HARALD "SACK" ZIEGLER

an interview with Harald "Sack" Ziegler (Germany)
by E*Rock
(see also: Sack & Blumm)
9/00

www.haraldsackziegler.de
www.staubgold.de
www.tomlab.de

I first became a fan of Harald's music through his collaboration with F.S. Blumm on their self titled Sack & Blumm CD on Tomlab. The charming textured instrumental arrangements held a very unique approach and addictive playful quality. I also started noticing his name on other recordings, such as his French horn playing and other horn arrangements for Mouse on Mars's Niun Niggun album. After I contacted Harald he sent me a discography that was about three pages long and I realized that I'd only seen the tip of the iceberg of this creative force.

Are you based in Cologne?
I'm born in Berlin, but based in Cologne yes.

How Long have you lived there?
I lived here for nearly 14 years now.

The thing I'm most familiar with of yours is the Sack & Blumm CD. Do you have other releases besides that?
I have a lot of solo releases until today. I started in the 80's with cassettes. I formed my cassette label in 1982, I think. I released 30 cassettes. After this I released already 3 LPs and some singles of my solo music. It's more song-oriented music. I also did one CD and I drew some comics and release some multiples, and I'm doing some artwork for a book project. I've done a lot of things after all this time. Besides this pop music I also studied orchestra music. I'm a French horn player, so when I studied orchestra music the main instrument was French horn. You also have to learn piano composition, arrangement, instrumentation, musical ear lessons, musical history, and things like this. So in 1986 I got my diploma as a French horn player.

Where did you go to school?
I studied in Frankfurt. Then I come to Cologne in 1986 and I became a music corrector for radio and television. I'm directing scores and writing the parts for the musicians in the big band or the orchestra. Nowadays I do it with the computer. Everyday I learn a lot of things from all kinds of musicians, composers, and arrangers. It's perfect for me because it's a never-ending study. Sack & Blumm is one project which became very successful in comparison with the other things. I thinks it's also because now it's time for music like this: it's instrumental, and the other things I do are more song oriented. There also was a little bit of help from Mouse on Mars. I've done some things for them on their other CDs. The first thing I've done was "Die Innere Orange" on Iaora Tahiti (Too Pure). Then my name was a little bit more spread around the world. The other things were mostly distributed in Europe, but that song went to USA and Japan.

I noticed you were also on the Niun Niggung LP?
Yes, I've done some arrangement for the brass section and I blew the horn. I've also done a lot of experimental things. I made an album only with church organ music, but it's not so successful because I think not all people would like to hear church organ. But Sack & Blumm is easier to listen to.

Where did you meet Blumm?
Blumm I met for the first time in Hanover where the Expo 2000 is now. You've heard of the Expo? On television they always show things about The Expo 2000. I don't know if it will be the success they wish it would be, but it's a big event there in Hanover. I think I met him in the beginning of the 90's he was playing bass and guitar in a band together with Henning. Henning is a friend of mine. He accompanied me with guitar and he was on stage with me for a while. Then I get to know Blumm. We started our collaboration not at this time, but some years later. The first thing was a single on Bernd Spring's Dhyana Records. He asked me to do a single on his label, solo as Harald "Sack" Ziegler, but then he had the idea to bring us together and put us on one single and we started our collaboration. The single was a success and then we go on working. We made another single on Staubgauld. After this we do the CD on the Tom label and now in the next few days the new CD will be finished also. It's title is Shy Noon and it's on the label on Jan and Joseph Suchy, and Felix (F.X. Randomiz) called Gefriem. The CD will have also some bonus tracks, which are the tracks from the first Dhyana Records single. I was in Berlin for two weeks and when I returned I hoped it was already here, but it wasn't.

That's always the way it is though. What was the cassette label you did?
Oh this was only a cassette label. Later releases I released on different labels from friends, for instance Empty Records in Nuernberg, but now they are in Fuerth, or Prion Tapes in Nuernberg, or Home Products in Belgium or Nurkult in Hanover. In Hanover there is a small club called Silke Arp Bricht. It's a private club, but not real private, but it's a club where there's different music projects with bands from Hanover and they always invite people. It's the club where I first met Henning and Perdie Blumm and everyone. They have a label too and they released the LP with church organ. It is always small labels from friends because I don‘t have the connection for doing records or CDs.
Did you release only your own music, or other people too?
It was my own music. I don't release compilations or something. I contributed to many compilations, more than 100 cassettes, but it was much work. I've done so many projects, so it was enough work to release the cassette, so I have no more time to do compilations. Also because I have a full time job as music corrector.

How long have you had the music corrector job?
Since 1986. I came to Cologne for this job. I don't want to play in an orchestra any more because on French horn you have always to count rests, you know? You have to count rests until you play some notes and it's a little bit boring and it's not exclusively my kind of music... classical and opera. I like it, but it's not everything. I always want to play other music too. So I decided not to be in an orchestra anymore.

What other instruments do you play?
First, I started with mandolin lessons when I was seven or eight years old. Then I always wanted to learn drums, but my parents don't buy me drums because it's too loud. Then I buy it part by part, thing for thing. I bought one drum, then another and after time I've got a drum set. I played in a school jazz band, and a school rock band. I started to play French horn in a band of the fire brigade. I wanted to learn trumpet, but they don't have the trumpet anymore. My sister got the last trumpet and I've got the French horn. At first I was very disappointed, but then when I played the French horn everyone asked me to play with them because there are not so many who play the French horn. Then I was in the school orchestra and woodwind quintet and things like that. I've played together with some people in the church and everything. Then I also learned piano because I want to study music and then you have to play piano. It's the instrument you must learn. Also today I play a little bit of keyboard on the tracks of Sack & Blumm, for instance.

There seems to be a very wide variety of instruments on the Sack & Blumm CD.
It's also because Blumm also has a lot of instruments. He could play guitar very well and he studied music for school to be a teacher.

It's also hard to tell what a lot of the instruments are. It's very "non-typical" sounding.
Yes, we both have a big collection of toy instruments... small instruments with the chips in it, which are programmed already, lo-fi instruments. I bought them because I was playing live one or two times per month and when I was playing drums it was always hard to transport the things. I was the last one who came home. I have the car and so I have to bring home the guitarists and bass player and I went home as the last one. So I decided not to carry around so much things with me when I‘m doing solo performance. It became more and more toy instruments that I can put in my bag and it's very uncomplicated. So I do songs around those toy instruments more and more on my live performances. Blumm also has a lot of strange things which are producing sound, mostly for children. I think the idea of putting us together on a record was because we both have those favorite instruments.

Do you ever play out live for Sack & Blumm?
We play live sometimes, but not very often because he is living in Berlin and I'm living in Cologne. And when we meet here in Cologne we will do concerts, one or two, every time we meet. But this will be three times a year, so it's not so often. Solo I do concerts a little bit more, and Blumm too. He also has other projects and a band that he's playing guitar in. Sack & Blumm is more a home recording project. When we are on stage we try to play things from the CD, but we always do a lot of other things too. The things develop on stage sometimes, sometimes there are improvisations too, because we both could play the instruments like jazz musicians.

Do you record together or mail each other tapes or something?
The last years we mailed each other tapes and now when we meet we are already playing together in our rooms. After two weeks when I was there we recorded two pieces just for fun. No we have to wait until the new material will grow and we can release another CD, for instance. We have another plan, another releases that's already finished, and it will be released in September/October on Staubgold. This is a split 10-inch, one side Blumm recorded at home and one side I recorded at home. When you are a DJ you can put it together when you buy two of the record and play both sides together. That was one idea. You don‘t have to listen to them together, both sides, you can also listen to them for each other. We have a very nice cover because it's the same artists who did the cover for the Tom CD, Boris Hoppek. He is a very talented sprayer artist.

Yes, his stuff is really nice.
We like him too. My wife and I are big fans and we have a lot of pictures in our flat.

Do you record your solo projects at home also?
Yes, most of it. Sometimes I go to friends who have a studio where I can sing louder, because here in our flat I cannot sing too loud. But I always want to sing louder, and then I go to friends where I have the possibility to do so... but after I‘ve already finished the background music. I can play French horn here because I have a special practicing plug-in/damper. You put the thing into the bell of the French horn and you can hear nothing around me, but over the headphones I will listen to the French horn and record it. It's very good for recording at home, but they don't develop something like this for the voice.

Maybe we could develop a helmet with a PZM mic in it?
Yes very good idea, to put a helmet on your head with a microphone in it and you can cry around.

We‘ll have to work on that. Maybe it can be like a diving helmet...
Or a motor bike helmet, or bigger one like an astronaut helmet. We need a patent for it. Then we don't need to do any other things anymore, we can just sell this with a plug-in for the computer so we can directly hard disc record with the helmet.

Do record onto computer at home?
I have a small Apple Macintosh Performa 5200, but it's only 8 bit quality. I do some things with it for Sack & Blumm and also my solo things. There will be a solo CD at the end of the year, or next year, with a lot of songs, mostly love songs, and I've done a lot of things with the computer for this next solo CD. It's very funny to produce sounds with the computer, but the main recording I will do on a Roland VS 840 hard disc recorder.

Most of the playing is all live, like on the Sack & Blumm, there's no sequencing?
Yes, we are playing the loops. Live looping.

When I first checked out the CD I had assumed it was electronic.
That's the point why it's so successful. It's a little bit like the successful electronic music played on instruments.
How did you end up meeting Mouse on Mars?
I met Jan before Mouse on Mars. He came from Bamberg and he already made music. I think he bought a cassette from me and we got contact. It was some years before Mouse on Mars started.

It seems like you‘ve put out a ton of music. There must be quite a discography.
Yeah, I'm not so young anymore. I'm thirty-nine, so I've done a lot of things. There's a small discography on the Staubgold website. I have some other things on the net, but there are too many things to tell you. If you search, for instance, for Sack Ziegler you find a lot of things, some biographies on other pages, but not on mine. I just started to form this domain because it‘s so complicated to get information about the music projects I've done. I decided to do it on one page, but it's not finished. [there is now a more complete bio at www.haraldsackziegler.de]

You said that you just got back in town, where did you go again?
I was in Berlin for two weeks. We spent our two weeks summer holidays there. We don't go far away so we went to Berlin. My parents live in Berlin. Again, I was born in Berlin, but then when the wall was built they left there with me, when I was a baby. I lived in Germany in very many places. They always moved every two years and after twenty-five years they go back to Berlin. I'm very happy because I like the town and now we can stay there when we come to Berlin. They don't see me much because we are always meeting friends, and visiting clubs, and doing concerts, and things like this. It's a little bit like New York. I was in New York one time and it's like, you get so many ideas and influences. When you come back I start being busy working on many new projects and ideas. It's like a fuel up.

One last questions, where did the name "Sack" come from?
It was my favorite abusive name for other people when i was 18. In summer 1979 it became my nickname. Later I put it between my first and last name, like a lot of jazz-musicians have done.

[end]