Trupa Trupa are an art rock band from Gdansk/Danzig. Fusing elements of post-hardcore, no-wave and psychedelia, the four-piece exude a restless energy in their music reminiscent of Fugazi’s uncompromising punk ethos. The band around the poet Grzegorz Kwiatkowski weaves absurd lyrics with liquefying guitar riffs, edgy bass lines and concise drums. Repetition plays a key role in their work, as evidenced by their playful band name, which roughly translates to a troupe of corpses. Shortly after the Germany tour, we arranged to meet the poet Grzegorz Kwiatkowski via Zoom to talk about his poetry, his music and the pessimism in the world.
WELT: They are poets and musicians from the city of Gdańsk, the birthplace of the Solidarity movement. They write little stories in their little poetic works. Is this band your own project?
Kwiatkowski: It’s not a writer’s project. It’s a band. We have a democratic structure. We have no leader. No lead singer. Everything we write and compose, we coordinate with each other.
WELT: What is the difference between poetry and music?
Kwiatkowski: When I was younger, I wanted to separate these two worlds. I wanted to separate my poetry from music because I didn’t want to go into the band with my writing, because I didn’t want to expose my ego. But after many years I found something very simple: Poetry is always music. Every poet and writer is a musician. And I can’t pretend I’m not a poet, I can just be myself. So, even if I don’t want to radiate my poetry onto the band, I do. Everyone has their own aura and that is my spiritual aura. The point is that my poetry focuses on genocide, human rights and ethics, and Trupa Trupa is a psychedelic band that champions individuality, and so we don’t have a monolithic vision, and there’s a space for me as well.
WELT: They say they write little poems about genocide and human rights. How does that fit together?
Kwiatkowski: My grandfather was a prisoner in the Stutthof concentration camp. When I was a kid, he took me to the Concentration Camps Museum, and it was his first time there after World War II. I saw a person who was devastated. For me it was one of the most honest and shocking things in my life. And all the things that I was going through in that moment, I’ve incorporated into my art, which focuses on the genocide and the human rights part. That’s why 25 percent influence on my band is always pessimistic because I focus on the story.
WELT: Are you always pessimistic?
Kwiatkowski: On the other hand, the story is not only pessimistic when you see the destroyed communist regime in Central Europe. There are two sides fighting within me: one is a more pessimistic, devastating side, shaped by the injustice of the story and the lack of morality. But on the other hand I have a kind of optimism in me and I have my own will to “good power”. And I think we need more exposure to the dark arts to face our murderous potential. And this negative potential is present almost everywhere.
WELT: Even the name of their band sounds pessimistic. Trupa Trupa means “corpse, corpse”. What do you mean by murderous potential?
Kwiatkowski: Almost everyone has a creator and a killer within them. If we face this dark knowledge, we can become better people. This is the meaning of my poetry. I believe that we must write against the crimes that are happening in this world. With poetry, with music and with art. But I can’t say that this is the purpose of the band Trupa Trupa. There are many interpretations. My friends say they have other ideas and they are open to many ideas and they are right about that.
WELT: So we should use art to counter the dark nature within us…
Kwiatkowski: We are still human. Unfortunately, we still have the potential to kill each other. Art can help to understand our nature, our human nature. I try to do this kind of stuff. I’m not saying that it will succeed today. I just want to say that my family history was a dark one. The lessons of this family history are that I want to spread something about human nature. If we do that, we can avoid major tragedies, not all, but some for sure.
WELT: Do you feel like history is repeating itself?
Kwiatkowski: Yes absolutely. Tragedy surrounds us everywhere. But the camera’s eye can’t be everywhere either. We had big wars in Syria, in Africa and in Chechnya. But we didn’t care. And on the other hand, we also have to be very thankful because we are living in the best of times. You know, when we can communicate, we have a lot of opportunities to spread the word. Of course we can spread the word of hate, but we can also spread the good things.
WELT: They say “spreading good” is their mission. Is that also the mission of Trupa Trupa?
Kwiatkowski: My friends don’t touch the field of politics. My friends don’t make statements. My friends don’t believe in politicians. Neither do I, by the way. I don’t believe in their cynical games. And I don’t want to be part of their cynical games. Trupa Trupa has a lot of meanings. The band is open to interpretation and my friends gave me the green light to do an interview to talk about my interpretation of this band, about my life as a poet. I mean, this band is a very weird post-rock band.
Grzegorz Kwiatkowski: “We never forget”
Quelle: Tomasz Pawluczuk
WELT: But you do have political and historical songs like “Never Forget,” which deals with the tragedy of the Holocaust.
Kwiatkowski: The song goes: “We never forget, we never forget the humiliation / we never forget, we never forget the ghetto dead / they sound like a midnight choir”. But the song still remains open in interpretation: it can be ghettos during the Second World War, but it can also be a song about modern city ghettos. That is what is special about us: we give the reader and the listener a lot of space. The listener can decide what is optimistic or pessimistic, good or bad. And in a way we give the listeners a personal responsibility. The listener is responsible for their interpretation of these historical facts.
WELT: Democracy is often a question of perspective: socialists also see themselves as democrats. So what is democracy from your band’s perspective? You say your band is a democratic band? What does the word “democracy” mean to you?
Kwiatkowski: There is no democratic structure in art. 99 percent of artists and bands don’t have democracy and they all tell me I’m crazy and we’re crazy because it’s impossible and they’re right. Because we fight. We vote on everything. We discuss every note. It’s very frustrating. It is very hard. But it also teaches you to respect other people. That makes us special because our music is kind of a disruption in the music scene. It’s like a bug in the system. You can hear that this music is broken in some way. It’s something in our music.
WELT: The listeners in Germany who are at your concert for the first time. What do they need to understand about your music besides your democratic structure?
Kwiatkowski: The point, of course, is that it’s a psychedelic guitar band. It’s a punk band. We’re like the broken post-punk Beatles or the broken post-punk Beach Boys. On the one hand full of melodies, on the other hand it’s full of noises and a lot of sounds. And sometimes she is very aggressive and loud. Sometimes it’s like a big romantic meadow.
WELT: We talked a lot about wars, tragedies and Ukraine. Is there a happy ending in music and art after all the tragedies in the world?
Kwiatkowski: The “happy end” is communication. I’m happy that I can speak. The worst is when we become isolated and alone. We have to find a way through communication, even if my counterpart is a supporter of Trump. We need to talk to each other. we must dream There were people who dreamed of the collapse of communism in the 1980s. And in a way they were crazy because it was unimaginable at the time. But I believe that we can change something through dreams.