KARL BARTOS

Karl Bartos might always primarily be associated with Kraftwerk, but he’s been no slouch outside of the group. As well as reliving his experiences as the second robot from left in his new book The Sound Of The Machine, Bartos explores his time as a classically trained percussionist during the 70s, his well-received post-Kraftwerk solo albums and collaborations with groups like Electronic (featuring Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr), and his foray into academia: Bartos was a visiting professor at the Berlin University Of The Arts between 2004 and 2009, lecturing on Sound Studies and Acoustic Communication.

Born in 1952, the young Karlheinz Bartos (Kraftwerk shortened his name to ‘Karl’ to save money on lettering) was turned onto music the moment he heard the opening chord of The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night as a 12-year-old. As a teenager he played in bands, took acid while listening to Can and pursued a career as a classical percussionist, training at the Robert Schumann Conservatory and playing nightly for the Deutsche Oper Am Rhein. A call from Florian Schneider changed everything in 1974, when Bartos found himself hitting electronic drum pads all across America for the Autobahn tour.

Bartos became more and more irreplaceable at Kling Klang studios as Kraftwerk developed into the world’s greatest electronic pop band. They can now be regarded as a gesamtkunstwerk, though Bartos refers to the conceptual details pejoratively as a “fairytale”, a word he uses several times during our talk. Undoubtedly there are scores to settle, and a desire to wrest the narrative back in the direction of all of the band’s contributors – not least of all the Bavarian-born percussionist who co-wrote The Model, The Robots and Trans-Europe Express, to name but a few.

“I was never a part of that krautrock thing. Although I really