Hello Copernicus, even if you are a recording artist for many years, you are hardly known in Germany. Could you tell our readers a little about you and your career?

Copernicus: I can show you a press kit of major German press showing you that I have performed all over Germany as a solo artist and also with musicians. Unfortunately, time goes by very quickly and people forget. I have performed in Hamburg, Hannover, Koln, East Berlin when it was East Berlin, West Berlin about 10 times, 9 concerts in East Germany from Cottbus to Leipzig to Potsdam to Dresden. I have not been back to Germany in 15 years so people forget you. I am an artist and I do not have a career. I just do and go where my heart tells me to go, but there was a time when I was well known in Germany and highly appreciated. I have performed in Popkomm and Bid. Soon, we will be releasing an album completely in the German language.

I have a very special relationship with Germany that goes back to1961 when I was doing bauwerk on a school in Hannover and I wrote my first book, “The Moments We Are Alive” which was never published about Hannover. I actually did a reading from the book in a club in Hannover. Someday this novel written in 1961 which deals with the mentality and locations of 1961, places that probably you cannot find any longer in Hannover. I also did bauwerk on the train control station at the rear of the HauptBanhof of Munchen.

I have sold many thousands of records in Germany, but I must admit time goes by quickly and I have not been back to Germany for too long.

How would you describe yourself? Poet, philosopher, musician or entertainer?

Copernicus: I am a philosopher who uses poetical lyrics and music to share my ideas with the people.

Did you study philosophy or anything similar in an academic sense? Which are your lyrical/philosophical influences?

Copernicus: My major in the University was history. The philosophy comes in when I lost my Roman Catholic religion and lived 15 years with no explanation of anything until I read in a book about 50 years ago that all matter was made of spinning atoms including my body. That new found awareness and the conclusions that are drawn from that physical fact have set me on a philosophical road of making philosophical conclusions that eventually lead to the main theme of my ideas which is that nothing exists.

I am not someone who is influenced that much by humans though I have been impressed by Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein, Galileo, Jesus, Buddha, Dylan Thomas, Ghandi, Mandela, Martin Luther King, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Renoir, Rembrandt, Alexander the Great, Ramses II, Plato, Aristotle, Archimides, and a couple others that I cannot think of right now.

Your lyrics/philosophy changed during your career from simply being angry at the society to an inner isolation and hopelessness and a call for Revolution. Could you tell us more about this process and your philosophical background (e.g. your philosophy of the phenomenon of atoms)?

Copernicus: I was angry at God for not giving me Absolute Truth when I was born. That should be part of the deal. You make me and you give me Absolute Truth so I do not have to run around like an ignoramus trying to figure everything out.

I was angry at my society for telling me a bunch of bull about this guy Jesus who was born of a virgin, walked on water, committed suicide by Jewish priest, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and had me believe in this stuff for the first 19 years of my life.

I do not think that I have ever been hopeless. In fact, hope for a new day is something that I have never lost and I hope that I never lose hope for a better day. Finding the spinning atom changed my life. If I had been hopeless, I would have never been looking for the atom and I would have never found the spinning atom. I just would have gotten drunk and stayed drunk and hopeless a very unmanly position a very weakling position.

The spinning atom leads to nothing exists because if everything is made of spinning atoms with eternal energy then, there can never be anything that the human senses can perceive or what the human senses perceive, is only illusion. Reality is in the subatomic. If I call myself Copernicus and a moment later call myself Copernicus again, I am either ignorant of subatomic motion or I am lying. Nothing can stay the same from one moment to the next. In fact, nothing can ever be anything simply because it is changing so quickly. The quantum world is functioning and just because you direct your human senses to something and think you perceive something does not mean that you perceive reality. You perceive the illusion that is brought to your feeble senses. Your bare human senses cannot perceive reality though humanity has endured for millions of years as if all that its senses perceived was reality. And unfortunately, even today with so much knowledge known regarding the atom, most of humanity are living according to the perceptions of the bare senses and calling what these senses perceive as reality. This is my main function. It is to help humanity and myself break away from the hypnosis of the perceptions of the bare senses and move into the subatomic and live by the dictates of the subatomic. I am now working on a book that attempts to apply the knowledge of the subatomic to daily human living. I am dealing with a theme that will apply the laws of the subatomic to a global government.

You were once Roman Catholic. Today, it seems, there is nothing left of this period in your life. What was the reason to change your point of view?

Copernicus: I was never a Roman Catholic. Roman Catholicism was a myth that had been forced on me by my family, my teachers, and the little circle of tailless chimps that comprised my little world. When I was intellectually able to defend myself and think for myself and learn about the negative historical horrendous role that the Catholic Church has played in the history of the entire planet for the last two thousand years, I became very angry. It is time for this organization to pay taxes on everything that they own. They took a myth that they did not even believe in themselves and imposed it by violence on illiterate people and then charged the people fees so that they could live the good life throughout the ages. They have overplayed their hand and our now falling apart in a more literate world though they still have a great deal of illiterate people around on which to play their fraudulent game.

Are you simply against the Catholic Church or against any kind of religion?

Copernicus: I have never said that my ideas are Absolute Truth which means that everything that I say may be wrong. Everybody has the right to think whatever they wish to think in whatever organization they wish to participate, as long as they pay taxes. All religions should pay taxes and not be treated specially in any society. I do not know if churches pay taxes in Germany, but I think not. Churches are businesses selling a special interpretation of the Truth and if they cannot prove in a court of law that their product is true as they present it, they should be punished civilly and criminally as any society would punish any fraud. They should not be given special treatment. I am not against Churches. I just want them to pay taxes. Everybody has a right to believe in whatever they want to believe.

Since your first record ‘Nothing Exists’ (back in 1985) you work with such brilliant musicians like Larry Kirwan, Pierce Turner, Mike Fazio or Thomas Hamlin. How do you compose the music? Is there the music first or the lyrics? Could you tell us more about the creative process?

Copernicus: The music and lyrics are created together spontaneously at the very same moment. If in Nothing Exists you find a piece that is five minutes long, that means that the entire piece, its music and lyrics, were created in five minutes, no more and no less. Of course there is post production choosing and mixing which takes a lot more time.

You have your own record company – Nevermore, Inc. Is it important for you to be an independent artist? What is your experience with the music industry?

Copernicus: When I analyzed the history of past artists, I found that they could all be found in two categories. 1. These were the artists who had a patron. Some rich guy paid them to do his bidding like Michaelangelo and the Medici family. 2. This was the artist who suffered in poverty for his art. The principle example is Van Gogh who finally committed suicide.

In deciding to become an artist, someone who had a vision and who wanted to share that vision with the human world, I rejected the first road of the patron as ridiculous and I rejected the second road of the poor starving artist as unnecessary. How could you create properly if you were not living in a healthy way? Buddha found that out because in his time it was fashionable to starve yourself in order to be closer to God. He rejected suffering. However, I found a third road which was the road of creating your own wealth and using that wealth to create your own art. On this road, there was no one telling you what to do and instead of suffering for your art, your art became a treasure of discovery and sharing with the rest of humanity. Of course, there was always the danger that acquired wealth could cause you to lose your way cause you to sell out to materialism. I have been very conscious of selling out to materialism and I would consider it treason to myself and to humanity if I put money before Truth.

Consequently, I made some money and established my own record company and created my own art. My art has never had the burden of having to produce money. My art had only the burden to tell the Truth as I see it and share it with the world.

The music industry is there to make money from music. I have reached out to them over the years because they had the power of distribution and material support, but thankfully they never accepted my hand or my music. I had my own money and did not need them. I can only produce what I do. If the public does not like it, I do not care. I do not create art for an audience or a public. I just allow the public to witness the creation, but there is nothing in my work that tries to make the public feel good. I am not Dr. Feelgood. In fact, Pierce Turner has said that Copernicus is an attack on the audience.

Since a few years you have a co-operation with Moonjune Records. How did you get in contact with Leonardo Pavkovic?

Copernicus: I know Leonardo for maybe twenty years. He used to work in the company owned by Fernando Natalici who did graphic work for me and also photography and video. Fernando designed many of my album covers. However, there came a time when I began to go to Ecuador and Fernando closed his business and I lost touch with Fernando and Leonardo. Then one day I received an email from Leonardo saying hello. We met and I discovered that he had opened his own record company and showed an interest in the work of Copernicus. He inspired me to go with 15 musicians to Water Music in Hoboken, NJ in 2009 and we incredibly recorded two albums of music and lyrics in four nonstop hours, “disappearance” and “Cipher and Decipher.” Since then he has inspired me to continue on with all of the international contacts that he has made over the years and guided me through the internet and we have decided to release my earlier albums that were only available on LP like Nothing Exists. Soon we will be releasing Victim of the Sky and on April 17, we will be going back into the studio for another mammoth recording session with all new material. Leonardo Pavkovic has breathed life into the second part of the Copernicus phenomenon and every work that we release is always dedicated to his energy and inspiration and spiritual support. Nevermore, Inc. though still pays the bills, as it should be.

What do you think about the possibilities of the internet?

Copernicus: For someone who has struggled in the old world as head of an independent record company where after creating an album, an LP, we had to send the albums to various distributors who never paid us or actually robbed us and robbed the records where our only airplay was the college stations where the major companies went in and corrupted those college stations and our records could no longer be played in colleges where the only pay for doing art was the privilege of doing.

It seems that the internet may be opening things up internationally and it is giving independent artists more hope for a better day, but nobody is buying music since a large portion of the public is stealing the music for free. It’s like the farmer who eats his seeds. I wonder what this horrendous greedy public will do when they have no more artists. They can listen to Frank Sinatra and Madonna for free for the rest of their lives. They will have eaten all of their seeds and will deserve what they have created, a society with no unique artists. A great society is supposed to treasure its artists and not try to kill them and exploit them and take the bread from their mouths. It’s exactly what the Catholic Church did to the first Copernicus. He would have published his book thirty years beforehand, but he was afraid that the Church would kill him. So they had to live an extra thirty years believing that the Earth was the center of the entire Universe. Artists are a society’s brains at work. You must feed them and clothe them not rob them and kill them even though they tell you things that you do not want to hear. Telling you things that you do not want to hear is their job!

There were some re-releases of your older records. Will all of your older records be available soon?

Copernicus: Yes. Everything will be released on cd and in a more professional way. After Null, when the college stations stopped playing independent music, my records were made with love and care and devotion, but not released in the best way. I was a little depressed and thought that I should find my expression in writing which is one of the reasons why there is the book, “Immediate Eternity.”

One of your records – “Immediate Eternity II” – was released in different languages (e.g. German). Was it easy to transfer your lyrics in other languages and do you think this was a successful effort?

Copernicus: Immediate Eternity was originally recorded in Guayaquil, Ecuador in English. The musicians wanted it to be done in Spanish. So we did it also in Spanish. I do not remember if the Spanish vocal was an overdub or if we recorded again. Then we did 25 concerts in Ecuador. We came back to a newly opened digital recording studio in Guayaquil and recorded the entire album again. My helper in Guayaquil got people to translate the lyrics into German and French. The second recording session was done in Spanish because all of my concerts in Ecuador had been in Spanish. (To this day I cannot do the concert in English.) I put the German and French vocals on top of the second recording session and voila, German and French albums. All of Immediate Eternity was never released properly. These are great albums and they will be released properly. The effort was successful artistically, because I think Immediate Eternity is one of my best albums, but since it was not released with any vigor, it was not successful in a sales way. I love to create art and hate to sell art though I would like to sell more records. (We actually had the lyrics translated to Japanese and preparations were being made to teach me to do the lyrics in Japanese, but in the end that did not happen.)

The new ‘old’ DVD “Live! In Prague!“ is a fantastic historic document of your live shows and energy back in 1989. Is there any other film material of your concerts which could be released?

Copernicus: Of course. I have videotaped every concert that I have ever done. Larry Kirwan in the first days said to me, if you do not videotape it, it means that you did not do it. The video of Copernicus in the Quasimodo club in Berlin is great, in Manta, Ecuador is great, in Los Angeles is great in Sopot, Poland is great in Loja, Ecuador is great and all of the early concerts in Max’s Kansas City and CBGB and the Mudd Club and the World and the gig in Columbus, Ohio and Cottbus, East Germany on and on. There are 325 videos in the Nevermore collection that should be released. I need someone to come here and get them ready for release. They are turning into dust. If it was not for Fernando Natalici, the Prague video would be dust right now. What saved that project was not the original but a very good copy that had not decayed. The atoms of the films were escaping into the Universe and turning the illusion of Copernicus into a really nothing exists phenomenon.

Are there any plans to record a DVD with actual material as your music, your words and poems and your philosophy evolved quiet a lot within all these years?

Copernicus: I do not understand the question. If you go to the Copernicus website at www.copernicusonline.net there are 62 videos of all of the recording of “disappearance” and “Cipher and Decipher.” In the library, I actually have every recording session videotaped. You get the actual moment of creation. We are already doing what you have asked. I am glad that you are aware of the evolution of Copernicus and the importance in listening to the albums in the order that they were created and witness the gradual evolution of Copernicus’ thinking. Remember the 1990’s was a serious decade of subatomic discovery- the quark, black holes, the string theory. Each subatomic discovery dragged Copernicus as if they were hands coming out of the subatomic and dragging him into the quantum to devour his mind and consume his brain. There was nothing else but the subatomic.

Will you be on tour to promote “Live! In Prague!“ and your last record “Cipher and Decipher“?

Copernicus: I will be doing a festival in Victoriaville, Canada on May 19, 2012 and some local concerts. I will be upgrading the concerts, but they will be solo concerts. Traveling with musicians is not what I like to do.

Any last words to our readers?

Copernicus: I appreciate your interesting questions and I am very disappointed in the youth of today both in America and Europe. It seems that they are very sold out to materialism.