Damo Suzuki revved up for Irish concerts

Don O’Mahony

It's quite unexpected when Damo Suzuki, one-time shamanistic singer with the legendary German rock band Can, evokes football as a metaphor for the way he performs now.

“My account of the music is almost like a football game,” he explains. “So every game begins at 0-0, so I start with 0 0.”

It is, however, an apt description. Just as the outcome of a football match is undetermined so too is a Damo Suzuki gig. Since 2003 he has been embarking on what he terms the Damo Suzuki Network, an ever-expanding structure that sees him play with different musicians every night. There is no set list, the performance occurs spontaneously.

‘Instant composing’ is the term Suzuki uses to describe the process of creating music in the moment.

So taking the football analogy, if it starts 0-0, how does it end? “Sometimes it’s 5 to 5,” he quips.

“I don’t think about that at the moment when I am making music. The result you can see only from the faces of the audiences after the concert. When the people are all smiling then it must be a good concert.”

Looking ahead to his concerts in Ireland one date looms large, Saturday, May 26.

Legendary 'Can' front-man & Krautrock pioneer 'Damo Suzuki' takes to the stage this Saturday to bring us another of his completely unique performances. All music is spontaneous & created in the moment, never to be repeated. Tickets avail ---> https://t.co/vAS8LUnw5V pic.twitter.com/BVm6q43OH3

— The Grand Social (@TGSDublin) May 22, 2018

“I perform in Dublin and this is the final of the Champions League. I’m a Klopp fan. I’d like to see Liverpool in the final.”

Jurgen Klopp, the German manager of Liverpool FC famously compared the football to which he aspires to heavy metal music, so why not compare music to football? Like Klopp, Suzuki also sees it framed within the expression of the collective over the individual and for Suzuki that expression is very much channelled towards positive energy. For him the ultimate expression of this is in the live performance.

“Because music is communication so I have to have a really good communication with the people, so if I’m involved in dark things I think it doesn’t fit together with my life. Anyway I don’t like to be involved in these kind of things because the whole of this world is dark enough so why I should make same thing? Impress people with darkness, it’s quite

stupid! At the moment you need light, bright sunshine.

“There is too much problems. So I have to think positive and if possible I have to share a positive energy to other people through creating the music at the moment. Because creating music at the moment is the only possibilities you can to interpret to the people the feeling. If there’s composed pieces you don’t have so much space to get to the people or talk to the people or share positive energy with the people.

“It’s impossible to make if there is composed pieces. So only this kind of a music, which is instant composed, on the spot, only this one is possible because it’s living. It’s a living thing; it’s not dying. Once somebody has composed pieces it’s no more living. So it’s not really fresh. And this artist has to play 300/400 times same pieces it’s not really living.”

There is also a healing element to music for the Japanese-born German resident as he is currently battling colon cancer. It’s not the first time he has been in this position. He faced down the disease in 1983 and he refuses to buckle under it again.

“I was three and half years with a very heavy illness and I’m still hurting from this one because I should be in the very best condition every concert or everyday life. It is still not 100%,” he says.

Asked to describe how he feels now he responds with reassuring good humour:

“Kind of half human, maybe, because I’m not able to do everything by myself. So, handicapped. But it’s OK, I’m making music.

Damo Suzuki Network with special guest Catherine Sikora Mingus play Triskel Christchurch on Friday