THIS MACHINE KNOWS DEMONS

Long before Quentin Tarantino became one of their frenetic followers, I had the chance see two members of The Baby Universal playing somewhere in Leipzig, supporting for I-don’t-know-whom in some kind of shitty industrialized building. I was falling asleep way before the main act actually hit the stage and only woke up when I heard their cover of PJ Harvey’s “To Bring You My Love.” It was close to perfection. I believed for a split second Jim Morrison had been resurrected. But he wasn’t. The Guy who wasn’t Jim was named Cornelius Ochs. One night a big dog made out of diamonds with THE BABY UNIVERSAL written across its back appeared in his dreams. When he woke up he recognized fate and made a decision. As he noticed that “The Baby Universal” was the title of a Bowie song it was already too late — he had a band called The Baby Universal and was stuck with Quentin Tarantino. The band I am talking about drips with rock ‘n’ roll charisma as if somebody had made them up for a movie script 25 years ago. Their second album is due end of this month; the songs are filled with cocky sadness and are not my thing at all, but they are actually cocky enough to become so famous that in only two years from now that Wikipedia will write about Tarantino “as the director for whom The Baby Universal once played before his movies became shit.” Vice: You will enter history as the band Tarantino once fancied. How does that feel? Conny Ochs: Well it could be worse. At least he made a good movie at the beginning of his career. Can you tell me how exactly Tarantino became your groupie? A friend of ours who is touring with us a lot met him in Paris once and also worked for his last movie. They both met, drove around researching locations, and Tarantino was in the mood to see a band. So she showed him our stuff and he liked it. Then he came to our show and afterwards we did a pub tour and he ended up staying at our place for the night. Whoaaa. In your bed? With you? I can’t remember in which bed he slept in. All I can remember is that I didn’t sleep in my own bed either. That was the first time we met and when he was in Berlin he hired us to perform at one of his after show parties.

What is he like? Hannes Scheffler: He is a Yankee.Conny: He’s on his own trip. The Tarantino Trip. Manic. He is interesting because he is real, he kind of developed his own language. He takes pieces and combines them to something new. I just don’t like how he is stuck in a rut with his movies. He writes good dialogues though. There were dialogues in Death Proof? Hannes: Sadly, there were. Conny: Above all there were these seemingly endless long monologues. Well let’s make sure that doesn’t happen here.