INTERVIEW WITH CHROMAG 
by s7ing / Alcatraz

MA: 
Hello Chromag, first of all thanks that you take some time to answer some question for Mudia Art. Please tell us something about yourself (Where are you from, how old are you etc...)

Chromag: 
Hello to you, too, s7ing, and to all the Mudia readers, watchers and listeners outside. I am 32 years old and I am currently working on my doctoral thesis at Hannover University focusing on language development. I have a beautiful wife, a tiny little daughter and a good job making me feel really happy with what I have achieved so far.

Besides all this I still love to hang in front of the computer to check what's happening in the demoscene. I also love football and especially the infamous Borussia Moenchengladbach, the club of the place where I was born.

MA: 
When did your first music steps start ?

Chromag: 
My parents forced me into musical school where I learned to play the flute (in Germany, many children have to visit the early musicaleducation courses to later specialize on an instrument.
They later thought it would be nice if I learned to play the piano and so I did for more than eight years. While the first four years seemed to be really efficient, the last four years were rather hard for me because other things became more interesting for boys at my age.

Nowadays I just use my little midi-keyboard to hack in the chords and notes but I can't really play the piano anymore. Still, my dream for the future is to buy a piano and start to learn and play it again.

To finally answer the question, I started doing music (or rather creating noise) at the age of six. 

MA: 
What Software did or do you use for creating computer music ?
Chromag:
When I got my first Amiga 500 for christmas in 1987, I started to mainly play around like everybode else. My interest in producing music started when I discovered a program called Sonix by Aegis which was kind of hard to use because you had to be able to read the music, put each note where it belongs, set the pauses etc.
I was impressed when I discovered the Soundtracker. That tool and its successors became the tools I started every single day from that day on. Nowadays I still use Milkytracker from time to time but actually, using midi-sequencers and vst-instruments is much more easy and effective.

MA: Where did you get your inspiration for making music ?

Chromag: Hm, that's really a tough question because that sort of massively changed during the years. There is a techno period  where the inspiration obviously came from current techno and rave tracks of commercial music but I have also always tried to be influenced by as many musical styles as possible, for example acid and free jazz, pop, heavy metal, crossover, tango and even german volksmusik.

I have always looked up to Dr. Awesome of Crusaders because he also tended to show a great diversity of musical influences.

Ma: Which style of music do you prefer ?

Chromag: 
Another tough one here. I try to compose something that sounds melodic in a way you want to listen to it again. I also try to compose a theme you can recognize throughout the track by adding slight variations, pitching it, adding more elements etc.
The style is not too important in the first place, since I still have an oldfashioned idea of what music is: melody, chords, bass and beat. 

MA: 
What sort of music do you like in "real" life. Have you any artist / group which does inspire you ?

Chromag:
At the moment, I seem to like german groups representing a mixture of independant and commercial background.
I like groups like Kettcar and Tomte for example. The last CD I bought was an album by Bloc Party though, which is not german apparently. My all-time favourite group is The Cure, though.

MA: 
Who are your favourite musicians in the demo scene and tell us why they are.

Chromag: 
My all-time favourite musicians are the ones from finland, Heatbeat and Dizzy,. I always liked their creativity, their jazzy influences and wonderful themes. In Germany, Virgill has always been a great inspiration and I also liked what Bitarts did. Nowadays I really enjoy what Reed, Wayfinder, KB and Little Bitchard are doing, Amusic is cool, too. 

MA:
How do your way leads you to the computer demo scene ?

Chromag: 
My parents bought me an Amiga 500 for christas 1987. The best present I ever got, I can tell you. At those days, that machine cost more than 1000 Dm but I was telling them I need it for school and all that.

Hehe, my friends came around to play those cool games and were so damn jealous. Before that Amiga, I never owned a C64 by the way (nowadays I got one, of course) but a great machine called Commodore VC20.

Not too amazing but those were the first steps into computing. Like everyone else, I swapped games at the school and got fascinated by crackintros. I got in contact with a school-mate who was a member of Spreadpoint. He was the one to really get me into that scene, because they greeted me in one of their intros.

I started doing music with Aegis Sonix and later with Soundtracker, formed an own group called Ecstasy, released some cli-based demo-collections and music-selectors and then left for Exult (the group who' s members later joined the famous Animators). Inbetween some Spreadpoint members and ex Megaforce members had been trying to revive the glorious megaforce and I had been asked to team up but the project was cancelled after a short time only.

My first real scene release was in a demo of Exult's Megademo. 
MA:
You have been in several groups over the years... Nowadays you are again in Rebels, when did you come back to the scene ? Or have you never left at all ?

Chromag: 
I have cut down my scene activities in late 1995. That was also the time when I left Rebels to become a full-time Polka Brothers member. That was probably a big mistake because the contact in Rebels was much better, because Exciter and I lived in the same city. I didn't have too many releases in Polka Brothers anyway and my interest in the demoscene stopped because of the girl-friend who later became my wife.

She was also the one to bring me back to the scene since she seemed to like my music and go interested in all
that subculture... 

MA: 
Demo sceners are everywhere. Is there a group or scener which inspired you or brought you your personal biggest success ?

Chromag:
That's a tough question really. There have always been times when I looked up to scene-personalities and groups but that naturally changed during the years. When I started, Red Sector were my heroes and I always wanted to be part of them. Years after their Megademo, I wrote a letter to Peachy, if I could join Trsi but he just wrote back a short note to me: Sorry, at the moment we have enough musicians. Bye. That little letter was  written in English, although we both were germans. Probably to show me how elite Red Sector were and how lame I was...

Anyway, I became a group-mate with Peachy in Haujobb and later even joined Trsi but that was long after their glorious times.

MA:
How do you like the so called new school Demo Style ?

Chromag:
I totally ignore that newschool or oldschool debate, whether it's about demos or music.  Let me use this great opportunity to send some special fuckings to dubmood and ps. My music isn't  meant to be oldschool and if you call that pseudo oldschool or whatever feel free to keep on posting our bullshit on pouet.

MA:
Are you still in contact with some of your old scene friends ?

Chromag: 
Unfortunately not with many. I hang around on Bitfellas where I meet people I met in the early ninetees.  Virgill is probably one of the oldest contacts which I remember.

MA:
What is your actual project and what are your future plans ?

Chromag: 
I am currently working on several projects and my future plan is to release some more tracks. As always, nothing can be told in advance but there will be a nice musicdisk and some intros which are planned at the moment. 

MA: 
Have you already released a CD or compilation of your work ? This is your chance to get some free promotion :)

Chromag:
Hehe, I have to admit, I haven't released a single CD yet and I don't plan to.

After I bought an oddjobb tape from jester of sanity, I swore I would never release such a crap... I hope that after all these years, he's able to laugh about this statement :)

MA:
Does your scene activity have a positive effect on your
"real" job?

Chromag:
 I wanted to make money with music, that is a dream I always wanted to live. In fact, I was only able to do some freelance work until now but never really got a job as an inhouse musician. 

I once had the opportunity to team up with Eurocom in England but that didn't work out. Some cool Talent members lived over there in Derby. Also I worked for Lightcube in Hamburg, a software-firm that didn't make it that long. The general interest in everything related to computers helped me a lot though, because most people can easily be stunned when you show them a self-made homepage or a nice video using tools on our computer. 

MA: 
What are you doing nowadays ?

Chromag: 
I am a teacher for special education but got promoted a year ago to now be able to work at the university. I am teaching the new teachers and doing some research on language development, working on my doctoral
thesis now to become dr. chromag next year.

MA:
You became father a few months ago. We are getting older :) Do you think you will still stay in the demo scene ?

Chromag: 
It has become a bit hard to compose and be a father at the same time, that's true somehow but I am  addicted to making music, working on demo projects and hanging around with other people that feel the same. I doubt that will change.  

MA: 
The demo scene is going on and on. There was always a way to continue. What do you think, where will the scene lead us in the future ?  

Chromag:
I hope there will be new people joining the scene, otherwise I guess that it will become a tiny  little high quality scene only consisting of groups like farbrausch, traction, asd, mfx and conspiracy who release an intro once in a year. We need more lame groups becoming better. Perfectionism means that there's no space for development... 

MA:
Thanks a lot for answering some questions. I hope you enjoyed it. Last space is left for you to say whatever you want to:

Chromag: 
I hope that people like this concept of presenting my work, although I already hear someone shout: Booh, that has been released before, why not do something new? I am very honoured to be the first one and  I have to thank everyone involved in this. Looking forward to the next issue of Mudia!


