Our editor Christian Winter met Daniel Kuhfuß and Philipp Hofmann from the nerve bible on a train between Bielefeld and Cologne and spoke with them about New York radio stations, the latest CD, art and information and MP3s.

ZG: The news section of your web site says that a New York City radio station has played your song "In April May Be Soon" from your first CD The Prosecutor's Lovesongs two months ago. That's pretty unusual for a relatively unknown band from Bielefeld. What's the story behind this?

nb: It is indeed quite a strange story. Aside from the nerve bible site there's also a section at entropic-empire.com called the x-files of music which is about strange or rare CDs. There's the cover of one CD called "Suture - A Tribute to Rob Terwesten" (Rob is the band's guitarist who died in October 1998). On this CD there are famous bands such as Blumfeld, Radiohead and Gene that cover nerve bible songs. However these CDs are all fictitious....

ZG: So they actually don't exist...

nb: ...exactly, they were made up by the folks at entropic empire. A Gene fan stumbled across "Suture" and asked for more information about it. That fan's called Laura and she's from Colorado, USA. She asked whether she could hear some nerve bible songs and so we send her a CD. She liked it and she recommended us to friends and acquaintances and finally the CD ended up on the desk of the DJ in NYC.

ZG: What was your reaction when you learned about that fake "Suture" CD?

nb: Well, it's quite a great idea, having all these bands doing a tribute album for Rob.

ZG: And the fact that it was all made up didn't bother you?

nb: Actually - no. I think that art and information have a lot in common. Probably more than most people would like to believe. I think that it's important to hint at the fact that information is "only" words, images and sound - and thus subject to the same aesthetic rules as poems, songs or films are. They can be manipulated and they can be used to manipulate. That's a fact that is often neglected. The commentaries in the News are modeled after artful and artificial concepts. Just like any piece of literature. This is especially true for the internet. I mean who can say whether our song has really been played in New York? Maybe we just made that up? Maybe we have even made up ourselves....

ZG: ...but then you couldn't sit here answering my questions. And besides, the reactions are real, aren't they?

nb: ...which reactions do you mean?

ZG: Well, you have said that your name caused a couple of problems for you?

nb: (laughing) ...yes, a local newspaper wouldn't want to announce a concert because they didn't want to print the name "nerve bible". And our posters have repeatedly been torn down. That was pretty annoying. It's funny: All your life you're thinking you're living in a secular world and then you're confronted with this kind of fundamental christian aggressions. That was really something no one of us had expected when we decided to call ourselves the nerve bible. And we haven't stopped stressing that it's not some kind of blasphemous expression but the title of a book by Laurie Anderson. And what she meant by it was the body...

ZG: On your latest CD "...a star after me" there's a song that you have dedicated to Harrison Ford ...

nb: Yes, "More Life" - actually it fits quite well to the question of art and information and fake or real. The song is about a character from the movie Blade Runner who does not know whether he is human or a robot and how he deals with this uncertainty. This is one of those songs that suddenly had a whole new meaning when Rob had died.

ZG: The nerve bible doesn't exist anymore. Why did you decide to make MP3s available on the net after the band has broken away?

nb: It's a question of being present now that we can't do any gigs anymore. The New York story and other kind of feedback suggests that the songs seem to strike a chord somehow. And of course the internet is the perfect medium to make our music available for everybody. Of course it's not the same as playing live...

ZG: What are you doing now that the band doesn't exist anymore?

nb: We are still making music - but I think we are just trying to find out how it could work without Rob. One direction might be to concentrate on the possibilities the internet provides: being able to work together with a couple of people from all around the world, creating a kind of virtual band. You might want to check out entropic empire's "body without organs" if you're interested in this. Anyway we're working on new songs right now.

ZG: Last question: if you could do an interview with yourself, which question would be the first and which would you never ask yourself?

nb: An interview with ourselves? Hm, I think the first thing I would ask myself was: "Why have you not spent more time with Rob?" - but then that would be a pretty private question. And I would never ask myself who the first pop star was that I liked. Because I was a big Shakin' Stevens Fan when I was 10 or 12 and this answer would be too embarrassing.

ZG: Thank you for the interview...