Good pop music: Yes, panic: “We believe in the first moment”

Ja, Panik’s new album is the “return as an indie rock band,” says the press release. I had the impression that you had long since given up on the concept of rock or guitar music.

You always move in different phases over the years. Our last record “The Group” from 2021 was a completely produced album that we were only able to play live a year and a half after it was completed. It was a special moment to be on stage together again for the first time after such a long break. Out of the joy of having us as a band again and the resulting energy, this new record was created within a short time. Even though the new album is very guitar-heavy, what hasn’t interested me in guitar music for a long time is this claim that everything is incredibly authentic. And we tried to subvert this idea on the new record.

In what way?

By playing a lot with artificiality. The piece “Dream 12059,” for example, has a wild guitar solo, but we sent it through various amplifiers several times and added lots of effects, so that in the end all that’s left is a noisy wall of sound. This approach occurs frequently on the album.

Which is annoying She because of the so-called authentic rock bands?

I think this narrative that everything is handmade is simply not true. But that’s not true for many people. I’m interested in a different approach to art: when it leads astray, takes detours or alienates things.

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I think the new record sounds milder than the previous albums – and also more open.

At least the latter is what we planned in advance. Before our long break, it somehow totally blocked us that everything always takes so long. You go into the studio, everything is thought through, and the next moment everything is questioned again. And this time we decided: We’ll go out, just shoot the thing and allow ourselves to be surprised by the blank spaces and the variety of possible interpretations. We believe in the first moment, and this record is a testament to that. In the past, we often changed songs until there was nothing left of the original idea in the end, which then resulted in songs feeling completely emotionally distant at the time of release.

I think the band’s outlook is changing now again directed more inwards, which means that new Album at least from the texts seems more intimate.

You could also say that about our album »DMD KIU LIDT« from 2011, for example. There are different yes, panic phases. What interests me most: finding out something about the state of the world through an alleged figure. Sometimes the character is more important and sometimes the world. In this respect, it is true when looking inwards. But I’m only interested in looking inside insofar as I can learn something about the outside.

In the piece “Kung Fu Fighter” it also says: “I keep believing/ I found myself/ And then it’s not me again.« In this respect, you are also toying with the idea of ​​turning your gaze inward in order to throw your imagined self overboard again in the next moment. And that can be attractive too.

Yes, it can be attractive, and in a larger context it can of course also be classified into the systemic urge for self-discovery, according to which you have to know who or what you are and want to be even as a young person.

The band first lived in Vienna and later in Berlin – there was always a strong antipathy towards the two cities in the lyrics. You now live in Cordoba. Will you last there longer?

I actually only ended up here because my partner works at the university here. The nice thing is that there is an expiry date as the whole thing is limited to four years. In this respect it is a different relationship to the city than back then in Vienna and Berlin. The time is too long not to arrive and too short to even think about whether I really want to leave again.

In general, cities are a central theme in your work. After Vienna, Berlin and Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, you now sing about Ushuaia in Argentina, also known as the “city at the end of the world,” in the closing song of the new album. What does a place have to have to make it interesting as a topic for Yes, Panic?

What I’m increasingly interested in when I’m out and about are stories that are only half true. What makes Ushuaia in particular so special to me is the fact that it is the ultimate frontier place for me. Maybe I also love places like this because I grew up in a village of 300 people in Austria, from where you can reach both Slovakia and Hungary on foot. So in the 80s the Iron Curtain was practically on our doorstep. What makes these places so interesting is that categories such as language, landscape or culture no longer make sense because they sometimes dissolve and form mixed relationships. It’s similar with Ushuaia: in literature it is considered Tierra del Fuego, the end of the world, behind which there is only Antarctica, the eternal ice. But I’ve never been there, just as I haven’t been to Antananarivo.

I have the impression that She about places where She never wasin, write much more forgivinglyin than about the places that She know wellin.

Absolutely, and here we are a bit at the beginning of our conversation again. Because if you include a large amount of fiction and lies, then the boundaries become blurred again, so that you don’t end up standing in front of a picture and believing that you have learned an incredible amount about the person writing it. I have always been very afraid of that.

As of 2015, Ja, Panik had been inactive for over five years. During that time you have released three solo albums. What does the collective work with the band mean to you today?

I think the break was really important for all of us. We already lived in a shared apartment in Vienna. I’ve known most of the band since I was a teenager. Later we moved to Berlin in a Ford Transit, where we actually recorded all the records in our shared apartment before the break. Looking back, I’m a little proud that we managed to bring about this temporary end without causing huge rifts in the band. We all made good use of the break in our own way for various projects. Yes, but there was always panic, as a circle of friends and family. We have now found a construct that can continue for several years. Maybe at some point you will be at a point again where you have to change certain signs. It’s somehow good to pull the rug out from under your feet every now and then and thereby unsettle yourself a little. You should never be too sure about what you are doing.

Two women, Laura Landergott and Rabea Erradi, are now part of Ja, Panik. Would the band – or the gang, as they used to call themselves – Today, in the context of a gender sensitization that has fortunately increased significantly across society, do they still function as a pure “men’s band”?

So we’re a gang one way or another – I wouldn’t link that to gender. But of course, I’m very happy that we live in a time today in which there are increasingly female and non-male role models. We grew up in the Austrian countryside at a time when, unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. When two of our members left at some point, it became clear to us that male musicians were not our first point of contact. I am an advocate of quotas.

Ja, Panik: »Don’t play with the rich kids« (Bureau B)