Interview Ralph Rieker (ENG)

Exclusive interview for diehappy.sk

Ive been thinkin about the winter tour of yours and seeing its not finishing in Ulm and so I wanna ask, since anyone of you probably dont live there anymore, is there still any special relation between the band and the place?

Ralph: between the rest of the band – yes! but not with me … you know they all lived in ulm for a very long time therefor their relationship to ulm is much bigger of course … l lived in stuttgart and only for a short period in ulm.

Do you remember your first gig with the band?

Ralph: of course. i played my first gig with die happy in 1999 … it was in greifswald. it´s in the very north of germany … it was great!!! we had so much fun on stage … an still have ;)

Did you ever went on the stage ill to play a gig?

Ralph: yes, everybody did that … there is no reason to cancel a gig when the bassplayer is ill ;-)) you need a lot more drugs ;-) that will help …

Is it still you who takes care of the official web page design and the merchandise?

Ralph: yes … and it´s a good compensation to the music.

What was the story behind your self designed tshirt entitled „Beauty Kills Me“?

Ralph: ;-) my girlfriend works as a model, an i was at one of here shows … so many beautyful girls … ;-) and that was killing me … but there is also another more serious reason … beauty is so importand nowadays … for my opinion too important. so this makes me angry that so many decicions are made by optical an superficial things …

When you went to the studio of Martas father before hitting the recording process at Germany did you already had all the songs ready (for the VI album) or you just did some rehearsals over there?

Ralph: no … we had all songs ready for recording

Whats the rules of today when its allowed to the band to release a real single like in the old days or seems it really happening the single will be just downloable songs in the future?

Ralph: i think dowloading will be more and more importand in the future … it´s a very long time ago since i bought a physical album .. i download my music on i tunes …

Have you been in any band before joining Die Happy and can you tell me about the other musical projects you have been involved into through your career?

Ralph: i had several band before i started with die happy … i did jazz, pop, drum ´n´bass and coversongs … right now i have a second band. it´s called „die fraktion“ an we wrote football songs … for my favourite soccer team „vfb stuttgart“ and we wrote a song for the „EM 2008“ … we think about writing an album. not about football !!! we wrote 5 songs this year and will go on next year.

Did you ever got a chance to meet your no1 idol? And who is it? J

Ralph: there is no no1 idol … maybe it´s a girl who plays the bass … here name is me´shell ndegeocello this would be cool, to meet her !!!

If you were not doing music what would have you been?

i would tike to do more grafic and advertising …

Do you collect or listen to your own music in private?

i try to collect everything … music, shirts, backstage passes … but i don´t listen to the music very much … we do so many concerts … so i listen to it all the time ;-) and still like it!!!

Do you know one reason why TV stations like VIVA doesnt play your videos at all? Or is it same like in our country that they are being fully controlled by the record companies?

i don´t know if they are controlled … i think they play more and more non music stuff and the place for music get´s smaller and smaller every day … and therefore it´s more and more difficult to get into that … but music television get´s unimportant … internet music is much more important …

Thank you very much for the interview and contribution to our web site and see you soon!