FZ:

I don't want to talk about anything. I'm sitting here because somebody said, "You're gonna do a television interview." Here I am. Ask me the questions. But like I said, you ask me a question, I'll tell you what I think, and the result you never know what is gonna be.

Rudi:

Why are you still in this— Why are you still making tours?

FZ:

Well, I've been practising for 14 years, I'm getting good at it now.

[...] my concert is just a concert? How dirty!Well, when are my concerts just a concert? How dare you! You know, I'm special.

There is kind of a movie continuity going through everything that I do.

I think that a lot of what I do is based on reporting. I see something and I report on what I see based on my point of view. My point of view is not a normal point of view and I tell people about what I see about it. They can agree with it or they can say it's bullshit, whatever. I don't care. It's there for the ones who like it, for the ones who don't—there's millions of other groups.

Yeah, I take a very cynical point of view. I think that being cynical is a positive value. I think that nobody should trust anybody else. I think that all people are assholes until proven different. And I think that if you take that point of view, you will be disappointed less in life. If you always expect the worst from people then the minute they do something nice, it's a pleasure. If you think that people are good then you'll always be disappointed, 'cause they're not. They don't care, you know. Don't expect friends, don't expect fun, don't expect a good life, don't expect anything, and then if you get something, it's a bonus.

FZ:

Understanding the text isn't understanding the music. Or understanding the reasons for saying those words or playing that music, you know. English people don't get the idea of what we're doing.

Interviewer On The Right:

Is your stage act influenced by this circumstance, that the people don't understand the facts?

FZ:

Yeah, it is. Especially when we're playing in places where there, there's very little English spoken, because I don't think that it's fair to the audience to sit there and, you know, like for some of the songs there's long stories that you have to tell before they, before you play song, so I just leave 'em out because the audience wouldn't understand it. It won't help the song any.

Rudi:

There's something which is quite interesting—in the beginning you were often criticizing the so-called American way of life, and uh, years later, then more and more in your songs was one theme very important of sexuality. How come?

FZ:

Well, first of all the original criticisim of the American way of life still stands true. Not only that, the record is still available. And only a moron repeats himself for the rest of his life. The stuff that I said on the first album is still true, and it's still available. You wanna hear that stuff? Go listen to those records.

Somebody has to talk about sexuality. The rest of the people just talk around it, you know. I'm here to provide that service. To talk about the things that other people don't want to talk about. Dental floss, anything.

FZ:

Hey there, people, I'm Bobby Brown
They say I'm the cutest boy in town
My car is fast, my teeth is shiney
I tell all the girls they can kiss my heinie
Here I am at a famous school
I'm dressin' pretty sharp 'n I'm actin' cool
I got a cheerleader here wants to help with my paper
Let her do all the work 'n maybe later I'll rape her

Oh God I am the American dream
I do not think I'm too extreme
An' I'm a handsome sonofabitch
I'm gonna get a good job 'n be real rich

Women's Liberation
Came creepin' all across the nation
I tell you people, I was not ready
When I fucked this dyke by the name of Freddie
She made a little speech then
Oh God, she tried to make me say when
She had my balls in a vice, but she left the dick
I guess it's still hooked on, but now it shoots too quick

Oh God, I am the American dream
But now I smell like Vaseline
An' I'm a miserable sonofabitch
Am I a boy or a lady . . . I don't know which

So I went out 'n bought me a leisure suit
I jingle my change, but I'm still kinda cute
Got a job doin' radio promo
An' none of the jocks can even tell I'm a homo
Eventually me 'n a friend
Sorta drifted along into S&M
I can take about an hour on the Tower of Power
As long as I gets a little golden shower

Oh God, I am the American dream
With a spindle up my butt till it makes me scream
An' I'll do anything to get ahead
I lay awake nights sayin', "Thank you, Fred!"
Oh God, Oh God, I'm so fantastic!
Thanks to Freddie, I'm a sexual spastic
And my name is Bobby Brown
Watch me now, I'm goin' down
And my name is Bobby Brown
Watch me now, I'm goin' down
And my name is Bobby Brown
Watch me now, because the name of this song is "Envelopes."

Thank you.

Interviewer On The Left:

It's okay with the audience now?

FZ:

Huh?

Interviewer On The Left:

The audience was okay for you?

FZ:

Yeah.

Except for the fact they couldn't understand what I was talking about, what more can a person ask?

Interviewer On The Right:

That's a problem almost at every place in Europe.

FZ:

Every place in the world.

Interviewer On The Right:

With America as well?

FZ:

Yeah. They have trouble with the lyrics in the United States too.

I mean as soon as you get words with more than two syllables you're in a lot of trouble there.

Interviewer On The Right:

And therefore the singing is very quick? That's the reason?

FZ:

Yeah, you just get it over with, you know. Americans don't like to sit still for instrumental music so you say you sing a little bit and then they think they're in a song and then you could play.

Of course is getting more like that over here too.

Yeah, but there's other kinds of music around here too, you just don't get to hear it, you know. The government caters too much to the tourist trade. They keep selling you Mozart till you wanna die. And You know, stick Mozart's face on everything. You got [...] him on little candies. [...] They probably got Mozart on toilet paper, you don't think, uh? here, don't they? Eh? Take that son of a bitch and just make a buck off of that poor guy with a white wig. His parents abused him. Traveled him all over Europe when he was a kid and never gave him any time to have a, a bit of personal fun. These prodigies wind up in a little candy like that give it to you on an airplane. It's the first thing you here about when you come up here, "Hey! Mozart's land! He slept here."

Don't you— You must have some people here who are still alive and writing music. What'll they do about those people?

Nothing?

They all work in a gas station?

Well, see, just like America. They have composers in America too and they don't do anything with them either. Except in the United States you can write a jingle for Pepsi- Cola and make a living.

It's almost as if Mozart himself had [...] rolled this one.

Rudi:

What are you fed up with, what is, what are you criticising?

FZ:

I don't think you have to be discontent in order to be cynical. And I think that being cynical is the best way to be.

Rudi:

Well, what do you think about the music business? You often, you often criticise it in your songs in a cynical way, what do you think about it?

FZ:

Well, it's stupid.

Rudi:

And why?

FZ:

It's a stupid business. You know, rock & roll is all make believe, it's all fake.

Rudi:

And why are you into music business if you think it's stupid?

FZ:

Well, I'm a musician, it just so happens that in order to play my trade you have to do business with business people. If I was a music business man who sat at a desk maybe you'd have something to talk about, but I'm a composer and in order to earn a living from what I do I have to go out, I have to tour, I have to make records, and when I do that I have to do business with people that I don't like.

Rudi:

And, uh, are there, are there any difficults with the record companies? I mean, you had some, some troubles—

FZ:

Still have some troubles.

Rudi:

Warner, Warner Bros.

FZ:

Yeah, I have troubles with Warner Bros.

Rudi:

What troubles?

FZ:

They don't pay me.

Rudi:

What, what didn't they pay you—

FZ:

They didn't give me the money they owe me for four albums that I delivered to them..

Rudi:

And now you're not with Warner Bros. anymore?

FZ:

No, they breached their contract. There's a large lawsuit coming up about this.

Rudi:

What do you think is the reason that Warner Bros. didn't pay you?

FZ:

A bunch of assholes, of course.

Interviewer On The Left:

You like Schubert?

FZ:

Yeah! I'm a very romantic person, you're are you kidding?

FZ:

Our record sales are what they are. You understand?

Rudi:

You don't care about it.

FZ:

Whatever they are is what they are. Okay? And the sales factor has more to do with the work of the record company than with what's on the record. As you can tell there have been many records that don't have good music on them that sold a lot, not because people really liked what was on the record but because the guys in the company said, "We're gonna make this a hit!" You know? So they make it a hit. You get exposed to it and then it becomes a hit. They don't do that for my records so I doubt there's ever going to be, you know, millions of units sold.

On one song on the We're Only In It For The Money album there was a line that said, "I still remember Mama with her apron and her pad, feeding all the boys at Ed's Cafe." And the people of MGM Records cut that off of the record. You know why? I mean does it make any sense to you? Why should they censor that line?

Rudi:

I don't know. Did they say you why?

FZ:

Three years later I found out why. Because an executive of that company thought that the pad was a pad that goes there, you know? And they couldn't imagine this waitress walking around with an apron and a pad, feeding the boys at Ed's Cafe. That shows you how twisted the minds are of some of these people on the record companies.

Rudi:

That's not what you wanted to explain.

FZ:

No, folks. It was not a [dom & bin den].

FZ:

People will always make music— Musicians will always make music. However, the people who makes records are not always musicians, you know, some times they're just playing show people, or in the case of some punk groups they're guys of the street that we re gathered together by a boutique owner, you know. The fact of the matter is that if advertise properly people would buy anything, okay. And now that the lesson of punk has been learned that you can sell anything to anybody, there's no telling what the next trend will be.

FZ:

Movements are all just always the same, you got some windbag he who wants to say his philosophy, and he tries to make other people believe in it, and there's always gonna be some people who want to believe in it, and they go along with the movement, and eventually the movement falls apart, the people who'd believe who believed in it turn out to be fools, the people who left the movement turn out to be fools, another movement comes along, another fool stands up, some more fools follow him. You know, it keeps going. Movements suck, they're stupid.

Rudi:

So what you believe in then?

FZ:

I said, "Music."

Rudi:

Don't you think that there is a, uh, a change in your personal uh—from the late '60s to now—I mean, now today at the airport you were taking a very big car, a Cadillac or something, and you booked into the hotel now. I don't suppose that you did this in the very beginning. Is there any change of your personality—?

FZ:

Yeah! Now I can afford to do it! And I would have done it then if I had the money to do it. Do you think somebody gives me a Cadillac? No! I pay for it.

Rudi:

Well, isn't that more, more than, egocentric just to think, what you get out of it?

FZ:

Take Aim this camera to at this guy. Ladies and gentlemen, here is a classic example of a jerk for an interviewinterviewer. Why is that egocentric to have a car this that's comfortable to take you from the airport to the hotel?

Rudi:

[...] that kindJust asking. I mean . . .

FZ:

You and your movement questions. You like movements? You like Cadillacs?

Rudi:

Mmh . . . no . . .

FZ:

You like being comfortable? Why don't you like Cadillacs?

Rudi:

I don't think it's poss—, I don't think it's a . . .

FZ:

But wait a minute. Suppose somebody give you a Cadillac, would you like it? Do you people want a Cadillac?

Rudi:

I don't need one.

FZ:

You don't need— I don't need one either! But that's there. Why not ride in the Cadillac?

Rudi:

Just what I wanted to express is that, uh, I suppose, that you're criticising something in your, in your songs, and you're also criticising the American way of life . . .

FZ:

Yeah.

Rudi:

And for me, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, something like a Cadillac is, is uh, fits together with this American way of life.

FZ:

But suppose I would have got a Mercedes instead of the Cadillac, what would you say to that?

Rudi:

No, there's no difference. I mean . . .

FZ:

But it would have been because then the Mercedes, is that part of the American way of life? I got in the wrong car, right?

Rudi:

No, I mean something else. I mean that, uh, that cars can, can, can be something just to show people I got money or they can be something just to get from one place to the other.

FZ:

Well, for me it gets me from one place to another.

Rudi:

And you don't care what's it all about.

FZ:

So long as I'm warm, so long as I'm comfortable, so long as the car is safe and the guy that's driving it knows where he's going, it's okay. And if I had to choose between riding in a car this big with the draft coming in the window and riding in a Cadillac, I'll get in the Cadillac, 'cause I'm not crazy.

FZ:

You get down there and look at the grill of the Cadillac, show how long and beautiful this car is. Now you have to be just in there having ecstasy about how great this, just rubbing the upholstery, you know, and just, ah! It's really, you know. But, you know, rub everything in the car, you might even rub the driver a little bit.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, Rudi has—[...] Sound running? Very good. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is very important for you to watch because Rudi is now inside the Cadillac. He's been, let's just say, possessed by the Cadillac. We can't get him out. He's in there with his girlfriend. We don't know how this is going to turn out, we have urged 'em to urge him to leave the car.

What's the matter? What is it? Is there something wrong with the camera? Come here, look at this. This horrible spectacle.

?:

Okay, what we're gonna do, [...]? Come out! Rudi!

Rudi:

No! Please! Let me in there!

?:

Get Rudi! Come out! Come out!

Rudi:

No! It was so fantastic! Please, no! No!

?:

No! Rudi!

FZ:

It's better for you to come out. Rudi, come out, we're gonna put you on in a small car, you'll really like it. Rudi! Get him out—Take him out of that car, put him, put him in a small uncomfortable car!

?:

Rudi, Rudi . . . no, no, no, no . . .

FZ:

Isabelle, maybe you can explain it to him.

?:

We can't take her out!

FZ:

She likes it too. Well, you see what happens when you get an Austrian on in one of these things? They go absolutely apeshit.

FZ:

In this scene, Rudi is trying to recover from his Austrian Cadillac Extravaganza. Little does Rudi know that we in America have a great tradition. Along with the ride in the Cadillac, when you have a birthday, you have to be spanked. One time for each year of your miserable life. And tonight Rudi is going to be [...] pummelled—brutally attacked by John Smothers—who needs a little bit of a haircut. Now, Rudi, this is going to hurt you more than it hurts him.

John Smothers:

Gonna hurt me more than it's gonna hurt you.

All:

CADILLAC! CADILLAC! CADILLAC!

Rudi:

No! No!

FZ:

And this is the kind of stuff that cheap livings movies are really made up out of.

FZ:

Take two.

Rudi:

Rolls Royce.

?:

Well, that's different.

FZ:

Is not that much different, you see, a Roll Royce and a Cadillac they represent the same thing, it's like rich people riding in big cars. Now you have to tell 'em again about how fun it is to ride in shitty little uncomfortable cars. You don't wanna be miserable for the rest of this little Austrian life, do you? Talk to the boy! Even thought he's unconscious, he will register. He's 20 years old now, he can make up his own mind, but you have to help him, give him discipline. You can give him sim— You can give ins— You can—

FZ:

You have to be practical about what you're doing. Figure that the primary desire of a person coming to a concert is entertainment. That person wants to experience an entertaining pleasurable sensation from the concert. That doesn't mean we're always gonna give him that, but that's what they want when they come in, so that's, you have to accept that as a fact at the moment that you address the audience.