Bruno Schaab - Night Sun Interview

Are you originally from the Mannheim area in Germany? What was your childhood like and how did you initially get into music, more specially the bass guitar? Was music something that was relevant around your household, or was this something you found entirely on your own? Do you have any siblings?

Yes, I was born 1950 in Heidelberg, one of the city pearls of the world. They say. Mannheim is about 20 km west, a workingmens city, a nice castle,squares, university, industry, railway. My first impression as a child were big bombholes in nearly every Street. Leftovers from second world war. But anyway, in those days the were used as cheap parking spaces. From month to month there were more volkswagen beetles to see and the hardest time was behind us. Smashed cities came up again, Wirtschaftswunder. The connection between HD and MA was and still is the Neckar river. My elder bro Al, mum and me often came downtown MA to visit her Brother, my uncle Walter. A genious woodcarver, storyteller and musician. I loved sitting in his workshop, watching his hands doin ́ woodwork and listening to his stories. The more and the louder we laughed, the stories grew wilder. What fun! Family background was conservative, catholic, classic music, (I hated the way they sang, seemed artificial to me) five brothers, five sisters, I was the eleventh. I hateloved the housemusic events, when some of my elder siblings played classics. Gazing at the notes and trying to find their way through. No groove, no swing, just stupid duty. After, I often sat on the piano trying to play little melodies and I loved the sound, especially the left hand side where the notes go down and down into bass. Ma booked piano Lessons for Al and me but we couldnt stand the teacher, an elderly woman, she couldn ́t reach us at all. I quit. Became a boy scout. We were singing campfiresongs, sleeping outside in Tents, crawling through the woods away from family things and that was good. A fine feeling of freedom was in the air and songs like cockaboora filled my heart. I got in touch with go down Moses, Kumbaya and Mikel row the boat ashore. And felt instantly that’s the way it goes.

What would you do for fun back in the day before music took over? Who were among some of the first groups, or artists that left a heavy impression on you? Did you participate in any groups prior to Night Sun?

When I was about thirteen a neighbourhood mate showed me his brand new guitar and played House of the rising sun and hit me with that song. He showed me the chords. I ran home, picked up my aunt’s small guitar and started to learn.There was a lot of motivation in learning itself and it got boosted when one of my schoolmates told me that you never have problems to steal a girls heart by playing guitar and singing songs. I bought my first guitar, a Framus accoustic in red and black with my own money and ma bought a gigbag and gave it to me on my fourtenth birthday. Together with Al we listened to Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, West side Story, Blues, Missa Luba, Spirituals Crist, what a difference in the Way they sang, compared to the roman catholic choir in St. Marien. And then Al bought the first Rolling Stones Album with Route 66, King Bee, Sitting on a fence, Off the Hook, can I get a witness. I was in flames, found my religion, loved the Bues at once, tried to understand the lyrix and learned the songs by heart. In school I played Oh when the saints go marching in on my guitar, the teacher joined on the piano and we rocked the class. No doubt, No hesitation. With Al we founded our first Band with guys from our neighborhood and played cover from The Pretty Things, The Kinks, Stones, few Beatles, Animals and later on Cream - what a challenge - and we called ourselves the Thinks. Not easy to pronounce for german toungs – sse ssinks . It still rings in my ears. We let our hair grow and played dancing halls and youth clubs and the kids knew us in HD.

How did you initially meet your bandmates Knut Rosseler, Ulrich Staudt and Walter Kirchgassner? When and where did you guys first get together to jam/rehearse and what was that initial chemistry like between everyone? When did the band officially start playing gigs and what were those early days like?

Then I met Knut Roessler during a concert session somewhere in HD, he heard me singing. and I heard him playing with his Band. they played some style mix between Smoke on the Water and Ozzie Osburn, fast, heavy and loud. Their own music, based on breathtaking fast riffs. There was no Singer,but a drunk bassplayer. Knut wanted me as singer. Timing was perfect, because Viv, the most talented guitarplayer of the Thinks had to join the army and we couldn ́t play on the weekends anymore cause he learned to yell JAWOLL! The soviet union was still the enemy. thanks God the war was cold, the iron courtain far away and the nazis a fart in the wind to me these days. All you need is love and I can ́t get no satisfaction and sweet child in time meant so much more to us. So I left my band, joined the Night Sun guys. As soon as I moved in the band’s place Obere Neckarstrasse 64 in Highdelberg, they kicked out the bassplayer. This is your job now they said. I bought a Gibson Eb3 (The Jack Bruce bass) and downstairs we went into the rehearsal room in the basement. It was a challenge. It wasn’t easy to play bass lines and sing the same time. Jimi (he called himself so) Kirchgessner and his friend Uli came out of Mannheim music scene and all of a sudden we lived together in an old Town house in Heidelberg with Amelie, Knuts girlfriend and a black poodle who crossed the river daily on the ferryboat to the other side, checking ladies there…

I understand the band were close to other groups in the scene such as Kin Ping Meh and Sixty Six and Then. Tell me about writing and recording the band’s debut and only record, ‘Mournin’ in ‘72? How did the deal with Zebra come about? Would you mind walking me through a little back story to some of the songs that are featured on the LP?

Must have been in 1970/71, we were young, had a lot of fun, lot of freedom, lot of rehearsal sessions. Mostly one of the guys came up with a guitar lick, a melody, a line of chjords and it didnt matter if it was slow or fast. We jammed it together, played around with different Ideas, grooves, tempi and tried to get it flow and make a song of it. That was long befor bpm, loops and samples. It was just playing your instrument, learn as much as you could and get familiar with it to get the songs in shape. Sure, sometimes it was like working in a coal mine, beautiful moments and terrible half ours in our vaulted cellar without a window, poor heated. We didnt have any recording sets. We had to keep it in mind and do it by heart, that ́s the way we did it. Knut and Uli were studying law, no idea what Jimi did. I refused to go to the army and got to work in civil services instead of taking the uniform. Most of the time we rehearsed for hours on developing our style, celebrated most notorious spaghetti parties, gigs, girls, open house, mess in the kitchen. We didn ́t care too much about anything but music and wanted to record an LP. Knut and Jimi drove to Hamburg where the most important music publishers had their offices, got a low budget contract and a connection to the Windrose Studios. Connie Plank and his partner were the producers, and as far as I remember Connie had a deal with Polydor and Zebra was the experimental side label.

When and where did recording begin in ‘72 and what was that experience like recording this album? I understand you worked with the great Conny Plank. What was he like? How did it take to lay those tracks down from start to finish?

In Hamburg we lived in the house of our Producers, an old big Villa that was russian embassy before, in the heart of the city, Binnenalster, next to another palace where they busted a big drug dealer some month ago. Nice neighbourhood, big city, big thrill and a brandnew experience. We moved our amps and equipment downstairs again to the Studio, a room, about 70 square meters, carpetfloor, record spaces/cabins for drums and extraloud amps, lots of microfone stands and a 24 track mixingdesk. For us the cathedral of Rock. Exept of supercool Jimi who took it for appropiate due to his talents as Richie Blackmore’s alter ego. But time was running out and Connie asked us to play together so that he could get an idea what our sound was like. He prefered to do the recording not seperately but whenever possible together. Jimi’s guitar was so loud that it overlicked too much all other open mikes. Connie put Jimi and his amp in a cabin, upholstered with old matresses. Problem solved. He came to me, kneeled down, asked me to play, crawled round the speaker box with wideopen ears and found the best point to put the recording microphone exactly there. Same procedere with the drum set. Connie, a big redbearded guy with long blond hair, smoked lots of HB cigarettes, used his ears and rawed his knees to find the optimum place to put the mikes, most impressive. We had 7 days to get our things together, maybe 3 days for the mix down, I’m not sure exactly, but I’m sure I’m close. Connie was at his best when he seasoned our tracks and the sound with his knowledge and experience like a cook in his kitchen. I remember his fun to flange the drum solo by hand and by the way, he was a master of cutting, a wizard. He could cut out boring parts and they vanished without a trace I still watch him Working at the cutting machine, lots of tape stripes around his neck. Why don’t you throw them away? I asked him and he murmured ‘maybe I still need them again, just in case.’ And even though he didn ́t like our music too much he worked hard on getting the best results from 12 o’clock in the morning till 2,3,4 in the night, day by day. Some time later I worked with him again in his own Studio near Kölln with Guru Guru, Bernie ́s Autobahnband und Zupfgeigenhansel, but this is another story.

What eventually happened to the band after ‘72? What have been up to in more recent years? Did you continue to play music? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?

As soon the record was out, Jimi left the group, went to London and was convinced that the mucic scene there has waited exactly for him. Unfortunatedly nobody didn ́t even want to listen, his hopes were crushed in short time. Must have been hard for him. 20 Years later I met him in Mainz in a bar by coincidence and we had a good and honest conversation. He was married meanwhile and had studied philosophy and was not interested in playing music anymore. Good luck. So that was the End of Night Sun 'Mourning’. And then in came Mani Neumeier and wanted me to lend him my bass amp. Guru Guru was looking for another bassman because they had fired Uli Trepte. Roman Bunka (München music scene) was to come and rehearse with them. I said ok, you can have the amp and he invited me to join the party. They played 2hours with Roman. I found him playing a solid, interesting bass and when they went to drink a tea and have a break. I picked up the the bass, competely relaxed and grooved a little because I liked the sound in their rehearsal room. A big saloon with big windows. 10 Minutes later Mani occured, sat behind his drumset with the zonk machine and the big gong and we jammed and grooved and were inspired. Another ten minutes later Ax Genrich came joining us, took his black Les Paul and we jammed and rocked together. How long? Don’t know. Then they asked me to stay and take over. Another story again.