Hanin Elias
Hanin Elias was born in Germany and spent part of her childhood in Syria. After her family moved to Berlin, she ran away from home and found her voice in the city’s then bustling punk and hardcore underground, and in 1992 she formed Atari Teenage Riot with fellow Berliners Alec Empire and MC Carl Crack. Fusing punk and techno aesthetics, which they termed digital hardcore, the band expressed anarchist and anti-fascist ideals, attracting controversy as well as industry interest. Using an advance from Phonogram Records, they set up their own Digital Hardcore Recordings, and in 1996 the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal label licensed their debut album Delete Yourself!, leading to stage dates with the likes of Wu-Tang Clan and Nine Inch Nails. In 1999, Elias left the band and over the next decade focused on solo work and her own label, Fatal Recordings, which championed female and female-identifying artists. She released her first solo album, Get It Back, in 2011, and continues to collaborate with both musicians and filmmakers.
In this public talk as part of the 2018 CTM Festival in Berlin, and held at the Red Bull Music Studios, Elias retraced her steps from punk squats to festival stages and onwards to a lasting independent career.
Hosted by Hanna Bächer Please welcome Hanin Elias. [Applause] Hanin Elias Thank you. Hanna Bächer While we were watching this video, you said, “This was me running up and down dunes for hours.” Which country’s dunes were those? Hanin Elias This was in the Sahara, in Morocco. Actually, I wanted to represent the situation in Syria and Iraq, with the people that are fleeing from ISIS. So, I represented actually a woman that is escaping from this and coming here as a refugee, so I hope that’s clear. Actually I had the idea of sitting on a camel and trying to hit someone with a bow – a terrorist guy – and he will transform into a squirrel. But [laughs] the guys who made the video said it’s maybe it’s too intense and could cause trouble. Hanna Bächer I can totally imagine it now. [Laughter] What is your connection to Syria? Hanin Elias My father is Syrian, from Damascus, and my mother German. I grew up in Syria as well, and went there to kindergarten, as a child. Then my father decided that we’d move to Germany, and then I grew up in Germany with my three brothers. But we always went there to visit family members, so I have a very tight relationship to Syria still. I also went there last year, in April, and the year before, in September, to see what the situation is like, because the media here doesn’t really represent the full picture of what’s happening in Syria. Hanna Bächer These years that you spent as a child in Germany after you came back from Damascus, you spent in West Germany, right? Hanin Elias Yes. Hanna Bächer How was your experience of being a half-Syrian child in Germany? Did people make you feel foreign? Hanin Elias My mom, she’s from Western Germany and that was a very small village that I grew up in, and I was the only one with a foreign name, for example, so people started making fun of my name and pronouncing it in a very ugly way. But I got used to it, and I think what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Hanna Bächer What is your own favorite way of pronouncing your name? Hanin Elias Kha-neen. There are three H in the Arabic language, one is “ha”, the other is kha, and the other is Kha. And mine is the second, Hanin. It means “yearning” and “nostalgia” in Arabic. If English people or German people say Hahhnin, or Hannin, it’s like raping my name [laughs] Hanna Bächer I apologize for introducing you the wrong way. Hanin Elias No, it’s fine. Hanna Bächer Specifically, because I’m called Hanna and then people say Hannah and that also upsets me. Hanin Elias See, we have similar names… Hanna Bächer So, I imagine you as a teenager in smaller West Germany. Hanin Elias No, I was years old when I came to Berlin with my parents. So, only in my childhood I was living Germany. Western Germany. Hanna Bächer That must have been the early ’80’s. When did you first start experiencing Berlin as a cultural city? When did you get in touch with its music scene, then? Hanin Elias That was pretty early because my father always took me to Ku’Damm and I saw punks and I always said to my dad, “I want to look like them,” And he said “No! Don’t!” In the early time, I was also interested in music, especially in the ’80s, when I was ten, 11 years old, I already had an Ideal tape, and I really liked the new wave, Gothic kind of music, which was... And at 15, I ran away from home, because my father started oppressing me, and he wanted me to stay home all the time – because I was becoming a woman, his Arabic roots came out, all of a sudden, and he was treating me differently to my three brothers. Then I started the Riot, and ran away and lived with punks in squats, and made music, because my parents didn’t want to send me money and support my lifestyle. I actually had to beg people at the U-bahn for money, and I always had this thing that I was like, “Hey, can you give me a Deutsche mark, because there’s only one Deutsche mark missing until I can buy myself a ghetto blaster!” So people gave me... “Oh yeah, of course I want to help his girl to get a ghetto blaster.” So, I survived like this. Then I was singing with my tape recorder at the U-Bahn to Madonna’s “Get Into the Groove,” like some kind of strange opera, noisy stuff, singing very loud. Then I got discovered by a friend, Captain Space Sex. He saw me singing at the U-Bahn and he said, “You’re so crazy… Let’s form a band together.” And that was with already my late 15s. Hanna Bächer Late 15s… Hanin Elias Yeah, I was nearly 16. Then we started making music with tape machines and scratching with broken tape recorders, and we didn’t have lots of money so we just improvised with broken electronic devices. It was fun, it was like a psychedelic, breakbeat, noise, guitar thing. Hanna Bächer You’re describing this almost in a joyous way, but was it tough living in squats? Did it scare you? Did it upset you? Or was it overall a time where you felt safe? Hanin Elias No, I felt really free, because my dad was trying to, how do you say, house arrest? I got house arrest all the time, because I did something so my father said, “Oh, now you stay two weeks in the house and you can’t go out with your friends…” So, I always escaped through the cellar and out of my window. I was unstoppable at that time. I really wanted to go out and I wanted to be free, and it felt good to be living in squats, but it was hard sometimes. One day, we slept with eight people in the squat, and it was winter, and there was a toilet outside of the apartment. So, I needed to pee urgently, but I didn’t want to get up, so I peed in an orange juice bottle that was standing next to me and in the morning the girl next to me was like, “Oh my God, I’m so thirsty,” and you can imagine what happened. I didn’t say anything, and she didn’t realize, so until today she doesn’t know what she actually drank. It’s horrible. But we had fun times, we had horrible times, it was weird and… Also I lived in a squat called Rauhaus. Hanna Bächer Where was that? Hanin Elias That was at the Bethanien, it’s called now the Bethanien. My door was broken in, so people could just come in and go up. I couldn’t lock it. So people came, and said, “Hey, have you seen my rat? My rat just escaped,” and stuff like that. That was the late ’80s in Berlin – it was pretty cool, actually. We made music, we lived in squats. But I never dressed really like a punk, I always had a ’70’s kind of dressing style, people always... The punks were also very square, they were like “Oh, look how you look, you look like a secretary or some kind of...” So I never felt 100% punk, because they are also very square. Hanna Bächer So, when the wall came down, you weren’t 18 yet, or you were just about? Hanin Elias Before that, a propos wall, there was the Lenné-Dreieck and we were squatting there. Hanna Bächer What is the Lenné-Dreieck? Hanin Elias Lenné-Dreieck now is the Potsdamer Platz. People were protesting there, and building their own houses, and having tents and everything. We stayed there for weeks, and then the police came. It was right next to the wall back in those days. Now it’s the Potsdamer Platz. You can’t even imagine how it looked, back in the days. And then police came to free the country from us, and we were protesting against the autobahn that was planned there. Then we got sprayed with lots of… Hanna Bächer Tear gas. Hanin Elias Tear gas, and water, it was very strong and horrible. So we climbed over the wall. The East Berlin [officials] welcomed us and gave us cheese bread and coffee and let us out, and towels of course to dry, and then we went back, so we were, actually, as I can recall, the only people who fled over the wall, but into East Berlin. It was crazy times. Hanna Bächer Was that your only contact with the East German police? I mean that sounds like such a unique incident. Hanin Elias It is a unique incident. If you go on YouTube there’s very rare material from VHS still that shows the situation, how people really climbed over the wall into the East and then came out later on – it was really funny. I mean it’s a unique experience to climb over the wall in the other direction. Totally… Hanna Bächer And during all this time, sort of your main creative outlet for yourself was music or were you involved in any sort of performance, dance, making clothes, etc.? Hanin Elias Making clothes? Not so much, no… I always liked to write my lyrics and my thoughts and, back in those days, my English wasn’t that good. But, yeah, I always liked to express myself through music and lyrics very much. Hanna Bächer I’m asking because you just said that you look different, and I think, even for people who have never heard your music or can’t consciously remember your music, a lot of people know your look. And, but that just came... you always had a specific kind of style and just developed it from there? I mean it’s also very… Hanin Elias I think I liked it simple. I like just simple dresses and no chi-chi stuff, because it’s timeless, I think. And I always like the style of the ’40s and ’50s, which I mean it’s not very punk rock, but, I think punk is a state of mind and not a look. Hanna Bächer So, from performing in sort of like open stations, I assume there were venues and squirts as well? What were early venues that you played at? Hanin Elias Early venues would be places like IMA, like after the wall came down there were lots of places in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, like… Hanna Bächer IMA was a squat too, right? Hanin Elias IMA was a total squat, yeah. What’s the other name of the places… I have… I can’t even recall the names. Hanna Bächer Long-gone Mitte middle squats... Hanin Elias Exactly. Hanna Bächer Places with no names at all… Hanin Elias I mean, and back in the days we didn’t had internet. There were just flyers made and spread, but the parties were so crowded. And nowadays you have Facebook and all the event pages, and then sometimes it’s so much that you don’t even want to go out, because there’s so much choice and you can’t decide where you go. Then it was all mouth to mouth, and people went into squatted, closed U-Bahn stations and had a party there just with ghetto blasters… Hanna Bächer U-Bahn stations that were closed because of the way that the city geography shifted after the wall came down? Hanin Elias Exactly. Yeah. Hanna Bächer And did you have any possibility back then to record, or was it most that you like... The broken machines... The two of you… Hanin Elias Yeah, we had an 8-track with Captain Space Sex, and we recorded, but it was sounding really bad. I mean there was no mastering or anything. It sounded very low-fi and we also made theater plays. And our band was called . And I was dressed in, like space kind of suits, and we looked like we were from another planet, basically. Very funny look. Hanna Bächer It must have been during that time that you first met Alec Empire, right? Hanin Elias Yeah, I met a friend of him at a dance marathon of Radio4, so I was like dancing to early techno stuff and tried to win the dance marathon, because you could win some money, and I always needed some money back in the day. I thought I could do it and I like to dance. Then this guy just talked to me and said, “Hey. Let’s hang out.” And, through him, I met Alec. And then Alec and me started talking about music and he asked me if I can sing a song with him for his band Die Kinder, which was this old punk band with... And I sang “Identity” with them. That’s how it started, actually, and then we decided to form a band. I mean he said he recruited the band members but it didn’t felt like that for me. So for me it was like, “Okay. We’re going to form a band and let’s see what’s happening.” And then it was him and me and we also played at the Tekknozid festivals, we had several projects... Hanna Bächer People who don’t know the Tekknozid festivals… Hanin Elias Tekknozid festival was one of the first techno festivals. Like Tanith and people like that – we really admired his hard style of DJing techno stuff, and also we like breakbeats, and we had this performance at Tekknozid instrumental mostly, and we had the music developed. First we had breakbeats with him playing the Gibson guitar and me singing whatever came into my mind. Then it developed slowly that we had a strategy, and we wanted to become political with the music that we did. Hanna Bächer This urge to become political was one… I mean it sounds like you had been political in the years before, as well. Was there anything specific that happened that triggered you and Alec saying, “We’re going to be political in our music”? Hanin Elias Yeah, we saw after the wall came down it was not only fun and love and peace and unity. I mean the new unity that developed was like a German unity. Then, all of a sudden, the new scapegoat was foreigners and people who were in refugee camps, and these camps were all of a sudden set on fire, and you heard more and more of these stories that people were set on fire... Refugees, and so that was a negative aspect of the German unity. And, I always was political and that I really didn’t just want to make music for fun, because I always had this mission inside of me that I want to change things. And, so, yeah. I ran away from my Dad and told him, “F--- you.” I mean, now we get along very well. He accepts me the way I am, sorry Daddy. I was always like against something. I had this very strong feeling of justice and wanted to make things right. Hanna Bächer There was at the same time a kind of scene going on in Berlin that was not so much about conflict, but about unity and love, etc. The early years of the Love Parade, or maybe the early years were more angry, so were you opposed to that… Hanin Elias Not at the beginning. At the beginning it was a cool energy, but I always thought, but it’s so boring. There are not really vocals in there. There is not really a message in there. It just feels like everyone’s doing the same marching thing, and tries to forget all the stress at work, and just letting go of things, and it was empty after a while. So, I thought “Hey, why not,” and Alec, of course, too… We were like, “OK, let’s have lyrics. Let’s have a message and use the same equipment, but make if more dirty and not as clean,” because the direction was more and more getting the sound very clear and very clean. The nice thing about the beginning of the techno era was the dirtiness. The dirtiness of the places, you know, some of it was dripping from the roofs. We were all standing in water, but because of the dancing you felt warm and, you know, it was kind of rotten and that energy was very cool and punk rock. So… Hanna Bächer We should maybe… Hanin Elias Yeah. Play something. (video: Atari Teenage Riot – “Kids Are United”) Hanna Bächer You had a lot of fun. Hanin Elias Yeah, we did. And this was actually filmed in the club that we owned. It was the Suicide Club. Hanna Bächer Wait. You owned Suicide? Hanin Elias With a friend, yeah, Roland Braun, back in the days, yeah. And Ralf Brendeler. Ralf Brendeler took over the club later on and turned it into Suicide Circus and he has now this techno club. But in the beginning it was our club, and we had the Bass Terror parties, and we wanted to have all, like DHR [Digital Hardcore Recordings] sounds there. And yeah, it was cool. So yeah, as you can see, we used guitars, which pissed off the techno scene. And the whole crossover thing wasn’t very welcome in Germany. And also the messages. So, there was a divide. We liked some of the stuff they did, but they were like totally conformist about their music. People in the States were very open minded, and so we were more successful overseas than actually in Germany and Berlin. Hanna Bächer Because as this video says, that was already, when you were already signed to Grand Royal… Hanin Elias Oh, that was, was it? Hanna Bächer Well, I think it’s how the video was sort of tagged, but maybe the recording was before that. But what happened is that you got signed by a really big label in the US. How did the years before that unfold? So, from you meeting Alec Empire, and then him recruiting you… Hanin Elias Recruiting me, exactly. Hanna Bächer The band! Hanin Elias Yeah. So we started making this kind of stuff with guitar samples, and then we had Carl. Carl was there already as well. Hanna Bächer Carl Crack? Your co-frontman. Hanin Elias Carl Crack, yeah, our MC. And yeah, we had shows in Berlin and in German clubs, very underground. And then a friend of ours, Philipp Virus, who also made this video and most of our videos, had a sister who was with an American guy. And she was in the music scene, and she’s now married to J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. And so the Beastie Boys discovered us through her and through Philipp. So, and they wanted to sign us. And then we toured in the States and had success over there. Hanna Bächer And in Japan? Hanin Elias And Japan, and we toured the Big Day Out, and we toured with Wu Tang Clan, Rage Against the Machine, people like that. That was fun times. Hanna Bächer I mean, what you said earlier, the political angle that you had or the political message that was a lot about how Germany evolved, or the problems that occurred in Germany after the reunification. How did you feel like that translated to an international audience? Hanin Elias I don’t know. I mean, we had lots of lyrics that are about starting a riot and anti-government, and also “Death of a President (D.I.Y.)” and if you listen to the lyrics now, it’s like prophetic. Everything that we were singing about, the whole terror thing wasn’t happening back in the days. That was in the ’90s. But it’s happening now, it all came true. So it’s kind of… We foresaw the future in a way, and lots of people didn’t only project it on the German cause, because it was happening globally and worldwide. The dangers were all there for people to see. I mean, there wasn’t the possibility to check everything on the internet like nowadays, but yeah, if you would have your sensors out, you could already feel that it was going into a direction of yeah, monopolies and lobbying and bankers taking over. Politicians trying to have the economy stoked up at the cost of foreign countries and stuff like that. So, millions of people were protesting against the Iraq War, but it didn’t change anything. So that was like panicking us, you know… We wanted to speak to the people and wake them up. And we also used the right frequencies for that, because mostly people get very… “Relax, watch TV, don’t worry.” Everything was like that. And our frequencies were like, “WAKE UP!” Like in this film Network, you know? Have you seen it? It’s a cool film from the ’70s. You should all watch it. Hanna Bächer Alright, everyone, cool film from the ’70s. Hanin Elias It is. Hanna Bächer Watch it. Hanin Elias Network. Hanna Bächer I haven’t seen it, unfortunately. So, you had a vision of more justice and equality for the world. But how... Hanin Elias Yeah, but also to get the people away from this passiveness. Hanna Bächer Yeah. Hanin Elias Yeah. Hanna Bächer How much justice and equality was in Atari Teenage Riot? Hanin Elias Yeah, well... It started very well. And then after a while, yeah, it didn’t feel like an equal band situation anymore. So, I decided to leave and do my own thing after Carl Crack committed suicide. And he committed suicide a few weeks before September 11 happened. Yeah. And that was the end of an era. Hanna Bächer And at this point it had been you, Alec, Carl, and Nic Endo in the band? Hanin Elias And Nic Endo, exactly. She joined later and took over the singing part now. Hanna Bächer But you did not leave because of Carl’s death, you left because this… Hanin Elias Oh, that was one, that was one reason why I left. Because I thought, “It’s not going to be the same anymore.” But, also, there were tensions, you know? I was pregnant twice during the whole Atari thing, so I was mostly in the tour bus with a big belly and in most of the video clips of Atari I was pregnant. I had my two kids who are now 20 and 17 while I was with Atari Teenage Riot. And you can imagine that it was very exhausting as well to always jump and scream and, I mean, it’s great but… I remember we were on tour with Nine Inch Nails, and Trent Reznor told me, “Hey, Hanin, I know you are in the seventh month now, why don’t you give birth to your child at my house and then we can continue the tour?” I’m like, “Alright. What are you talking about?” And I knew that he had this... His, the door was from the Charles Manson massacre when they killed Sharon Tate. And he bought this door at an auction and had it built into his house, so I was like, “Hmm, no, maybe it’s not a good omen.” You know, who knows what this guy... You know. You never know. People are crazy. And so I decided not to do it, which was a good idea, because it was a very difficult birth. And yeah, it was always like that. People seemed to ignore that I need special treatment in a way, you know. And it wasn’t appreciated that I was pregnant, and also I got discriminated against – “Oh, yeah, you’re getting fatter and fatter, it’s not so cool,” you know, so I felt like, “Shit, it feels like I’m in this commercial band that I never wanted to be in,” and guys just treated me just like, I guess, Kylie Minogue is getting treated from her label. People, when they tell, “Oh now you need to change your look, you can’t go on like this.” So it was kind of the same. And yeah, I didn’t feel good any more. And, also I had signed some contracts in a hurry that actually made sure that I wasn’t a part of the band any more, and that Alec was the only one that was deciding what’s happening. So, it didn’t feel like a democracy or something at all. And yeah, I decided to leave. Hanna Bächer So there’s no GEMA millions that are pouring in each time someone plays “Deutschland Has Gotta Die”? Hanin Elias No! Not at all. Hanna Bächer You get ten cents? Hanin Elias Something like that. Not even ten cents. Hanna Bächer But did you co-own Digital Hardcore Recordings, DHR, the label? Hanin Elias No, I had a sub-label. I had a sub-label for Atari recordings, but I didn’t own it. So later on, I re-formed the label, outside of DHR and called it Fatal Recordings. Hanna Bächer Let’s maybe listen to a track, Future Noir, which is your record that came out in 2004, after that was already… Hanin Elias My solo stuff, yeah. (music: Hanin Elias – “Future Noir”) Hanin Elias [Speaking German] Hanna Bächer Should we switch back to English? Hanin Elias Okay, sorry. You chose a very sad song of mine, but that was really a phase of my life when I was really down. I found this guy TweakerRay who came and jumped on stage when I was playing in Hamburg, for my solo stuff. Then later on, we talked and he played me his demo tape. And I found his music so beautiful that I asked him, “Hey, don’t you want to produce my next album? And we can sit together and write songs together...” And we did. With him, I produced Future Noir album… Hanna Bächer That song also had Thurston Moore on guitar, right? Hanin Elias Exactly, Thurston Moore I met also through Philip Virus’s sister, and I went to Amherst, where J Mascis and Thurston Moore lived as neighbors. I hung out with J. Mascis and Thurston Moore, and we jammed. That’s how the Thurston Moore guitar came onto the song. Hanna Bächer And this came out on your own label… Hanin Elias Yes... Hanna Bächer On Fatal… Hanin Elias Yes… Hanna Bächer where you were only releasing female-identifying artists. Hanin Elias Yeah, or guys who identified with female people, being what they are. Hanna Bächer Allies. Hanin Elias Exactly, because at first I thought only female musicians were doing electronic music their way, and not as dogmatic as the guys, talking about equipment all the time, and being very important. I formed this label, Fatal Recordings, and I had great bands. Girls were just sending me tons of stuff. Very different, crazy sounds, and lots of energy. It was very inspirational. But it wasn’t a commercial success at the end. The Future Noir album was the most important album for me to break free from DHR, and from the bondage contract, and this song actually represents that I was actually put on ice, because I couldn’t find another label, and because I was still under contract with them, which was prolonged for longer even. I could only get it out through my own label. Hanna Bächer How did you survive these years in a financial way after Atari? Hanin Elias I had a husband, luckily, who was selling architectural antiques. He also had his own business. He was collecting furniture after the wall came down. People threw stuff out and put it in front of their houses, and he just collected everything. And by now, he’s one of the most important collectors from these architectural antiques, like old tiles and doors and stuff like that. Even people like George Clooney and Tom Cruise go to him when they make a film in Germany, to get these old, original architectural antiques. Hanna Bächer But you were also involved in running a gallery, is that right? Hanin Elias Yes, Gallery Elias. We had special pieces from the architectural antiques that were too good to just sell them off and [my husband] had an old pig farm that he transformed into a warehouse for his stuff, then we had this gallery. Hanna Bächer How did you like to be in that scene, in the art world, compared to your teenage years in squats? Hanin Elias It wasn’t really a scene of art lovers, it was more a scene of people who like nostalgic stuff, because it was these old rotten things, and it had more to do with my time as a new-wave goth. It was like these beautiful graveyard figures, for example, and I could totally identify with these nostalgic pieces. I love that. Hanna Bächer Fatal Recordings, being this mostly-female-artist label, and you having had given birth in the ’90s as a musician… Were there many women you could talk to about this experience? Hanin Elias No… Hanna Bächer In Germany? Hanin Elias I was only 24 when I had my son, and everyone else was too busy with themselves, and they weren’t interested in kids. I didn’t really have friends, especially from the music scene, who could identify with that. Hanna Bächer It feels like there’s quite some, specifically from Berlin, groups of women who are only releasing music by female artists, or who are from networks such as Female Pressure. And I’m talking about labels such as Monika. Were you in touch with them at all? Hanin Elias No, not really. That came later that they were interested. And I think I’m also on a compellation on Female Pressure, but not really directly in contact. We had our own scene, and it was an international scene. Bands like Phallus Über Alles, Kunst, Lolita Storm, people from all over the world actually sent us stuff, and we organized a concert for them to play. Jessie Evans, for example, she moved to Berlin because of that. We had our own scene. Hanna Bächer And in this scene, there were quite, at least to me it always felt like there were a few younger musicians who did their thing, knowing that someone like you had done things before, such as Gina D’Orio, for example… Hanin Elias Yeah, yeah… Hanna Bächer Who must have been a friend at that time? Hanin Elias Yes, we were touring together. We were in the tour bus all the time, making jokes and fun. Gina and Patrick had this band EC8OR, so they were on DHR. It’s cool. Hanna Bächer After you did the gallery, and then you did the Future Noir album, your life moved away from music, but also geographically away from Europe, right? What happened? Hanin Elias In this gallery, I sold this Pan, like a nature god of bronze. I had some money to take a trip to French Polynesia, which I always wanted to see, because I read this book about kahuna magic and some weird stuff, so I got interested in French Polynesia. I flew there alone, left the kids and my husband, landed on this island, this beautiful island, , and when I landed I though, “Oh my God, this is my home.” I felt like I’m at a place where I can totally relate to. It was humid. It was sensual. The colors were like… All of a sudden, somebody had switched on technicolor in my life of gray Berlin sky. The sea was so amazingly turquoise and blue, and shades of green and gold. It was so beautiful. In the last week of my stay there, I fell in love with some fisherman on the island. Then when I came back to Berlin, I told my husband, “I’m so sorry, but I totally fell in love and I think I have to, after 11 years of marriage, have to go there and live there.” But he was very cool about it. He said, “Thank you for the 11 years you spent with me.” He was also open minded and we’re still like best friends. I mean, so I took the kids to the island and moved there with that fisherman, who was also a policeman on the island. They had only like five policemen on the island from the Tahitian Police and they had these sexy uniforms, like short pants and then the tattoo would stick out. They didn’t have guns or anything. The Tahitian policeman were only responsible for the Tahitian people, because they hate the French, the Gendarmes. So, they didn’t want to have any business with them. If there is something happening in French Polynesia, like family arguing or whatever, then only the Polynesian police goes then to takes care of it. So, I moved in with him. He had a self-built house of little… It was fun. Living in this improvised house. You couldn’t lock the doors and we had a chicken in the cupboard, like laying eggs. So every morning, you could look, “OK, we have some fresh eggs. The chicken was there.” Was so cute. Yeah. For me, it was really nice because I always lived in this aggressive kind of environment, like always being against things. Hanna Bächer Yeah. We have quite a few videos of you screaming, “Fuck the police.” Hanin Elias Yeah. Hanna Bächer On trucks. Hanin Elias I was so angry, so anti… And I think it was very soothing and calming. It totally changed me to live on the island and to have this relaxed lifestyle. It was also important for the kids. I mean, the kids were kind of hyperactive a little bit, because they are city kids. And they always need entertainment and GameBoy, and everything. After a while, we didn’t have any television whenever it was raining, and then the kids just calmed down. They were becoming more happy with having a plastic bag and sliding down the mud hills and playing with marbles and going fishing. It totally turned them into very patient, quiet, calm, nice human beings. Which they still profit from, now that they’re back in Berlin. Yeah. It was a big change of life, and I went fishing with a spear gun and hunting for my breakfast, planting vanilla and papaya and uru. You know uru, it’s the breadfruit that caused the mutiny on the Bounty back in the days? And that’s very delicious stuff too. Yeah. And I love Polynesian people. They have this kind of like rudeness… Very honest. They look at you, but they really, really look at you. So, I learned French there, and this guy I was with only spoke Tahitian and a little bit of French. So, in the beginning, it was like a Tarzan and Jane situation. But it was great. After five years, I came back and that was a very horrible time, because I had to start from zero again. But yeah. Hanna Bächer But your journey kind of went through at least in a creative way through Latin America and so, I think… Hanin Elias Yes. Hanna Bächer Chile, specifically, and Argentina… Because when you were living in French Polynesia, you were collaborating with lots of Latin American artists. Hanin Elias So, I had some fans in Chile who listened to our music when they were 12. Now they were older and they were like, “Hanin, you can’t stop making music. You’re on this island now – is everything over? You have to continue making music. Please don’t stop. Please come to Chile, we’ll send you a ticket and organize a tour for you.” And I’m like, “What? OK.” So, I decided to go to Chile, play some shows and also record some tracks with this guy, Diego Sagredo. He organized also some other trips like gigs in Argentina and Brazil and Peru. That was cool. So I started making music again and made some songs for the Get it Back album. Hanna Bächer Should we listen to “Get It Back,” maybe – the track. (music: Hanin Elias – “Get It Back”) Hanin Elias “Get It Back,” that’s a song I made with Marcel Zürcher… Hanna Bächer Your partner in Fantome… Hanin Elias Exactly. So, with Marcel – who was, first, my drummer, then my guitarist for the live stuff – I made this track which also, yeah… It’s a collaboration. I love collaborations, because then other people give other ideas, and he comes from an industrial background. You don’t hear that in the stuff we make together, not at all, I think. Hanna Bächer This is sort of picking up where you left a bit with Atari… Hanin Elias Some songs, yeah. The influence is there, but it’s more danceable, this kind of like hip-hop direction. But I’m not a hip-hopper, so something else came out of it. Hanna Bächer But where do you nowadays find the anger to perform such lyrics? Or is a very different kind of anger than- Hanin Elias I mean, I’m angry every day when I look at what’s happening in the political world and that’s where I always got my anger from. I think I got this from my father. He was always watching TV and shouting at the television. And I always found that very annoying, but now I took over the part. It’s horrible, what’s happening politically. The foreign politics of the US and the western countries and the NATO countries are just like… You can’t just be calm or you’re… You’ve had too much Kool-Aid if you’re calm, which I didn’t. Hanna Bächer You made an anthem for Syria called “Kraken?” Hanin Elias Yeah. Hanna Bächer And you’re also involved in a film called Kraken, which is going to come out sort of in a few months. Kind of soon by a guy called Christopher Kanal. I still don’t really understand how the anthem for Syria that you made is related to this movie filmed in Iceland. Hanin Elias Yeah. Hanna Bächer Of the same name. Hanin Elias The movie was filmed in Iceland and Christopher Kanal asked me to make film music, before he asked me to play a role in the movie. So, Romain and me, Romain Frequency, we’re also known as Electrosexual, we make the song but when I was making the song and we knew it’s for the film, I also thought this melancholic vibe also represents my sadness for Syria. So, it’s kind of like a double song. It fits very well with the Kraken film. Has this icy feeling of elves, but on the other side it’s also this melancholic feeling I have when I think of Syria, the Syria from my childhood. So, why not use it in a double sense? Hanna Bächer All right. We’re going to listen to a minute of your “Kraken” anthem for Syria and then if there are any questions in the room, please feel free to ask… (music: Hanin Elias feat. Electrosexual – “Kraken (Anthem for Syria)”) Hanna Bächer So this is “Kraken,” out on your newest EP, right? Hanin Elias Yes, a whole new EP. And there’s also a song, the main song of the EP, “Hold Me.” In the video, a guy who I met while shooting the film Kraken in Iceland and he made camera for this film and he offered me to make a video. And because Tomas Lemarquis, the actor who also played in Blade Runner and X-Men and Icebreaker owed him something, he plays in my video and runs around naked in the snow, which was really funny, I think, and cool. Hanna Bächer I suggest we watch that video in the very end, before that piece if there are any questions. Hanin Elias Oh yeah, ask me. Please, don’t be shy. Ask me anything. Hanna Bächer You said earlier, you went back to Syria after 18 years, right? And have dabbled a bit in journalism so you’ve interviewed a few people. Hanin Elias Yes, it was a spontaneous thing actually that I started interviewing people with my phone, and because I wanted to. It was very media thing about Syrian people in Aleppo and Aleppo was burning, so I have family in Aleppo. They always told me different stories and they lived in west Aleppo, so it’s what people here would call the government-held area, or the regime area. My family is from the Christian minority. They live in west Aleppo and they always got targeted by mortar shells and other shellings. They saw people dying every day, but nobody ever reported about them. I went there I talked to people, I even offered to go on a talk show to talk about the other side of the story, which is actually the bigger part of the population, who lives in the other areas. Since Aleppo now is liberated, as I say it, because now 800,000 people came back to that area in east Aleppo where everybody here was reporting that “Aleppo was burning,” and stuff like that, but now people are coming back, but nobody reports about that. It’s a very difficult situation and I wanted to go there to see for myself, because I didn’t see anyone in the media reporting about this properly and it was very biased and one-sided. Of course that’s a geopolitical move, and I don’t support that.