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RELATED LINKS: ## official: www.digitalhardcore.com 1992 January, Berlin: Alec Empire, Hanin Elias and Carl Crack form ATARI TEENAGE RIOT. Alec: “Before we started ATR, we were part of the techno underground scene when it started in Germany. I made about 20 EP’s on various labels such as Force Inc. We played the first raves that took place in Germany. Hanin and I had been in punk bands before but got bored with the fun punk that dominated the eighties. It had lost the political message and its musical energy. I was always into punk when it had a meaning, a political meaning - the early 70’s US bands and later a lot of the UK punk and German New Wave punk. In this scene the bands had already begun to mix punk with some electronics – this was really how punk was in Germany in the early eighties. You also have to understand what Berlin was like at the time. It was a city that was occupied by the French, English, American and Russian forces, divided by a wall, the West, part surrounded by a wall. It had a special status in Germany. Berliners could not vote in the German elections and they didn’t have to do national army service. I grew up with all kinds of radio stations from other countries - you saw all these different nationalities in Berlin, families of the soldiers and so on. We didn’t feel German, we felt international. Berlin always had a very strong left wing tradition, the revolution after the 1st World War, one of the few cities where Hitler didn’t win the elections, the student movement in the 60’s, then the left terrorist groups like the Red Army Fraktion and Bewegung 2. Juni, the squad scene in the 70’s until the late 80’s and so on. There were a lot of demonstrations every week when I was a kid. At the very end of the eighties, the left seemed disillusioned. Most political slogans lost their impact, their true meaning. It was time to question the old theories. One part of the left had made its way into parliament (the Green Party) and tried to change the system from within by becoming a part of the establishment. (Lately it has become very obvious that this was the wrong way to go. Because when they finally were elected about two decades later, they realized that they were unable to change anything…but that’s another subject.) The other half didn’t seem to have the solutions either. That’s why Techno - music without lyrics - I heard over and over again, was so appealing at its beginning. So techno, mostly Detroit techno, and early Acidhouse offered so many new ways of experimenting with sound and rhythm that we had to get right into it! Also at that time it was done with such minimal equipment! We believed that this music, because it happened on white labels distributed by underground and independent networks, would wipe away the dinosaurs of commercial Rock and its industry structures, which made new exciting music impossible. When the Wall came down in November 1989 and Germany was reunified, there were a lot of empty spaces in the former eastern half of Berlin that were taken over by the techno scene. There was a lot of confusion to whom this or that empty warehouse now belonged, so before the bureaucrats were able to move, the raves were happening. The first two years in Berlin after the wall came down were a very creative and powerful. And not only in this scene, many international artists were drawn to Berlin. Unfortunately with the Reunification, Germany had found its national identity again. Very conservative, nationalistic values were promoted and helped the rise of the far right and neo-nazi organizations. In the Third Reich my grandfather had died in a concentration camp and for me to see all these ideas becoming more and more popular again, was very hurtful as well as dangerous. Racism was on the rise – The conservative government used it to change the immigration laws, the media used it to get higher rates. Attacks on asylum seekers, foreigners, and all kinds of minorities kept happening more and more often. A lot of people got killed, beaten to death by skinhead groups, pushed out of moving trains by Neo-Nazis and so on. This was the reason we formed Atari Teenage Riot. The techno scene did’nt react to this situation in Germany; it didn’t have the musical weapons to fight it. People had started to use raves in an escapist way; it was embarrassing. It was like people wanted to ignore what was going wrong. Of course the drugs also played a role in that. Ecstasy was coming, before it was speed and LSD. We decided to form a band, which was a contradiction to the current techno ideals of the faceless DJ or producer being part of the party and the crowd. We wanted to show our faces, our personalities and state our opinion about all this. We decided to create a music that combined the energy of punk, hardcore hip hop with the sounds of techno and electronic music. We had lived these styles of music for years, we were part of the scenes, and we saw good elements in all of them. Also we thought we could unite fans from all these genres with the right thoughts and political ideas, They had been divided by fashion rules or different haircuts which had been created mostly by the industry or already absorbed into the mainstream. We formed in January 1992 and we wrote the track Atari Teenage Riot right away, as a definition of the band. In spring we played our first show with the US band Disposable Heroes of Hiphopcracy in Berlin. We wrote songs like Start The Riot, Kids Are United, Midijunkies and Speed. And then the Neo-Nazi attacks in Rostock and Hoyerswerda happened. I think everyone remembers the TV footage of skinheads setting fire to the asylums, the German population applauding and the police just watching. This was unbelievable. We had enough. In the two nights after this happened we wrote the track Hunt Down and Kill the Nazis!’..." Atari Teenage Riot‚s first single Hetzjagd auf Nazis (Hunt Down The Nazis), was released autumn 1992 on Force Inc. The press reaction was enthusiastic but it also created some hostile reactions, many of which still survive. In 1993 Atari Teenage Riot signed a record deal with the UK Company, Phonogram. The band spent most of the first part of the year in London recording and released two EP‚s (Atari Teenage Riot and Kids R United), together with a number of DJ 12 inches. In the autumn and winter of 1993 the band toured extensively in Europe until by January 1994 it became clear that Phonogram wanted to push the band into the techno rave corner. Shortly thereafter ATARI TEENAGE RIOT left the major and, with the advance for an album that was never released, founded a new label, Digital Hardcore Recordings. The release in August 1994 of the limited single Raverbashing signified the band's final break with any form of techno. From then on, ATARI TEENAGE RIOT only played with live bands such as Dinosaur Jr. and rock, punk and industrial bands. The band has now played over 300 live shows worldwide. July 1995 saw the release of the first Atari Teenage Riot album Delete Yourself and the double-sided EP Speed/Midijunkies on Digital Hardcore Recordings. Most of 1996 was a mixture of touring and recording culminating at the end of the year with the release of the EP Sick To Death and the second album The Future Of War. Japan exploded for the group and the record was released in most countries of the world to plenty of excitement and in some instances scepticism and confusion. At this time there had still been no American release but Chavez‚ guitarist and all round good guy (buy their album) Matt Sweeney brought Atari Teenage Riot to the attention of Mike Diamond at Grand Royal. In late 1996 Grand Royal released a series of 7” singles by Alec Empire, Atari Teenage Riot, Shizuo and Ec8or and followed this in 1997 with the release of Atari Teenage Riot‚s first album in the U.S. Burn Berlin Burn. Because the band was new to America this album took the best of Delete Yourself and The Future Of War and combined them into a definitive encapsulation of their current sound. ATR toured with bands like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Beck, Wu-Tang Clan and Rage Against The Machine. Nic Endo joined the band for these tours and stayed as the fourth member. The third album, 60 Second Wipe Out, was released world wide in May 1999 and was followed by intensive touring. It featured the singles, Revolution Action and Too Dead For Me. Two acclaimed videos for these singles directed by Andrea Giaccobe and John Hillcoat respectively are available on the DHR video compilation. The band joined Nine Inch Nails on their European tour and recorded the live album ATR – Live At Brixton Academy 1999. In October 2000 Atari Teenage Riot released a one off single, Rage, featuring the guitars of Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine. A version of this with more of a hip hop feel was released in the U.S. only featuring vocals by D’Stroy (ex Arsonists). |