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The Sum of All Wisdom is built on a simple idea: music IS the sum of all wisdom.
More than a podcast, The Sum of All Wisdom is a community and resource platform dedicated to exploring music as a way of knowing. Music is humanity's oldest way of knowing and one of our best technologies for making meaning, and through long-form conversations with musicians, producers, writers, and cultural thinkers—along with performances, essays, and educational resources—we investigate the creative life and what it teaches us about memory, identity, creativity, community, and the human condition.
Whether you're a musician, artist, scholar, or simply someone who loves music and believes it matters, The Sum of All Wisdom is an invitation to listen more deeply: to great music, to the people who make it, and to the wisdom gained through a life devoted to music and musical worlds.
Because music is more than entertainment. It is one of humanity's most ancient ways of understanding the universe and our place in it.
Scott Catey (00:00)
my guest today is Matthias Sturm, a German-born and now Paris-based composer and songwriter whose work, I think for me, moves somewhere between art rock and experimental music and something maybe a little bit harder to categorize. So for me, Matthias, your albums don't feel like collections of tracks so much as they feel like worlds, atmospheric spaces where sound and mood and narrative all unfold over time. I think there's a real literary quality to your work.
and a sense that each piece is part of a larger arc, even though you don't necessarily explicitly define the arc. The arc is there, and I think it's for me, for listeners to find it and follow it. So when I listen to your music, I get the feeling a lot of the time that I'm, it's not just a composition, not following a composition, but I'm really, you're asking me to inhabit something, which I find really ⁓ lovely and interesting.
Matthias Sturm (00:29)
Thank you.
Scott Catey (00:56)
atmosphere, there's a tension, there's a real strong emotional and conceptual depth that I think doesn't really resolve quickly. And we can talk about this, but I think it's not meant to resolve. It's there probably to provoke. And I think that gets it sort of the Byron-esque description that you have of yourself. Anyway, that's sort of where it lands for me.
And I think the provocation also, in a way, works to slow us down, right? So
you want us to listen, I think, differently and maybe reconsider what it is that the music is doing for us in the first place and maybe what your intention is with the music. So we're talking today about all of that. is a narrative and how these worlds get built and what happens when we step inside them. So, Mathias, with that introduction, let me say welcome to the sum of all wisdom. yeah, tell me, I guess, tell me a little bit about your origins.
Matthias Sturm (06:22)
Thank you.
Scott Catey (06:28)
German, East German born and grew up there.
Matthias Sturm (06:31)
So that's...
Yeah, okay. I was born 1969 in East Germany, that's true. ⁓ So I've passed my childhood and my youth to the break of the Berlin Wall, as you know this event very well. It was a very important event. And, but ⁓ this maybe, let's say it was...
a bit schizophrenic, because it had two aspects. mean, the first aspect was politics and a political aspect. Otherwise, I grew up in Dresden which is a town which is known in Europe or in the world as the capital of baroque ⁓ historical buildings, know, with beautiful, huge ensembles of baroque styles, buildings and stuff.
And we had already, you know, it was a contrast to this dictatorship and the politics, because if you want, I grew up in a very romantic environment. And the problem was school, you you could not say something. I entered into the Academy of Fine Arts of Dresden in a very young age, 15.
because there was a split to say, I just passed my school leaving examination, my baccalaureate, and parallel I had to begin to study on the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden so I studied three years there. And with that moment I entered in a new, if you want, new circle of people, know, alternative people.
Today this is known as East Boheme. In addition, I started out from a very young age of 10 years to have private lessons of a Dresden artist who was in these alternative scenes and circles. And so I got acquainted even as a child with all these personalities which were officially...
politically incorrect, if you want, and observed by the national security. And I've got after the break of the wall, I had the right to get insight into these documents and papers about me. And I've learned that they observed me from 15 years on, 15, 16 years on.
exactly at the point when I entered into the Academy of Fine Arts to see how this will work out with my friends. So let's say I passed school in the last age and phase of Stalinism in East Germany.
because they had a phase from till mid of 70s, they started out to be a bit more moderate with art, with artists, with musicians, with people who would be a bit more at the side and so on. And then something happened that they expatriated a very now very famous singer-songwriter from Berlin. ⁓
Wolf Biermann was his name, maybe you googled the story. then the Communist Party, they were so afraid about it, to say, we've got them to lose, know, let's fix things. after that, was in 1976, so he was expatriated to West Germany, he could not go back to Berlin East.
And ⁓ they started out to ⁓ redefine this dictatorship in a very hard way. And so I was, if you want, I was infected with that during my last school days. And at the end, they punished me with a very purified ⁓ thing that
⁓ you had to go to a military service which was, you were cursed into this, you know, could not say no, you could not say, mean, I would not be involved in this stuff, there was no way. ⁓ at this moment, you've lost your civil rights, right? They took my passport, they took everything from me, my documents, and I was never more than a number.
in this whole thing. And they stuck me into a very retreated place, know, a very retreated place in the woods, you know, where I had to work on the railways, you know, the renovated railway distances from in the country. It was hard work, 14 hours a day.
Scott Catey (11:57)
Hmm
Matthias Sturm (12:08)
I mean, today you would say it's slavery work. was inofficial slavery work. So as you had lost your civil rights, nobody could defend you or do something of this. But otherwise, I must say it was my luck curse. We were out to the civil hemisphere. So they did not imprison us. We had to work. So we had to be in contact with
with civil persons and we got what you normally need in such situation ⁓ to be, we got schnapps and you know what I mean and ⁓ we got to meet women in the city and you know, I mean it was my luck because it was better than
prison situations. And well, as I came out of all this maze, yeah, the wall was, they broke the wall. ⁓ But to say, mean, is something people did not realize really, it wasn't a revolution. I mean, it was not really a revolution. The thing was that Gorbachev and your big chief at this time, ⁓ I thought it was Reagan, yes.
Reagan at this time, Reagan. yeah, it was Ronald Reagan. And Gorbachev and ⁓ the Chancellor of West Germany, they simply ⁓ pointed out to West East Germany to say, you guy, you beville, you know, turn off the money. So, and this is what happens, you know, because Gorbachev calculated in, we have to end
Scott Catey (13:47)
Hmm
Matthias Sturm (13:56)
these armaments, you know, we have to end Cold War because it it ruined the US, the USA, the same way as it it ruined the USSR. And that was the motivation was to say, hey, we enters and we open the markets because if you want, this was the starting point to globalization. Historically.
So that was the situation. And I came out of all this, if you want, at the right time, because I was 20 years old, 21 years, 20 years old. Yes, I was at the right time at the right place. And I started out then as one of these talented young painters from East Germany ⁓ to enter West German and international art markets. And soon I've got representation by galleries in West Germany. And I started out...
a career as a visual artist.
And so for us it was a big hour, but let's say all in all, I did not have at this time already as today any reflection of what it was, what it will be to have a career as an artist in the Western Hemisphere, under capitalistic,
conditions, you know? I mean, you have a new God. The new God is not politics or ideology, it's the money. So I am and so I was I was not amongst them. They cried out loud. yes. Hello. Maybe you have. So I mean, for me, I stood this critic of capitalism as I am today, you know, and I'm the same.
And I made my experience for sure. And I told this to my wife a few days ago to say, know what? What was really the most historical event in our lives?
Before, I would say it was the break of the war, sure. But today I would say it is the launch of AI, which has more historical impact on us all as any other event of the last 100 years.
we have to take attention of this, you know.
Scott Catey (16:43)
Tell me, Matthias ⁓
Matthias Sturm (16:50)
Well, ⁓ if you want to start with that, ⁓ and this is the next point, I think we should not heat up this discussion anymore. This discussion is so heated up now, and there's so much talked about, and there's so much importance in even only while we're talking about, you know?
And it's a development, it's technology. We choose, if you want, in between our evolution as a human civilization, we choose the way of tech instead of other ways. You you could have trained us in spirits. You could have to train us in more, you know what I mean, more spirits.
spiritual ways, but we choose tech, a technology as a way to save us.
So we destroyed everything with technology and now we are hoping to develop technology to save us from a catastrophe, is really, you know, absurd. We are really, really absurd. And this whole discussion is absurd because now I'm thinking more and writing more about let's end this discussion about it I mean, you know,
Scott Catey (18:20)
but.
Matthias Sturm (18:21)
let's take out all this edge and importance of things such as AI, because AI is AI. It could be helpful. It could be helpful in the studio. It could be helpful in medicine. It could be helpful with whatever aspect of our genre of work. But it's not really a new divinity or a new God.
And I was reading something very shocking for me. ⁓ I don't know if you know this guy, his name is Gioia and he has a a sub-stack block, which is called the Honest Broker. I think you're Ted, you know Ted. And Ted, he's a very bright and lucid guy. He's writing a lot about that.
But what was shocking ⁓ is that ⁓ once he wrote an article about that 500 people in the States, in your country, are meanwhile mentally ill from this thing. Because they think they could save their lives with that. They could ask God what to do. You know what I mean? And this is also heated up.
in times where, and that's the problem in general with art and music now, maybe that's the bigger problem of it all. And Ted was describing this as a society of dopamine hit. It means people are never more pay attention to anything at a length of more than three or five seconds. So how to create art
and music for people that are never more able to pay attention to it.
Scott Catey (20:21)
Mm.
Matthias Sturm (20:23)
because our brain is changing, know? pathways are changing. This is a strange thing. I mean, this has impact on our school boys, school girls, on college, you know? And Ted had all these ⁓ things and the summaries of ⁓ professors in your country, but it's the same in Europe, know, there's no difference.
They are mocking about people who could not pay attention to anything, know, at universities and in college. I mean, how this will end, you learning is very deep, it involves deep brain waves in a completely other way than...
all this virtual stuff and virtual reality.
Scott Catey (21:16)
Yeah, I think one of the things about your music that I think works against that, Matthias, ⁓ is I feel a real genetic sensibility to your music. And by that I mean, there's a lot of bloodlines woven in. for me, the DNA, if I can use that metaphor, the DNA, some of the critical work that's been written about your music really focuses on the rock sounds that you bring in.
Matthias Sturm (21:30)
Yeah. DNA.
Scott Catey (21:44)
So the Bowies and the Roger Waters and the 70s and 80s sounds that you integrate. For me, I feel a real strong Sun Ra influence. And I don't know if that sort of transition from hard bop jazz to free form, know, jazz ⁓ impacted you, but it just feels so ⁓ Gesamtkunstwerk, right?
everything together to give us a stronger sense of it, not just a storyline, but a world that you're building that is something we should be in for the long term, at least for the long term of the record, but it lasts beyond a record for me. I just, if you wouldn't mind, tell me, I'm, you know, we have all kinds of we, by we, mean Americans, we have all kinds of assumptions about East Germany and the communist block and that sort of era.
Matthias Sturm (22:36)
Yeah. ⁓
Scott Catey (22:41)
But tell me what it was like as a young man to hear music. How did you hear music? How did you, how did music come to you? How did you find it and listen to it and begin to play?
Matthias Sturm (22:51)
That's to say, we were actually not really blocked from anything. Let's see, for example, we had discotheques at a normal way Okay, this was a bit of a... It had a name, was a youth club, that was the name of it. And you had to go in, you had to be your relations with the door holder and the doorman, and it was all like this.
I don't know if you enter a discotheque in New York. And we had a group of maybe 10, 10, 12 guys and girls, and we are all from these more alternative circles. And I remember that we had the program was from all but the
had to offer, you know, from Depeche Mode to Tainted Love, you know, the biggest hit in our discotheque was the same as in West Germany. was Tainted Love ⁓ of Soft Cell and all this kind of stuff of the 80s, you know. No, that wasn't even the Beastie Boys, know, because they played Beastie Boys and all this kind of stuff. And I've got my records from I've had an uncle in West Germany.
who was sending me regularly ⁓ a list. I had a wish list of records coming out and then he was sending this to me and then maybe friends came and said, you have to, for instance, Prince, Sign of Times was a big thing in Dresden too. ⁓ Of course, we've heard a lot of jazz and funk and really Prince was a big star in East Germany too.
And so they copied my, you know, I gave them the record, they copied it and we had all this kind of cassettes and stuff. And is this also to mention that we had a big alternative label scene. We had cassettes, know, ⁓ MC ⁓ label culture. So labels would record mostly punk, mostly punk bands, you know, because I started out with a punk band in Dresden.
We just got these music cassettes to make covers and stuff. Today, all these kind of things are very cult and famous. You can find this even in museum collections today in Germany as a kind of the youth culture of East Germany. There were two influences, very big influences. The first was punk and the second was hip hop.
If this came in, ⁓ I jumped in, you know, because everybody jumped in. For me, it was interesting as a visual artist or a young guy who started out to paint and to design. ⁓ Graffiti was a very interesting thing for me, a very basic language, you know, to communicate. ⁓ so it was, I mean, it was...
really behind, we were behind an iron curtain, but it dissolved because, and we had really big parties in Dresden with excellent jazz bands, local jazz bands, and we had garden parties and we were all in black, know, it was not too, so different from West Germany, but we were over-hemmed
with this kind of depression for sure, know, a collective depression and angst, because you had a system of denunciation and of denouncing people by the police and you had to take care who to, you know, who's your friend, who's not your friend, who you can talk, you can talk not to this guy. you know, it was a little bit, this was a bit schizophrenia in the case. And I remarked this later.
as I got acquainted with my future wife and she told me about it. She told me, you behave in a very strange way. I have to say that. I love you, but you behave really sometimes in a very strange way. And it lost his importance with the time. as we... And it was in 92, know. Jennifer and me, we've met in 92, April 92.
with 21 years and she taught me that for sure. And at this time, this was very interesting because it was very rare to have a couple of West German woman and ⁓ East German man. At this time, these things were completely separated again and it united later much
Scott Catey (28:00)
The memory of growing up there and the schizophrenic sort of ethos, right, that that inculcated, how does that come into your music, Matthias? How do you integrate that?
Matthias Sturm (28:08)
Yeah.
That's simple. ⁓ You could hear it on my second album, which is called Luna Park. And this is exactly an album about my youth in East Germany. there were a lot of... At this time, I worked on new music. And then, you you have a moment in life where memories sweeping in, from flashing in from another time, you know.
So it's a question of your age, it's a question of your state or mental stuff. so it got more about an album about this Cold War kids, by way. And you can hear it and I prepared a cover which had some more photos of this time and some more famous photos of events of this time.
But I tried to get it into this term of a lunar park, know, all these flashing lights and carousels and more as a place where young people amusing you know, and going out and to have such a kind of spin of time, you know, what is youth, you know, how is this...
how it is passing, how it is going away. It's nothing more than a marketplace, know, where you are going strolling out. And I tried to get into this concept album, which was more planned as a musical. So I worked out stage plots, I worked out stage sets, I worked out really... ⁓
something like to have projection, video projection and stuff. But at the end, as it is, it was maybe too special, so I did not find any investor in the entertainment to put it on stage, which is a big investment you have to. And it stood a project, let's say it's one hour music, a ⁓ little bit more of one hour music.
And then I just decided to select all the songs, because they were also instrumental parts and stuff, you know, more in a classical way, more of jazz instrumental music. And I collected this on this album to say, hey, this is what I can hand you as a future rock opera or something as a future musical.
Scott Catey (31:04)
listened to that album ⁓ a couple of times, a few times actually for this conversation. I think Puppet Robe's Anthem. I think that's a, I don't want to fawn, Matthias, but I think that's a genius piece of music. And I was so, I don't know what the word is, confused, shocked when Also Sprach Zarathustra came in there.
Matthias Sturm (31:08)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Scott Catey (31:30)
Am I
hearing two different, is something else playing in the background? And so I really focused on that and I paid attention to what you were doing with the music and layering it with Strauss.
Matthias Sturm (31:42)
This is how I set up music, know, I just try to combine things which you would normally not think you could combine. But this is fusion, know, this is thinking about the prospects of a music, more to think about how to transcend something in combining things that are maybe not to combine.
Scott Catey (31:50)
Mmm.
Matthias Sturm (32:09)
But I must say this idea is maybe not really new because I'm the second artist to use this because there is a piece of, I think it's it's an instrumental. This one here is more surprising because you have this kind of average protest song, it's more Dylan style or if you want something like
And then this symphonic stuff comes in and it gives everything a new atmosphere. It gets you to the edge of what I say. So it's a dramatic counterpoint of everything.
Scott Catey (37:36)
And also works as a sort of counter parody right?
Matthias Sturm (37:41)
Yeah.
It is a parody. It is a parody for sure. But it's a parody. But if you want, it's real because that's the real puppetry and puppet show or puppet show that we have in capitalism in this time. I mean, it's nothing else. So it's more about the truth.
point it out, to say it loud, to say that it's, that's it.
Scott Catey (38:13)
We don't hear that enough,
Matthias Sturm (38:15)
people are so... Today everybody takes it personal. This is interesting because we have this discussion also here in Europe ⁓ from philosophers, more postmodern philosophers, who ⁓ accuse this public political discussion to be shut down.
practically, you know, there's no edge in it. what's very interesting and I don't know if people check this out. If you go back and you see what's very interesting YouTube, for instance, if you go back and you see some ⁓ TV shows, for instance, me, Germany, you know, from the 70s, and I see how they discussed on the edge politics, officially.
Scott Catey (39:00)
you
Matthias Sturm (39:08)
You won't find this anymore today. Everybody shuts, you know, it's all about this thing, you know, to be correct. This fuck up, sorry, political correctness that we ⁓ now ⁓ do as a kind of a middle class, you know, cultural thing ⁓ to drip us honey about our heads and you know what I mean. So over our heads and... ⁓
That's awful. I think that's the most dangerous point. There's no danger anymore in political discussions. And this tells me that we are globally into a dictatorship which I ⁓ describe as a comfortable fascism. You know what I mean? A fascism which is comfortable.
Scott Catey (40:01)
Mm-hmm.
Matthias Sturm (40:05)
in its way to say, this is not about torture chambers, this is not about terror, it's, you know, it crawls slowly into our hearts and heads, know. That's more dangerous than classical fascism ever was.
Scott Catey (40:26)
It's the bourgeois revolution, right? To infiltrate the mind and the heart, exactly that sort of way. Capitalism is hand in glove with that sort of thing.
Matthias Sturm (40:32)
Yeah.
with the difference that now there is a different class which settles now on ⁓ power and influence than before. It's another class, know. It's another kind of personalities, another kind of, you know what I mean? That's all a bit more, for me, really, this is a very dystopic fact. And I pointed out years before,
And everybody told me, Matthias, you're crazy because you're an artist. You don't let us go with your Kafkaesque reading and thinking. Today, all these guys came up to me said, Matthias, you were right. It's exactly as you said. I said, yeah.
Scott Catey (41:24)
You've seen it up close, right?
Matthias Sturm (41:27)
I mean, as artists are more sensitive in my particular place, would say I'm more sensitive because I grew up in a dictatorship, so I know what it is. I see the signs and I can judge with what comes out of all this mess.
Scott Catey (41:45)
think there's a kind of reflexivity in that too, right? It's the exposure prepares you to be aware, more aware than some of the rest of us about these kinds of things as they come.
Matthias Sturm (41:49)
Yeah.
Scott Catey (41:57)
If you don't mind, I think if I remember correctly, you were born in Eisenach, is that right? Also where Bach was born, right?
Matthias Sturm (42:03)
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Yes.
his birthplace. By the way, it's a lovely little house. And with fantastic instruments and a collection of medieval ⁓ instruments and a ⁓ very nice place. And Eisenach is famous also for
the fact that Luther ⁓ did translate the Bible from Latin to German, that made this Protestant revolution in Germany, and this is all a bit connected with Eisenach, so it's a very historical place,
Scott Catey (42:47)
Speaking of revolutions, right? Those are both very significant events that happened, the birth and the sort of education of Bach but also Luther's translation. And so Homesick in your first album, ⁓ Blood and Thunder, Homesick, I think starts with Bach's Bourée. so I wonder if you could talk about homesickness in the sense of what do you feel as the artist composing that song and including Bourée?
Matthias Sturm (42:56)
Yeah.
Scott Catey (43:15)
as the starting point, what's your, what are you feeling?
Matthias Sturm (43:19)
That's funny because I mean, if you imagine you're born in a country which doesn't exist anymore, would you think that you could settle on a term like home anymore? I mean, for me, that's it was never there was never any other place than where I sit at the moment. know, as I was younger, I told people home is where I
Scott Catey (43:28)
Mm.
Matthias Sturm (43:48)
I'm sick for the moment. I have a chair to It's in one way, you might say it is, yes, it's because I know people, for instance, here in France, you know, I see people getting very old because they're sitting on their place for mostly most of their life.
Scott Catey (44:13)
you
Matthias Sturm (44:14)
you can develop a strength with that, you know, because you're sitting on your place and you have a home for maybe 50, 60 years. I observed that people are getting very old here on this fact. I never felt, since the break of the war, I never felt anything home more than the place at the moment, you know, because, and for me, it was clear, it was...
For me, opened a chance, to see the to walk this planet or to be a global And my wife and me, we wished very young already to move to France. I'm very lucky and happy that this happened to us.
We grew up our children here, which is quite different, because you can imagine that it made some problems, ⁓ German school life is completely different from French school life. But we managed to raise them here, and now both are out of the house already, because we are already grandmom and grand-dad two grandchildren.
Scott Catey (45:14)
Mm.
Matthias Sturm (45:32)
and both made a career. The younger one is studying recently at the Sorbonne University at Paris in philosophy and politics and they do their But it was sometimes very hard because school in France is very ⁓ autoric. It's like, you know, it's Napoleon-like. It stems from
heavy system of... Because the teacher in France is a more completely other personality than they see it in Germany now. In Germany, they see it as a social manager. But in France, it's more about Napoleon would say, listen there. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Scott Catey (46:24)
do it my way.
So you've been all around the world touring and you produced your first album in LA. You've been in, I think, global tours, Dubai, India, all over the place. Tell me, ⁓ how does your experience with performing and bringing music to an audience, how does that then come back to you in terms of what you do next?
Matthias Sturm (46:49)
Well, it started out already ⁓ as I was younger, it was much before, I had this, even this career, this concept career as a visual artist. And music was a heartfelt place, it was something which really is, till day, a heartfelt thing. And ⁓ it started out with, ⁓
if you know this, maybe or you remember this slam poetry, we had a big tendency of slam poetry. Back in the days, I was in Hamburg in Germany, in Hamburg in Berlin. So I started out with a musical program like, say a rock cabaret in German language, and like a musical theater thing, you know, and I performed this on stages in Berlin, Hamburg. And then it
As we moved to France, it stopped a bit and it's, know, this kind of more international career, it started out in 2007 with a thing which you remember, I'm sure, was my place. My place [MySpace] music. So it was at this time the top place for musicians. And I remember
Scott Catey (48:04)
Hmm.
Matthias Sturm (48:12)
At this time, it was even so familiar that I remember I had chats with very famous musicians at this time, with Matthew Bellamy from the Muse, from England, and big bands, and we just talked. It was like a place where musicians were talking with each other. And then I've got a call, or I've got a message from a producer from Seattle, Dave Hillis
who was working ⁓ on a lot of albums and in the era of grunge So he was the first ⁓ place there in Seattle. These things came out with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. And he worked ⁓ on the first record, 10, of Pearl Jam, and ⁓ then started out to produce bands in this way.
Blind Melon and so on. And he reached out to me to say, hey, I've heard your demos on Myspace. Very interesting. Let's talk. And so we started out talking. I was already in a promotion campaign with a guy from a promoter, from Los Angeles. So things came to each other.
I've got opening slots artist from Holland and Belgium. And I did opening slots on big venues in Belgium and in Holland, bigger venues. The Auxerre en Belgique for AB is very famous, a famous venue in Brussels. And so these things came together.
Yeah, he got me on his bells, to say. And we started out recording this first album at his private studio of Blind Melon in North Hollywood. And so things started out to be a bit more international, if you want. And simultaneously, I've got management deals to tour India.
two times and I've got management deals to tour Dubai. And in 2013, I had a solo tour in the US, which was quite heavy and devastating because it was a three weeks tour as a solo artist summer. and as I came, I remember as I came in to New York and had
two concerts in New York at Rockwood Music Hall and the Rock Shop at Brooklyn.
it was about 58 degrees. It was more than 160 Fahrenheit or something. It was amazing. It was like you would die. It's very interesting too. I've got to learn about social differences in New York. because if you went out from
lower Manhattan to take the train to Brooklyn. There's no you know what I mean, there's no air condition in it. I thought, okay, if you live in Brooklyn, you know, it could be summer my guy, you know, this is more about what New York is, you know, because...
Very interesting, very interesting. And yeah, it was an interesting tour. Yes. and the morning after I was I was back with jet lag and all this kind of stuff. But I had a feeling. And now I know about the distances and your country. And I know a bit about what an amazing
large distance, this country between cities. if I think back, I had a concert at ⁓ Portland, Portland, very interesting, very freaky, really very strange place. And I've, as I did not knew anything about Portland before, I had to talk to people for sure. I booked, I've had, or my booker had booked me a motel.
which was, I don't know, a virtual back from the city, you know, and I had to go with a train pass. Amazing. mean, but really interesting. Really, really interesting. Portland's very strange, you have these tarot shacks, know, these little shacks where you can read someone who's reading the cards for you. Very, very crazy.
Interesting.
Scott Catey (52:50)
What year was this?
Matthias Sturm (52:51)
This was in 2013. I did this Blood & Thunder tour. to promote my first album. It was connected with this nomination for the Independent Music Awards and I've got a booker But stopped then in 2014. I've got again the chance to have a management deal with management from Florida.
But that be on tour 200 days a year. Because otherwise you don't get the money. That's the fact. You have to tour at last 200 days. And I then refused this deal because of my family. But you have to see, I don't know, any professional musician here in Europe.
Scott Catey (53:37)
Mm-hmm.
Matthias Sturm (53:44)
which is not divorced or which is not separated from his family, because it does not work out. It doesn't work out. No wife will accept this for more than five or six years ⁓ that you're on the road. ⁓ really, this is to, you cannot have both, think. And so I decided to,
Yeah, to quit this active ⁓ touring phase and to be a touring artist and I was back to be a recording artist, by the way, because I'm very, till today, very interested in music production.
Scott Catey (54:26)
Let me ask you, so we have ⁓ two or three songs of yours that we're going to put into the episode. One is Peace on Earth, for sure. I think one of the others is ⁓ All Beauty Must Die. I'd love to hear from you, the guy who put these together, what those songs mean. What's the takeaway for listeners to when they're listening to this? What should they walk away with?
Matthias Sturm (54:51)
I call it dark songwriting. belongs a bit, or it refers a bit to, ⁓ instance, English literature from the 19th century, you know, these dark ⁓ tales about the evil and the good, death and life. ⁓
love and hate and all these kind of ⁓ contrasting things. these are programs, It's more, one could say it's about, it's word, but it's not really spoken word, singing, you know, and It's dark storytelling.
with a passion for more essential or existential stories.
Scott Catey (55:44)
It seems to me you are mostly in the space between those, the black and the white, to the love and the hate, to the good and the evil. And you're exploring where do they come together, how do they come together, what does that look like? So when I listen to especially ⁓ All Beauty Must Die, a little bit back to sort of influences and your, how I situate you as a listener within what I know about music. I hear a lot of Nick Cave and I hear lot of
Tom Waits, especially in the lyrics and the way you talking about those, how do we get away from binaries that just create worlds that are unreal and do something that's more inhabitable and interesting?
Matthias Sturm (56:30)
Yeah, yeah. But this is this type of music. It's like Nick Cave too, reads a bit more dark or a bit more melancholic. Maybe Waits is the contrary. He's more on this other side you know, But these both are, I'm pretty sure, very melancholic.
personalities as I am. But if you mention Cave, mean, I'm a bit sad because, I mean, he really managed to stay on stage, know, he managed to, whatever crisis he had, he managed to stay on top and to do these amazing concert circuits. But I had this moment to leave this all and I'm not so...
I'm not so sad about it because it saved, firstly, it my family life. And my daughters were in an age that I had to support my wife here with them both. so I was back to the studio, but surely it's not the same thing. Yeah, it's not the same thing. ⁓ I observed, we have a big change in behavior of the audiences.
today. Because as I started out to be on stage, you have this experience too, I'm pretty sure you never had these crowd before your eyes that you started first tone and the mobiles going on and they they film or they switch or they do something, you know, there's no attention span. So it means if you if you're more in a in a music which is more
you have no chance. As per today, you have to maybe open a concert with, I don't know, with a plane, with an airplane doing a start or something, that everybody's awake and, know, because, I mean, all you do is like Jim Morrison at his time, awake! To cry out, hey, hey!
Scott Catey (58:40)
You have to get their attention for sure. But keeping it long enough for them to get into the actual gist of the song.
Matthias Sturm (58:48)
I only want to say to grab the attention of an audience today is much more difficult than maybe 10 years before.
And I don't know where it ends. For artists who are more in this intimate circle of things, maybe there's a difference between club concerts, club tours and bigger stages for sure. And the problem too is, and I played big stages and festivals, you don't have control about something because you cannot judge.
reactions because you're too distanced from.
Scott Catey (59:30)
the crowd.
Matthias Sturm (59:32)
Even if you have them before you, cannot judge what's going on there on the higher ranks and stuff. So you're completely concentrated on your performance. it's for me, my favorite thing is if I have a public of 30, 40 people and I can see what they do. Are they focused? Do I have them? Do I have them not?
Scott Catey (59:57)
Yeah.
Matthias Sturm (1:00:01)
It's the harder way. One would say that's harder to bound 30, 40 persons than to have a big concert who's everybody waiting you. Maybe. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Scott Catey (1:00:16)
You are working on an album for this year, next year. What's your next release?
Matthias Sturm (1:00:22)
Yeah,
my recent album, which I produced a new album this winter.
The name of the album is Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg is a German word. don't know if you maybe it's you know this word for it's more about, you know, an invasion which happens very quick, you know. This is Blitzkrieg. I think it's hails from World War I, I think so. And it's a bunch of
songs which I was very fast this time. I was wondering about myself because normally it takes years to prepare an album this way because I'm really working on songs. It's not like to put it out like they put out albums today and too much, too much. I don't understand
the problem is now, and this is very interesting, what to do with this album, because this is the first album I won't give it to streaming platforms, because it's over. I talked to all my colleagues and to musical mates and everybody says the same. No, we've stopped this. They don't get hands on our albums anymore, these streaming platforms. But what can you do?
I mean, if you are touring band, it's very easy. You do this album of vinyl or you do limited editions and you try to sell it one to one. But in my case now, I'm really thinking over what can I do? For sure, there are a lot of new approaches. As I'm my network on LinkedIn, I'm connected with a lot of
tech guys in Britain, in Great Britain and elsewhere, they all try to build a stable model to save us from these ⁓ streaming platforms and to create something new for artists, independents, to get their music heard and paid by people one-to-one without any ⁓ of these strangling
streaming aspects. But this is really a problem. I don't know how to do. I can give it maybe on my website. can promote it on my website. I can promote it here and there. But if you want to stay out of ⁓ these streaming services, I don't know.
Scott Catey (1:03:05)
It definitely is a stranglehold, isn't it? Yeah.
Matthias Sturm (1:03:08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I just, because I had another interview with a ⁓ journalist not long time ago, and he asked me for any solution, and I said, okay, let's strike. Let's go on a global
But the argument was then, okay, what should they care? They have enough stuff on it to... Yeah, would say it's okay. But if there's no new music, there are no new products, there's no attention to anything, know, because dopamine hits, you know, it has to be new, has to be... But really, there are alternative tech guys in Great Britain.
They try to create something new, but it's difficult to come out of this model. ⁓
Scott Catey (1:04:07)
Neil
Young tried that, right? I mean, he took all of his content off of Spotify, but not on his website. was still on Apple and other services. But I don't think he was successful as a... No.
Matthias Sturm (1:04:17)
No, even major artists are not successful in this way. the most absurd aspect on this is that these platforms are not ⁓ getting ⁓ profit out on music. It's not about music anymore. They talk about "content". We all talk about now as art as content.
So and I'm any more ⁓ an artist, I'm a content creator. I'm a content creator which holds the rights of his content.
Scott Catey (1:04:48)
I'm not.
Matthias Sturm (1:04:55)
Where it lead to? at the end? And think back, and it's very interesting that we had a lucid German philosopher Walter Benjamin who told us already in 1940 something ⁓ that in times of reproduction art will die. That was very lucid.
Scott Catey (1:05:21)
Yeah, he was prescient that way. Yeah.
Matthias Sturm (1:05:24)
Yeah,
this was a very ⁓ interesting fact and this was already the beginning of technology
I wrote a little article about that because this is my point. Let's heat down this discussion because we had this discussion before. This is not new. We have a new technology and then we discuss what will die. But maybe it won't die, you know.
long as artists are doing their work.
Scott Catey (1:05:56)
have to keep doing the work. This is sort of the message. It's it's it's difficult, right? Not just the distribution and the sort of awareness but actual I think the motivation to keep doing it in the face of these things is a challenge I wanted to say Matthias I was laughing about content creation not at you I'm laughing because this feels like of a piece with our earlier conversation about the bourgeois revolution, right? We have reduced everything that's creative to this content bullshit and
it makes us all very comfortable. When you're an artist, it's a different aesthetic for people who are thinking about these things. And if I come to Spotify to hear art, I think I'm coming to it for a very different reason than the majority of people who do engage in that content, right? It's a consumption model that I think is very destructive
Matthias Sturm (1:06:49)
But don't forget you are not this average You're a sensitive, reflective ⁓ person. I had for instance, this remembers me on something. I've had a radio interview at beginning of the outspread of my tour, New York,
which is called Legends Radio. And this is Evan Ginsburg, and it's mostly about music and wrestling. So he's a big fan of wrestling. So he interviews wrestlers, but more about their life and all these kind of miserable and misfortunes social-wise, know, what wrestlers live in America. I mean,
This is not really, mostly not a happy career. This is a very hard, it's a bull fight. And it's about music. And then he came out with one question which really hits me because he asked me, Matthias, what do you think, what you can do here in America with such intelligent reflective music?
with a public which is never more able to get this.
Good question.
Scott Catey (1:08:06)
It's a good question. I want to know your answer. Yeah.
Matthias Sturm (1:08:10)
The
answer was that I thought to even, think there are intelligent people out here in America which will get it. What should I
what do you think you can do with art here on these circuits? Because as we know that A &R wise, for sure you could say that radio programs in America are more standardized than
than in other parts of the world. But I can tell you, mostly my biggest fan base was America. Because they got it
But how
can I, where can I market it? Or where can I do this? But it's funny because 10 years ago, it was again, know that an A &R guy would say to you, know, industry is about numbers. Today, they will say industry is about algorithm.
At this time it was time of social networking thing, an artist had to go strong with social networking to get on YouTube, to get 1 million clicks on his videos, to get this and that. It was about numbers, for sure it was in times that the major label could discover music on YouTube.
to check the numbers, not the music, to check the numbers. How many clicks? How many clicks? Far away what it is and what, 10 million clicks. Okay, let's try this guy, because he has 10 million clicks on this video. And that was about numbers, and I'm musing about that today, it's about
Scott Catey (1:09:48)
it.
Matthias Sturm (1:10:06)
whatever it is, you know, was an algorithm, we know what an algorithm is, this is completely stupid, this is a mathematical operation, which we had before, mean, internet is function like this, a computer is function like this, it's all about algorithm, the whole life is about algorithm, even biology is algorithm. I mean, this is, you know, this is about these, to say, ⁓ ideology of having a word as a thing, you know, to make people crazy with that.
And I see that this is the most dangerous fact that they torture a younger generation of musicians with you must do this or you must do that. And it changes every 10 years. Everything's changing. And the A&R guy I will tell you, you have to go on this way. You have to go on this way. You have to go this. And what comes out? ⁓ Conformistic music,
But that's not about art, know,
Scott Catey (1:11:04)
really does get at content creation, right? You're doing something very similar to what everyone else is doing. Matthias let me ask you about Blitzkrieg. Is it available?
Matthias Sturm (1:11:15)
Not yet. I mean, the master's done. Yeah, the master's done. now I really, if you want, I use this podcast a bit to actually ⁓ come up with this question, what to do if you want to avoid these streaming platforms, which are exploiting a mass of products, contents to make money out of something which is not
related to music. It's not about music. It could be something else. It could be... It's about a mass potential of contents which are ⁓ fabricated and ⁓ used in a way... ⁓ I don't know. It's a scam. It's really... It's a hard scam, know. An official scam on people. And...
And the problem is public is not getting aware of this. They think of Spotify as a very correct and financially ruled service which serves to artists and which serves to listeners. Nobody sees the background about this.
Scott Catey (1:12:34)
And it's not serving
Matthias Sturm (1:12:36)
It's not serving artists, it's serving tech companies and tech guys who got on the wisdom how to make money out of this bypass of all this. Because the money flows, the cash flow is completely hidden under these
Scott Catey (1:12:56)
Your masters are done for Blitzkrieg. Is it pressed? it on vinyl? Is it on CD?
Matthias Sturm (1:13:03)
Usually I do promo CDs, know, I do bunch of promo CDs sending to usually to my networks of radio DJs and stuff and But let's see it as a I mean look at my age and I'm 57 years old and I'm a bit more calm about the fact that this all is coming into more let's say biography
biography thing, know, it's more documentation of my state. of everything I do, know, my paintings, my artist books, of all this kind of stuff. it adds to a bibliotheque of or archive of ⁓ inner belongings.
For sure I give it to people and for sure there's a little audience for that but there's never more any, I'm not obsessed with success anymore.
Scott Catey (1:14:04)
Yeah, But this has been a great conversation, Matthias. I really want to thank you for your time today. love chatting with you.
Matthias Sturm (1:14:11)
Thank you so much. was very nice to chat with you and yeah, it was a honor to meet you and talking this way. Yes.
Scott Catey (1:14:22)
I agree. Thanks very much. Keep in touch, definitely. if you figure out what the next model is, let me know. Let me know.
Matthias Sturm (1:14:32)
Sure, I let you know, I let everyone know. They are working on it. They are working on it since years. I have a guy ⁓ in London ⁓ who has a new platform. There's a beta version, but you cannot see anything because you have a website, blank website if you want. You cannot use it anymore because he's not ready. And it's called ⁓ Sawtooth. And he really...
try to get us a platform out of these streaming habits. And let's see how it works. I know a guy, for instance, in Germany, he has a little site in Hamburg, where you can pitch your music for sure, but it has not this global reach. The problem is that you need simultaneously to reach the state of having a global
outreach and let's see how this develops. mean, I'm pretty sure it will come because it needs to come in certain ways.
Scott Catey (1:15:40)
There's enough discontent with streaming, think. You've encapsulated it. I think there's enough of that to drive some kind of innovation. We'll see if it's better, right? Hopefully it is.
Matthias Sturm (1:15:44)
Yeah.
Yeah,
let's see how it works out. in general I think this model of earning money with music will completely dry out. we have these tour secrets, sure, know, but you have to be really, you have to be much younger because physically, I don't know if I go ever tour again. I would go on tour, but...
in a more comfortable way. know what it is? To travel like this and to have one concert, two days, one day travel, one day concert. ⁓ It's physically really heavy to do this.
Scott Catey (1:16:36)
takes a toll on the body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the mind for sure.
Thank you for all you've done
Matthias Sturm (1:16:42)
And we'll stay in contact on Music2Deal.
Scott Catey (1:16:46)
Absolutely. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Take care, Matthias.
Matthias Sturm (1:16:48)
Thank you very much.
Bye, take care. Bye.