NEU! WORLD ORDER
“I think we were children of our time,” says Michael Rother, reflecting on the foundation of Neu. “The idea driving us was that we would dispense with all our heroes and try something completely different. Not a little bit different but totally different.” Apparent from the release of their groundbreaking 1972 debut, Neu – which means ‘new’ in German – were exactly that. The seeds of the band were sewn a year earlier, when Rother met drummer Klaus Dinger while the pair played in an early and unrecognisable incarnation of Kraftwerk, an act still in its infancy and far from the synth-dominated men-machines they would become. “It was a unique time,” says Rother. “There were a lot of innovators in different fields. In Berlin, we had this divided city, and we had the Wall and armed forces everywhere. There was a real atmosphere. I was influenced by what was going on, the military complex and the Vietnam war overseas. I was a conscientious objector, so I had to go and work in a mental hospital. It was the end of that period where I first met Florian Schneider.”
This meeting of minds would prove instrumental for Rother, not just in establishing a
