PREMIERE: Atari Teenage Riot return with the video for their hacktivist battle cry "Modern Liars"

Atari Teenage Riot formed in Berlin in the early 90s as an attack on Neo-Nazi subculture, they made their name by melding German techno beats with a hardcore punk approach and riot grrrl inspired vocals.

When ATR put out Is This Hyperreal? In 2011, it was their first full-length record in over a decade. They put themselves on indefinite hiatus in 2000 following the departure of Hanin Elias in 1999 and death of Carl Crack in 2001. Now, they’re preparing to drop Reset – their second album in sixteen years – and the timing couldn’t be better.

Alec Empire may be a stoney-faced political activist who is personally responsible for some of the harshest music this side of Kreuzberg, but the new record is all about the power of positive thinking. Informed by events surrounding Edward Snowden and the NSA, Reset concerns itself with life in a surveillance state, digital activism, and our problematic relationship with the truth in an age of information.

Alec talked to us about “digital Maoism”, how hackers inspired their forthcoming album, and the ideology behind the astonishing computer game-inspired video for their new single "Modern Liars", which we're stoked to premiere on Noisey.

Noisey: Hi Alec, where are you?
Alec Empire: I’m at the studio in Berlin working on some music I’m doing with Charlie Clouser, who used to be in Nine Inch Nails. We’re working on some film stuff – very different to ATR. It’s very dark, atmospheric film score type stuff. When you make music with someone else it sounds very different, you know? The same with Atari Teenage Riot – if you take all the members solo stuff you might not guess what the record would sound like.

Well the new Atari Teenage Riot album does sound quite different to what people might expect. It’s pretty poppy and melodic by your standards.
That’s all Nic Endo – her vocals. We were just speaking about it, actually. In the 90s we had that whole riot grrrl approach with female vocals, but Nic was always able to do more. People have this weird image of ATR being all 200bpm and somebody screaming so we thought maybe it’s better to put something out which has that energy but doesn’t feed that stereotype. I’ve been testing it at some DJ sets I’ve being doing over the summer and people couldn’t place it, you know? They’re like hmm… This is not trap, this is not techno, what is this?

The video for "Modern Liars" is also different to anything you’ve done before. Visually it lands somewhere between Tekken and a trailer for a Marvel Comics movie. What was your vision for it?
We always wanted to do a video that was an homage to video games in a way, but we also didn’t want to look back to past video games. That would be too boring, I think. But we wanted to combine that with criticism of where the Internet has taken us, basically.

Where has it taken us?
We feel there were so many opportunities and it looked so positive a few years or a decade ago. Like we were thinking ok, everybody can put out their music and you don’t need these old structures anymore like television or MTV or even record shops anymore. You just put your stuff out. And I still quite believe in that democratic process in a way, that people should have an equal voice. But we see most of that freedom being taken away now and there’s all this surveillance.

So how do you show your discontent in the video?
I think you have to watch it a couple of times to see all the little details, for example we used the imagery of like – we call it digital Maoism – the thing where you feel like all the creative people are being totally exploited; authors, writers, film makers, photographers. It’s like the machinery takes all this stuff and doesn’t really give enough back to make it fun. Basically what looked like a progressive and exciting future has become almost like stagnation now. So we tried to criticise that with the video.

Is that why you open with a dedication to Hackers, DJs and Riot Girls – because you see them as having that struggle in common?
We’re hanging out with so many hackers and stuff and they see the problem. It’s just at this point you need to work out the technology to change it. But we felt like this was a good way of making this criticism without making it look like, I don’t know, a George Orwell kind of thing – because that’s so obvious. When we had this idea we talked to various directors and it was weird, like everyone came back with these treatments like, “Yeah! So there’s like a SWAT team going into this bunker! And it’s like Big Brother!” and we were like, I don’t think you actually understand the way Atari Teenage Riot thinks. Because there’s always this positivity in what we do. Even in the most hardcore tracks, there’s always this message of “you can change it, you just have to do it yourself”, and this is really where we come from.

Considering ATR formed as a rebuttal to Neo-Nazism in Germany in the first place, are you worried about the rising extremism in Europe at the moment?
Yes. And the thing is, a few years ago people were like Alec, the battle is won, why are you even warning people? And I’m like no, because you still see it. It’s never won. You need to take care of it. Personally, I would love to see more coming from the music scene, because I think a lot of people went “It’s not my problem, let’s have a party” and that’s good, but I think you can have both. The problem is that the party is getting kinda unfunny as these ideas spread more. You see it in parts of Germany where skinheads storm a club or they’ll beat people up as they’re coming out…

Does that happen a lot?
Yeah, I would say in certain regions. I mean in Berlin maybe it doesn’t happen that much, but in other parts of Germany, France and Greece it does for sure. It reminds you of the 20s in Berlin or something, what you hear about. I personally always loved music that spoke about these topics. The most exciting records in my opinion from any genre, whether it’s hip-hop or ska or punk, were dealing with those topics. Love songs, in my opinion… I mean it’s good to have those sometimes, but too much is about nothing.

Do you think music is a legitimate weapon against the state?
I believe that culture in general is a very strong weapon. The good thing is that those who think that violence, for example, is a weapon – they are very bad at using culture. That’s why it’s a strategy. If you want to fight oppressive regimes or dictators, you can actually bring down whole dictatorships through culture.

I mean you don’t have to go this far back for an example, but if you look at Serbia in the 90s they overthrew Milošević using entirely non-violent methods and engaging with youth culture.
I hope we can play into a part of that. I met up with some hackers at the Chaos Computer Club Convention, which is like a big conference in Germany, and all these guys were hanging out like yeah I was like 14/15 when I saw this Atari Teenage Riot video – you know, "Revolution Action" the one where there’s like a virus is being fed into Wall Street and people throw out the computers and stuff – and this is funny, but they saw it on MTV and were like ok this is what we gotta do. It’s funny to speak to people who are some of the best hackers in the world right now and realise that a [music] video can be a trigger to make you think about stuff much more.

Do you think people are taking Internet surveillance seriously enough?
That’s a good question. I think sometimes it can make you think, but it shouldn’t be much more than that. It shouldn’t be us telling people what to do so it almost becomes like a religion. I’ve met fans who were so intense and it can sometimes scare me, you know? We played a show in Italy and there were these fans that wanted to get some autographs so they were coming backstage and they were like ok, now we want to follow you, what’s the next thing? And I was like… I hate this. Think for yourself, guys. But you know there are people looking for these kinds of answers and I think that’s the moment when you have to take a step back and explain that.

So what would you say to somebody looking to you for advice?
Sometimes we get this on Twitter. We had quite a lot of fans writing us from Russia, like gays saying to us look, this is so bad, what should we do? And at that moment, what could you say? But I think one thing is to really make people understand that they can actually take control of a lot more than they often think, because when you’re depressed you think this is all so bad and you get more negative. But growing up in Berlin in the 80s with the war and all that stuff, it looked totally hopeless. So there’s always a better way forward. Sometimes I’m just happy that music can give people that energy, because at the end of the day that’s what you need. You need that feeling of ok, I can at least change my own life.

What’s the overall tone of Reset, if it’s inspired by digital culture and Edward Snowden and there are so many pros and cons associated with those things?
It’s not so much inspired by Edward Snowden as much as it was just happening at the time we were starting to write some of the songs, and changed some of the ideas we had. At first we were going to warn people that this is probably happening and there is no proof, but then it was like ok, everybody basically knows now. So what we wanted to do with the record is give it a different atmosphere, a different energy. We met up with a lot of activists and people were really depressed about what came out. It was like ok so we live in a surveillance state. And I don’t know about the UK or the US, but in Germany we’ve experienced this twice over the last century and the technology was almost a joke compared to what’s happening now. But I also think that nothing very bad, in this way, has happened yet. We don’t live in the Third Reich, but it’s important to be aware of that stuff to make sure we’re not marching right into a trap like that. So we figured let’s make a record that’s making people aware of it but also gives them a feeling that we can do something about it, because I think we really can.

So you’re feeling positive about the future?
We wanted to make stuff to make people want to go to the protest and want to make stuff happen, because we feel like that too. I just don’t feel sad and depressed the whole time and it’s the same with the rest of the band. Somehow, there’s this positive energy and we’re like why lie to people and fake a depressing industrial vibe? A lot of the time, with cyberpunk or any time you do electronic music with hard sounds or a political message, you end up in this weird category and I don’t think Atari Teenage Riot belongs there.

People seem to have this really hardened image of you in general. Your Twitter account seems to really confuse fans because you post all this political stuff but every now and again a RT of two pandas kissing will find its way in there and they don’t know how to respond…
Haha. Did you see that? Some people really miss some stuff about us. There’s sometimes a lot of trolling. If people take stuff too seriously then we slip in this kind of stuff to make people re-think things, but some people still don’t get it and I’m like oh my god. How much more obvious do we have to get?

ATR has been a band for so long now. Do you think your identity has changed much over the years?
The thing is, Atari Teenage Riot is almost like a concept. We have difficulties calling it a traditional band. It’s more like an idea that was very defined in the beginning. Certain musical styles have to be mixed - we took that from ‘The Electronic Revolution’ by William S. Burroughs and still, every time we make an Atari Teenage Riot record, we read this stuff and think this is the kind of spirit, this is like the DNA of this project or whatever you want to call it. What’s fun making this stuff is, even with the different members over all the years, everybody says this can only be Atari Teenage Riot. But it’s always different. You have to keep things exciting; it can’t be just a repetition. What we’re not doing – and I really want to avoid this – is feeling like a retro thing. What people sometimes misunderstand with electronic music is that we could make the exact same records again, because you just programme it. That’s the big difference with punk or other genres. When we create something like ennui or chaos, it’s all programmed. In that moment, when you feel that anger, you sit down in front of an Atari computer and think: how can I come up with this sound that sounds like a riot or that makes people go crazy? If you play in a heavy metal band or a punk band you just take your instruments and, you know, the drummer just hits the drums hard. And we can hit the buttons on the Atari keyboard as hard as we want to but it won’t make a difference. It’s kind of like a limitation, but it has this certain sound, this attack, and that’s why we still use it. But at some point you actually have to programme yourself to be like ok this is what I want to get across.

What would you like to see change in our society?
There’s a lot of things I’d love to see, but right now I think people need to understand that encryption is really important to protect their privacy. When people go oh I have nothing to hide it’s like, you don’t know what you need to hide at this point. You look at Eastern Germany for example and the history, we know that the government photocopied every letter that was sent. It’s almost equivalent to what the NSA does but on a different level. And people are like oh I just write my parents or my girlfriend or something and there’s nothing political in there, but if the wrong people are in power they can use that information to blackmail you. People in Eastern Germany were going to prison just for wearing a leather jacket with the word PUNK written on the back. For some people, it makes sense to look at certain groups in society and use them, point the finger at them. So I think encryption is really important and people have to understand that anonymity is a good thing. I know it’s being used sometimes for bullshit and people abuse it, but I think in general it’s better.

Your life pretty revolves around technology. Do you ever feel the need to just go and live in the wilderness for a bit?
Often with my solo stuff or other projects I play guitar or piano and I’m quite glad about it. I think the worst thing is people who make electronic music and have no outside influences. I mean often it’s the most boring stuff; techno musicians inspired by other techno musicians. I think it always gets more interesting when people have this other influence, like somebody’s listening to this weird jazz fusion and you hear a bit of it in the music. But yeah, sometimes it’s good to disconnect yourself. Maybe live in a bunker in the woods with a tin foil hat.

Maybe disappear for 25 years and resurrect ATR as a folk project.
Yeah, I’ll grow a long beard and have an anarchy sign tattooed on my forehead. Who knows? I mean technology is really buggy. I never believed in it like a religion. I think too many people right now put so much into it and think it will solve all the problems in the world, and I don’t believe in that at all. I’m not a pessimist, but I think we have to be much more critical.