Listening to the pioneering 1980s industrial rock band KMFDM today, it sounds like the electronic equivalent of roots rock.
The band used then-new technology to create straightforward blasts of sounds and upfront beats. Nothing was busy or subtle, just lean and mean with an echoey industrial edge. The vocal effects resembled a bad subway PA. The drums merged the kinds of rolls and frills associated with metal bands with strict electronic dance beats. The riff-heavy recordings were enhanced with bloops and bleeps and sirens and revving engines which could make you think you were listening to the soundtrack to a much fuller multi-dimensional event, like an action movie or a futuristic political rally.
If you weren’t seeing KMFDM play live, you really were missing other elements which were a core part of the initial concept for the act. You can experience some of that aural and visual overload when KMDFM makes its first Connecticut appearance in over a decade at District Music Hall in Norwalk on Oct. 23. The tour marks the 40th anniversary of the band’s founding.
The band has continued to tour and make records, releasing nearly two dozen albums, five of them in the past 10 years. KMFDM has continued to develop its thundering sound without overcomplicating it.
“It began as an art movement,” said KMFDM co-founder, main creative force and sole remaining original member Sascha Konietzko. “I never really toyed with being a musician. KMFDM started as the audio accompaniment to art exhibits.”
Eventually the music came to the forefront. “We would feed on disco and heavy metal and lump them together,” Konietzko said. “We put out the first records and it got into the hands of Wax Trax! in Chicago. We were asked to open for Ministry and quickly became a household name.”
KMFDM’s lyrics can be uncompromising: “Refuse is our inspiration, terrorism our trade, sabotage and piracy, chaos out mental state,” Konietzko sings on “Megalomaniac,” the opening track from the 1997 album commonly known as “Symbols.” But Konietzko intended to stimulate, not dictate.
“It was not about revolutionary ideas. It was artistic expression,” he said. If there was a message in the music, he suggests, it is that “maybe it’s a good idea to go through life alert, not like lemmings. Commonsense kind of stuff.”
For this anniversary tour, Konietzko said the band is “rehearsing a lot of the older material, recreating it so it’s as close to the originals as possible. In some cases it’s easy. In others, it’s like ‘How the (expletive) did I make that sound?!’”
Konietzko has conflicted feelings about an anniversary. “I don’t think too much about the past. Some of the old songs become boring, or hard to play live. This is our anniversary tour, but we really just move forward.”
Recent sets have run to over 20 songs, drawn from 35 to 40 that are in the live band’s current repertoire. KMFDM song titles can be as wild and tough as the music: “Oh My Goth,” “Freak Flag,” “Liquor Fish & Cigarettes,” “Rebels in Kontrol.” A lot of the titles sound like commands: “Let Go,” “Touch,” “Push!,” “Go to Hell,” “Turn the Light On.” The band does a cover of “No God Here” by Konietzko’s longtime collaborator Lucia Cifarelli, with whom he is working on his new solo album.
In its heyday, KMFDM live shows were a mix of intense sound, lighting effects, performance art and circus acts. Konietzko still promises “lots of visuals. It’s important to not just have people standing behind a computer. Even if it’s sampled or pre-recorded, it’s important to visualize.”
Konietzko wants the mood in the room to match the anarchic spirit of the music in a controlled yet liberating way. “You can do chaos in a disciplined way,” he said. “It’s precise, yet it creates an impression of total mayhem.”
Konietzko was born in Germany and grew up around the thriving, endlessly creative so-called “Krautrock” scene which includes bands like Can, Amon Düül. “I went to a lot of festivals — in those days it wasn’t commercialized yet. I got to hang with the musicians.”
He moved to the U.S. when the band got successful and eventually moved back to Hamburg in 2008. He’s been restless the last few years, which is one thing that led to the U.S. tour. “COVID put an end to most of the music scene here. It’s mostly festivals, which are so boring, always the same bands. I haven’t played a show in Europe since 2017. Brexit really (expletive) things up for us. Maybe they let you in, maybe they don’t.”
This tour happens on the heels of “short but really big” U.S. tour KMFDM did last year. “This one is more for the Northeast,” Konietzko said.
The band hasn’t played Connecticut since October 2013 at The Webster in Hartford, but the industrial beats and yowls still reverberate in the club walls wherever KMFDM has set foot.
KMFDM plays on Oct. 23 at 8 p.m. at District Music Hall in Norwalk. $30.30-$74.56. districtmusichall.com .
Local News
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