Interview with Ralf Hutter in Sydney, Australia on Friday 24 January 2003,
conducted by Richard Kingsmill of Australian youth radio network Triple J.

KINGSMILL: Has the technological advances that have occurred in the last 20,
30 years, has it made it easier for Kraftwerk to play live?

HUTTER: Yes definitely, because now we have our laptop computers, and we can
travel, where before you can imagine, in the 70s, 80s even, we had all this
huge analogue music machines, UK and Europe were (inaudible) autobahn, but
then flying to America, or coming to Australia was nearly impossible.

KINGSMILL: Did it restrict what you could do, and how much...

HUTTER: Yes, in a way, because Lufthansa wouldn't fly us in here for free,
so your cargo charges and

KINGSMILL: ...was too expensive

HUTTER: Yeah. But now we can travel and we're really very moveable, and
that's why we are here.

KINGSMILL: Have you enjoyed playing live, because there's speculation
amongst your fans about whether you actually do like the live performance.

HUTTER: Yes, we don't do that many concerts but it's always a challenge and
so far the computers have worked very well, and ... little failures here and
there, but overall they have been very friendly with us and we have been
friendly with the computers, so things are working very well.

KINGSMILL: I noticed last night (Enmore Theatre, Sydney) just a couple of
glitches along the way... and that was actually surprising to see the
reaction from the audience, because there is speculation about how much of
it is actually being played live on stage.

HUTTER: It's all live, the computers are running live.

KINGSMILL: Do you worry much about those mistakes when they happen?

HUTTER: Uh, no, but there's always a risk of total failure then we would
have to stop, out, and have to make a short speech, re-load, and start
again.

KINGSMILL: Is this part of a, resurrection if you like of Kraftwerk? You've
been very quiet for, you know, the last fifteen years.

HUTTER: Yes, we have been working in our studio, doing all our very very
old, from the late 60s, early 70s, the analogue tapes, we have transferred
it onto digital format, so we put a lot of work on our old Kraftwerk
original sounds. Also now we have been doing re-masterings, which will
probably come out later this year, and we have been doing all these sound
files, to perform with the original Kraftwerk sounds, live, and working on
those.

KINGSMILL: Mmm. A lot of artists like to move on. They don't tend to like a
lot of their early work, do you enjoy listening back to what you created all
those years ago?

HUTTER: Yeah, well we don't listen so much but we have been working in
transferring the sounds, and now putting them forward into our live
performance.

KINGSMILL: What about the new music of Kraftwerk, is there much?

HUTTER: Yes, we are working on different tracks, and when we play some more
concerts on the Big Day Out festivals, then we fly back into Germany in to
our Kling Klang studio, and we will continue work on the next album.

KINGSMILL: Which is how much completed?

HUTTER: Ohff, 99%.

KINGSMILL: That close? How's it sounding?

HUTTER: Kraftwerk-like.

HUTTER: In Dusseldorf we work in our Kling Klang studio since 1970, and the
doors are closed, and we are doing what we have to do. Our work we call
ourselves musik arbeiter,

KINGSMILL: ... which translates as..

HUTTER: Musical workers

KINGSMILL: uh-huh

HUTTER: ... and that's what we do.

KINGSMILL: You are very isolated? I have read, no faxes, no phones, no
contact..

HUTTER: Yes, all this would be disturbing..

KINGSMILL: So you isolate yourself as much as possible?

HUTTER: Yes, for the work, and then we go out again, and we go to clubs, to
dance, and we travel, we are working on all aspects of creating Kraftwerk,