You have done a lot of travellings. Can you tell us some great moments and
experiences you had?
Just being on the road is a really great experience. Waking up in another
bed every second or third day, getting to see so many different things ,
meeting new people and realizing that every day is different, which can be
really hard if you are trapped in the routine of your daily life are just
awesome things. I will try to list some things which have been really good
experiences for me on my travelling, some of them may sound a bit simple and
not so exciting but in my opinion simple things are sometimes more important
than something you may believe it's everything. While i was in australia i
found it really great to walk around in the rainforest and on grassland and
pass kangaroos a few metres beside me.
A totally different thing, but also totally amazing was how to see the hc
network of friends really exists. I was in touch with a few hc kids in
australia and i was invited to stay with them and they gave me other
contacts and i just called them told them who i am and where i'm from and
they all invited me to stay at there place. It was totally amazing and so i
got to know many cool kids and made some really good friendships.
One of the most impressive things on my travel was the nature in new
zealand, especially the westcoast of the south islands. I mean i cannot
describe it in words it's just so beautiful and amazing. You have to see it
to believe it. I mean nature is to me always exciting.
What also left an really big impression on me was my stay on samoa. Samoa
are some islands in the south pacific, for every one who doesn't know about
it. First it was really nice from the nature and the climate even it was
really humid. but what really impressed me are the people there. On the
first look you could think what a poor country, because it seems somehow
like a third world country, but the people there have everything what is
necessary for a good living. Samoa is a place close to paradise, there is
enough food for every one, enough water,good climate beautiful nature and
the sea. the people there are so happy. It's an awesome experience to walk
around there in the streets because nearly all people are in a good mood.
Everybody is smiling and lots of people are singing and dancing. A really
funny thing there are public busses. Some of them have really big sound
systems in it and the y just play dancehall and reggae music. There are no
timetables and the drivers drive through the town until they have enough
people on board, so that it's profitable for them. And if they don't get
enough people together it can happen that they cancel the trip. So if you
are there better don't relate on the busses. Oh man i could go on for ages
telling you stuff about my travels, but i think i stop here now. I just can
recommend travelling to everybody. If you travel with open eyes and an open
mind it will change your life.


-Did you never had the feeling like 'Man, I'm in big trouble now' when you
were on a holiday? Tell!!
no i never had this feeling. I always enjoyed what i was doing and
fortunately i never got into really big troubles. The only trouble i had was
that my camera was stolen, but i got it back, because the guy who stole it
was to stupid and to easy to fuck with. But what was really important to me
in this moment was not the camera but the film inside because it was full of
pictures of a national park i've been before, and i was more afraid of
losing a part of the memories with losing the film instead of losing my
camera. I mean i could have get a new one if it would have been necessary.
But i sometimes felt a bit desperate, because i was travelling alone most of
the time. So i sometimes needed someone to share my experiences with, but
there wasn't really anyone. I mean i met heaps of people and also had lots
of people i could talk to , but sometimes i wished that there was someone on
my side, experiencing the same as me.
-What's the bands aim and do you consider the lyrics as important? Who
writes them? How long does it take to write a lyric?
Well to be honest the aim of the bands i'm playing in is mostly to have fun
and playing the music we all love. I personally had a time where i thought
it's necessary that a band has to have a political concept, but nowadays i
don't think that it's necessary for a band. I mean it lies within the band
, what the different band members want to achieve and how they define their
band. We with costa's cake house are not really a political band, even if
we sing about mainly political topics, but more in a personal way. To me the
lyrics are really important, because that's another way to express what i
think and what i feel and it can make the music much more powerful. in my
opinion it's good when the music rocks your heart, but it's even better when
the lyrics make you think. I often hope that our lyrics make people think
about different topics but that's not really the aim of the band, even if i
prefer that, but it's up to the people listening to our music what they get
out of it. If they just care about the mosh it's ok for us, but if they also
care about what we have to say it's even better.
I write most of the costa's cake house lyrics, but there are also a few from
our singer. To me it was a bit strange in the beginning that he was singing
stuff i wrote, but now it's ok for me, because it's ok for him and we have
similar points of view so that he can stand behind what i'm writing. I
cannot really answer the question how long it takes to write lyrics because
it's different. Sometimes i have something on my mind and i just need to
write it down and then i see that this could be a good lyric and then there
are moments where i want to write something specific but i don't get over
one or two sentences and than just leave it until i may get this piece of
paper in my fingers again after a few weeks and i can continue. Generally
spoken i can say that the best lyrics are the most spontaneous, the ones
which just come out.
-You play in two bands, they both have strange names, where do they stand
for and who choose them? Are both bands even important and if not, where
goes the most interest to and why?
Well the name costa's cake house stands for nothing specific. And the story
behind it is not too interesting, but i will tell it anyway. Our singer is
called carsten and we have been together to greece some years ago. We met
some greek guys there who couldn't pronounce carsten so they called him
costa. One day we were walking around town and there was this one shop
called costa's cake house. Some years later when we already had started the
band and we were before playing our first show we were searching a name and
some one came up with the idea of calling the band costa's cake house and i
think we all liked the idea. i think it's not a typical name for a hc band
and you cannot say what kind of music we play by just reading our name and
that's what i like. I don't like cliches too much and so i don't like cliche
names.
For the other band , secretos del corazon, there is kind of a meaning behind
the name. it's spanish and it means secrets of the heart, which fits to the
lyrics of the band. Most of our lyrics are dealing with disappointed loves,
relationship stuff and love in general. Most of them are kind of poems. We
chose the name because it fits to the lyrical side of the band. We chose the
spanish language because there are french and german guys playing in this
band and so to add more internationality it had to be a spanish name.
To me both bands are equal, because both men a lot to me. And it's different
from the musical side. So i can bring in ideas which don't fit to the sound
of the one band in the other. so far there haven't been any confrontations
and i hope it will stay this way.


-When you write a letter to me, you write Germany as Germoney, why do you do
that?
I do this because i like playing with words. And because germoney is a
fucked up capitalistic country where nearly everything is about money, like
nearly everywhere on this planet. So this is kind of a small protest.
-You now live in the Ruhr-area, that's one of the biggest industry-area's of
Germany and even Europe. What's your vision on the today's industry, it's
good and bad aspects? Don't you have troubles with the air-polution?
Well i think you don't really know where karlsruhe is. it's in the southwest
of germoney and so it's far away from the ruhr area and all this heavy
industry and air pollution, but i will answer your question anyway. My
vision on today's industry is not optimistic. We all know that it's
necessary to change things radically to protect the rest of the environment
we got left, but in my eyes there is nothing really happening. There are a
few pseudo conferences about environmental topics, but nothing changes. the
only thing they decide is to reduce to emission of gasses in 5 years to the
level of 1990. do you really think this will help? I think the real problem
is that right now it's to profitable to run industries by destroying and
exploiting nature instead of finding and supporting solutions which will
save natural resources also for future generations and protect the
environment so that we still can breathe clean air in a couple of years. But
i don't think that there will change anything in the next couple of years
because all the big multinational corperations running the main part of the
industry are just interested in making as much money as possible in the
shortest period of time. And unfortunately it's the most profitable way to
do it by exploitation of nature, animals and humans.
The only good thing of this industrialisation in my eyes is for example that
we now have the possibility to communicate on this way and a lot of other
things that make life easier (?), but anyway the price we are all paying for
this is too damn high.
-Did you ever had the thought of moving or staying in a country where life
is better (and maybe healthier) where there's no stress, no capitalism,...
when you're on holiday?
I had this feeling in a few moments, especially in new zealand, but somehow
i always moved on cause right now i don't really want to settle down
anywhere. I mean i'm living in karlsruhe at the moment, but that's mainly
because i have to do my civil service here. i'm not really thinking about
settling down somewhere forever, but when there is the moment and i'm sure
it will be there sometime i'd prefer to live in new zealand or on an islands
than in an overpopulated, heavy industrialised country.
-You're now doing your civil service. Tell us more about it, unleach your
frustrations, what do you like about it, what do you hate about it?
i'm still doing my civil sevice or social service or whatever you wanna call
it, but i'll be finished in a few weeks. i'm working in a home for mentally
handicaped people. i'm helping them in their daily life with the usual
stuff. I have to prepare food, clean up, help them with washing etc. i think
this is a real good experience for me and i also have some fun sometimes
with these people. More or less i like working with them even it can be
stressy in some moments. but i also know that i'm not the kind of guy whose
thing is to work in the social part. i'm glad that i could have this
experience, but i also know that i couldn't this kind of job longer than a
year or so. but i have real great respect for people doing this as a job,
because it's really necessary that someone helps these people. What i really
hate about this civil service thing is that this is enforced on me, that
it's a service for the state. i'm not criticising the job i'm doing, but the
whole system behind it. It is the cheapest and easiest way to let most of
the work in the social sector be done by people doing their civil service
than employing professionals. So i often have to do jobs i'm officially not
allowed to do, but i have to because otherwise nobody would do it, and the
only ones suffering from that would be the people i'm working with and i
think i cannot blame them for the fucked up system. Another thing which
really annoys me is that there is no special training for what i'm doing.
i'm learning by doing what is ok in the most parts, but sometimes there are
situations where i'd like to know what would be the best right now. I also
hate that right now i have to work heaps and there are no real results. Most
of time goes to do the usual daily stuff like preparing food, cleaning up
and helping the people with usual things, but there is hardly any time left
to deal with specific problems of the different individuals there and it's
also not possible to concentrate on one person to help her/him in special
sectors. For example there are a few people who are really talented in
playing instruments or singing or other creative things but they don't get
any kind of training so that they could improve their abbillities , which is
really sad in my eyes. This is mainly due to the fact that there are to less
people working in homes like this and the jobs are not well paid so that
there are not so many people willing to start working in this kind of job.
The result is that there are too many people living together with too less
people working with them and too less time to concentrate on other things.
-You did a small tour with Costa's Cake House through Italy, how was that
experience of touring with a band? Would you like to tour again when you had
the chance??
the tour through italy was actually the second small tour we did with cch
and it was awesome. For me it's the greatest thing to combine travelling
with playing shows, that's my 2 passions coming together. I love to be on
the road and meet different and new people, play together with other bands
and i really love to play live with cch. Nearly every time we play there is
a special feeling and connection between all of us in the band which makes
it really awesome for me, no matter if there are many people at the show or
not, or if they care about us or not. I mean the best shows we played were
probably shows where not too many people were, but the atmosphere was just
great.
Concerning our tour in italy, it was really funny. The tour started off
really good with one of our best shows we played so far. We played together
with enfold and chispa in munich. The next day was supposed to be an off day
but some friends of mine from klagenfurt austria organized a show in their
rehearsal room which is really small. 15 people showed up and the room was
packed as hell but the atmosphere was amazing. The people did crowd surfing
and stuff and it was so fun to play. We had so much fun there,also hanging
out with the people there. it's always so cool on tour to meet people you
normally wouldn't see for a real long time. The day after we went to
slovenia .we decided to take the road over the alps which was incredible
landscape wise but a real hard test for our van. We just could go in the
first gear because it was going so strong uphill. In slovenia we experienced
more beautiful landscape and a real funny show even there were not so many
people and most of them didn't really like our stuff,but who cares as long
as we have fun playing. The next days were 2 off days because 2 shows were
cancelled last minute which was really fucked. So we took the chance to
sleep really long and then started driving to rome and i have to tell you
that italians drive crazy as hell,especially the truckdrivers,which was
really scarry in some moments. We didn't make it to rome that day and so we
had to stay in an hotel for the night. We finally made it to rome and the
traffic in rome is the craziest i ever experienced. Everybody is driving by
his/her own rules,which leads to a real chaos. Simone ,the guy who did the
show for us there invited us to stay at his place. He is still living with
his parents which is quite usual in italy for people also 30 years of
age,due to the bad economic situation there. His mum cooked some real
amazing pasta for us . Yummy!!!!!!!!! later that night we went to a birthday
party of one of his friends,which was cool. I always wanted to live in a
city with such a big hc and especially sxe scene like in rome. All the
people at the party were vegan sxe which i found really cool,cause since i'm
straight i always have to explain myself to other people. it's not common in
the area i live and so sometimes people feel threatened by it. We did lots
of sightseeing the other day and i really fell in love with rome and the
people there. The show that night was awesome,the best show on the whole
tour. The people were going crazy and we had so much fun playing there. We
were playing with freedom and fear, a new band from rome in the vein of 80's
italian hc like negazione and stuff and also some born against influences,
and spirit 84 from the netherlands. Everything was so good in rome,i didn't
really want to leave ,but the next show was waiting. So we packed our van
again and made our way up to genova where we arrived really late. The show
was in a real strange place. It was a big hall,nearly 10 metres high and a
stage of 2 metres height what was really shitty cause i hate stages. the
rest of the band set up theit eqipment on the floor in front of stage,but
because the drumset was already set up on stage i was the only one remaining
on stage what was strange. The show that night wasn't that good,although i
had fun playing and some friends from the states who are travelling europe
right now came to the show what was really funny. It was also great that
heartside ;the band we have a split 7'' with played as well. It was the
first time i met them in person and they are so nice guys,amazing. We heard
that the show planned for the next day was moved to saturday and so we had
another day off and had also to cancel another show in germoney which was on
the same day,but we prefered to play in italy. But the last show really
sucked,cause the venue was in a real strange area. Lots of pushers,junkies
and drugdealers were hanging out in front of it and there were no hc kids at
the show which was really shitty. We played with 2 really bad crossover
bands,korn wanna bes and doors cover band. It was so shitty. after the first
song i would have liked to leave but somehow we had to play at least a
couple of songs. After the show we started driving back home where we
arrived the next morning. I felt really shitty and i would have liked to
stay on tour for at least another 2 weeks especially after the bad show at
the end. But anyway we all had to go back to work.
I would love to go on tour again and we already working on it. With secretos
del corazon we will probably go on tour in august and maybe if all goes well
we will hit the road with the cakehouse in autumn.




-In one of your letters you told me that Nations On Fire and Downcast
brought you into politics. How strong is your interest in politics? How do
you see HC and politics?
My interest in politics is more or less strong. I hope i don't have to
explain you that every action in your daily life also has a political
dimension, so everything you do is linked to politics somehow. When i say
politics i don't necessarily mean the party politics and all this stuff
which is commonly known as politics. For me my being sxe and veganism also
have a really strong political background. i'm interested in politics
because it always has an impact on our lives and the things we do or we are
allowed to do. to me it is hard to live by rules i didn't set up for myself
and wasn't asked if agree to accept them. And i also hate the fact that most
of the rules (speak laws) we are forced to live up to are in most causes
made by a minority to protect their own kind, their interests and their
profits. by taking back spaces, squatting houses and all this we can try to
change something and create our own thing. To me hc was and still is in most
parts an alternative to the mainstream. To me it still has an political
dimension, even nowadays lots of things within this scene are going like in
the »normal« world. To me it starts with the thing that you can get in touch
and hook up with people from all over the world without knowing them as
persons, but sharing common interests and maybe also ideals. And it goes on
with the lyrical side of hardcore where there are often political topics
featured, the awareness of what's going on around us, opposing to racism,
sexism and homophobia and ending with in some parts direct actions.

Can you start with telling us who you are, what's your function in the band,
what do you do for a living, where do you live, how old are you, in one
sentence, all the usuall stuff...
well my name is nanouk, i'm a 21 years old hc kid right now and i play the
drums in costa's cake house as well as in secretos del corazon. I also do
most of the organization like booking shows etc and i'm writing most of the
lyrics in cch. i'm doing my social service where i get enough money to make
a living, pay my rent etc. since last years august i live in karlsruhe,
which is a city of 300.000 inhabitants in the southwest of germoney. Before
that i was living straight in the heart of the black forest at a lake which
was really cool, but i will tell you more about that later on. before i
started my civil service i did a big travel around the world where i stayed
in australia, new zealand, samoa, hawaii and california. I did this after
working shitty factory jobs to earn some money. But i will tell you more
about this later on as well cause there are some questions concerning this
coming up. Beside playing in two bands i do a small label which is called
get up and go! As well as little distro. So far i have 2 releases out and a
couple of others on it's way. So far i released the costa's cake house /
heartside split 7'' and the sommerset cd. There will be a man vs. Humanity
12'', a costa's cake house mcd, a secretos del corazon mcd and the
»communicate not consume« cd compilation coming later this year.
My social service will end in a few weeks and so far i don't really know
what i'm going to do after that. I probably will do some more shitty jobs to
earn some money for releasing records and do more travelling before i will
start studying.


-When you were a child you lived in the Black forest. Wasn't it hard to get
updated of the things that hapenned around you in the world? How was your
childhood, did you get a good raising? Where did you liked it most, where
you live now, or in the Black forest?
Yeah that's right i lived in the black forest when i was a child and also as
a teenager. I mean it may sounds really desperate to you but it wasn't.
Where i used to live is kind of a tourist destination, so in the summertime
there have always been heaps of people from around the world there, which
was kind of stressy sometimes cause lots of tourist behave like idiots and
are really disrespectful for the people living at some place. I can only
quote active minds right now »i'm not a tourist, i live here«. Concerning
the question about what happened around us in the world i mean we as
probably every other family have a tv at home and newspapers and all this
media stuff so that we never had problems about knowing what's going on in
the world.

My childhood there was really good, because i had enough freedom, clean air
to breathe and lots of fun playing in the forest. There have been 3 other
families living with kids in the same age as me, so we were around 8 kids
and spent lot of the time together which was awesome. In summertime we had
our own big swimming pool right in front of our doors which later became,
when i grew older also a good spot to hang out with friends and having a
party etc. my raising was really good and i'm glad that i have the parents i
got. They have been kind of hippies and supporters of the 68 movement. The
raised me in an anti authoritian way and left me my freedom to do what i
want to. i'm really thankfull for that because this made me what i am today.
Later when i became older we always had good discussions about nearly
everything. I see my parents now more as friends than as parents. I love to
talk with them and spent time together. This may sounds cheesy to you but
that's the way i feel about it.
I always got support from my parents in everything i was doing, be it
playing in bands, travelling or whatever.
I cannot really answer where i like living more. it's to different to
compare it. On one side i really loved living in the black forest and i
still love to be there, because there is so much nature around it and it's
so quiet compared to the noise of the city, but on the other hand it can be
really desperate and it's a long way to get to friends places or to go out.
What i really like about living in a city is that there so many different
things combined in a really small area, that i don't have to drive with a
car to meet friends, that i have possibilities to set up shows and attend
them, that i can go out and all that stuff that's tipical for a city.