KMFDM has been bringing us some of the best industrial around for the last 15 years. Last year, they laid out their final album ADIOS. Six weeks later, Sascha Konietzko, and Tim Skold formed a new band. MDFMK. The two were later joined by Lucia Cifarelli, former singer of Drill. MDFMK is currently preparing to go on their first tour, off their first CD, and see if the smaller band can continue the tradition of greatness left behind in the ashes of KMFDM. Shoutweb had the honor to chat with Tim Skold and get the lowdown on MDFMK.

Shoutweb: What's the difference between KMFDM and MDFMK?

Tim: The difference is that one is foreword and the other is backward. Which one you wanna pick is up to you. They can go both ways. Either way is fine. There are obvious differences, to be a little bit more serious, and one, MDFMK is a new band. It's a new lineup. It's a new start, and a fresh beginning. A chance for us to pursue things that we potentially wouldn't feel comfortable perusing in KMFDM, but on the same hand, or the other hand, I don't' even know, we're the same people, ya know. Bboth me and Sascha are the same flesh and blood as we were a year ago, so the flipping of the letters made perfect sense because we're not trying to run away from the past, and we're not trying to expand the candlestick, and we're not trying to break off with something that doesn't need to be broken off with, but in the same way continue fresh, and be able to pursue different things.

Shoutweb: How does having only three people affect the songwriting process?

Tim: It's pretty intimidating. It's a... multifaceted thing. Writing songs by yourself, and with no one else, you have one sort of creativity flowing, and when you're working with other people you tend to get a different kind of creativity flowing. When you work with a lot of people there's yet another kind of creativity going. When we started making the MDFMK record, me and Sascha, we were pretty hell bent on not making MDFMK... what's a good term... a rotating cast. A circus. You know? One in, one out, one in. It wasn't until maybe... halfway into the record that we realized that we wanted to involve someone else, and get a bit of a different spin on some of the things we were working on. Lucia entered that picture very well.

Shoutweb: Do you think that any old fan of KMFDM would like the MDFMK album?

Tim: Some of them, yes. Some of them probably not. I mean, there's obvious differences. The same thing kinna goes for KMFDM in itself though. It is a band with a very lengthy history. A band that has gone thru different stages, and different shapes and forms, so I mean if you're into that concept I think it would be really easy for you to accept MDFMK and enjoy it for what it is just on the musical aspect of it, and not necessarily worry about the politicals and those parts, but I'm sure there's plenty of old hardcore KMFDM fans here and there that's not gonna be able to get into this for whatever reasons. And that's fine, time moves on, things change, and that's only natural.

Shoutweb: Are you sick of getting asked questions about KMFDM?

Tim: No. Cuz, you know I only have a few years into it, Sascha has 15 years into it you know? So, there's a difference there. I take great pride in the work I did in KMFDM, and that's something that I will treasure for the rest of my life. It was really cool, so no not really.

Shoutweb: I heard you guys did a taping on Farmclub the other night, how did that go?

Tim: Right. Well it was actually officially the first ever public appearance of MDFMK, and it went really well I'd say.

Shoutweb: When's that gonna be aired?

Tim: Wow. It would probably be better getting an official word from the record company on that, cuz I've heard a few different versions. I heard May 22nd, I heard May 29th, and in between those dates I heard a June date, but the last one I heard is May 29th I believe. If May 29th is a Monday, that is the date. (May 29th is a Monday) That's the date I heard, but I know the show is a new show. They're still working out the kinks, and getting things rolling right. I think they're keeping it exciting for themselves as well, so I don't know if there's an official date yet.

Shoutweb: Now that you guys have done your appearance on Farmclub, do you feel that you guys are ready to hit the road?

Tim: It's all about timing right? We will start rehearsing and really working out the live show, I mean this was a two track TV appearance that we did. The live show is gonna be a different beast all together, because we're actually gonna go out headlining, and we wanna put together a show that is really cool, but different from what... If you saw KMFDM on the last tour, you're gonna get a totally different show this time.

Shoutweb: You know I got stabbed at that last tour.

Tim: Are you serious?!

Shoutweb: Yeah, I still have this huge scar on my leg. I was in the mosh pit, and some guy stuck me with a knife.

Tim: Are you... Fuck... When was this?

Shoutweb: It was in Portland, at the Roseland theater. That was a long time ago.

Tim: No I remember it pretty well actually. Me and Ogre were walking back from the bus, and there were kids outside the bus asking if we were gonna go in and see the band now. We were carrying laundry, and they were all "Are you guys bringing the band their clothes?" We go, "Yes, we are". It was funny shit, but I didn't know someone got stabbed.

Shoutweb: Well it wasn't that bad, I walked away from it, it was just in the leg.

Tim: Oh yeah! (mocking tone) It was just in the leg... Damn…

Shoutweb: Anyway back to the questions. How is the smaller roster gonna affect your live set?

Tim: It's gonna affect it in a few different ways. First of all, we're forced to be more selective, and pay more attention to what we're doing, because we can't just jump out, and everybody blasts on full and expect to get away with it. We're obviously going to incorporate machinery into the show, which we've always done, and will continue to do, and as far as the balance between man vs. machine is yet to be figured out, because we haven't started rehearsing yet.

Shoutweb: When are you guys gonna start?

Tim: We're talking early next week, so we're right on there. We've worked and planned and rejected how we're gonna do some things, because machinery is a cool thing. You can manipulate machinery in many ways. It's really easy to lay back and rely on machinery, which is not necessarily what we wanna do, but in order for us to focus on different things you have to pick and choose, unless we hired ten different people to come in and play, but even then it would be humans performing the machine's part. The machine part is the machine's part, because, we like the way they sound when they're machine parts. It's an interesting part as well, because you never worry about that when you make a record. We didn't this time that's for sure. There was never a second where we were contemplating, maybe we shouldn't do that, that would be hard to do live. Whatever! Not for a second. It's only what actually hits your ears. What does it need to sound like right now? And now we're figuring out that whole part. I know I'm gonna be playing a shit load of guitar though. And the bitch with that is that I'm gonna have to be singing and playing guitar at the same time.

Shoutweb: Do you have trouble with that?

Tim: I've never really done it before. You're in the studio, and you're doing these pieces and these parts, and you're not necessarily entertaining anyone. You know, you do one thing at a time, so I'm learning how tricky that can be at this point. Rhythmically, it's a coordination thing. Fingers vs. throat, and um... it's hard man!

Shoutweb: Do you guys plan on playing any of the old KMFDM tunes on your tour, or are you trying to distance yourselves from that?

Tim: Right now we plan on not playing any KMFDM material. We wanna focus on MDFMK material, because, this is MDFMK. This is a new band, and we're excited about playing these songs live. We've never played them live before. I mean if Sascha plays "Godlike" one more time he might punch you in the eye. He's done that many many times. After a certain point, it's just not fun anymore. You go out and do something that you're not having fun with, you can't really expect anyone else to get off on that, ya know? It's not a shut case though. We might dabble in some stuff, and we might dabble obviously in some stuff off Adios, which was never toured for, and was to a certain degree the beginning of MDFMK. It would be kinna natural to maybe look at some of those tracks….. But if you're expecting a best of KMFDM, don't go see MDFMK.

Shoutweb: I was reading up on you, and I read that one of your mottos was, "The future of music does not belong to the mediocre." What does that mean to you?

Tim: Damn, I thought it was somewhat self explanatory. It's basically a slogan, a statement, as far as declaring that we are very serious about what we do. We don't' necessarily dick around, I mean to a certain extent we do, but within the parameters of doing it for a reason. Mediocrity to me kind of communicates that it's intentionally weak, and it's intentionally bad, or not as good as it should be. It's not necessarily to knock anyone who doesn't' have years and years and years of experience of doing things, and therefore may not reach a certain level of expertise. It has nothing to do with that. It's really just a statement that we made a slogan for ourselves that what we do, we do to the best of our abilities. More like a credo and not a slogan per se.

Shoutweb: So do you believe that MDFMK is the future of music?

Tim: Yeah, obviously...

Shoutweb: Now,

Tim: I know it's the future of MP3's anyway... Sorry I had to squeeze that in there. I'm sort of a bitter guy right now.

Shoutweb: As far as what?

Tim: I don't know, I think we've missed out on more then half of our record sales to MP3's.

Shoutweb: Are you upset about that? Are you anti-MP3?

Tim: No, as a medium, code is code, I love the encryption format. It's a very good scheme right? As far as making the music sound as good as possible, and minimizing the noise. Politically, I don't mind MP3s because it's a great way for people to share music, especially for young unknown upcoming bands to expose their stuff to potentially millions of people. I don't mind MP3 as far as Lars Ulrich, because that guy is so fucking rich, it doesn't matter. And Alanis Morrisette owns stock in MP3.com. The tricky part is for small to medium bands who are trying to get money out of the record companies to do records or do shows, that need funding, but if you can't show good sales, there's no way the record company's gonna give you the fuckin' money, so that's where it becomes potentially hurtful. We'll always have garage bands, and we'll always have MP3's because that will always be there, but if you wanna try to push it, if you wanna try to use the music industry as a vehicle, as a tool to further your arts, that's when it becomes tricky. It's not if you're huge and you have all the fuckin' money in the world, I mean who gives a fuck if 10 to 15% goes to MP3s. You're just a little bit more famous. You'll still sell out your tours; you'll still sell all the merchandise and what not. I think it's tricky for people in my position.

Shoutweb: All these rap-rock hybrids are the big thing right now, what do you think the future holds for industrial music?

Tim: Oh wow, that's such a hard term. Industrial music co-notates something very different then it did a few years ago, and even before then it was a different thing all together. To me it's not all about industrial music. I mean some of these rap rock bands are incorporating DJ's and electronics into their set, so it's really just people trying to make music, and trying to make music that amuses themselves and hopefully amuses other people. As far as the genre and the types of music, that is vanishing by the moment. I know the industry really needs these things to market, and also humans need a terminology to be able to communicate, but what the fuck is industrial? It's tricky. Einsturzende Neubauten? Industrial music... It's hard…. I'm afraid I can't really answer that question.

Shoutweb: Do you have any plans for radio play for any of the tracks on the album?

Tim: Radio play? How do you mean?

Shoutweb: Getting your songs played on radio.

Tim: I'm pretty sure that the record company has great plans like that, and I know that we've been asked what we wanna use for singles, and know that we pushed "Rabble Rouser" before the record came out, and that was the number one fastest moving track on CMJ history. I know that we went for "Torpedo" as the lead single at the time of the release of the record. I know there's talk of following "Torpedo" with another track yet to be decided on, and that's all I know.

Shoutweb: What's your favorite track on the album?

Tim: Ah! I have not been asked that before... Wow. My favorite track on the record... Um... It's "Now", the first track. It was pretty much the first track that was MDFMK. It still feels like it's really defining the moment. It's almost ironic how the lyrical content will turn out to mean something very different then the words would indicate. But the track feels really complete and well rounded that way. That would be may favorite track, though it may be a different one this afternoon.

Shoutweb: Now, KMFDM was somewhat known for remixing other people's songs. Do you guys plan to keep doing that?

Tim: Time. It's really more of an issue of time. Remixing tracks can be really fun, and creatively rewarding. It can also be really lucrative. But right now, we're not necessarily pursuing the remixing thing. Like we have music that we worked very hard and very long on, and at this point, we're taking it into the live aspect of it, opening a whole new can of worms. Remixing songs for other artists is almost the last thing on my mind. But who knows what's gonna happen in the future though.

Shoutweb: What kind of music are you listening to right now?

Tim: I try to stay somewhat diverse. I listen to some odd records here and there. I like to listen to a bunch of radio, and the occasional techno compilation. And then once again, I don't have time to listen to a bunch of music, and really sit down and enjoy it. I mean, I listen to it, when I go out to clubs I hear whatever the DJ's playing, and it's like, hey what's that track kind of thing. But if I had to pick some records, I would have to pick the new Kovanant record. I can't remember the title of the record… Kovanant with a "K". What else do I listen to? Oh! The new Pantera record! I like that!

Shoutweb: That's somewhat surprising.

Tim: Really? Didn't expect me to be a metal head did you? (laughs)

Shoutweb: Not really.

Tim: You gotta come over and look at my Iron Maiden collection one of these days man.

Shoutweb: (laughs) Since you're so busy, what do you spend your day doing?

Tim: Fuckin' running around and trying to save time. Actually I took the liberty of going down to E3 right now. (Electronic Entertainment Expo for those who don't play video games) Although I had a press schedule. For three hours I have nothing but interviews to do. I spend my time trying to fulfill my promotional obligations to the band. Beyond that, I practice playing guitar, I work on my guitar playing and singing, and trying to get ready to go on the road. There's a whole dimension to that world, where you need a light guy, you need a monitor guy, you need a front house guy, you need a tour manager, you need an assistant tour manager, and before you know it you've spent 8, 9 hours on the phone, and it might be part of the reason why I'm actually excited about going on tour! Already and not talking about it. There's a whole lot of daily maintenance and co-relating, back and forth, and trying to make sure that everybody's looking in the right direction, and on the same ball, getting things done. The mechanics of a band. Making the record, and promoting the record, and getting ready to go out on a tour on the road,there's a lot of work to be done.

Shoutweb: Is there anything that you want people to know about MDFMK?

Tim: Yes, and um, I want people to know, anything that what we do is because we want to do it. It's not for any reason besides the obvious egotistical self-pleasing thing. And if you know, if that bothers you, that's fine, at least I was honest, and I came clean.

Shoutweb: That's all the questions I have for you, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.

Tim: Well, thank you Jason. You know interviews and this kind of thing, has always been and have always been awkward to me. It's like, we're spending all this time and effort talking about me, and the music, and what I do, and there's like people dying every second, and there's all these injustices…. And I'm not a politician so I'm not gonna go into that.

Jason Wolford