Who are the current members of the band?

Its me, Zaphor (the singer and guitarplayer), Hauke (keyboards and electronics) and Axel (bass guitar, guitars, additional keys/programming).. looks like an electro band, hey?

The band met at a Sisters of Mercy concert in Hamburg. It would be reasonably safe to assume interests in groups like Fields of the Nephilim and The Mission, and, judging from the bands' output, artists like Ministry and Front 242 as well. But what do the members of Girls Under Glass listen to that we wouldn't expect?

Who told you that we met at a Sisters concert? [Ed: An interview with Axel Ermes in BallBuster] That’s total bullshit. Hauke watched Sisters 1981 while my first Sisters concert was at their first reunion for “Floodland” like 6 or 7 years later. GUG was founded 86. But you are right. We all liked Sisters Of Mercy as well as we liked many other Indie stuff like Martin Hall, Cindy Talk, Play Dead, Danse Society, Einstürzende Neubauten, Depeche Mode and many more. These days we listen to very different kind of music. Can be electrostuff like Combichrist, VNV Nation as well as Muse, Placebo, Radiohead, Sigur Ros and New Metal like Korn, Linkin Park, Filter blah blah blah..the list never stops because we are all music maniacs.

Grunge, Rave, metal... They've each had their time as the trendy fringe movement, while Girls Under Glass have stayed together through all of them. How have these fluctuations affected the band, and when would you say you were at your most successful?

Musicalwise we are NOW most successful, because ZYKLUS is the most intensive and best produced album we ever made. Its like a good red wine. The older it gets the better the taste. But to be serious: Firewalker was internationally the most successful album. This was the time when Girls Under Glass showed maximum aggression. But because we felt that its not our cup of tea we gave a fuck about the sales and just did the opposite afterwards, means a traditional Goth-& Wave-rockalbum called EQUILIBRIUM.

Tell us about the Mac Harms-16...

It’s a self built Analog-to-Midi-converter that got pretty good reviews in established magazines like Keys, Keyboards, Soundcheck etc. Hauke invented it and sold it to many well known musicians and producers. All custom-made and by Haukes hands only. So he is a real master of electronics.

Who is the 'you' in "When I Think About You"? Have you ever played it for a martial arts instructor's wife with the hopes of the experience leading to a risque, and potentially lethal, sexual encounter?

Hehe, you are a funny dude, arent you?? But you are right. This one is for my wife, for the lady of the martial arts instructor artist formerly known as Zaphor.

How do you decide which band member gets which groupie?

Have you seen photos of Girls Under Glass? Do you really think that a bunch of old sad German goth-grandfathers can handle “Groupies”? We are too old for exiting sex adventures. So we never had a problem with these kind of decisions. As Rodney Orpheus correctly said on the DVD: We are fuc*** boring guys.

Using any musician (past or present, dead or alive), what would constitute your theoretically perfect band line-up? And what would the group's name be?

Axel Ermes (still alive), Hauke Harms (still alive) and Zaphor (still alive). I think these three guys can encounter the world. They should listen to the name Girls Under Glass” and go for really cool modern electro-wave-sounds.

With regards to the latest university shooting in America, once more there has been a large emphasis put on the shooter's supposed involvement in the gothic subculture by the media. How do you feel about the fact that the general public is being misinformed? Don't you think it's the media's responsibility to get it right, so that innocent people don't get hurt?

F*ck the media! Their interest is not to inform people about the truth. The truth is boring. They wanna present exiting stories, cause that’s what people want. Radical exitement. So I don’t wonder at all about how the media deals with this. But on the other hand its really sad because there are too many people who take this serious and who get a total wrong and distorted picture about a subculturtal scene. It’s not funny at all, but unfortunately more then typical. There is hardly anything anybody can do about to change this.

Have you ever gotten into a band-on-band punch up? And if not, which group would GuG most like to take to the cleaners?

We are peaceful people and don’t think in aggressive terms. If we don’t like other bands we just ignore them. Fighting is something for d*ckheads!

Are you a man's man, a lady's man or a girly man?

Lets say: I am definitely NOT a lady-boy!

What can we expect from Girls Under Glass in future?

Good Music!

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