When Carl Crack (ATRs front man and MC) died a few days before September 11th 2001, the band was already almost finished.
The band had been in existence since 1992 and all those years of violent shows, the behind the scenes chaos each band member stirred up, that relentless walk on the edge, simply destroyed the band at the end.
Everyone who has witnessed the band play live has seen what I mean.
When the Berlin quartet played their last shows at the Big Day Out Festival on the main stage in Australia in 2000 everyone was watching. You could see The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, The Clashs Joe Strummer, Foo Fighters, Primal Scream or even Crazy Town(!?) on the side of the stage.
Just a year earlier ATR got arrested for playing at a demonstration in Berlin on the 1st of May 1999 when a huge riot broke out during the bands performance. A few thousand demonstrators clashed with the police, and ATR played right in the middle of it all. To this day the footage of this scenario is one the most intense examples of political motivated Rock n Roll ever captured on camera.
In the late 90s ATR was seen as part of the electronica genre, but in reality the band had nothing in common with it:
It was too avant-garde, too radical in its views and statements, simply too loud and noisy to fit in.
"Everywhere we played it was pure chaos, most sound systems were not capable of carrying the heavily distorted bass lines and power coming out of our machines. Many speakers were blown at our shows.
We played the Marquee in London in 1993 and during the 2nd song - bang! The whole PA was fucked - the show was over."
The original conception was Alec Empire's:
It was a unique line up, almost superhero like, and when Hanin Elias, Nic Endo, Carl Crack and Alec hit the stage in some cities in the South of the USA, the mixed race, mixed sex image of the band provoked people before they even heard the music.
A female vocalist like Hanin who screams about police violence and revolution, and Nic Endo who was in control of all electronic gear on stage and sent earthquakes of sound waves was simply against all rules of rock and techno music.
"They opened many doors for female artists to follow at this time.
People who came to our shows wanted to be blown away in physically. It wasn¹t like today where kids look for a nice tune, It was always like let's go further , let's push it further and it felt more and more exciting. Like playing with fire.
I remember when the Verfassungschutz showed up at our shows in Berlin. Its a section of the German Government/secret service which is investigating about groups who could be a threat to society. Usually they
check radical political groups.
So when those guys show up at a rock show, there is a reason.
It took a few years and our album "The Future Of War" got on the Index in Germany, which is a censorship institution. So it is now forbidden to sell, buy or broadcast the albumin the whole country. Its classic, this album is probably the most Anti-Nazi statement ever recorded and it gets banned in Germany!
It makes you think, what does this say about the countrys state of mind."
The great thing about this band has always been that they never used their extreme statements to attract attention, they were mad enough to believe that they could bring down the system with their riot sounds. And that made the band so unpredictable and sensational.
When Atari Teenage Riot sold out CBGB's in New York in 1997, queues were lining up around the whole block.
"We were so bored with the music scenes and all genres we had to invent our own: Digital Hardcore. We were asking ourselves, why were all bands looking back in time to get ideas? For us it was a thrill to experiment with new sounds and destroying traditional song structures.
The music was a collage concept, but the challenge was to make it sound together and not like some sort of cross over. The attitude was punk, but the sound wasn't, but had integrated elements of it."
Very soon the band made a name for itself, being louder than Motorhead.
"We had shows, were kids were sent to hospital because their heart rhythms were disturbed. When a normal rock band plays they dont exploit the full frequency range like we did. We didnt come to entertain, we wanted to get our message out there in the loudest, most direct way. And that was pure confrontation.
Skinheads would storm our concerts, so Nic Endo would always have a baseball bat underneath her equipment table on stage with her drum machines, keyboards and samplers. We had to be prepared. Also promoters often wanted
us to pay for damaged PAs and we wouldn't take that shit.
In the early years we were playing many squats and even the punks felt provoked because they didn't get it. At that time
everyone thought they had figured out the world, split into good and evil. And then we came along and questioned that. Some people out there didn't like that."
In 1996 the Beastie Boys hooked up with Alec Empire in New York and negotiated a label deal between Grand Royal and Digital Hardcore Recordings for North America. The album "Burn Berlin Burn" exploded.
Rage Against The Machine and WuTang Clan asked the band out on their US tour as did Beck, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Ministry. Even Moby chose them as his support for dates in Holland.
ATR collaborated with Slayer on the song "No Remorse" for the SPAWN movie soundtrack.
With the success came the tension. And every musician has his own way of dealing with it.
And ATR were intense people, so very soon the thin line between reality and paranoia started to vanish.
MC Carl Crack was often described as the black Sid Vicious by the media. Since his teenage years he suffered from psychosis attacks. (The brain releases certain chemicals in and it leads to temporary schizophrenic personality changes.)
He destroyed hotel rooms, got into fights, started trouble with the police. All this was of high interest to the media, who started focusing in on this part of the band more than on the music itself, which was harder to explain and describe than the events surrounding it.
"I remember our video director calling me up on the phone in a panic, saying that Carl had just attacked a police van AND he was completely naked and I must take care of it. We were on constant alert all the time.
There are hundreds of stories like that.
Hanin (Hanin Elias, girl singer in the band) beat a security man into the hospital at our concert in Rio De Janeiro in Brazil because he had assaulted her sexually. It was a big deal with the police and the promoter there.
Not one day seemed to pass by without new turmoil.
When John Peel asked ATR to play Queen Elisabeth Hall in London in 1999, the band had just released their 3rd and best album "60 Second Wipe Out" which was recorded in New York and mixed with Andy Wallace (Who engineered Nirvana's "Never Mind", various Slayer albums and many more.).
During the song "Revolution Action" kids stormed the stage and the situation got out of control.
Looking back now I think that's what he wanted, he put us into a pretty conservative venue with seats!
Of course things went insane!
Singer and actress Bjork was quoted in the NME saying that "it was the most intense show she had seen since Public Enemy!"
Although Alec Empire is widely known for his extreme anti-drug stand, drugs played more and more a destructive role in the band. And it was no surprise to see the band completely burnt out taking the stage of Londons Brixton Academy with Nine Inch Nails and play an all noise live show, which shocked even their own fans.
"We just couldn't do it anymore. It felt like the band was a tank on fire, trying to make its way out of a war zone", says Alec Empire. "It was one of the last shows of Atari Teenage Riot. It was end of the year 1999 and there was the rumour of Y2K, all computers crash and cause a meltdown. And I felt like the world had gone to ashes a few weeks earlier.
When we listened to Live At Brixton Academy we liked it a lot and released it. Against all advise from record industry people. Of course!"
To this day there hasn't been a pure noise industrial concert performed to a crowd of such a large size.
One thing remains overlooked by many who only saw the shock value of the band, and thats their ability to hide what were in reality simple pop tunes behind the noise and the screaming.
This is why ATR still stands apart from its copycats.
Alec Empire who produced all their albums always had a wide interest in music and made many different sounding records in his career. He is known as the cutting edge remix producer of his generation who has worked with anyone going from Primal Scream or Mogwai to Mark Stewart, Bjork and Rammstein.
The Atari Teenage Riot sound was no accident, it was his intention, his plan, and it annoyed a lot of people, that's for sure. Even now the chances are if you're over thirty you probably wont get it...
