Kraftwerk reinvented pop in the 1970s, but never dreamed they could stage a multimedia spectacular. Their founding member grants a rare interview to talk about Europe, Detroit clubs and why Twitter is ‘nonsense’

For someone with a reputation for – how can we put this politely – taking their time over things, Ralf Hütter isn’t one for hanging around tonight. Kraftwerk have just completed a mesmerising set at the Brighton Centre – all laser-precise beats and visuals brought to life through Kraftwerk-branded 3D glasses – and Hütter has agreed to sit down for a rare face-to-face interview afterwards. Given that the show involves Hütter spending more than two hours on his feet, studiously twiddling knobs and buttons to ensure that no synth line or motorik beat arrives anything less than crystal clear, you might expect him to take a while to decompress once he has left the stage. Yet the crowd have barely shuffled out of the building when he appears in our backstage interview room, a black polo shirt and puffer jacket replacing his grid-patterned Spandex bodysuit. The speed of the transformation is disorientating, as if the mind-melting, multimedia spectacular he has just put on never happened.

“Hello, nice to meet you,” he says, shaking hands, before glancing towards a picture on the wall of Rod Stewart, resplendent in his peacock pomp. “It’s you, on the left?” he asks his press officer, pointing towards one of the musician’s pink-clad backsides.

Hütter has a reputation for being taciturn or evasive in interviews – and yes, he can be those things: the stock answer for when Kraftwerk might release their first studio album since 2003’s Tour De France Soundtracks remains “when it’s finished”. But Hütter is also charming, a little shy – he finishes answers suddenly, with an endearingly nervous smile appearing at the side of his mouth – and funny in an exquisitely German way. We meet on the eve of the general election, and so, to break the ice, I tell him how, ever since the leaders debates in 2010, pictures of UK politicians stood sombrely at lecterns have come to be labelled by online wits as the “worst Kraftwerk gig ever”. Curious, Hütter looks at a picture on my phone of a besuited Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron, and nods in agreement: “Because there’s only three of them,” he says. “One missing.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Computer world: Kraftwerk in 3D at the Brighton Centre on 7 June. Photograph: RMV/Rex/Shutterstock

Thankfully, shows on this current tour have considerably more substance to them than Cleggmania. In many ways, they are as close to perfect as live music can get, in part because to hear Kraftwerk’s seemingly limitless supply of songs played so precisely is to hear the roots of almost every subsequent major development in western pop music: from Detroit techno to hip-hop to electro … even to stadium indie (Coldplay’s Talk famously nabbed the opening line from Computer Love). But also because these shows seem to realise one of Kraftwerk’s long-term dreams: to create a Gesamtkunstwerk – or complete work of art – that has long fascinated German artists from Wagner to the Bauhaus movement. Put on your 3D glasses and you will experience radio waves beaming towards you, or autobahn traffic passing by your side. At one point during Spacelab, the titular UFO lands right in front of the Brighton Pavilion – a neat local touch they update for each venue.

Back when Hütter was milling around the Düsseldorf art scene of the late 60s with founding member Florian Schneider (Schneider quit the band in 2008 and the pair have “not really” spoken since), such a show was the stuff of fantasy. In fact, the idea of an influential German pop band seemed far fetched in itself: the second world war had left Germany disconnected from its musical past while Britain and the US were busy redrawing the map.

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“At first, when we first discovered this, it was like a shock,” says Hütter. “We don’t have a continuous musical tradition! But then we realised it was an enormous chance, because there was nothing, there was a void. We could step into that open space.”

It took some time for Kraftwerk to shape their new musical language. They made three albums of experimental art rock (Hütter dislikes the term krautrock) in the early 70s before the classic line up – Hütter and Schneider joined by Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos – embarked upon a seven-year run of albums so groundbreaking you could argue their influence surpasses even that of the Beatles: Autobahn, Radioactivity, Trans-Europe Express, The Man-Machine, Computer World. Each one was prophetic, gleamingly futuristic and – it is sometimes overlooked behind all the plaudits for invention – overflowing with melodic genius. Yet even on the forefront of such innovation, Kraftwerk were thwarted when it came to performing the kinds of live shows they desired. Early concerts relied on tapes and studio musicians – “too much compromise” – while in the 80s the band were forced to laboriously pack up their entire Kling Klang Studio in order to take the show on the road. Being a member of Kraftwerk over the past few decades seems to have at least partly involved simply waiting around for technology to catch up with their ideas.

“You fantasise about it being possible, but you never know,” says Hütter. Has he marvelled at the speed of technology during his lifetime? “No. Sometimes it has gone slow. But there’s always a next step or development. It’s a continuous process, more like gardening. There are certain plants that you work on, and others that grow [themselves]. It’s seasonal. That’s how it feels. It’s why I call Kling Klang my electronic garden.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kraftwerk performing at the Ritz in New York in 1981. Photograph: Ebet Roberts/Redferns

What does he make of the developments that have occurred for listeners as well as creators? Is the bounty offered up by Spotify a good thing, or does so much choice reduce music’s value?

“Basically, nothing has changed,” he decides. “It’s still all about composition. And for the last 50 years, it has always been like this. There have always been speakers all around – radio speakers, televisions. A little more [now], but then again … it’s about the intensity. All the rest is just noise.”

What about developments away from music; how does he view, say, Twitter? Does he use it? “No, no, no. We just give information about our touring.” Isn’t he intrigued by that side of modern life, though? “I don’t think so. It’s basically … very banal. Too much nonsense.”

Such disinterest is perhaps surprising given that the technology of today has always been Kraftwerk’s chief concern, far more than the inventions of tomorrow. For all their visions of robots and space exploration, there has always been more lyrical focus on, say, public transport or calculators. Looking back at their 70s output, it is hard not to view it through a political lense.

Take Autobahn, their 1974 motorik reimagining of the Beach Boys that announced their arrival as electronic pioneers. Given that Germany was desperate for a new identity, were the band attempting to reclaim their country’s motorways – largely built during the rise of the Nazi regime – and repaint them as beautiful wonders of the world?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Robot Ralf: one of the mannequins that take over the encores on the band’s current tour.

Hütter says no. “It was an environmental composition, a sound painting,” he says. “We were touring in Germany and when we played in other cities, we didn’t have money to stay in hotels. So we were always driving on the autobahn, going somewhere and coming back at night all the time. I had this old grey Volkswagen, so maybe we were dreaming of having a Mercedes one day.”

What about the Trans Europe Express album. Bartos once described that as being a message of European unity …

“Yes,” interjects Hütter with a smile, “But he was not the composer.”

So was that not the case?

“It’s like … where we live [in Düsseldorf] is the Rhineland. It’s Germany, but there was a British sector, it used to be French. It’s close to the Netherlands and Belgium. So we were brought up multilingual, whereas with other parts of Germany – say, Bavaria – it’s different. Ours has very multi-European connections. It’s a four-hour drive to Paris, so we were always going to discotheques in France or hearing new bands in Brussels or spending the weekend in Amsterdam. It’s very pan-European, so when I wrote the lyrics with Emil [Schult, their longtime visual artist collaborator] it was like a fantasy story about that.”

The album was released in 1977, a few years after the UK had joined the EU. Hearing the song’s message now feels like travelling back to an era of optimism and cooperation. It’s hard not to listen without mourning the imminent arrival of Brexit and the potential end to such a vision. Hütter is cautious to make the connection. “It’s not directly relating to any day-to-day politics,” he says. “It’s more a fantasy story, or a spiritual thing. Like a film.”

Despite dismissing the idea that his group’s music had political undercurrents, he does agree that critics tend to overlook the song’s emotional core. Far from cold, clinical robot music, with songs such as Neon Lights and Europe Endless, Kraftwerk proved themselves masters at capturing a kind of hopeful melancholy, whereas elsewhere their music contains all the conflicting emotions of modern life: joy, distraction, loneliness, paranoia.

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“It is emotional,” agrees Hütter. “People a long time ago had difficulties finding the sensitivity of electronics. But when you go and see your doctor and he does a heart test, it is electronics that are very sensitive to this. It’s the same with an instrument. That’s why we should use the tools of today’s society to create music – otherwise it is just antique.”

Even back in the 70s, when Kraftwerk must have seemed more like aliens beamed down to earth than human beings, the music was always accessible, always able to connect with people, always alive to the possibilities of collaboration. Did it surprise Hütter when black audiences in New York and Detroit took it to their hearts and used it as a building block for hip-hop and techno?

“Yes and no,” he says. “Because I have white and black keys on my piano.” He smiles, then adds: “But also the dynamics of electronic rhythm machines is a very strong element in what is called funk music or urban music. Electronics is very connecting.”

Did he recognise electronic music’s potential to bring people together from the first time he touched a synthesiser.

“Yes, yes,” he says, pretending to play the air with his fingers. “You can feel it.”

Such connections flowed in both directions – as Afrika Bambaataa melded Numbers and Trans-Europe Express to create Planet Rock, and Cybotron’s Clear laid the foundations for techno by looping Hall of Mirrors, so too did Hütter and his band absorb the burgeoning dance music scene when the Belleville Three started taking them out to club nights. Did he let himself loose and dance? “It was a long time ago now,” he says, coyly. “But yes, of course.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Florian Schneider Left) and Ralf Hütter in 1978. Photograph: Ebet Roberts/Redferns

Hütter maintains that for all the long gaps between releases, the band are still hard at it when they’re not on tour, keeping office hours at Kling Klang, tweaking tiny details, finessing artwork, performing upgrades to existing work whenever a technological advancement occurs. As for other projects, goings on inside the Düsseldorf studio remain secretive, although the group do still gather for cycling trips together at the weekend. Is being an avid cyclist a prerequisite for joining the band?

“No, but it helps with the music,” he says. In what way? “You can only go in one direction – always forward. Also, it’s about being independent. You use your own forces to go forward.”

Hütter is especially excited to play the opening of the event when it comes to Düsseldorf on 1 July. In fact, he has even designed artwork for some carbon-frame bikes that will be launched at the opening. “We have to work in these other areas, because we are not allowed to ride the Tour de France,” he says. “We are too slow.”

Kraftwerk have spent the past three decades slowing down musically, too. Despite the hours of perfectionist rigour that have gone into releasing the current 3D Catalogue box-set (if you can’t make the live shows – and have a 3D television – it’s the next best thing), there’s no escaping the fact that Tour de France Soundtracks has been their only album of new material since 1986’s Electric Café. The man machine is part human, after all, and Hütter must surely be aware now that the years are creeping up on him. Is age something that bothers him?

“Well, things will happen. Biological laws will still apply.” And would Kraftwerk carry on – perhaps even with the robots taking over, as happens during the encore of their live sets? “Certain programmes keep running,” he says. “It’s a spiritual thing. Musical ideas that we may have started, they enter into different cultures – Detroit techno, dance music – and then the energies come back to us.”

So the idea that, all across the world, people are dancing to music that came from his group’s startling vision, gives him strength? “Yes,” he concludes. “It’s all about feedback. That’s what keeps me going further.”

Kraftwerk are currently on a UK tour. 3D – The Catalogue is out now.

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