Strike One!

Nuremberg, a city tarnished by the weight of history. Condemned forever to belong to the darkest and most unpleasant episode in Germany’s past. Used as a power base by both Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the victorious Allies, the city is known worldwide for the wrong reasons, and has never been able to shake its ugly, authoritarian image.

On a microcosmic level, Nuremberg’s Strike Boys offer a solution to the city’s musical problems. In contrast to the factory-processed bangin’ techno-trance soundtrack immediately associated with the German dance scene – ever noticed how oppressive and fascist sounding some of that music is? – Martin Kaiser and Tommy Yamaha (dig those names!), by way of their Strike Boys productions, Nuax imprint and Wildstyle parties, represent the growing support in their home country for varied styles and tempos.

The collective German clubbing fascination for anything hard and over 140 bpm seems to have gone out the window, supplanted by a love of hip-hop, electro, house and anything funky, and this moodswing is captured perfectly by The Strike Boys debut LP, Selected Funks. At times wearing its 70s funk/disco and 80s electro influences boldly on its sleeves, Funks nevertheless covers more musical territory than a thousand Sven Vath boreathons.

On one of their first ever trips to the UK, Digital Beat caught up with Martin Strike Boy and didn’t let him go until he’d answered some questions. First off, does he think The Strike Boys’ music represents a general move in Germany from faceless, bangin’ techno to something more varied?

“Yeah, it’s strange, because when we started our ‘Wildstyle’ parties in Nuremberg, they always took place in small locations. Within two years they became popular, and there’s a parallel to the rise in the acceptance of The Strike Boys. Germany used to be all about techno, but the scene has developed, become more fragmented and split up. In the past, clubbers weren’t used to hearing DJs mix up different styles, but at our parties we’d allow each DJ to play for only half an hour, so you’d get a half an hour of house, drum’n’bass or whatever. It’s one of the main reasons we developed this style.”

So do you record under any other names?

“Yeah, we record as Maya for our own label, Nuax, but we’ve been making techno since 1990 for labels like Overdrive and Important. We, erm, usually changed our name for each release!”

Your music, especially ‘Jet Set’ has been compared to Daft Punk. How do you feel about that?

“The reaction we received so far has been interesting – some people call what we do electro, others compared us to Daft Punk. I just call it Strike Boys-style. We use samples a lot, but we haven’t been caught yet, because we only use the tiniest samples possible. Daft Punk had a very big influence on what we do, and Homework is one of the most important dance albums ever, but they are more honest than us with what they do. I think the biggest parallel is not a similarity of sound, but that we both work with sound in the same way.”

I’m confused, please explain what you mean . . .

“In the sense that, although we spend all the time in the studio, you only hear the smallest fraction on a record. Sometimes we spend two to three days until we find something special.”

What about your cartoon like alter-egos, very Daft Punk, no?

“Instead of using press photos, we also wanted to have something different. Most acts don’t have cartoons of themselves. Luckily, people recognised us from the cartoons!”

Any plans to play live as The Strike Boys?

“We’ve only done one gig before, but as soon as the LP’s out we plan to do more, with two additional musicians and a percussionist.”

Finally, how did you hook up with the Wall Of Sound label? Selected Funks doesn’t sound like the kind of thing you’d expect to hear Mark Jones’ messy bunch releasing?

“It all started when we went to a Wall of Sound party in Nuremberg that Les Rhythmes Digitales were playing at. We sent the label our demos in April, but we didn’t think they’d ever get back to us or we’d get any reaction because we’d sent out demos to so many different labels. Then, a few days later, around midnight we received a fax from Mark Jones, with the words ‘your shit is tuff’ written on it. Because our English isn’t so good we thought it was negative until someone explained to us what it actually meant!

• Selected Funks is out on Wall of Sound on August 31st.