The Electric Soup features“Today anybody has the technical possibilities to produce and to record in very professional quality. The internet changed the whole “business” and only a handful of big world player companies earn some money but the artist doing all the creative work generally can’t pay his life just from making music nowadays. The good thing about this is that the artists are no longer so dependent on labels & record deals and are more free in their creativity. ” – @frederichausch2

Episode #283 : A.V.A Live Radio Behind The Music with Jacqueline Jax
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/avaliveradio/2015/12/17/episode-283-ava-live-radio-behind-the-music-with-jacqueline-jax

Jacqueline Jax logo photoGETTING TO KNOW THE ELECTRIC SOUP
by Jacqueline Jax host of A.V.A Live Radio
Interviewing: Fred Guitarplayer of TES

Music business…
In my eyes music business as I knew it (aka the Record Industry) is basically dead. Today anybody has the technical possibilities to produce and to record in very professional quality. The internet changed the whole “business” and only a handful of big world player companies earn some money but the artist doing all the creative work generally can’t pay his life just from making music nowadays. The good thing about this is that the artists are no longer so dependent on labels & record deals and are more free in their creativity. The bad thing is that the audience isn’t really open to new music and escapes on the old big names. This is also due a too great offer of music today for the normal listener and the internet, smartphones and tablets surfing audience can see any act any time on youtube and other platforms so why going in a local club to see a local band and even pay admittance for it?

Social media…
is a fast connective way to stay in touch with friends around the globe and to share news, pics, music and videos. The Challenge is not to have social media to control big parts of your life and your time. The Hurdles are that social media doesn’t go very deep it s very superficial as it is so fast and so big. People read a post and have forgotten about it a few hours / posts later…so the challenge is to keep them on track.
Singles vs an album…
Talk about the differences in your marketing strategy to support your preference. A single can help to drive peoples attention to your music so it is a good door opener if you’ve got the right catchy song. But you will need a Video to promote it too which we are also planning to do for NERVE. I kind of prefer the album release as it catches a momentum of creativity of a band but it is harder to market an album successfully.

My strategy is still kind of old school…
as I am convinced that playing live is the way to make people buying music but as people are hard to get going in clubs and concerts I am thinking to change my strategy which is a reason I am here and doing this interview. I started doing some social network advertising with reverbnation recently where I put on an artist page and some of our songs. I was really surprised how good this worked as I could gain 200 fans within 2 weeks and good chart rankings national and local in the rock genre chats there. The next step is to get a bigger audience and to get the people downloading our songs which isn’t easy too as I noticed.

When I was a kid in the late 1970’s…
my father took me to Jazz and Blues concerts and matinees. I was immediately fascinated watching different Musicians playing together and making my Body swing. I started to play Piano at the age of 10 but dreamed of being a guitar player since I was 6 or 7. I eventually got an awful Eko acoustic guitar from a cousin when I was 12 and bought my first electric at the age of 13 (a cheap Aria Les Paul copy) secretly with money I earned by distributing newspapers. That was around 1980… From that moment my main target was to find other musicians to form a rock band. The first band experiences came in my High school time before I founded DECAY in 1987. Our bass player Ralf joined at the age of 16 in 1989 and we still play together.
I first met Arne our Drummer in 1994 at the age of 19 when I was recruiting musicians to form a new group called M.E.L.T. After the split of M.E.L.T. in 2000 I formed the first Band alled AUTOPLAY with Arne and Ralf and a singer in 2004. The Singer left in 2006 and then we had a break before we restarted as a rock trio in 2009. We installed a recording studio in our rehearsal room and started to record the first songs in summer 2011 which resulted in a 5 Track EP in 2012. In 2014 we renamed the Group to THE ELECTRIC SOUP and started the production of the Debut Album. We played the first gigs in Frankfurt. On June 1st we finally released our Debut Album called COMEBACK which is available on i-tunes, Amazon and as CD over us. We made all production, recording and cover artwork by ourselves.

NERVE…
is about the sick situation our world is in these times. About lunatic fanatics killing women and children just for fun. About warlords in Africa and even about our “civilized” society supporting this indirectly only having the best possible “revenue” in mind by selling the weapons to these countries. We are pretty close to all this insanity here in Germany… The story behind this song is the following: We originally composed the first riffs of this song in 2007 but we were never really happy with it. So we went on composing over the years trying to finalize it, that s how it ́s got it ́s name “NERVE” Sometime in 2012 it became pretty much what it is today and we made the lyrics for it when we recorded it for the album. Afterwards we kept the title name because the lyrics pretty much reflects the nerve our planet is living in today.
We try to express what we feel in our music…
without being super skilled musicians in a technical way. So you will discover anger, sadness, frustration but also happiness, enthusiasm and love in a dress of Power Riff Rock Music as we call our style. We do not claim to invent something completely new in a musical way but we have all different musical influences which are cooked all together in THE ELECTRIC SOUP.

The Album Comeback is a reflection of all our personal experiences and musical influences. You will find some fragments of Blues, Stoner Rock and even Thrash Metal. Our main target is to play live and to get the People to go to the clubs and listen to original music made by creative Bands again. For us there is nothing comparable to the intense feeling playing a concert or listen to a cool one. But to get this achieved new bands need to get heard and known by the potential audience before. As nobody goes in a record store to buy an album anymore maybe bands have to follow the “trendy” modern ways and use the social networks.

We live in Frankfurt Main Germany…
which was famous for a big Jazz scene from the 1950s to the 1970s In the 1980s wie had a quite big Heavy Metal Scene with tons of great live clubs and bands like Tankard and Tokyo. In the 1990s Frankfurt became the hot spot for Techno and Trance dance music and most of the great live rock clubs dissipated unfortunately. The actual music scene in the city is dominated by tribute and cover bands cause they have an audience for music that people know from their parents. We try to change this with a handful of skilled young bands making their own self composed music. We organize small festivals and club shows and we are making radio shows at small pirate stations. Nearly all clubs that have live music changed to pay to play forcing the Bands to sell the tickets on their own. Result is that the bands mostly give out their tickets for free (having to pay them at the club!) just to generate a small audience to attend the shows which even also fails as nearly nobody shows up. I think we need to pull the interest of the audience to original music again over here. See also my Facebook Group “Rhein-Main Bands Original Music” https://www.facebook.com/groups/1390891201210367/1390895811209906

My biggest Fun thing is restaurant going and selling old American vintage guitars which is also my daily job at Guitar point Vintage Guitars which I am proud of working for because it is one of the most reputable vintage guitar shops in the world. Plus I have the advantage to meet lots of other musicians sometimes even stars and celebrities from whom I can learn lots of things for my
personal musical development.

The Electric Soup

I would love to have 5 minutes alone with…
Honestly I don’t have someone special in mind. I met some Rockstars and Celebrities in my life such as Alice Cooper, James Hetfield, Matthias Jabs and Joe Bonamassa for instance. I even became friends with a few of them. At the end of the day they are all human beings like you and me, they can be nice persons but they can be nasty also. The only person I would really have loved to meet would have been Jimi Hendrix as he was the prototype of a rockstar and one of the most inspiring musicians of the world. He defined the rock guitar sound of the decades coming after him and after what I read in several interviews he must have been a very kind person too.
The Electric Soup musician

Being current and trendy…
Yes I do but on the other hand it is not too important to me personally. I think if you love what you’re doing and show that to the people, having fun playing and transport you message and musical vibe that this is the main thing. You can only get an audience if you are convinced of your music and yourself. That attitude always helped me and my band mates.

I am most afraid of… the 3rd World war which we are coming closer to these times and the ongoing environmental devastation of our planet.

My personal definition of success is..
making people happy with music. Convince young people to go to live clubs and to listen to new music again. And most: having the right song in the right place at the right time. My biggest personal success was playing with the whole Frankfurt music scene with my band FREEZEEBEE on the Sound of Frankfurt Festival in front of 20.000 People back in 1995. This was achieved by working together with the cultural office of the city and a perfect organization between the Frankfurt music scene over all styles and genres and without any social media or internet!. The second biggest success was to make the soundtrack for the US TV Series Highlander in 1997 for the episode THE MODERN PROMETHEUS of Season 5 with my band M.E.L.T. Afterwards we played in the UK at the Birmingham Highlander Convention in 1999. This was achieved by personal contacts and a lot of luck. Our Singer played a Role as one of the 4 Horseman in 2 other Episodes and could give the producer a CD of us which led to the soundtrack.

My over all goal for my life & career is…
Making Music for as much people as possible and make them smile and move. Playing as much Live Concerts as possible and producing our second THE ELECTRIC SOUP Album in 2016 with as much success and acceptance by the public as possible.

3 Ways that I challenge myself and how each one moves me forward towards my goal.
1) Looking forward every new day is a new Chance.
2) Being active in changing things instead of mourning how bad life is all the time
3) Believing in what I and my Band mates are doing

THE ELECTRIC SOUP ONLINE Links:
YouTube Video of Nerve: https://youtu.be/HdCrbsnkrK0
Homepage: http://www.theelectricsoup.com
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/theelectricsoup
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/THE-ELECTRIC-SOUP/200831616635558
Backstage Pro: https://www.backstagepro.de/the-electric-soup
Regioactive: http://www.regioactive.de/the-electric-soup
YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/HdCrbsnkrK0
Twitter: THE ELECTRIC SOUP @frederichausch2
Amazon TES Comeback album download link: http://www.amazon.de/Comeback-Electric-Soup/dp/B00YW5RTGC/ref=sr_1_1?
ie=UTF8&qid=1434103735&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Electric+Soup
i-tunes comeback album download link: https://itunes.apple.com/de/album/comeback/id1001539746
DEEZER comeback album download link: http://www.deezer.com/album/10551177
7digital.com comeback album download link: https://www.7digital.com/artist/the-electric-soup/release/comeback/
Pure charts in France comeback album download link: http://www.chartsinfrance.net/The-Electric-Soup/albums-singles.html
My piano comeback album download link: http://my-piano.org/search/FlyingSkullProductions.html