Thees Uhlmann: An encounter with an old friend

Thees Uhlmann and I have been friends for over 15 years. We were both active for the St. Pauli fan magazine "Der Übersteiger". Thees provided outstanding stories as I tried to make his column somehow legible in terms of spelling and punctuation. If you like, I was his first editor. Incidentally, he made at that time still quite unsuccessful, but still full-time, music with his band Tomte.

Then Thees went to Berlin. The contact between us was less, but never broke off. Until three years ago. After his successful debut novel ("Sophia, Death and Me", 140,000 copies sold), I eagerly awaited a new album. For me he was still more a musician than a writer, there must be something coming soon! It already finished the first songs, he told me on the phone. Then I did not hear from him for months. I finally wrote him a WhatsApp message that I'm starting to worry. "Am in the supermarket, call you back later," came in response.

Barely a year later, Thees called. "I'm sorry," he said, "is not easy straight." Then again for two years: nothing.

Last Tuesday we met in the old building of his manager in Sternschanze, overlooking the Millerntor Stadium. In three days, his eighth album would be released, five he made with Tomte, he brought out two as a soloist under his own name. The last one, "# 2", was released in 2013. Almost as long ago we talked like friends. Today I want answers to a few questions, not an interview. There are canned beer and whiskey from shot glasses.

Why he did not sing for five years, I want to know. So he also called the first single from his new album: "Not sung for five years." "The two years after my book was out were a disaster, and I always need time to culture," he says, grinning at his joke and opening a can of beer. "I wanted to get back to music quickly, but that did not work, I wrote lyrics as if I was 28. There was nothing in it that represented me or my soul life, then I broke off all this shit."

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Junkies and Scientologists

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I knew that already. I'm interested in why a musician suddenly stopped making music. Could do. Had he lost focus because the songwriter had become a writer? Or was it a midlife crisis? Thees became 45 in April. He dismisses it, puts a cigarette on: "That with my then producer Tobias Kuhn has somehow imploded.I remembered that one evening when I was sitting in the kitchen, drinking beer and waiting for the news, how cool the song but I did not get it, Tobias said a few days later: 'Ey Thees, we'll do a break and then start all over again.' But that took some time until I saw that. "

His cell phone rings, the display says "Mama". Thees answers briefly: "I'm just in the interview," changes a few warm words and hangs up again. I am drilling. In "Not Sung for Five Years" it sounds like nobody helped you in the difficult time. At the time I was wondering if I could do anything. Did I fail as a friend? Thees is silent. A minute. Two. Then he blows the smoke of his cigarette under the ceiling. "There is no help in such situations," he says vehemently, as if to free me from my self-doubt. "In the dark time, with the evil record, nobody could help me."

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I am relieved and sad at the same time. Should not friends be there for each other in such times? "You do not have to worry about me," he explains. "I've been an angry, constant-thinking, frightening and cursing person for the past five years, and I have not allowed a feel for the record that does not exist." He then just threw away eight or nine songs, he says and begins to giggle like a little boy.

Okay, I say, that's something every artist can do in his career. But something is deeper? "In truth, I'm just so damn lonely in Berlin, I'm almost isolated," says Thees. His eyes are empty. I'd like to hug him now. But something in me says that I'm not entitled to that right now. Thees does not want pity. He wants recognition. Like every artist.

In the meantime we can barely see our faces over the living room table. The mood is depressed until Thees starts telling an anecdote as if he were performing in front of 1,200 fans in the Great Freedom.

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Thees Uhlmann on Die Toten Hosen (KiWi Music Library, Volume 1)

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"One of those songs I threw away was called 'The Miller Sings', that's how Pink Floyd lyric in German: A crazy miller lovingly cares for his mill, I played it to a friend, and she said: 'Thees, that's the last shit, it's really cruel to hear that.' That was the cut, I looked for a new producer and started from scratch again, "says Thees, lighting the next cigarette. "It was a really exhausting ride, but again I had the feeling I knew what I was doing."

The record is much less rocky than his previous albums, I throw in one. The answer comes with the power of a Federer-Return: "Rock music is dead, people are more interested in entertainment than Rock'n'Roll, and when I realized that, it did not matter anyway."

And so do some of the lyrics of the new album, which is musically less powerful than Thees' first two albums "1" and "2". But the lyrics of songs like "Junkies and Scientologists" or "I'm the driver who drives the women home for hip-hop video shoots" are a lot wilder and far from the mainstream.

Our evening turns off slowly, which should also be the beer. After a quick detour to the subject of "Relationship Disability" and a passionate discussion about whether "Tom and Jerry" are too brutal for a four-year-old child ("Not at all!"), I want to tell Thees if he's going to record a CD with his friend Marcus next Wiebusch takes up. The Kettcar singer has just announced a creative break along with a farewell tour. 17 years ago, Thees together with Wiebusch and the Kettcar colleague Reimer Bustorff founded the record label Grand Hotel van Cleef, on which his albums are still published today. It is something like a family.

"Oh God," says Thees, clapping his hands in his head and quickly telling a story of how he met Heike Makatsch the other day. "Do not drive off Uhl", I insist with now heavy tongue on an answer. "Honestly," he says, "my biggest dream: three acoustic guitars, and then with Wiebusch and Olli Schulz on the stage, maybe there'll be room for something like that in five years, it would be funny."

Then we leave the apartment and walk towards the hotel. I still want to know how he is doing now, and whether I've overdone it in my kitchen psychology in the past few hours. "My dear, I'm Derby winner, and my new record is done, I'm the luckiest person in the world."

On the way is the Jolly Roger. The fan club of FC St. Pauli is still open. "We can still have a beer," says Thees and pulls me in.