An interview with Susi, the bass player of German noise rock trio, Don Vito about music, travelling and friendship

What was the music milieu like around you  in Leipzig when you grew up? Who made the most significant impression on you in this period?

Well, we live in Leipzig since 2001. We all grew up in different cities around Magdeburg, a city 140 km north of Leipzig. That’s why it’s a bit hard to answer your question. Our guitar player used to listen to Hardcore when he was young, the drummer was a pure Punk and my own taste was chameleonic. During these years there were so many things, who influenced us, not only the music we liked/like and the bands we’ve in before, also the life itself, books, political circumstances, weather, family, friends, world… But I think the Fall of the Wall was the most significant impression in our youth.

How your music taste was being shaped by each other during the years?

As we know each other for decades it was a natural growing process. Someone came up with something new, the other liked it (or not) from the first moment, later or never ;). When you have 3 open-minded persons with different tastes of music, the individual taste grows a lot.

What are you thinking about the music life of Leipzig in nowadays? Are there more gripping bands than aforetime? Do you have any favourite bands from there?

The music life is good! You have a wide choice of concerts you can go. Lot’s of great bands play here. There are well known venues and promoters with a really good taste of music 😉 Favourite bands from Leipzig – ähm, no.

What are you thinking about your generation or the younger generation’s taste/interest of music?

I think the taste of music is a really subjective affair. We know teenagers with unbelievable large-minded, widespread taste and we know people in the 40s who are completely intolerant, single-lined and early senile. It depends from so many things…

I checked that you had a tour in April-May, started from France visited a lot of places, after that in summer you landed in China. What was the most memorable moments or most bizarre gigs from these?

The tour in spring we did with Daikiri. We toured France, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. So good to be on the road with friends and share all the great moments together. That tour was special, because every single concert we’ve played was just amazing. We’ve never had such perfect 4 weeks like these. In June we’ve spent 2 weeks in China and played 5 concerts. It was like band holidays. Much more comfortable like the China Tour we did in 2009. For example we had the honour to play in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They told us we were the first western rock band who played there ever and the first rock band at all since 15 years. We met very interesting musicians (from the Kazakh Minority) and lots of very kind people. The audience there was also different, they were so excited and totally happy. The last show was at the West Lake Music Festival in Hangzhou, we’ve never played on a huge stage like this. Incredible. There where hundreds of people enjoying – it was just huge. It was the first time since long that we became stage-fright. In the end we had an 1 hour long autograph and photograph session, it felt a bit weird.

 The bands for tonight: Don Vito, Mamer and Zhang Dong of ZI and in the front master Bailihan Haliakebaier and his son. They are nomads of the Kazach minority and they’re playing the „sebezge”, a special flute. Also in the picture is Afei from Shenzhen (just a 7 hours flight away) and the boss of „lie nong”(John Lemmon Bar)…  (pic + text: Don Vito Facebook)

When this beautiful friendship was started with the band Daikiri?

Daikiri is a really new band. They exist since 2012. We’ve met them the first time in spring 2013. But the bass player from Daikiri is also playing in the great Le Singe Blanc and we know each other since 2006. They organized concerts for us and we for them. We did 4 European Tours and a 1 month tour in China together. Once we played in their video, we spent days together in vacations, help each other with organizing concerts, give each other our sofas during travel – true friends. With the drummer from Daikiri we spent a long weekend in July on the road in France – the beginning of a wonderful friendship 😉

You are before a wonderful Eastern European tour. Have you ever spend a longer period in one of those countries? How much do you know about the music sphere of this area? Do you have any special favourite from here, what would you like to introduce to the world?

This East Europe tour will be our third. So we’ve been in most of the cities we will cross before, but it is a huge different to be at a place as musician or as „normal” tourist. I stayed longer in Istanbul, Slovenia and our Guitar player spent his summer holidays in Albania. Unfortunately we haven’t played a lot with local bands, because we’ve been touring with other bands all the time. We know that there are lots of punk, hardcore and metal bands which are also known in Western Europe. So far we couldn’t feel the specialties of the southeast music sphere. Bring mixtapes to our shows!!! Our favourite band from the southeast is Haossaa from Turkey. Great guys! We toured with them in 2011 in Germany. Can’t wait to meet them again…

DON VITO + DAIKIRI SOUTH-EAST EURO TOUR OCT 3- 24
CZECH, HUNGARY, ROMANIA, BULGARIA, TURKEY, GREECE, MACEDONIA, SERBIA, CROATIA, SLOVENIA, AUSTRIA

BUDAPEST AT MÜSZI ON OCT 4. ALL INFO