Scooter at Nova Rock: “We don’t want to be a revival circus”

Before the performance, APA asked mastermind HP Baxxter if he could imagine staying overnight on the premises. “When I saw the mud when driving up, I thought: Oh God, I don’t want to camp there now,” laughed the 59-year-old. However, he thinks that fans who do this to themselves are “cool”. The Falco tribute at the end of the festival would have been more to the liking of the creative mind. “Falco was way ahead of his time,” says Baxxter in the cozy backstage room with a light show, incense sticks, bar and Carinthian Reindling. “He was incredible as a guy, musically too, of course. An exceptional artist.”

“Everything has become more open”

Techno at a rock festival, years ago that would have been an absolute no-go. Today you hardly see “Techno Sucks” T-Shirts, thousands celebrated with Scooter in Nickelsdorf. According to the Scooter boss, there are two reasons for the change: “Firstly, it’s because of the generation, some of whom grew up with it (with the techno hits, note) as teenagers and have a connection to Scooter, even if they later went in a different direction. I’ve experienced that myself, I’ve always had changes in taste over the years. In the beginning I listened to glam rock, then heavy rock, and at some point new wave. Nevertheless, I still liked my old heroes. On the other hand, everything has become more open in general, there are no longer these trench warfare between the musical genres. In the past, the hip-hoppers didn’t talk to the techno people, and he didn’t talk to them, and everyone was against everyone else. I always thought that was stupid. “

No rival circus

Scooter didn’t just have the old hits on yesterday’s program. HP Baxxter wants to stay relevant. “We had a lot of hits, 23 top ten hits in Germany alone. We have enough choice. Nevertheless, I always claim not to be a revival circus. When we have new tracks like ‘Corona Fuck 2020’ and the People celebrate the numbers wildly, that’s the beauty of it.” By the way, there should be more new songs soon, in autumn Scooter will go to the studio, in spring 2024 they want to release an album before the start of a tour.

Scooters stand for party – and a little party in between is good for people in times like these, as Baxxter felt strongly last year: “We were the first on our tour without chairs again. That was very fresh after Corona, we have I thought, hopefully they will all come. And everyone was there, everything was sold out! And the people were so crazy. The reactions I experienced there. A fan came up to me, almost in tears. He said he could do it I can’t believe that he now had two hours when he didn’t have to think about war, Corona or anything else, but could just party.”

“You can really fly away”

But life isn’t all “hyper, hyper”. What music do Germans listen to when they want to calm down? “The ‘ Kontor Sunset Chill ‘ series appears on our own label. There is also a playlist on Spotify, the coolest for chilling out on the terrace, grilling on and such. In summer I sometimes lie down alone on a lounger at home and listen to the full length of Led Zeppelin’s live album ‘The Song Remains The Same’ or on a balmy summer night Tangerine Dream’s ‘Encore’, that’s a live album from 1977. This is awesome, you can really fly away with it. “