Martin Schmidt

The main thing over here is, we have big media problems. People that do weirder kind of music, jazz, fusion or blues, there is not a big radio market for it, like there is in other countries. As a result of that, people don¥t get to hear the music and they don¥t show up at the gigs.

I just wanted to explore a mellower kind of psychedelic thing on the last record. There¥s some great stuff on it. It got really great reviews in the United States, all over the place. But the record company actually fell apart and now it¥s not even available.

I run my business, do my own booking, I do everything! We don`t have no managers, no agents, none of that. That`s what I tell these kids now. You`re better off making your own record, selling it at your own place and owning the rights to your own records.

There`s very few radio stations who play surf, rockabilly or blues, together with current folk or roots music. It`s always Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera or the Backstreet Boys. I just wish that the kids coming up would have a choice to be able to hear everything on the radio and be exposed to that stuff.

Instrumental music kind of reminds me of little orchestra or classical pieces, because there`s so much information going on. It`s a challenge to do, it`s really hard to do that stuff.

I started to get calls from different record labels, they had interest in me, but at the end of the day the didn`t know what to do with me, because it`s not really jazz, although it`s jazzy, it`s not really blues, but bluesy.

I`m more interested in songs than in players. I love the last Coldplay album, because there`s great melody. There`s new guys like Derek Trucks and Joe Bonamassa, who really play well and say something emotional.

There was no internet when I started and file sharing has been the most destructive force to the music business and it`s been the most positive force in a fan`s world.