Manfred Interview 1991

This article appeared in "Fachblatt", German original by Udo Weyers 1991.
Thanks to Annette Grah for translating this article

The man is a legend. From the early 70's to the mid 80's he has continuously produced successful albums, unique for the characteristic voice of Chris Thompson and Mann's Mini Moog solos. His musical roots are in Jazz but he chose pop music soon after he arrived in London in 1961.

"Ha Ha Said The Clown", "Fox On The Run" and "Mighty Quinn" are songs known to anyone who has been to teen-dance-parties in the sixties. They are still popular at any "Oldie"-festival. Mann's attempt to return to Jazz in 1969 remained commercially unsuccessful.

Earth Band got him back to success. Albums like Solar Fire and Roaring Silence sold extremely well. Musicians joined and left the Earth Band, among them singer Chris Thompson whose unique voice had brought a change towards a more commercial repertoire. New versions of Dylan's "Mighty Quinn" and "You Angel You", or "Davy's On The Road Again" are 'evergreens' of Pop-Rock. After Chris Thompson left, the new EarthBand albums didn't sell too well. Projects like Somewhere In Afrika (1982) or Criminal Tango (1986) were very good productions, but weren't commercially successful and not received very well by the critics.

It has been four years since EarthBand's last album "Masque". Mann's latest project, the solo-album "Plains Music" is put into the world-music category in the record company info, although they don't use the word itself. After Quinn the Eskimo, another attempt to fraternise with indigenous people? Or is Manfred following a musical trend which is already getting a bit boring?

My first try to confront Manfred with such ideas has a surprising effect. He jumps out of his chair and disappears into the bedroom of his hotel-apartment. Did I say something wrong? I had been assured he was "quite easy going". But I needn't worry, he returns with a book and shows it to me, it contains musical notes. "I found this book in a shop. It's called 'The Indians Book', written in 1910. I put the melodies into the computer note by note and let the computer play it for me. I'm not very good at reading sheet-music."

My questions about the sources and even a philosophical background of those ancient melodies bring up a different view on the new album. Q: Did the original American-Indian melodies sound very characteristic? A: "No idea, I don't know characteristically what Indian music sounds like." He doesn't care what it says in the record-company info. The melodies were a basis, raw material which he used to create something new. So I cancel all further questions about motivation and concept.

The music is atmospheric, nothing exciting I think, more appropriate for the quieter moments of the day. My comparison to film-music hits a nerve. Manfred reacts: "I must say my music is definitely more than that. Film-music has become the simplest thing on earth. Take a pattern that repeats itself, put some effects on it - there's your film-music. Every other film has got a soundtrack like that - terrible." His idea is that ambient music gets the listener to a level where it triggers emotions, and he hopes his music can do that. At least he tried to achieve that. A follow-up to this project isn't planned yet. Mann sees himself as a rock-musician, who likes to perform live.

EarthBand studio recordings are in preparation but there's nothing definite yet. He is very open to new technologies but sceptical at the same time. "I try anything new on the market. Most things don't sound good live, just another string sound, and more brass sounds. And all the pianos are terrible. I wanted to replace the piano I use on stage. At the moment it's the M-1, but I'm not happy with it. If I can find a decent sample, I might use my Akai-S-100."
Don't you think that keyboard-players have been downgraded to mere sound-bank administrators, like 'can you do strings, brass, effects...?' "That's right", he agrees without hesitation, "in most cases you're only supposed to do the Jumbo-Jet. But that's not the keyboard-player's job in it's original sense. I'm lucky to have my own band, so I can say: trumpets? no, we don't need trumpets!" Imitated sounds are just an add-on for Manfred.

Original keyboard-sounds are more to his liking. For years he has been relying on his good old Mini-Moog. He has got two of them. Both have been 'midified' to make them compatible to the digital age. Manfred laughs at the idea of squeezing the sound-quality of a Moog into a mundane sample. "How ridiculous to do a sample of it! The controls of the Moog allow thousands of settings which make up the character of this instrument. For instance you can change the filter-frequency while you are playing. You can't sample that." He isn't so sensitive regarding other keyboards: Hammond-imitations in the usual keyboards and modules are ok for him. He's got his own theories about sounds: "Apart from the lead-sounds it's not important what you choose. You need piano, organ and a few good string-sounds. And you get those out of most devices. A guitarist also only has four or five good sounds he's working with. Look at what Bruce Springsteen uses on stage: piano, organ, a couple of synth-sounds. That's it. The atmosphere is what's important." Technical developments for guitars also don't seem to matter to him. "The audience doesn't notice if the guitarist is playing over a combo or a monster-rack. People want to be entertained and dance."

He rejects my opinion, that audiences have become more demanding as far as live-sounds are concerned. It's mostly the critics who think that way. Sure, EarthBand wants to produce a good sound quality on stage, but a gig has to be more than reproducing a studio-recording. Lots of things can't be reproduced in a live situation. One example was trying to sample an African instrument for a gig. "The technicians tried to record a sample. On the album we used the original. The sample was awful. So I said, let's forget about it. The technicians couldn't understand my decision - the instrument was on the album. That's the point. It's not important what's on the album. You just need a good live-atmosphere, you need to entertain the audience. It's not important if one instrument is missing somewhere in the background. On another album was a song which had a recording of an African choir in it. "How can I do that live?, I asked myself. Sample, play a tape, use a smaller choir? Do you know how we did it? With a vocalist and an acoustic guitar! It sounded fantastic. It's so easy! Of course it was completely different, but nobody asked, where are the drums, where's the choir?"

Things are different in the studio. That's where Mann uses all the blessings of modern technology, although deliberately. Songs are recorded in a live-situation. Two African orientated songs were completely programmed. It didn't work to do them with musicians afterwards. The solo-album material won't be played live at this summer's EarthBand gigs of course: one or two new songs, everything else will be from the older albums. It wouldn't be wise to do meditative music in a set along with the Beach Boys and Allman Brothers.

The live-set-up will be, according to Manfred's philosophy, reduced to a minimum. A Yamaha SY77 (the signal going through the Moog filter), with a sound bank, a Korg M-1 (just for piano and a string-sound as backing for the vocals). The sound-programming is not his thing, he only does minor adjustments here and there. His opinion is that musicians shouldn't try to be programmers, or, to quote a colleague's opinion about keyboards: if some new keyboard which arrives in the studio doesn't sound good right away, it will have to go instantly. For Manfred, we live in a world where theoretically any sound can be created, but still different productions sound more and more alike. A strange contradiction.

Can an experienced pro like Mann give young musicians an advice? "People should do what they feel like. If there's an advice, it's do not pay attention to any advice! If you want to program, do it, if you like to just play, you should do that. You can only be good at things you really like to do. Who doesn't enjoy fiddling around with all that technology should just leave it to others. You will find someone who really loves programming and who will be ten times better at it than you. So why bother?" He's not very keen on working with all that electronic stuff himself. "I try to avoid working with computers as much as possible. Through communicating with other musicians you get ideas you never would have come up with yourself. If you ask your drummer to play something a bit differently he will do that, and in a way which may even surprise you. But try and tell that to your computer and see what it will come up with!"

So it's less technology and more skill? He has a split opinion about this. "It's all about the question what you would like to achieve. Skill isn't everything. The process of learning to play a piece of music on the piano doesn't have much to do with the result. It's a mechanical process. Making music should be fun though. Although you have to get to a certain level of skill to be able to translate your ideas. A lot of things, especially in classical music theory, don't get you anywhere in pop-music."

He has got a funny example for frustrated yet ambitious virtuosos. "I used to torture myself with all sorts of technical exercises, for instance, trying to hit one key as fast as possible with three fingers of one hand one after another. It took me several months to become really good at it. At a concert I saw a keyboard-player who could do it even faster. I went around the piano and saw he was using both index-fingers! Since then I'm always holding up one hand while I'm playing passages like that. Somehow you've got to show people how good you are!"

[Top]