Music | Ten minutes before everyday life

Casually out of the basement and into the world Photo: Facebook I go to Ottakring in Vienna's 16th district. Everyday migrant culture and a hip cultural scene come together in the Brunnenviertel. The Vienna Belt is not far away. The city's well-known indie clubs are located in its historic light rail arches. When Culk plays in the “Chelsea” or the “B72,” the band can easily carry their instruments back to the rehearsal room. Guitarist Johannes Blindhofer steps out of one of the tall old buildings in the area and greets me. He maintains contact with the outside world. And takes care of the band's postings. “We all hate this thing with social media,” he says later. But now it's his turn. Singer Sophie Löw had the unloved task for eight years and can now concentrate fully on artwork and design. I was worried that I would have to climb stairs for the interview; one of the songs on the new album is called »7. Stock". Luckily it's only one floor down: Culk's rehearsal room is in the basement.

Johannes Blindhofer: Our first Culk rehearsal took place in the house where Jakob (bassist, editor's note) now has his studio. But then we found it relatively quickly and really started writing songs here.

How would you describe your rehearsal space, how does it feel?

Blindhofer: It has no windows. The toilet hasn't been cleaned in five years. Nobody feels responsible.

Christoph Kuhn (drums): It's cold in winter...

Sophie Löw: … and stuffy and hot in summer.

Blindhofer: It smells sometimes, but it's still homely.

The four-piece band Culk from Vienna released their self-titled debut album in February 2019. The quartet includes Sophie Löw (vocals, guitar, synthesizer), Johannes Blindhofer (guitar), Jakob Herber (bass) and Christoph Kuhn (drums). The band's name is a neologism with no fixed meaning. In October 2020, Culk released their second album “Zerstreuen Über Dich”.

Do you have a fixed date for rehearsals?

Blindhofer: No, we tend to take blocks like this when we're writing songs or preparing for concerts. Then we are here for longer or a whole weekend at a time.

Is there anything the rehearsal room is still missing?

Blindhofer: We actually need well-functioning speakers for our PA (editor's note). But we also feel connected in some way to those we have. It was initially on loan from a friend when we started the band. Maybe the buzzy, distorted, slightly crappy sound that comes out of it shapes us more musically than we think.

What else happens in the rehearsal room – apart from making music?

Kuhn: We are already very focused on the music. We tend to spend our free time somewhere else. And the rehearsals have also become more and more efficient.

Löw: When it's nice outside, there's an inner courtyard where we sometimes sit together.

What moments in the rehearsal room do you remember particularly well?

Kuhn: About this one celebration we had here. That was really funny because it came about relatively spontaneously. We were traveling along the Belt and then decided to go here.

Löw: We had a concert and actually just wanted to bring the instruments here, that wasn't the original plan.

Herber: But then someone called “rehearsal room party.”

What musical aha moments did you have here?

Blindhofer: I can remember a session for the last album in January, where we wrote six songs in three days. “Iron Dress” was also there. The piece was suddenly just there. We were actually already over it.

Löw: That's right, we actually wanted to stop. And then we had this chorus idea and everyone was really euphoric.

Herber: For some reason we all stood on it somewhere. I stood on the amp (editor's note). And Johannes tapped his thigh to indicate the chord changes.

In which setting do you feel closest as a band – in the rehearsal room, on stage or in the studio?

Kuhn: At the breakfast buffet in a hotel somewhere in Germany.

Herber: On tour, I would also say. The time after a concert when it's time to come down from the adrenaline. Often you get lost. Some want to go out and stay out until four in the morning, others just want to go back to the hotel.

Blindhofer: That's actually the best moment of being in a band: those few minutes after the concert. You are still happy and don't think about dismantling yet. Nobody has yet said: “You have to be back at the hotel by this time, here are the keys.” Those ten minutes before the whole everyday routine starts again are just total bliss.

On “Generation Maximum” you addressed the attitude towards life of a generation, and on the follow-up album it was about gender relations. Would you agree that the theme of identity is central to your current album?

Löw: It's all about orientation, i.e. how to find your way in the digital world and the real world. There are moments when you know who you are or want to be, and then you doubt everything again and haven't found your place yet. However, the digital makes the search for one's own self even more complicated.

The song title “Twenty, eighteen” refers to an important year for Culk: their first single was released in 2018, followed a little later by their debut album. Are you already nostalgic for the early days?

Blindhofer: It's good to be at the point where we are currently. "Twenty, eighteen" is not a paean to 2018. It's more about the ambivalent experience of being in a band: that it burns you out extremely, it makes you extremely tired, that you actually constantly have the feeling that you're worthless because you often don't achieve what you set out to do. On the other hand, we just love what we do. And we just wanted to embrace and celebrate this feeling and the friendship between us more.

The album title “Smogstar” is puzzling: how did you come up with this artificial term?

Löw: We looked for a title for an extremely long time this time. I really wanted something that stood alone, something that wasn't directly in the album and that conveyed a feeling - that urban feel. In the city you can be so many things at the same time: you are overwhelmed, but also free. And then sometimes you see positive things in where you come from.

The motif of the city appears several times. The album cover you designed also shows an urban skyscraper landscape. Did you have a special place in mind?

Löw: No, there was no specific city in my imagination. But I found it really exciting as an image, again in connection with the question of identity: that you can try yourself out in the anonymity of the city. Especially when you're new to a city and don't know that many people, you can completely reinvent yourself and maybe even get lost in it if you don't have anything to hold on to.

For many Austrian bands, Germany is the next step after they have established themselves in the local scene. How was that for you?

Löw: It was like that from the beginning. In Germany people became much more interested in us. The media response there was initially greater.

Blindhofer: Yes, we actually played a lot more concerts in Germany back then than we did here. At the same time, I think it's extremely important that you play regularly in the city you come from. At first you always have the feeling that you shouldn't push it too far. In order not to be the tens of thousands of bands that perform every Friday at “Chelsea” or “B72”. But actually that's the most beautiful thing. These are your friends, these are your family. It's so important to be present in the scene where you go to concerts yourself. That gives you so much back.

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