In his series “I was happy here”, Robert Schneider accompanies Vorarlbergers to their favorite places from their childhood. In Satteins he met the producer Little Konzett.
Little Konzett runs one of the hippest recording studios in our latitudes. He is frequented by jazz, pop, soul and funk stars from all over the world. With his studio live sessions he is in the process of writing a piece of music history. A few weeks ago he recorded the new album with the Fantastischen Vier in his recording and mixing studios in Eschen (LIE). He’s actually a very simple peasant boy from Satteins, and everything he looks back on now he taught himself, “with a mindless love of music,” as he tells me. “Only then are you really good. Everything else will eventually come by itself.” I meet Little Konzett at his childhood place, the excavator hole in Satteins, right on the A14. I am very lucky The master is in a brilliant storytelling mood. The stories just flow out of him. “Before the opening of this section of the Walgau autobahn, we boys used to ride our bikes up and down without permission, and I lost my first, brand new soccer shoes there at the soccer field. I didn’t know how to tell my mum.” Robert Schneider: Does your passport also say Little Konzett? Little Konzett: I don’t know (laughs). Actually I don’t like my middle name at all. I was the youngest of six siblings. Even my sister called me Little, after Little Joe from the television series Bonanza. That annoyed me terribly. Somehow word got around in the playground. When I founded my first band at thirteen, you could already read “Hands and Feet by Little Konzett”. So I gave in. Resigned, if you will.Schneider: So this small quarry pond was your favorite place? Little Konzett: This is where I met my first musical role models. Siegfried Burtscher from “Mortician”, a metal band that was quite well known at the time. Here it was decided who was allowed to go to the concert and who was not. Tragically, he and his brother took their own lives.Schneider: Why?Little Konzett: I don’t know. Clowns on the outside, but fragile on the inside. It gave me a lot of trouble back then.Schneider: The summers of my youth. How was it here? Everyone knew everyone…Little Konzett: …and naturally looked suspiciously at who the pretty little one was arriving or going home with on the red Zündapp. You lay towel to towel. Of course there were clumps. Holger and Siegi were lying back there by the small island spur. When one of them stole his girl from the other, he had to leave the island temporarily.Schneider: These places were taboo?Little Konzett: Yes, of course. It was an honor to be allowed to sit at the Siegi. Here I fueled a lot in terms of inspiration. That was the rock metal era. We wore homemade studded bands. You have to imagine Siegi as a cross between Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne. Wool socks in summer and grandmother’s nightgown combined with leather clothes. My father just said, “What a half-wit!” Until my sister of all people went with the Siegi…Schneider: You learned drums.Little Konzett: I actually wanted to be a guitarist and saved up an amplifier, but it was too quiet. I figured if I put a handful of disused TV speakers together in series, the thing would get louder. When I connected the cable to the amp it just went Zzzsscht! And again I was ashamed to confess it to my mother. At the same time, I was working on my brother’s drums until one day he said: “Fuck! You play better than me.” It was purely by chance that I realized that the drums are much closer to me than the guitar.Schneider: Where did you practice? Little Konzett: In the attic, directly above Dad and Mom’s bedroom. They must have had sawdust in their beds when I pounded on my double bass. My parents just said, “That’s right. When we hear him play, he doesn’t do anything.”Schneider: Shouldn’t the boy learn something “Khörigs”? Little Konzett: I completed an apprenticeship as a stonemason and continued to work on the CNC milling machine for several years afterwards. At the weekends I went on tour with my band.Schneider: A turning point was when I met Marcus Nigsch, who was still “Marque” back then… Little Konzett: It was in Rankweil, in the old cinema. That’s where I heard him and his band for the first time. I was unbuckled and thought I had to get to know him.Schneider: You then became his studio drummer.Little Konzett: Yes, that was a great time. But that’s already twenty years ago.Schneider: How did you decide to become a producer and not so much a musician in a band? Little Konzett: I’ve found that it’s extremely fun to see different bands with their already finished material to take it to a higher level. That’s where I found my true meaning. I’m kind of an audio photographer. It’s like proofreading. Giving the whole thing the finishing touches.Schneider: You are now the owner of a world-class studio. Is it true that the Fanta 4 originally wanted to record their new album at the legendary Abbey Road Studios (Beatles)? Little Konzett: That’s right. But what is also true is that we have known each other for more than twenty years and have often had to do with each other professionally. The deciding factor was my live studio sessions, which I’ve been doing for ten years.Schneider: What exactly are these “Little Big Beat Sessions”?Little Konzett: It’s the most original way of making music. A few musicians come into the studio and play in front of an audience. I press record. It may be that you mess up here or there. But the recordings have power. You become more exciting. And that’s exactly the moment I capture with good equipment. This is how music becomes human again. That’s it.
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