Senor Coconut - Put the lime in the coconut - Interview

Uwe Schmidt, has been making Latin influenced music as Senor Coconut for over 10 years, but it wasn’t always cha-cha and bossa nova for the Frankfurt native. A drum kit, EBM and acid house all appear in a musical career that has seen him release work under 40 different aliases. On his latest album, Around the World, he takes club music ‘standards’ such as Sweet Dreams and White Horse, and gives them a once over with the Latin treatment. However Electronic Beats wanted to dig a bit deeper and find out a little bit more about where the mysterious Mr, ahem, Senor Coconut came from.

What was the first record you bought? Your background intrigues me! Well, that’s a tricky question. I think I bought my first record when I was ten, Sesame Street or something you know!! Haha! So, the answer to that would not really very substantial you know.

OK, So what was the first record that was important to you? When did you first start to listen to music consciously? I started to listen to music consciously when I was about 13 or 14, at the beginning of he ‘80’s, when electronic music was going mainstream, like the second or third wave of electronic music. After Kraftwerk and the whole seventies thing, which was a period of experimentation for these musicians; David Bowie, Brian Eno these kind of people. Then there was a moment when this was exploited with New Romantics, that kind of thing. At the time I just listened to mainstream radio stuff which was rock, not so much electronic, some punk, stuff like Adam And The Ants for example which I really liked. Back then, looking at it, it was a strange choice. Then, from there, there was a whole wave of electronic stuff that popped up like Visage. It was mainly stuff from the UK. It was nothing left-field. Depeche Mode, Ultravox, that kind of stuff, popular and mainstream. What got me was the different sound it had, I had two bigger brothers, who were listening to seventies rock, progressive stuff, my parents were into normal German pop music, which was, well still is really boring. So that was my background, and then suddenly there is something different coming out of the radio, which was drum machines and synthesisers, and of course they had different looks and a different attitude. I found that very interesting, and I switched, from the early guitar wave stuff, to the electronic sound.

So how did you take this interest in music, to then creating music? I began to make music around the same period I guess, ’82 or ‘83, because someone told me that when I was drumming along to music on the table with my fingers that you’re actually playing an instrument and I said “no!” but that was the moment when I thought maybe I could play an instrument. I was like twelve and was interested in just trying that out. So I convinced my parents to buy me a drum kit, and I just played drums in the basement, just playing by myself, I never played in bands, or with any one else, I just played for myself.

So you just drummed alone? Yeah, well I wanted to learn, so I listened to music, to tapes and tried to learn the rhythms just to entertain myself. I never really had plans to be a musician.

Then, I started to get into drum machines, with Heaven 17, that whole pop thing. The way they programmed the drum machine for example, I was like wow! What’s that? I can’t play that! And that was really what I wanted to do. So when I was 15 or so maybe, I sold the drum kit. I was still at school, I had no money of course. So I just managed to get a little bit of money together, and bought a little drum machine. Then I was sitting at home for 2 years, just programming the drum machine with nothing else, I didn’t even have a tape recorder.

I changed school at 17, and then my whole environment changed. I had new friends, new teachers, different entirely. There I got in touch with people who also had drum machines, synths, whatever. A classmate had a four-track tape recorder. They also listened to different types of electronic music, which I had not heard before, they listened to a lot of tapes, cassettes; that was in fashion, it was the only way at that time to distribute independent music. So, there was a big, big tape scene. They listened to Industrial and Electronic Body Music; that whole end of the 80’s had quite dark electronic music. Suddenly a whole universe opened up to me.

It was a completely different world underneath the mainstream and I really got into that. I was listening to abstract electronic stuff, early Hardcore and Industrial. Also, the ‘poppier’ end of underground music. These guys were like my real contacts – they had already made songs, done cassettes, which I really hadn’t done. I just used my drum computer for like 3 years!

So for the first time I thought about how to make a song, no a track, to see how it all works. Just programming a drum machine is one thing, but then making song or a track is another thing. So I began to record with some friends. We found a little tape label to release our stuff and we distributed that on Front Line Records.

It was all calling people, sending faxes, making networks and contacts, sending tapes around. We sold like two hundred tapes or something of a certain release, but it was still a hobby, I was still at school.

How old were you then? Like 18, 19. We did that for quite a while, listening to more and more music.

So how did your sound start developing? The first thing I did was very rhythm orientated, very dark EBM. I wasn’t interested in melodies, I wasn’t interested in pop. I had a certain, very mechanical sequencer sound in my head, so I just programmed sequences, and layered them on top of each other, and made long; quite dark tracks actually. Then I began to sing on top and that was the first project I did, which was called Bent House. It was also the first record I released. I was still working with friends, but I got pretty fed up about working with other people. I realised it was quite naive to think that I could just sit with someone and work, and think you have the same ideas. When you are young, you think the whole world thinks like you, I found out pretty fast that people have different work speeds, different interests. People would rather go and have diner or something that finish a track. So it was two slow for me.

So I just started to do it myself. I bought a synth and a tape recorder and started like that.

I bought an old analogue Moog, which was very unfashionable at the time, it was before Acid House, digital was coming, samplers were in and the analogue stuff was really cheap. I bought the Moog for like 200 Deutschmarks or something. Nobody wanted it. I just went to the junk shop and bought the stuff that nobody else wanted, but I still really like it. I was listening to Cabaret Voltaire for example, who still had that analogue sound which was not so popular in the mainstream. I really had this sound in my head, but I couldn’t do it with just the analogue equipment, so I borrowed some equipment from friends and just sat in my house for months, programming this stuff. Other people my age were going to parties and stuff, and I was just sitting at home, basically painting, or drawing, not even watching TV; just programming all summer. It was not an attitude or anything, it was just what I wanted to do. Then a friend, who also had a tape label listed to the songs I hade made. When he listened to the stuff, he said thought it was really good, and suggested that I should make a record. It was around ‘88. And I said I didn’t think so, I didn’t think my stuff was good enough and I didn’t know how to do it. I had no contacts, I didn’t know how to approach it in a practical manner so he said he would take care of that. He got me a record deal. He first found a studio, then a label. With the studio, we got it at the off times. The owner was a really cool guy. He said; well, I don’t get it, but I like it. He had a lot of money, as he worked mostly with advertising companies and the studios were empty at the weekend.

So music for adverts was usually made there? Exactly yeah, and this was in Frankfurt. So, this friend of mine got him to let us use the studio on the off days, late nights, weekends. He also lent us his engineer, who was very young guy, younger than I was and he was really into my kind of music, he went to the techno club in Frankfurt. So I just had these two drum machines, and the moog, and we started to record, which was really slow. As we had the off times only, we obviously had to give the studio up if they needed it for something. It took like almost two years actually to record to the album and mix it with a friend. It was finished in ‘89.

I had year off before university, so I was working in a record shop. The guy there had a couple of record companies. He was really on the pulse of what was happening as he received all the new records. Suddenly there was like Acid House, and all sorts coming in. So this guy, who had heard my stuff, said that anything that I had, he would put it out! I was like wow!

Acid House was just empty, to me it was the ‘90s and the ‘80’s was all the EBM, Front 242 kind of stuff, which had a political subtext. This was just two machines for ten minutes, and no message.

So I continued working on music, and this guy released it. At this time, I was still studying when I found out I was making money from it!

So that as a surprise? Obviously it wasn’t your motivation. Erm it was never my intention to make money from it. I mean from the first moment I thought it was a ridiculous idea to do it anyway! So ok yeah, if they want to pay me, why not? But looking back now, I think everyone just ripped me off! Like everyone I guess starting out in music. So it took me a couple of years to find out what the real figures were.

Then I started to play live, jamming with friends and stuff. I was still at home, living with my mother, but there was some money coming in which really helped in the first years. I had no pressure on me.

There were a couple of coincidences actually. I was just living with my mother; my parents had split up, so I was really free to do what I wanted. My mother was busy, well, with herself, and my brothers had a left a long time ago – they are 16 and 20 years older than me. So I was just there, studying, but well, not anything important, I was studying philosophy…….

OK…. It was like you do it, or you leave it. It doesn’t matter really with philosophy; you don’t even have to finish. I actually studied for five years, and the music was going parallel and erm, I got really bored with the philosophy when I realised I could make money from music. So I decided to leave university without finishing anything.

What did your mother think? Well, she wasn’t really that happy about it, above all because I was still living with her. As well I was like having these Acid loops going on for days… and looking back now I think I was driving her crazy! If you are making music you are in it, but for someone else it’s a real torture to listen to the same pattern over and over for days. I mean she was cool about it, she couldn’t really not be, I mean she didn’t have a plan B either, so I just continued, and things started to work, and she became really completely OK with it. She really had no money, either. My other brother, and myself were supporting her, so that was something that made the whole situation possible, and workable for us.

So this was the ‘90’s? Yeah the early ‘90s.

So how did you become an artist with so many aliases? Was it to explore different styles? It started as working method after I finished my first album. After it was mastered, when I woke up the next morning I had, well nothing to do!

So on my next project, I started to fill the time when I couldn’t mix, or be in the studio, with ideas for the next project. I tried to widen my horizons, listen to new music, as it was very exciting time. Every day there was new music coming in…

Was around the time drum and bass started to get popular here [In Germany]? Yeah definitely, and things like LFO. It was really like wow, cool, I have another idea! At that time the record industry was still operating, even on a small scale, with major industry contracts and major industry ideas. So, I was offered artist deals where I was always bound to a name, or a likeness, and I said OK, nice idea but I can’t sign an exclusive deal, if you pay me like a thousand Deutsch Marks come on! How can I survive? So people started to modify the contracts, we just signed for a name. So; Atom Heart for example. Then I could do what I liked under another name for a different label. This was a really creative time for me; I was releasing like three EPs a month or something. I was finishing an EP around every week. A lot of people were asking me for music as well, so I was doing stuff under lots of different names. It started off as a practical thing, how to get around the record companies and contracts, to make everyone happy really. Then though, I started to associate different styles of music with these names. The names, the likeness and the musical idea developed at the same time, so I started to think of different musical ideas connected to different aliases.

I wanted to do a jazz moog record for example, so I invented a name for that which was just a name, but then it kind of became this alter ego or a character. Something that starts from just a practical approach grows into something very complex. Universes of people. I had invented Lisa Carbon which is a female character, for some very simple lopped music, with infinite Moog solos on top of it. So it became; Lisa is doing that. That’s her sound. So, Once you have designed that character, you have parameters for that project. Once you have defined it, logically or subconsciously, it’s simple to get back to that.

So when did the name Senor Coconut first appear? Well with my first album, I had, naively banked on getting all of the money, which didn’t happen as the record company went bust. So my friends, wanted their equipment back as I had finished this album. I had basically no money to buy stuff or live from. Then my girlfriend at the time, who was a student went on an exchange trip to Costa Rica…. So no money, no music, no girlfriend! Then by luck, my friend the producer, who got me my first record deal, had by this time set up a record label. He said that if I could give him three albums of different stuff, he would release them all within the year, and get me all of the equipment I needed. But it was going to take six months or so to organise. So I finished these albums for him, gave all of the equipment back and with the money left over bought a ticket to Costa Rica.

Wow! So yeah, I went to Costa Rica. I was just hanging out, doing nothing travelling a bit maybe. There I started to listen to Latin music, consciously for the first time. I got really into the music I was hearing there, this was ’92, ’93. Raggamuffin, Salsa, this kind of stuff, I was really impressed with their musical… language. My background was one language, drums, programming and things, but this was completely different, it was way more complex and I was really impressed. What I wanted to do was to incorporate that into what I had been doing. I was in Costa Rica, for 3 months, and I came back in March, which was a really bad to come back. It was winter! So as soon as I got back, I bought another ticket and went back to Costa Rica for another 3 months and then came back again to Germany in the summertime. When I got back, this guy was like, ok cool, I have sold your albums, here is your money. I have a sampler for you, and you can start making music!

So you started to bring Latin rhythms into music? It was more the whole musical language, which coming from a percussive background, the whole harmony thing, was like, wow, what’s going on there? I have to get in to that! At that time, I also stopped listening to club music; I was also getting bored making music for the dancefloor. I had worked with DJ’s , which was quite a disappointing experience, on both a musical, and human level…..

Also, when I started to incorporate this stuff into what I was doing, both the dancefloor, and the record labels, were like, hey what’s going on! So people weren’t getting what I was doing, and I was starting to feel really limited by making tracks for DJ’s. There are in fact more things you can’t do, that you can do….

So, I managed to find someone finance my own label to release my stuff. They gave me complete freedom to do what I wanted, and were like OK this is good because it’s different and no once else is doing stuff like this, or not many people. I was really happy to be able to do whatever I wanted.

Then in ‘96, the label had been gong for two years, and I found that I suddenly had a five or six tracks that had this kind of sound I wanted to have, with the Latin influences…..

At this time, I had left this whole analogue thing behind, pretty much as soon as I left the dancefloor actually. Of course, by this time, it had all become really fashionable! But by then I was really into sampling.

Suddenly one day I was in bed with a fever…. I was sweating, and was really ill. Suddenly, in my head I saw the record sleeve, which said in big typography; Senor Coconut. I was like OK good name, try not to forget it!

So I wrote it down, and that became the name of the record, I just had to finish the album and that was at the end of ’96. By this time, I had split with my girlfriend and had decided to move back to Chile. I had friend, from Chile who was living in Frankfurt at the time, whom I had done some music with but he wanted to go back to Chile. So basically I packed up my stuff, all of my equipment and moved to Chile. The first thing I did when I got there was to finish the last three songs for the album.

When I sent it back to Germany, they thought I was nuts…..! The record label released it, of course, as it was my label, and we sold a thousand copies, but people thought I was maybe just going a bit over the top.

Then I got a fax from Toya Tei, from Dee-Lite, who had started a new label in Tokyo. He said he had just received a copy of the album and he wanted to release it, in Japan. Then it went crazy! I got to record with the Yellow Magic Orchestra and stuff…..

I did know about that! How did that happen? I sent them a package, as I felt that I could hear their influence in my work, as by that time I had listened to a lot of their stuff, so I just wrote this innocent little letter saying how I liked their music. I didn’t really know how big they were in Japan. My friend managed to track them down, and he was really pleased that we had. So, they invited us to Tokyo and we met, and then they came to Chile to work on me with the next record… So suddenly I was in the Japanese scene, which is actually quite small.

The plan was just to go to Chile, and be on my own I was not really interested in the scene there, or really even the culture so much, I just wanted to be on my own, and be very far away. It was pre-internet, I had no phone….. I thought that living twelve thousand miles away, no one would ask me to come and play. I just thought I wouldn’t play anymore, and that was fine with me.. It was too far away. But, the people started contacting me, asking me to do festivals, I was getting invited all over the world, and I didn’t really understand why! People were saying it was good marketing move, to move to Chile, but it wasn’t a marketing move haha!

Was it a conscious decision to cover, or reinterpret well known songs? Why do you come back to that? When I started to dig into Latin music culture, I listened to a lot of compilations, a lot of different styles to compare what I liked. What repeatedly occurred to me was that there were a lot of cover versions, well, Latin musicians would not call them cover versions, and maybe if you came from a Jazz background, you would refer to them as standards. . At a certain stage a song becomes part of a collective consciousness, and from there on becomes part of a set, its not about covering, its about taking an idea from the past, into the present and the future. When you listen to Latin musicians covering western songs, seventies songs for example, they wouldn’t now the original lyrics, or the meaning of them.

It really fascinated me from the very beginning, how when these songs are reinterpreted in this way where the musicians don’t always know the meaning of the song, or the lyrics and they adept it. Hearing songs reconstructed in this way can make you see the original in a completely different light. I don’t like the word cover so much, as it is too much of a contemporary term.

Do you care about how people perceive your music? Do you care if people see it as a novelty? Well, making music for me is a very ego-centric thing. I don’t really think about anybody but me! Really. But then, there is a second stage where I am really classifying what I am doing within the world.

I am not the kind of artist who exists just in his own head. I am aware of what goes on, but It is a case of choosing the right time to think like that, so normally when I make music, or the concept for the album, I roughly know whether it will be popular or not. I make so much music that is deliberately not popular, and when I am doing it, I know it! It is really a case of rejecting popularity; also I know how to communicate and with whom. To a certain degree of course, but I think I know where Senor Coconut works for example.

As Nietzsche said, your work selects your audience.