Keeping It Global

When Francoise Cactus, one half of Berlin-based trash-pop outfit Stereo Total, declares "we feel were an international band," shes not overselling the point.

Consisting of the French Francoise (born Francoise Van Hove) and her German beau Brezel Goring (born Friedrich Ziegler), the pair sing in English, French, German, Turkish and Japanese over a musical marriage of synth-pop, punk-rock and ye-ye.

After eight albums and 14 years together, Stereo Total have reached the point where they can be considered an institution.

"When we started, we never thought wed last so long," says Cactus, on the phone from her Berlin home, in anticipation of the duos first Australian tour.

"Especially in the beginning, because at our first shows, it was only people from the gay community who came, because they found us funny. Now, as long as people keep liking what we do, we can do this as long as we want. But, dont worry, were not planning on doing this forever like the Rolling Stones."

Before Stereo Total, Cactus had been in garage-rock outfit the Lolitas, while Goring made electronic music as the Sigmund Freud Experience. At first, the pair had to experiment until they found the right musical balance.

When they released their fifth album Do The Bambi in 2005, Stereo Total calculated their musical make-up as: "40 per cent Chanson, 20 per cent rocknroll, 10 per cent punk, 3 per cent DAF-Sequencer, 4 per cent Jacques Dutronc-rhythmique, 7 per cent Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg, 1.5 per cent cosmonaute, 10 per cent really old synthesizers, 10 per cent 8-bit Amiga-sampling, 10 per cent transistor amplifier, 1 per cent really expensive and advanced instruments."

That this formula adds up to 116.5 per cent speaks of Stereo Totals curious sensibility. "I dont think of us as a funny band," says Cactus, "but were much more fun than other bands. I think we are mostly ironic in our lyrics, but also in our way of making music; there is something like playing with cliche, stories, doing something a little bit childish."

Yet, their fuzzy, funny racket didnt immediately charm audiences. "Back then, in Berlin, it was all about techno music, or grunge music. Nobody wanted to know about us. We were a little bit too bizarre for people," Cactus recalls.

That reputation stayed even when they attracted a following. "I can remember our first tour in the US (in 1998). The crowd would watch us come on stage, wondering if wed be strange people. Their faces seemed to be the picture of fear; they didnt know what we were going to do."

This befitting a band who can jump from German to English in a song, sing comic lyrics about suicide, or use alley-cats as metaphors for relationship fidelity - all the while sounding like some ridiculous, sloganeering dance party.

"Chuck Berry was always saying you can write about two subjects if you want to have success in music: cars or love," Cactus says. "I know zero about cars, so I write about love.

"Making songs simple enough to understand when you listen to them for the first time works best. This is difficult to learn: Simple is better and fun is best."

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