(Don't) Fuck (With) The Past

by Avi Pitchon

My German ex and I became lovers the night Laibach played the Volksbuhne in October 2003, touring an album called We Are Time (WAT). When we broke up, I escaped Berlin, and missed their Volk concert, where they played their interpretations to 14 different national anthems, including Israel and Germany. When I first came to Berlin, I was expecting, especially as a Jewish offspring to Holocaust survivors, to have history kick my balls. Instead, what I encountered was a perpetual hedonistic present: Berlin as a collection of shiny happy people who do nothing but party at night and nurse their hangovers in cafes during the day. Even when I purposely confronted history, it was in romantic, semi-ironic context – we decided to have our first date in the Nazi Tempelhof airport that both of us never visited. Three years later I was lied to and cheated on by the same woman and in the heat of heartbreak, all the ghosts of the city rose up around me. To metaphor this break-up to the way the Jews were betrayed by the Germans is ridiculous, and disrespectful to my family's past – but one can't escape the similarity in how, like Germany in the '30s, my lover turned from a progressive, beautiful, sexy, forward-looking riot grrl, to something much uglier that was hiding underneath all along. And how I miss not knowing what I now know, our golden age, now buried, static and seemingly unchangeable, unforgivable. Or is it? Is the past dynamic? Can I learn from it? Overcome it? These are also some of Laibach's most basic, initial questions as a band. Laibach is the meeting point of all my obsessions – with Europe's bloody history, the fringes of pop culture, silly uniforms and ex-lovers. Laibach is the key. The way they extract the mythical, heroic, tragic – but also the very very funny – out of the past, that usually feels like a block of ugly banality, helps me understand not only the country I was born in and left (Israel), but also why my Berlin romance died (looking at 2003's setlist, there were plenty of warning signs: 'Achtung!' 'Ende' 'Now You Will Pay' 'Hell: Symmetry' 'Das Spiel Ist Aus' 'The Great Divide' and, hehe, 'Anti-Semitism').

Laibach's challenge of history starts with their name – it is how Ljubljana, the city where they work, was called in several points in the past - most famously under Nazi occupation. Their aesthetics are a totally confusing, contradictory, and therefore subversive and scary mix of the 20th century's art movements and totalitarian regimes, including the Third Reich and the one within which they grew up in former Yugoslavia, communism. On top of that, the vocalist wears what looks like an ancient Egyptian head-piece. From Mars.

Laibach don't seem to be of this time, but not in the sense of not wearing emo haircuts, and not even in the sense of looking like '80s casualties. It is true that the peak of their influence happened in the late '80s and early '90s – and I'm not talking only about musical influence - I'm talking about several hundred Serbians who escaped the war zone using Laibach's (or more precisely Neue Slownische Kunst – the art collective Laibach belong to as a musical branch and includes also sections for design, painting, theatre, and 'pure and applied philosophy') conceptual fake passports. I am holding a diplomatic NSK passport and it looks real. So, while for many Laibach is 'a band from the '80s' (more the fault of fans who fetishise their early 'martial industrial' phase), they stand out of time, very much like Sun Ra - looking and sounding ancient and futuristic at the same time. And, appropriately for a collective/cult, they answer questions without stating who is answering. Well, I know who, but I'm an NSK diplomat, so I'm not telling.

Avi Pitchon: Do you have childhood memories of important historical events?

Laibach: Of course we do; we remember very well all the major historical events, the first men on the moon, the assassination of the Kennedys, Tito’s traveling around the world and his visits of our home town Trbovlje when we were kids, the establishment of the Nonaligned movement, the rising and the breaking up of The Beatles, the death of Jimi, Brian, Janis and Jim, the Russian pacification of Czechoslovakia, the student movement and their anarchic ideas and in 60s’, the launching of the song "Je t'aime... moi non plus" in 69’…

ΑP: Is it true that in Yugoslavia punk was tolerated and in some ways even supported by the regime?

L: It has not been exactly supported but it has been tolerated to a certain degree, til Laibach appeared on the scene of course.

ΑP: What other historical distortions about Yugoslavia in particular and the Eastern Bloc in general can you point out?

L: It is hard to talk about the entire Eastern Bloc, but in Yugoslavia people had in general more freedom than in the West, although they were not necessarily aware of it. Same goes for social security, medical services, retirement, etc…

ΑP: How does the album Volk relate to the way nations build their histories?

L: Songs on Volk were inspired by the anthems that represent different nations/states. A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that is evoking and eulogizing the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people. The collective consciousness of a nation is therefore very much mirrored in its anthem.

The fact that all humans are divided into groups called nations is one of the most influential facts in history. The word "nation" is derived from the Latin term nātĭō which basically means the action of being born.

A nation is also a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors. Nations extend across generations, and include the dead as full members as well as future generations. Past events are evaluated in this context, for instance by referring to "our soldiers" in conflicts which took place hundreds of years ago.

V: In these post-modern times where alternative histories, conspiracy theories, and deconstructive readings are abundant, did Laibach at any point fear that the way it handles history, the way it re-reads it and re-mixes it, is contributing to a dangerous weakening of historical narratives and clear continuity? In a world of X-files and 9/11, ideas of Holocaust denial for example find fertile ground to grow. How do you see Laibach’s responsibility for historical fact?

L: In fact, we are not really very interested in facts. We see and understand history as a fiction and our greatest responsibility is first of all to stay irresponsible.

ΑP: Do you think growing up in a communist state that has a strong sense of mythology (in communism’s case it is the mythology of material dialectics) and self-justification makes you a stronger, healthier person? Better equipped to deal with life than the children of capitalist individualism?

L: No doubt about that; for sure we grew up more resistant to the material world and less dependant on money than capitalist babies.

ΑP: If you look at what kind of bands use an ‘ancient’ look, it’s usually either metal, or disco (Earth Wind & Fire had an ‘Egyptian’ phase, and a place of honour must be given to German Eurovision band Dschinghis Khan) – can you offer an explanation?

L: You are forgetting Sun Ra, Parliament, Boy George, Axl Rose, Run DMC, Jamiroquai, etc. In fact an ‘ancient’ look is used by most rock musicians from Led Zeppelin to Marilyn Manson – having in mind that the majority of long haired rockers more or less owe their look to Jesus Christ and his disciples, or to what they believe Satan looks like. Laibach wore mining, working, military and hunting uniforms, mountain and skiing clothes, and all kinds of custom or ready made combinations. Laibach's singer’s head wear is used partly as a substitute for long hair and partly for practical protection. It has nothing much to do with ancient mythology.

ΑP: What was Laibach’s reaction to Fukuyama’s end of history theory?

L: None. It didn’t happen.

ΑP: Many 'martial industrial' bands obsessed with repeating Laibach's early music also express hostility to modernism, liberalism, and indeed the whole enlightenment project. They see it as a mistake, a mutation of history – a decadence of some kind of a mythological European golden age. Where do Laibach stand between decadent democracy and a glorious past where everybody knew their place in the hierarchy?

L: Laibach was always misunderstood. But don’t get us wrong – we’ve got nothing against that. In fact there is no ‘wrong understanding’ of Laibach, and ‘misunderstanding’ is no less relevant than any other understanding. We stand in between the two sides you mention. And who knows – maybe the whole enlightenment project was a mistake, a mutation of history – a decadence of some kind. After all it has brought us two heavily devastating world wars. Today it is modern to be modern, but on the other hand human sentiments, wishes, desires and beliefs are still very much rooted deep in the past.

ΑP: To ask the same question in a much simpler way, do Laibach think it used to be better in the past?

L: Maybe it used to be better, but now it’s not. Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.

ΑP: Should the young listen to the advice of the old?

L: Yes, but only in order to do the complete opposite afterwards.

First published in Vice Magazine's history issue, June 2008