“Den Teufel tun” is the title of the first solo album from Nils Koppruch. After seven releases the German band “Fink” dissolved last year. Some called their sound “Folk noir”. Now their ex-singer Nils Koppruch is on tour in Germany with his guitar and his own folksongs. When he is on stage, he stands right in the middle of a painted black and white comic-a-like fairy tale forest. In Erlangen our Radio Goethe folk music correspondent Nina Pauler found him to talk to him:  

Radio Goethe:	It’s your first solo album after the split of „Fink“. How does it feel?
Nils Koppruch:	It feels new. It’s a little bit more exciting. With Fink I did seven Albums and now I start a little bit out new. I am a newcomer now. Some things are different, there´s not so much audience or little less than with “Fink”. – so I am a newcomer.
Radio Goethe:	How about the music? How different is it from the things you did with “Fink”?
Nils Koppruch:	With Fink we made a lot of experiences with different kinds of music. We started with the idea of folk music, further we tried to involve black music and electronic music and now I am little bit back to the roots. I try to make something that is a little like urban folk music or something like that.
Radio Goethe:	So would you describe your music as folk? Because there are voices who say: it ’s a bit like Tom Waits, it’s a bit like Country…
Nils Koppruch:	Tom Waits is folk, country is folk – it’s a question of definition I guess. I don’t like to explain what I do or what kind of music it is. But journalists and even you want to know: what is it – so on this album I use a lot of acoustic instruments and a little drum – so maybe its folk. (smiles) .
Radio Goethe:	Are the lyrics more important than the music?
Nils Koppruch:	No I´m a singer-songwriter. So there´s no difference between the lyrics and the music. I make songs. No poems or no instrumental music. If I would like to just write poems I would do it, but it’s a complex kind of art to make a song. The lyrics depend on the music and the music depends on the lyrics.
Radio Goethe:	But aren´t you a kind of storyteller? What you´re singing in the first song on your album “Den Teufel tun” is like a fairytale.
Nils Koppruch:	Ja, it´s like a fairytale and I think its a little bit like Grimms fairytales. But that’s also a kind of folk music: the idea of telling myths.
Radio Goethe:	Could you describe the content of the first song which is called „Den Teufel tun“?
Nils Koppruch:	Two years ago I had a dream where a little girl sang so beautiful that the devil had to drown himself in the water. So I dreamt that and I thought: maybe it’s a fairytale I used to know when I was a child, but then I researched a little and I found nothing like that so I made a song out of it. The title is “Den Teufel tun” which means “to do the devil”. And for me it was an interesting question what that means. In German it is a phrase, that people say when they don’t want to do something specific. They say: before I do this I would do the devil. And I made a new interpretation of this. It’s a little bit like the story of Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the devil, to be a better guitar player.
Radio Goethe:	Which CD do you have in your CD Player at the moment?
Nils Koppruch:	Today in the bus we heard Udo Lindenberg. Something older: "Ball Pompös".
Radio Goethe:	And when you´re at home relaxing on your sofa…what are you listening to?
Nils Koppruch:	Oh that’s different music. But I like people who make songs. It’s not that I don’t hear instrumental music but most of the time I am more inspired by people, who make a little different kind of music and there´s a story and an idea they work with.
Radio Goethe:	Do you have already any ideas for the next album?
Nils Koppruch:	No. I don´t know what I will do. I have no masterplan and I don’t know what I will do next year. There are some ideas for songs but an album is for me a complex kind of art. You know, the songs, the style of posters, the video is a complex artwork for me. So I don’t have plans what I will do next year.
Radio Goethe:	But you have another passion… painting…
Nils Koppruch:	Yes. I started painting when I was young, and I had an exhibit in ‘91…and there was a little gallery in Hamburg, they had a sign outside: cheap art. So every piece of art costed 10 marks up to 50 but not more. This was more a concept to sell art beneath the established art scene or art market. So I went on painting and painting.
Radio Goethe:	And how much is one of your pictures today?
Nils Koppruch:	How much do you earn?
Radio Goethe:	…not a lot.
Nils Koppruch:	Ok, so I give you a big one for 400 Euro
Radio Goethe:	That’s allright.