possible, and that of course was a reason that I was expelled from school, but as I said, I was really aiming for it at the time.
STUDENT: And did you know that you wanted to be a musician, or was it like the last chance...
BLIXA: I never wanted to be a musician. I still don't.
STUDENT: Can you play an instrument?
BLIXA: No.
STUDENT: Never thought about it either, that you'd learn something or...
BLIXA: Well, I've learned to be a film projectionist, but that was by accident.
STUDENT: No, I mean a musical instrument or...
BLIXA: No, for that... Well... There are families where you are encouraged to learn to play a musical instrument, my family wasn't one of them.
STUDENT: Well, I mean, I'm a musician myself, that is, I play musical instruments and so on, for me personally it wouldn't be enough to make music, I'd have to master it.
BLIXA: Yes, that's surely... But you are... You certainly were a bit younger when you started to play a musical instrument.
STUDENT: That's true.
BLIXA: See? I had only been given the choice whether I wanted to be a track-and-field athlete or a swimmer, not whether I wanted to play the clarinet or the guitar. So to say at the age of 18 or 20, or whatever age, to say now I'm going to learn how to play a musical instrument, was superfluous in principle. Or wasn't it?
STUDENT: It's always a question of attitude, I mean there are...
BLIXA: Well no, it isn't, it's also a question of whether after being expelled from school and attending job-creation programs, living off social welfare, you should put aside the money needed to learn to play an instrument. I think I skipped that, so to speak.
STUDENT: Do you regret it? Not having learned to play a musical instrument.
BLIXA: That I didn't learn to play an instrument? Yes. You could say that, yes. I certainly would have preferred it over track and field athletics or swimming, honestly.
STUDENT: And is this why you use such curious instruments like saws, because you don't know how to play others...
BLIXA: I personally don't use instruments usually, I only ever sing really.
STUDENT: You're just using your voice.
BLIXA: Exactly.
STUDENT: People probably say that it isn't really music...
BLIXA: Sure. Personally, I take what I do very seriously. Which doesn't mean that I don't have a sense of humor, but in principle, I take it very seriously. And it just took a couple of years, and in those years there certainly have been a lot of people who said that it isn't music, but the consistency with which you do something tends to convince even the last skeptic eventually.
STUDENT: So how did you come by your... these... Well, I don't want to say instruments. Well, it doesn't matter, actually you could say that...
BLIXA: If you take the original meaning, the term instruments is perfectly correct.
STUDENT: Okay. So how did you come by that, following the motto "sei schlau, klau beim Bau" ["be clever, steal from the construction site"] or...
BLIXA: That slogan actually was written on the first drum set. "Sei schlau klau beim Bau", yes. We did have a normal drum set, but it had to be sold due to financial difficulties, and out of those financial difficulties, we had to get something else, so there definitely was "sei schlau klau beim Bau."
STUDENT: What kind of money do you actually make now?
BLIXA: Rather a lot.
STUDENT: Well, approximately.
BLIXA: Do you want to know whether it is worthwhile to enter the profession of being a rock musician, or what?
STUDENT: Whether it is... Well, I mean, your career so to speak... To get rich without an education...
BLIXA: No, I didn't exactly get rich.
STUDENT: Do you have enough money for when you're old, or do you have to...
BLIXA: When I'm old? I don't think so. It's foreseeable of course that being a rock musician isn't an occupation that can sustain you over decades. At some point, it is bound to get pathetic.
BLIXA: Do you have enough money now, so you can live comfortably in the future...
BLIXA: No. No, not at all. I just have enough money to live a reasonably comfortable life at this moment. I just procured an old age insurance policy. Each month, I'll be paying a certain amount of money into it for the next 25 years, and then I might be able to live off of that sometime. Provided I manage to pay into it each month for the next 25 years.
STUDENT: Well, that is something, isn't it.
BLIXA: I'm content that I've been able to dissolve your worries for my future. That's about the same thing I hear from my mother whenever I call her.
STUDENT: How did your parents react when you suddenly started to make noise in public...
BLIXA: Well, it didn't happen all that suddenly. I don't know. They certainly didn't like what I haven't been doing before. And being a musician or a rock musician wasn't a part of any job description, established by the unemployment agency, so there wasn't much for anyone to say about it.
STUDENT: And what do they say now? I mean, are they still...
BLIXA: Now, they're collecting in big folders whatever's in the newspapers.