Samsas Traum interview: Alexander Kaschte on ‘Vota Tenebris I’, fan requests and artistic control

For nearly three decades, Alexander Kaschte has made Samsas Traum one of the German dark scene’s least containable projects: a body of work that repeatedly changes its musical language without surrendering its obsessive internal logic. “Vota Tenebris I” introduces an unusual reversal. Its starting points came from the listeners, yet the resulting album remains governed by Kaschte’s uncompromising authorship. In this extensive conversation, he discusses fan requests, artistic dominance, the burden of being permanently interpreted through one’s past, the emotional violence behind SAMSAS TRAUM’s darkness, the exhaustion of provocation, and the uneasy relationship between artistic integrity and control. His answers are characteristically direct; sometimes funny, sometimes abrasive, occasionally chilling, but never evasive.

Samsas Traum interview

Karo: Samsas Traum has never felt like a project interested in fitting neatly into one scene, genre, or audience expectation. At different moments, it has seemed to seduce a scene, attack it, mock it, outgrow it, and then return to it from a different angle. After nearly three decades, do you still need friction with the outside world in order to create, or has opposition itself become too predictable?

Alex: That’s a good question. Generally speaking – with a few exceptions, most notably my comic TEARS OF BLOOD, which satirizes the German Gothic scene – I have never set out to provoke or be confrontational. By nature, I am a very friendly and peaceable person, though I severely lack social skills; and the presence of people who do not obviously submit makes me aggressive. The outside world has never really interested me and was completely irrelevant to my artistic decisions – especially for an album like VOTA TENEBRIS I, which is based entirely on fans’ wishes.

Karo: “Vota Tenebris I” is connected to fan requests, which is an interesting idea for an artist often associated with strong authorial control. When listeners give you a starting point, do they genuinely enter the creative process, or do they simply provide raw material that you then reshape until it belongs to your own system of thought?

Alex: In the case of VOTA TENEBRIS, fan suggestions focused primarily on the musical history of SAMSAS TRAUM; for instance, I received requests like, “Why not write another song like ‘Blut ist in der Waschmuschel’?” Other fans offered ideas regarding content – one person, for example, wanted a song that took the current political situation in my supposed home country, Germany, to task. I wouldn’t have been capable of actual collaboration with fans; I am not cut out for artistic equality. I either deliver total musical dominance or total submission in the service of a project – a mix of the two rarely yields good results.

Karo: The name Samsas Traum still carries Kafka in it, and Kafka’s Gregor Samsa is not only transformed; he is interpreted, judged, reduced, and made unbearable by the people around him. Has the experience of being misread, projected onto, or simplified by others become part of the project’s identity over the years?

Alex: Unfortunately, yes – and it doesn’t just bother me a great deal; it’s also particularly evident with the current album, VOTA TENEBRIS I. It isn’t performing very well on streaming platforms right now, and it apparently lacks the pulling power to propel the band into more successful territory. The German Gothic scene, in particular, is an environment that stifles one’s career – a place where people hold grudges forever over things like an album featuring spoken-word vocals about child euthanasia, a confrontation on Facebook back in 2013, or acting like an asshole in an interview in 1999. I’m a completely different person today than I was 30, 20, or even 10 years ago, but people only ever see what they want to see in you. It’s probably just part of the job.

Karo: Your work often uses theatricality, pathos, violence, literary references, grotesque images, and emotional extremity, yet the best moments avoid becoming decorative darkness. How do you recognise the point where intensity still serves truth, and where it begins to collapse into self-parody?

Alex: Thank you so much for such a wonderful compliment; your words mean a lot to me – especially since I love kitsch myself and am therefore prone to stumbling artistically into the trap of over-sentimentality. In the past, I let myself be guided entirely by my feelings and poured out my emotions unfiltered; today, I try to leave some room for the listener’s own interpretation. I suppose I simply know myself better now and can express myself more effectively. Unfortunately, I am highly sensitive and – much to my own distress – perceive a great deal (visually, aurally, and emotionally); perhaps that is why I have a knack for the varying degrees of intensity found in different words.

Karo: Many artists use darkness as atmosphere. In Samsas Traum, darkness often feels more like a test of perception: what a person is willing to admit, where tenderness turns into cruelty, where beauty becomes suspicious, where love begins to resemble possession. Do you see darkness as an aesthetic field, or as a method of moral interrogation?

Alex: Oh, there are certainly moments where I’ve drawn on good old Gothic horror clichés, but fundamentally, darkness in the SAMSAS TRAUM cosmos signifies emotional violence, emotional rape, and emotional sadism. I grew up in a world where parents beat their children, classmates weren’t respectful or kind, and teachers would hurl heavy bunches of keys at you – that likely left its mark. My father – with whom I have a good relationship again today – wasn’t exactly the kindest person during my childhood either; I was frequently humiliated and belittled, which is why I developed violent fantasies of omnipotence at an early age. It took me decades to heal myself through art – a process I wouldn’t wish on any child.

Karo: Across your discography, Samsas Traum has moved through black metal, gothic theatre, industrial harshness, acoustic vulnerability, orchestral drama, fairy-tale structures, and almost narrative forms of songwriting. Do these shifts represent different artistic phases, or are they different masks for the same core wound?

Alex: I’ve commented on this subject several times elsewhere, and the answer is shockingly rational: I’ve always viewed myself more as a composer and producer than as an artist, and I simply have an interest in the production methods of various musical styles. In other words: I’m interested in systems and patterns. Of course, personal tastes and inclinations played a role too, but that explains why there are so many stylistically diverse SAMSAS TRAUM albums. Now that I’ve let off steam in various musical playgrounds, I’ve realized what I do best within the SAMSAS TRAUM universe – and I could actually pick up right there – but I won’t, because the German Gothic scene isn’t even dying anymore; it’s already dead. Tragic, but… probably good for me. I’m currently pitching a few albums to K-pop bands; maybe they’ll use some of the songs.

Karo: Your lyrics often refuse emotional politeness. They can be direct, offensive, wounded, intelligent, grotesque, romantic, and cruel within the same universe. Do you write from the belief that human beings are contradictory by nature, or do you use contradiction as a way of protecting the work from easy interpretation?

Alex: The only sensible answer I can give to this question is that I am probably a contradictory person. I mean everything I write and sing, and I feel that it all makes sense and fits together. I haven’t shielded myself from valid interpretations with vague language for decades, so I am probably… crazy.

Karo: Provocation has become a very cheap currency in contemporary culture, because outrage is now almost automated. What still makes provocation artistically valid for you? Does it need wit, consequence, risk, precision, or simply the courage to be disliked for the right reasons?

Alex: Well, I see things differently there. I think the scope for provocation has largely been exhausted – German rap, TikTok, and Telegram have done an astonishing job among youth internationally; the juvenile, crude lyrics heard at festivals like Mera Luna impress, at most, people over 50; and nobody cares about the messages put out by guys like Till Lindemann or Marilyn Manson anymore. Back in my childhood, you could still cause a stir with arson, but even that is a thing of the past. To be truly provocative nowadays, one would have to commit acts that are criminally punishable and venture into the realm of absolute bad taste and depravity. Several things come to mind right away that I’d like to do, but then my family and I would need police protection in Germany – and that’s not the kind of life I want.

Karo: Samsas Traum has always had a complicated relationship with its audience: loyalty, intensity, expectation, devotion, resistance, misunderstanding. Do you feel any responsibility for what listeners take from your work, or does the song become their problem once it leaves your hands?

Alex: I have held the same position on this for decades: Can you hold a lighter manufacturer responsible if someone uses their product to set fire to someone else’s house instead of lighting a campfire or a cigarette? Probably not. Can you hold a weapons manufacturer responsible if their products are used to raze entire nations to the ground? You probably can. Can a songwriter be held accountable if a listener – inspired by a song – goes out and shoots people? Ask yourself how big a difference there is, in your opinion, between a manufacturer of tanks, for example, and a songwriter, and you have my answer.

Karo: You are often described as difficult, uncompromising, or demanding, but those words can become lazy shortcuts. Anyone can reject compromise; far fewer people can build something coherent out of refusal. What is the difference, for you, between artistic integrity and the mere pleasure of control?

Alex: The world is full of people who make music but aren’t true artists. I am – if I am anything at all – first and foremost a true artist. For me, everything is in the service of art, including control.

Karo: The title “Vota Tenebris I” already suggests a larger structure, perhaps even a sequence. Does the “I” mean that this album is only the first visible part of a larger conceptual body, or is it also a way of refusing the comfort of closure?

Alex: We’ve accepted 25 requests from our fans, so there will be a second VOTA TENEBRIS album and, very likely, an accompanying EP. The entire album is a highly complex undertaking; a few tracks have turned out longer than expected. I am completely unpredictable – even to myself.

Karo: The album includes pieces with very blunt titles next to titles that seem more mythic, literary, or symbolic. How important is that collision between the vulgar and the elevated in Samsas Traum? Is it a way of preventing beauty from becoming too clean?

Alex: Well, I’ve simply never shied away from exploring various aspects of the human experience in my music – after all, I don’t sit around all day spouting nothing but profound insights. So, it wasn’t a problem for me to take on widely different fan requests for VOTA TENEBRIS: one song might be about a tragic figure akin to Captain Ahab, while another celebrates the friendship between two girls who used to drink hard and rock out together, and who would find life without each other poorer and utterly shitty. Life is, after all, a multidimensional rollercoaster ride.

Karo: You have often built worlds rather than simple collections of songs. But every world can become a prison if people begin to expect the same architecture from it. What part of Samsas Traum must still remain unstable, even for you, so the project does not become its own museum?

Alex: I think that stability is less important here than intelligence, authenticity, and the ability to emotionally connect with the audience. Furthermore, the material I’ve developed with DIE LIEBE GOTTES, TINEOIDEA, and A.URA is anything but ready for a museum; these worlds offer enough material for at least three more albums each without ever coming close to becoming boring. It’s just a shame for people that it’s no longer 2005 and my job pays extremely poorly these days, so… the world is probably just out of luck here.

Karo: In an era when many artists simplify themselves for faster consumption, your work still expects the listener to deal with language, references, emotional density, long histories, and uncomfortable theatricality. Do you see difficulty as a form of respect toward the audience, or as a necessary filter?

Alex: I am unable to lower my level of education for the sake of entertaining others. It’s as simple as that.

Karo: Looking back from the early material to “Vota Tenebris I”, what has actually survived most stubbornly: the anger, the romanticism, the sarcasm, the hunger for beauty, the refusal to belong, or something more private that listeners may have sensed but never named correctly?

Alex: You should know that if there were a button that would allow me to kill everyone except my own family, I would very much like to be the person who pressed it.

Karo: If “Vota Tenebris I” began partly with what listeners asked of you, what would you ask of them in return: patience, intelligence, contradiction, surrender, or the willingness to stop treating music as something that should immediately make itself comfortable?

Alex: I would like to ask my listeners for something very modest and simple: to share my music with others and explain to them what it is about it that fascinates them. We used to make mixtapes for each other, burn CDs, and listen to new records together – but as we’ve gotten older and become more isolated, all of that has faded into the background. Thank you for your effort and support!

About Samsas Traum

Samsas Traum began in Marburg, Hessen, Germany, in 1996, when Alexander Kaschte released his first solo demo tape. Three years later the project expanded into a trio for its official debut, “Die Liebe Gottes – Eine märchenhafte Black Metal Operette,” released via Trinity in 1999. The album divided listeners on arrival, and Kaschte followed it with the more polished, choir-driven “Oh Luna Mein” in 2000, the album that began his long-running relationship with Trisol Music Group. Around the same period, Kaschte created the darker, noise-based alter ego Weena Morloch, built on horror-film samples. The band’s name is drawn from Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.”

Samsas Traum’s sound mixes gothic metal, symphonic metal, industrial metal and black metal, delivered across concept-driven albums such as “Utopia” (2001), “Tineoidea oder: Die Folgen einer Nacht” (2003), “a.Ura und das Schnecken.Haus” (2004), the paired “Heiliges Herz – Das Schwert Deiner Sonne” and “Wenn schwarzer Regen” (2007), “Vernunft ist nichts – Gefühl ist alles” (2010), “Anleitung zum Totsein” (2011), “Asen’ka” (2012), “Niemand, niemand anderem als dir” (2013), “Poesie: Friedrichs Geschichte” (2015) and “Scheiden tut weh” (2018). The current line-up is Kaschte on vocals and programming alongside drummer Michael “Cain” Beck.

“Vota Tenebris I,” the band’s fourteenth studio album, was written and produced by Kaschte, mixed by Scott Atkins (Cradle of Filth) and mastered at Abbey Road Studios by Alex Wharton (Bring Me the Horizon, Bullet for My Valentine). Its eleven tracks were built from fan-submitted song requests, and Kaschte has confirmed a second “Vota Tenebris” album, along with a likely accompanying EP, is already in progress from the requests the band did not use.