Exposed Vocals Interviews Mathias Schneider
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Mathias Schneider: Well, I grew up in a village near of Offenburg in Germany. It is called Urloffen. It is located in the southwest of Germany, a very warm area. We have had a house and a great garden. My two brothers and I, we were very often playing together with friends. Behind our house was a big playground for childs.
My grandparents lived also in this village. I often met them. Then I often sat down before the fire of the kitchen, pulled in some little pieces of wood. I have liked to look intensively on the fire. I also was used to walk around the garden of my grandparents, there were many interesting things to explore.
Sometimes I built a small gun with an elastic band and some nails together with a piece of wood. Then I stood before the house shooting small stones across it. At that time I may have been 8-9 years old.
I also am used to play fluite at that time. I got some lessons by a teacher who played in Strasbourg in France at an orchestra. He was very good. He let me sing the melodies, and later I had to play them with the fluite. I learned much from him, especially how to learn something about your own abilities.
With 10 years I stopped with these lessons.
In 1985, I was 10 years old at that time, my mother and my father got divorced. My brothers, my mother and me, we lived from now on in Offenburg, a small town with about 50000 habitants about 10 kilometres away from Urloffen.
I went to a German called Gymnasium, something like a grammar school in English I think. There I learned speaking and writing on English, Latin and French.
With 16 years I went of this school without a examen. I have had a troubled youth. I was homeless for 5 or 6 month. My girlfriend was pregnant at that time. It was not very easy to manage all things as they should have been managed. We left another, she become mother later and the child grew well. It is a daughter. She is now 24 years old and is studying in a town near to Stuttgart.
I went home after being homeless, did what I had to do to reintegrate me. This were some hard years for me.
With 21 years I was apprentice at a producer of furnitures at Albbruck near to the Suisse. They built chairs. I became a toolmaker.
Later I studied mechanical engineering, back in Offenburg again. I got very good grades. After 3 years of studying I have had no more money left. So I had to cut the studies, altough my grades were good.
After that experience I thought that it is not necessary to do, what everybody does. I worked in a childhood later, for 5 years. In 2014 I started a trainee in sales. I would like to become a salesman now. In two or three month I will have finished it and than it will probably be more easy to find a work for me.
I am used to paint, to write and to play some kind of music since i know me. I am painting a lot. My pictures could be found at flickr.
My decision to be an artist has grown, when i saw that it is very hard to be engaged in every job. Nobody has got an easy way of working. So I thought that it is no matter if I will become an artist or an toolmaker or an salesman. Every kind of work should be down very patient.
I am able to sit me down in front of my computer and write for 8 – 10 hours a day on my wikis. That makes no bigger problem to me. Sometimes I only work for 6 hours a day, but then I am painting something or doing some music stuff. So my working week has its 10 hours a day for seven days a week. But I do my breaks regularly. I meet with friends daily for a cup of coffee or tea.
I have done this kind of work since 2006. Much appearance in the web is grown in that time. I have posted over 1000 pics, 20 wikis with poems, lyrics, aphorisms, et cetera.
I am an unknown artist with more than 500000 hits at google plus. That may be not very much, but I am posting mostly selfmade things there. And I failed tagging for the most of the posts.
My wikis got traffic of 5000 hits per one in the last year. Thats very much, I think. There are only self written words of mine to be found. It is not easy to find my content in the web.
I am glad to be able to proceed with this.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Mathias Schneider: My nickname in the web is Brangassivo. It is a self constructed name made out of two words. One is Sivo, a form of the name of the Hindu god Shiva, who is often used for names there. Bran is a melodic variation of Prana, a kind of subtle energy. Brangassivo is built to form a name of both words. It should mean prana of Shiva or breath of Shiva. Sorry to every Hindu for this. I never wanted to do something unholy by chosing these two words for my name.
My inspiration for that name came from my yoga lessons, which i do for my own. I have read many books about ancient cultures, and they excite me.
Other nicknames are Totans Revenge, Beggar’s Stone, Low Frequency RISC Tanzputer, Chiffer Bones and Beggar or Beg.
Totans Revenge is a kind of fun to me. I am used to do some revenge on earlier lessons in German language by singing songs in German. Nobody should think that there is anything else behind it. I am singing spontaneous lyrics. My teacher would be very surprised, i think, because I have had bad marks in German lessons at the Gymnasium.
Beggar’s Stone is the name for my newer instrumental guitar music. Sometimes it is played together with friends. The Stone of Beggar, of me, is a piece of stone that could be thrown to make some attention.
Low Frequency RISC Tanzputer is a modulated word made out of three pieces. Low Frequency is a kind of meditation on natural harmonics. RISC is a kind of processor in computers. It has minimalized functions. (Reduced Information System Code = RISC). Tanzputer is made of Transputer and ‘Tanz’, the German word for dancing.
Chiffer Bones are older guitar themes of mine. Chiffer comes from chiffre or letter, bones are the bones of my hands. I am used to recognize my hands very intensively. A kind of letters or syllables are apearing sometimes within the sensual feeling of my hands. Than I amplify these letters or syllables. In that way I have played the guitar. I think nobody will understand this easily. Sorry for that. It’s kind of synaesthesia.
Beggar is a transliteration of the German word Bäcker. That means baker. Both are not the same, I know. But my families name in the village, were I grew up was Herrenbeck. Beck is similar to Bäcker, Bäcker sounds like Beggar.
Beg is short for Beggar
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Mathias Schneider: Music sharing is a fine way to reduce costs as a musician. Without a need of big amounts of money I am able to produce some music. I give it away for free, because people should be able to listen to it. I have got the possibility to do the music I like to do.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Mathias Schneider: I for myself am a start-up till today. I think it is very important to have fun with the own work, to play the music as it is. I am no one who enjoys it not to listen to well produced music, but I think some records should again be produced in that way like music appears for real. It is possible for a trained musician to play songs spontaneously. The more you are doing it, the faster your abilities as a musician will grow.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Mathias Schneider: I am used to play together with friends. I listen to the guitar, feel the sense of the moment and sing my lyrics. Later I write them down.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Mathias Schneider: My band website is http://totans-revenge.blogspot.de/, I only write a little there. Platforms for music are archive.org, lastfm, bandcamp, soundcloud, mixcloud. My website as an artist is https://sites.google.com/site/brangassivo/ . It could be easily found if you write the word ‘brangassivo’ in your search engine.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Mathias Schneider: That’s a lot of money. I don’t know what to do with such a vast amount of money. I for myself need not more than 10000 $ a year to live well. I have got everything I want. My life is interesting, and I enjoy working on my own products.
If I would have such a big amount of money I would buy me a small house, an old car, some vinyl records, but not to much, and the rest of the money I will give back or put it in future projects.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Mathias Schneider: I am doing some adds with adwords by google.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Mathias Schneider: Painting a lot, writing again and again, some new works will appear regularly. May be I will take part at a contest as a painter in Luxembourg. That seems to be possible for me.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Mathias Schneider: I am listening to music very often. While I do this I am painting and writing a lot. Besides this I am an apprentice. I make a training as a salesman. I meet also friends and I collect some stamps.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Mathias Schneider: That’s not so easy. I am working hard but earning less money than most people here in Germany. Living alone is a good way to manage that. No woman has to regret, that I earn so few with my works. So I don’t have to regret to be an artist. My life is hard, but fine.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Mathias Schneider: What fans do you mean? All three of them? — Sorry, don’t know what future will bring. I will go on working with all these matters for sure. Greetings to all listeners and viewers.