Volker Vaessen

We recently spoke of music as an ocean of possibilities and someone then imagined me to be in a state of constant inundation. Far from it. The infinite variables have long been tilled philosophically and artistically and are, also because they are virtually unfathomable, the famous source of creative diversity in the arts. But I did not become a musician just because ideas could never run out. So none of that matters much to me.I'm more like those who stand in awe on a starry night, who look into infinity and simply rejoice at being part of creation....

Being part of something has always driven me and, in fact, all my colleagues. We all want to be part of the sound, part of a crazy collective of people, an (not the) actor within the space. It started for me in 1968, as a 9-year-old trombonist in school and youth orchestras — the instrument then still 2 cm bigger than I was. And at 12 I was already embraced by rock ’n’ roll and plugged an electric guitar into the tube radio.

Back then there was the restless obsession that made you practice in the basement all summer long. There was the justified over-nervousness before concerts, because you had planned more than you could do. Today the obsession has turned into a kind of warm addiction. Now it’s less the fact that for 2 hours supposedly everything revolves around us; it’s more the before and after, the journey together, airport and hotel views, how the unfamiliar becomes familiar and how time wonderfully stretches on concert days......

Back then we made records and programs because you learned that was part of the success/money model, but actually we only wanted to play concerts and be on the road. All the money went into the huge light-blue 12-meter tour bus. To be a part of the big cultural social dance that in the 70s was in any case also a frenzied dance. A big topsy-turvy with new drugs, hormones, atoms. They danced like the audience and the lava was still warm. There was still a lot of sparkling carbonation in the water of that whole scene and if you put your ear close to the glass it sounded like noise... the noise of the ocean of possibilities.

The 80s were initially awful with classical studies of trombone and piano. New German Wave and collective disorientation in Central Europe. In the mid-80s then the decision to migrate to the USA; somehow I wanted to get to the source of so much that I valued musically, was not disappointed and was confirmed. In ’89 I had grasped my quintessential American experience.

A musician is valued all the more, the more he places importance on being part of something. There — there it was again. And someone said: A band is only healthy when the players are also listeners. I agreed. Nothing stood in the way of my professional career now. I returned to the Rhineland.

Composing, however, is a rather solitary matter and I find it surprising that the desire to compose, to produce — thus studio work — also belongs to another self of my being.I have worked on hundreds of compositions, some are even good. Most of the good ones are for my band Nighthawks. I can listen to some of these pieces again and again because the compositions are played so beautifully by the guys.

Music is mathematics. Not the high kind, perhaps, but then again... subtle and complicated..
They say music is a universal language. Mathematics is that too. In music you work with forms and measures, you use aids and formwork like in housebuilding. If you initially think a piece through to the end, you sometimes make sketches like an architect....
Music is also physics. Sound hangs on the drip of physical laws. There is nothing to interpret there. You have to be reasonable.But there are still enough variations in the ocean to be innovative, but you should be able to answer weighty questions: When is a composition finished? When is a production, an album or even a text finished? Well, this text was finished because the sun is shining outside. The connection to the cornucopia of the cosmos must not be severed.

VV alias Dal Martino is composer, musician, lyricist, producer and bandleader of Nighthawks.
He works on productions for film, radio and television and for his record label. Depending on the year he plays 50–100 concerts p.a. as bassist with Nighthawks, Phoenix, Wolf Maahn and others.

In 2005, 2011 and 2013 he received the German Jazz Award as producer and musician.
In 2002, he received the MTV Live Time Award with Phoenix.

He is co-owner of a label, a music publishing company and the Spinner Ace Studios in Cologne.

Specialties

• Composition
• Production
• Film music
• Advertising
• Bass

We also interviewed Volker Vaessen in our core Essence World #Podcast.
Enjoy listening:

• A conversation with VOLKER VAESSEN

References

Advertising TV - Radio / Agencies

• Drillisch (BUS)
• E - Plus (Grey)
• Marakesh DDBO
• Guinness
• Ramazzotti
• Toyota (BMZ / FCA)
• VW

Session & Gigs

• Eric Burdon
• Farfarello
• Ivan Neville/ Neville Brothers
• Modell J
• Phantomband
• Rugburns
• Tokapi
• Unknown Cases
• Walk of the Elephants
• Wolf Maahn
• Zikato

Film music

• ARD (TV)     Leo & Charlotte
• WDR (TV)    Samantha
• WDR (TV)    Hinter Gittern
• WDR (TV)    Leinen Los
• ARD (TV)     Tanja
• Cinema         TodLebeLiebe
• Cinema         Freunde