An interview With Marian Gold (circa 1987) Translated by E'va Boros

We are in a small town called "Fót", in the "Mapiem" studio, where the new video-clip for Alphaville's song Red Rose is about to be made. There's a large swarm of people: apart from the members of Alphaville there are three American girls, innumerable musicians, some make-up artists, cameramen, choreographers and Gulyas Buda, the director. Only two days are available for shooting. This is the reason why the first concept of the video - to film the entire song without a cut - is upsetting, because they should be able to rehearse for at least a week. So the film will have to be put together from many different scenes... but first somebody has to design these scenes. The first one and a half days have been taken up with this, and there's still nothing on film.

At 8 o'clock on the second day they should be ready, and they'll be lucky to get one minute from five. Marian ran up and down and sang all day; though the music came from playback it seemed better for him to work with a turned-on microphone. By now he's absolutely exhausted.

Finally the film is finished. The video was shot like a live concert (only the audience was missing). Back at the hotel, the reporter started the interview on this point:

Q: Have you ever played live on stage?

Marian: No... Or rather, only once, in a festival in Berlin. I think it is easier for a singer to stand up on a stage and sing than for a whole group to perform live. But this is not the reason why we don't do live songs. Maybe you know that every song is a story in our mind. We tell the stories with the help of the music, and if we go on a tour we'll want to bring it all onto the stage, so the sound and sight would be very special. And it's very expensive.

Q: And you are the children of a new pop culture - I mean that it's much easier to make a video than to play live. Some older musicians say that video goes against music a little bit.

Marian: My point of view is that isn't really true. Being that we - as composers - have to agree in everything. The music that we play is a part of our mind, soul and fantasy. We have to translate it to the language of the instruments, and this is what we enjoy doing. There are some silly clips, and mostly the TV is very boring - which I hate - but it's not the same with our videos, I hope.

Q: And what is it about your record company? Wouldn't they like you to go an a tour?

Marian: Yes, of course they would like it, but we sell a lot of records so it doesn't matter. Otherwise I don't worry about what they want. We work with them because we need their work, this is the only way to reach the audience. But if I could afford to work without them, I would never go near them. Most of them cannot understand the music. There is only one thing that is important to them, and that is good business. It is an art, because it could be misunderstood. To sell propaganda as art (maybe it is for the sake of a good cause) is the most dangerous. Artists have rarely changed the world - or if they have, then they weren't musicians, in those cases they were politicians. Every art is a delicate affair, and we have to treat it carefully. But this is our work and we enjoy doing it. It's very important for us that we have our own studio (which is called "Lunapark"), because there we can do what we want, whenever we want.