STAGE BOTTLES
interview with olaf
Hey Olaf, this is MirceONE from mptyzine, so nice to have you here for this interview, how are things?
Now things are becoming a little bit more quiet after releasing our new album in December, after touring in December and after celebrating our 30th anniversary with a big festival we organized in December.
We are not a professional band, so we’re all working in normal jobs. That’s a lot altogether, but everything went alright. So: happy and relaxed days at the moment.
For those who don’t know the band, can you please give us a short history?
The Stage Bottles were founded in 1993. The first line-up was recruited from a circle of close friends from the antifascist skinhead-scene in Frankfurt am Main/Germany. At this time it was a hard fight for the real non-fascist skinheads to act against public prejudices – we didn’t want to be confused with fascists – and to fight against the Neo-Nazi-scene on the streets. The Stage Bottles were part of this (national and international) process right from the start.
In the last 30 years the Stage Bottles released eight albums, four 7-Inches, one Live-album, one Best-Of-CD (2003) and three spilt-7-Inches with Los Fastidios, Scrapy and No Respect. Additionally there were some exclusive songs released on compilations. The closest cooperation the band has had in the past was with the record-labels Mad-Butcher-Records and Knock-Out-Records.
We already played hundreds of concerts so far. Not just in Germany. There were also concerts in Canada, Russia, Belarus, Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Spain, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Croatia, Denmark, Norway, Serbia, Slowenia, Italy and Greece.
1993 and counting, how the band changed along these years?
I am the last original member of the band. There were several changes in the line-up as a result of – mostly – changes in private life like founding a family or for reasons in work-life. So there were different drummers playing on every released album before 2023. On our new album “We need each other” our drummer O2 (“Olaf2” because I was the first Olaf in the band) is the first drummer who recorded a second album with Stage Bottles. The leaving of the band of the female singer Manu in 1999 was one of the most effecting changes in history of the band. The female voice was – next to the use of the saxophone – one of the most characteristic elements of the music of the Stage Bottles. The saxophone – originally used at the start due to the non-existence of a solo-guitar-player – is still one of the most recognized characteristics of the band. Even most of those people who think that a saxophone normally doesn’t fit to Punk-Rock changed their minds.
The music style and the intentional content of the lyrics didn’t really change, but, of course, we’re getting older and more self-reflected, so it’s not all the same as when we were young.
Tell me few things about your influences as a band
We were always influenced by “classis” English Punk Rock bands like Angelic Upstarts, Stiff Little Fingers, The Damned, Leatherface, Cocksparrer, Newtown Neurotics, Blaggers ITA and a couple of more bands. Blaggers ITA were very important for the band ‘cos I used to live in England in the early nineties and I joined the band on saxophone. They had a strong antifascist attitude with also acting on the streets and they used brass (trumpet and saxophone). They even had a Hip-Hopper in the band later. So this mixture made my mind more open for different musical influences. And it showed it’s possible to use a sax in this kind of music. The whole spirit, politically and musically, of Blaggers ITA was the base for the spirit the Stage Bottles still live.
Congrats for the new upcoming material, We Need Each Other, please tell me more about it
Thanks. It took 10 years to do a new album after the last one “Fair enough” that was released in 2013. The reasons are Covid, personal problems and a couple of line-up changes. So we had to integrate 2 new guitar players in the last three years. We couldn’t practice due to Covid. In the meantime I even wanted to disband the band ‘cos I thought I am losing my feeling to do it authentically. Without really feeling it positively I couldn’t do the Stage Bottles.
But then I kind of reorganized myself and I found myself again. And so songs and ideas for lyrics came back into my head again and the story continued.
That’s the story why we still exist and why we recorded this album and didn’t stop.
About the album itself: The title “We need each other” is a reaction to what happens all over the world. Everyone seems to be up for confrontation and not for searching for solutions for many problems we’ve got to find and we’ve got to try to solve together. Problems like climate-change, aspiring right-wing-parties and psychopaths everywhere, religious conflicts and so on. Specifically for fighting the climate change we need nearly EVERYBODY. Even most of the countless arseholes everywhere. That’s just a determination. The way how to tackle it is another question. But the song is also about friendship. Many Punks, Football people, Skinheads, etc. of my generation are becoming lonelier while becoming older. We’ve got to care about each other, we’ve got to have an eye on each other. Getting old is a dangerous thing for many reasons. If you don’t watch out you are socially isolated. That’s what we’ve got to impede.
Also the rest of the lyrics adapt to topic issues in general. Sometimes more concrete, sometimes more abstract in a global meaning.
A reference to my time with Blaggers ITA is definitely the song “You’ll never stop us”. It’s a song recorded in collaboration with the Punk-Hip-Hop band Moscow Death Brigade. I wrote the whole music and I had the idea for the title, the rest of the lyrics were written by Moscow Death Brigade. This is pure crossover.
We think musically this is the best Stage Bottles album ever. We worked out the songs in a long time and much more meticulously than in the past. The mixture of musicians works superb. The studio where we recorded did an excellent job.
Everything fits. And a lot of people obviously like it. Being recognized that much after having a release-break of 10 years is great.
And there is another thing that changed: we released the new album kind of “D.I.Y” via a label-platform of our friends from the band “Loikaemie”. We both have been ripped off by record labels in the past. To prevent this Loikaemie decided to release their new (excellent) album “Menschen” on their own label. As friends they offered us to do the same by having the opportunity to do it on their label-platform. It works very good. And at the end we get all the money we deserve to get and e need to finance everything: studio, production, promo, etc..
Please make me a top 10 of your favorite bands
1.Blaggers ITA
2.Angelic Upstarts
3.Leatherface
4.Newtown Neurotics
5.Stiff Little Fingers
6.The Specials
7.Bruce Springsteen (first inspiration to write songs)
8.Madness
9.Red London
10.Charly Parker (famous jazz sax player from the fifties)
And for sure a couple of more bands.
Are you guys preparing a tour to promo the new album? Where people can see you in the near future?
In December we already had a little tour supporting a german band that’s very big in Germany: Feine Sahne Fischfilet. We played three gigs with them altogether in front of about 15.000 people.
In 2024 we are not planning a tour. We’ll play festivals all over Europe and smaller gigs. Due to the fact we’ve all got normal jobs and some have also got families we can’t do big tours. But we play at weekends as much as possible. But it’s also important for us to have time to recover so we are sensible and we don’t play every weekend we could.
If you have the opportunity to do a split EP with a band, what band will be?
To be honest, I can’t answer this question. We are not in the age anymore where we adore other bands and wish to do something with them.
A collaboration like with Moscow Death Brigade is great. But a split with any band? We would be up for it in general, but it must be a band that’s fitting to our attitude and quality of music.
Tell me where people can buy or listen to your music?
You can order in the Stage Bottles-Shop, at “Feetfleck Records”-shop or at Cargo Records. Please order in our shop to support us completely!
But it’s possible to stream it everywhere aswell.
You guys played in many parts of the world, where it was the most amazing?
Well, “amazing” may be the wrong word for our first tour in Russia in 2008. But the circumstances for this tour were very special. We were the first west-European band with a strong antifascist attitude that played in Russia until this moment. Twenty friends from Germany and twenty friends from Russia were with us the whole tour for security reasons. At this time there was kind of a war between fascists and antifascists on the streets of big Russian cities. When we played the tour we were threatened by Nazis, one venue was painted with svestikas, security checks at the venues ere sometimes the same s at airports to prevent that guns etc. were brought inside to shoot us and the people of the audience. Very, very sadly three of the Russian friends who were with us were killed – better executed – by Nazis later. But the experience in general to meet so many great people, to feel how important it is for people to get international support, and to give it, that was amazing. Our collaboration with Moscow Death Brigade is still a result of these things happening in the past.
On the other hand it’s always an amazing thing to play on other continents. We played in Mexico for example. Not well organized, but dead nice people and a setting that’s different to European gigs. A different culture and a different landscape. Great. We enjoyed it a lot.
Olaf, thank you for your time, please if you have a message for our few readers
Get our new album “We need each other” and listen to the lyrics. Then everything was said.
And never forget: we need each other ‘cos only together we’ll weather the storm.
We need each other ‘cos otherwise we’ll go down to flames.
Let’s stand together against homophobia, sexism, racism, fascism, capitalism and so on. Let’s fight for real justice. Then we’ll live in a better world where everything has hopefully a chance to become happy. Don’t be selfish.
MirceONE vs Olaf Stage Bottles – December 2023-January 2024.
mpty zine 