Sven Regener: Frankie and Freddie or the inevitability of separation

TEXT: SILKE HENKELE

Sven Regener has spent decades moving between music and literature. As the singer and songwriter of the German rock band Element of Crime, he has written songs since the early 1980s. As a novelist, he is best known for his novels featuring Frank Lehmann and the colourful cast of characters surrounding him.

Published on 3 September, Regener’s new novel Frankie and Freddie marks a return to the Berlin of the 1980s, the world he first sketched 25 years ago in Berlin Blues. This time, Sven turns his attention to Frank Lehmann and his older brother Freddie.

We speak to the musician-author about his new novel, the different rhythms of writing novels and songs, and what keeps drawing him back to Berlin. As it turns out, this interview may even involve sharks.

Element of Crime. Photo: Noel Richter

The different rhythms of song writing and novels

For Regener, there is a clear division between the two sides of his work. “I’m only a writer when I’m writing,” he stresses. “Once I’m working on a novel, I think about little else.”

The process of writing often begins long before he puts anything down on paper. Sven spent many months thinking, planning and musing before he even began his new novel. And he can spend several weeks thinking about a chapter before he feels ready to write. Once that moment arrives, however, the writing itself tends to be quick and easy.

Music, he says, is different. “Music is more spontaneous,” Regener explains. “It’s something I can do all the time.” The musician-author has been writing songs for more than 40 years and can play music at almost any moment. When Element of Crime are on tour, for instance, he can perform their songs while continuing to work mentally on a novel. The reverse, however, does not work: “I can’t write songs when I’m writing a novel. The rhythms just don’t match.”

Element of Crime. Photo: Charlotte Goltermann

The difference between music and literature is also reflected in the mechanics of the two art forms. A song has to work as a song. With Element of Crime, the music comes first, and the lyrics are written for it, which means that certain parameters are already set. A novel, by contrast, offers a more open field. “Songs have to sound good, particularly in combination with the music,” he says. “They don’t necessarily have to be clever.”

Novels, on the other hand, have more in common with poetry. And while a book may be read once, a song is meant to be sung again and again. In that, he refers to Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize speech, in which the singer pointed out that songs are not literature because they are meant to be sung, not read.

Photo: Charlotte Goltermann

People first, places second

Sven’s novels are closely associated with particular places, especially Berlin. Yet he is less interested in cities themselves than in the people who live in them. “I don’t write novels about cities. I write about people.” Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin are places he has lived in, which means that he knows them from experience rather than through extensive research. The same applies to the age of his characters. Regener was a young man himself in the early 1980s, so he knows what that period felt like from the inside. This gives him freedom when developing his characters: they may contain aspects of himself, but they are not simply autobiographical figures. For example, he identifies with Frank, with Kerstin and also with Freddie, whose artistic ambitions are close to his own experience.

Frankie and Freddie

In his new novel, the focus is on Frank and his older brother Manfred, or Freddie. What interested the author in particular was the story that unfolds between them. Frank has come to Berlin because of his brother, only to discover that Freddie is constantly beyond his reach. First he is taking part in a medical study; then they disappear into the increasingly chaotic events that send the brothers across the city; and ultimately Freddie is planning to leave for New York. “And Frank is convinced that his brother won’t come back to Berlin.”

The novel, Regener explains, is really about three people: Frank, Freddie and their mother, who is hardly ever present except through occasional telephone calls. Those brief moments nevertheless reveal a great deal about the brothers. Family relationships are particularly interesting to Regener because they offer a glimpse into the otherwise untouchable core of a person’s life. At the heart of Frankie and Freddie is the inevitability of separation and the fact that Frank does not want to accept it. “While it has many very funny moments, the novel is fundamentally melancholic,” Sven says.

Photo: Charlotte Goltermann

The voice of the novel

In autumn, Regener will take Frankie and Freddie on the road for a series of readings. He originally had little enthusiasm for the idea as he questions the conception that an author is automatically the best person to read their own work to others. Nevertheless, he has come to appreciate the challenge of sitting in front of an audience for around 90 minutes and simply reading from the book. Sven is particularly interested in the musical quality of language, something he feels is often underestimated. “I’m trying to get to the bottom of that,” he says. “It has its own particular charm.”

Successful musician and author, and engaging reader. Is there something missing on Sven’s bucket list? “Oh yes! Some years ago, I did a film with Leander Haußmann, Hai-Alarm am Müggelsee (Shark Alarm at Müggelsee). I would love to do a sequel. Something along the lines of Jaws 2.”

We will certainly be keeping an eye on this idea. Who knows, perhaps there will be another shark sighting at Müggelsee after all.