Our interview series »10 Questions with…« will introduce several of the acts from the lineup of this year’s Pop-Kultur festival that have earned a place in your playlists and hearts. We’ll start with Sorry3000, a four-piece indie band whose debut album »Warum Overthinking Dich Zerstört« (»Why Overthinking Destroys You«), released last year on the Audiolith label, sounds sometimes overwrought, other times almost laconic.
In our interview, Sorry3000 reveal how they got their record deal. They also talk about life and making music in Halle an der Saale as well as nasty reviews from the neighbouring city.
What was the worst description of your music that you ever had to read?
The Leipzig culture magazine Kreuzer wrote about our song »Fitness«: »In ›Fitness,‹ the toy keyboard sounds beep and toot with a stupid cheerfulness that makes you want to kick your speakers.« Typical Leipzig arrogance yet again!!!
And what was the best one?
A YouTube comment: »Such rich pop artists, whose parents are still studying, used to get spanked in the schoolyard.« It’s under our song »Nasenspray« (»Nasal Spray«).And in the ZEIT it said: »Adorno once wrote that the backwardness of the material and spiritual forms of provincial life corresponds to the extreme alienation and hardening of urban existence, and Sorry3000 already sense this…« That’s when we were like: ????
You write on Facebook that you can »easily be pigeonholed with various categories.« But then you also invented your own categories, e.g. real pop and loser pop. Can you describe in more detail how you want to be understood?
We thought it would make a good impression to come up with our own pigeonhole. But in principle, we like to be pigeonholed in different ways so that others can have fun, too!
Your album »Warum Overthinking Dich zerstört« was released by Audiolith. Is the story true that you sent them a photo of the band in which you photoshopped Audiolith merchandise?
Yes, that’s true. We pulled a picture of an Audiolith bag from the net and put it on our keyboarder Joni Spumante. With the salutation »Dear Record Bo$$.« It’s quite possible that this is what convinced them.
Weren’t you overthinking by doing such a thing? And how serious or ironic is the title of the album?
We stole the title from a blog entry on an advice site for young entrepreneurs. We immediately felt so disgusted, yet personally attacked, that we knew it had to be the title of our album.
You live in Halle, and the city, just like Saxony-Anhalt, is sometimes a theme in your songs. What is it like there as a band?
We benefit from the incredibly cheap rent for rehearsal rooms, but we are very afraid that Halle will soon become an investor’s dream, because the Deutsche Bahn magazine has reported too much and too positively about Halle. What can also happen: An investor drives from Berlin to Munich and hears our CD on the A9 and that inspires him to drive down to Halle and renovate a house. The people in Halle are all really nice (apart from the Nazis!) and have always supported us. They’ve always understood us and convinced us that we were destined for great things. That went to our heads!
How did your immediate circle react to your music?
Our parents were our biggest fans from day one. There are a few skeptics in our circle of friends, but the ZEIT article proved to them that we should be taken seriously. And now Pop-Kultur has also asked us! :)
Speaking of your upcoming appearance at Pop-Kultur: Does the ubiquitous presence of Berlin sometimes get on your nerves?
Yes, because if you read the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung there, they would know that we are stars! We were in the weekend section there once! And for us it’s very practical that we can always flirt a bit with our grey provincial image – that makes us interesting in the show world. But we don’t want to have anything to do with Berlin-hostile resentment!
There hasn’t been much opportunity to see you play lately, or to see anyone live at all. What distinguishes the Sorry3000 onstage versus in the studio?
We are the best live band in Saxony-Anhalt! As a studio band, we unfortunately have to admit that we are not the best at the moment: The band Tokio Hotel from Magdeburg is still currently in first place. They’ve simply sold a lot of records – you can’t get to that point right away.
You’ve said that you don’t like professionalism and that you couldn’t play any instruments when you started the band. Flirting with amateurism. The trouble is that, eventually, you’re going to improve. What do you do about that?
Yes, that’s true. Unfortunately, we can hardly claim that we don’t play our instruments properly. We have even gotten so good that we’re thinking about releasing a jazz album. We want to continue developing.
Sorry3000 are playing on August 27th 21.00 at the Kulturbrauerei Cinema (Saal 3). Buy your tickets here!