Multi-instrumentalist Kraus Hauptmann, one of the founding members of the Lecherous Metro (along with Litmus Lowery), continues to be a driving force behind it today. Originally the Metro's Bass Player, the permanent arrival of Jieter Reinhardt to the U.S. has given him a chance to focus on his true musical love, percussion.
Drawing from a huge well of influences, Mr. Hauptmann focuses on maximizing the variety of sounds, textures, and rhythms available to him and has made him go beyond the standard Drum Set (an instrument he has been playing since the age of nine) and incorporate many percussion and wind instruments into his setup. "For me it's really about offering the most I can to our music" says Kraus "And part of that means finding new or non-traditional ways of playing the Drum Set, incorporating additional percussion into the Drum Set, as well as playing several different types of Flutes. All of these instruments and approaches represent a part of my personality as a musician and a human being, and they help to enrich the overall sound of the band. Luckily, I play with musicians that will trust my descisions to do these things. Litmus, Jieter, and I have now been playing with each other for so long, in so many different situations that they know that what I'm gonna do will help push them to take risks and do something we haven't done before, as well as give our band some unique sounds that will make us a little bit different from our peers. And it's because we can trust each other, and because we will take risks musically, that I love this band."
Proclaiming to be a lover of music since before he was born, Kraus loves to talk about Music and the literally hundreds of musical influences he's had. "Percussion wise my main guys are Mitch Mitchell, Robert Wyatt, Bill Ward, Art Blakey, Airto Moreira, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Motian, Billy Martin, and most recently, Ed Blackwell and Hamid Drake. These are the guys who came before me whom I draw from as resources with the Metro, and hopefully one day I will become an extention of the tradition of these great players. Some of my Broader musical influences are along the lines of people like Jimi Hendrix, The Beastie Boys, Don Cherry, Fela Kuti, Gilberto Gil, Igor Stravinsky, Elvis Costello, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, and the list goes on and on. For one reason or another these people have helped to push me further in terms of not just playing my instruments, but in being someone who lives music and helps to pass it on for future generations of humans to experience. That's the most I can really hope to achive in this life." |
