Image: Lana Cerha
Surprisingly, he was far too relaxed, which also caused him some concern – that’s how fiio commented on his state of mind
before the release of his new album, when the OÖN met him for an interview.
Was it easy for you to let go of the new songs?
Working with people who give you deadlines is beneficial for artists because I believe an album is never finished, it just needs to be delivered. But I imagined letting go would be harder.
At the beginning of the album the machine greets me, at the end the human says goodbye: Was that also the idea of depicting this world between digitalization including artificial intelligence and human emotion?
Yes, hit the nail on the head (laughs).
Does AI scare you?
It scared me and that’s where the idea of covering the entire album like that came from. When it was first reported last year about ChatGPT machines that provide everything for a band writing a new Oasis album, you as an artist were already thinking. I don’t think my job is completely at risk, but the profession of a musician is far too human-centered for that, because you’ll look at a machine in Flex in Vienna. I just don’t believe that. And I already thought that areas of my work would be replaced or made easier that I first had to find a way to deal with.
And what do you think of it now?
I think it’s good and I’m also willing to use AI. But I also want to show where the limits lie.
The album title “we only become what we already are” expresses diversity and fits well with your musical work. Now I ask myself: what are you?
That’s a tough question. I should have thought of a different title (laughs).
Life is often about being who you are. As I was listening, I thought to myself that you are exactly who you can hear here at the moment.
I think you are very close to the truth. In the year and a half that it took to create the album, I learned that the most important thing is to reflect on what defines me as a person. And be happy with myself. For a long time I struggled with having expectations of myself that he couldn’t fulfill. Whether that was in love, in music, in my career and also in my mental health. I’m on the way to understanding what it means to be approaching 30, to be afraid or to know what you want from life. I definitely don’t know completely, but that moment of realizing that you’re going to spend your whole life doing this and being at peace with it is the very significant point where you stop being a teenager and become a young adult. At least that’s what I believe.
It never stops staying on the path. This is how you stay flexible in your mind and also young. I may not be youthful anymore, but I don’t feel as old as I am.
It’s just a lot about realizing that there’s no point in wishing for a future state. And there’s no point in wishing back to the past. Life moves around you at a crazy speed and I think knowing what it means to have arrived at yourself, at the level you are at now, is a big realization for me album took place.
Was there like a basic idea of what the album should sound like, other than giving the guitar a lot of space? Did you have a musical idea beforehand?
I think that Jakob Lippert, with whom I produce the music together, and I, in different ways, at very different temporal levels and speeds, we reached a point exactly before the album where we ended up in the same place thematically. A whole circle through hip hop and electronics back to the moment when we thought that we could both actually play instruments well and it’s always a shame that we don’t do that. You have a personal renaissance with things. You suddenly hear the Beatles again and hear it in a completely new, different way, with the experience you have had in the meantime. This happened all at once and started us back at Blink 182, where we were when we were ten or eleven years old. But we also went back to folk music, to Fleetwood Mac, and picked things out from everywhere. We met for weeks and then we always came with old music, for example “Gypsy”, the Fleetwood Mac album with the cool drum beat. And then you picked out these things and at some point they found their place in the music on the album. I think that’s really beautiful. The guitar has been a big renaissance for me and I have returned to it after a long time of abandoning it for various reasons. I realized that it is the instrument that is the best vocal amplifier for me.
If you listen to the entire album, there are many moments where you pick me up musically and in terms of content. You guide me through a real album that defies genres in a light-footed way, combines funk, rock, folk, and is not afraid of an almost sugar-sweet ballad… Are you someone who is looking for this stylistic breadth for yourself?
For me the idea was that the album would be a snapshot of everything that happened during the creation phase. It should be exactly present, as the title suggests, that it is the state of the now. I didn’t want to make an album where I looked longingly into the future or focused on the past all the time. As a music consumer who listens to very playlist-based things, it’s been very volatile. Jacob was a great protector for me because I was plagued by self-doubt as to whether we should do it this way, whether it made sense. He was the encouraging partner for me because he said, we can do it, we can do it and we can do it too. You always think about the common thread. The funny thing is that the less you think about it, the more it comes.
This flow apparently gave rise to a song like “Großstadtcowboys”, a beautiful love song without kitsch. Then I asked myself whether you, who otherwise seem so calm and cool, aren’t also a really big romantic?
In the songs I can express my wishes about myself. It’s like putting on a costume or becoming a superhero. I can be the cool guy who doesn’t care about anything, and the next moment I can be honest about myself. The nice thing is that no one can say which of the 15 songs is actually me. This also creates a healthy distance for me from the fictional character. In the music, not all listeners should be able to recognize me, but rather themselves. That’s what it’s all about for me.
But then we can also recognize you, this young man who can formulate things very well and is a close observer. Are you aware of this gift, this talent?
No thanks. During the album phase I decided that being a musician was my profession, and that was a wonderful experience. This stopped talking about a hobby. This is a beautiful purpose that I have found for myself. This taught me that everything I read, see, hear and experience are social observations that I can package into a media product. I fell in love with the idea of being able to do that.
Did you need this process too?
Absolutely. It’s just hard. Especially these days, there is incredible pressure on men to earn a lot of money as high performers in a super-capitalist world. Likewise, I watched a guy in a coffee shop talking about a podcast in conversation like it was a religion. He really praised it, it was his Messiah who heard him. Then I thought to myself, the credibility of podcasts is probably on the same level as religions. That’s where the line “How am I supposed to believe in Jesus if he doesn’t have a podcast” came from “Claire’s Favorite Song”.
What do you learn about yourself from watching other people?
That man’s most difficult task is to find fulfillment in his own life. That deep down we all want to be happy and I don’t mean happiness in the materialistic sense. I think it’s a psychological state of “I’m happy with myself.” Many people forget this in a world that is incredibly taxing on your senses. I believe that the journey to one’s own satisfaction is the most important thing, which unfortunately most people forget – in favor of other things that they temporarily need.
The album: fiio “we only become what we already are” (Sony Music)
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