The enigmatic and, for some, controversial former frontman of NDH pioneers Oomph!, Dero Goi, embarked on a solo career in 2021 and released his debut full-length, 1984, at the end of last November. The album was voted the best dark music album of 2024 at the Terra Relicta Dark Music Awards! Dero Goi has consistently been recognized as an exceptional songwriter, and he has honed his craft to an even sharper edge in this substantial new collection. It's no secret that in 2021, Dero Goi, a longtime agnostic, converted to evangelical Christianity and announced that same year that he would no longer be a part of Oomph! - the band he founded in 1989 with Andreas Crap and Robert Flux. In 2020, Dero Goi and Chris Harms (Lord Of The Lost) formed a project called Die Kreatur and released the Panoptikum album via Napalm Records. He then collaborated with Eisbrecher on its Liebe macht Monster album, out in 2021. Dero Goi's debut double album, 1984, released on Dependent Records, is a fascinating fusion of popular retro-synth sounds, synthwave and EBM with modern electronic elements and even a dose of his former life as a rock and metal musician. Dero Goi spoke very openly about himself: his solo career, his departure from Oomph!, his faith in Jesus Christ, his sometimes conservative views and much more. You can love him or hate him; you can even call him names, but be aware that by doing so, you are only giving him more material for his future songs. ;)

Interview with: Dero Goi
Conducted by: Tomaz, Jerneja
Edited by: Jerneja

Jerneja: Hello Stephan, and congratulations on your debut solo album, 1984. Also, congratulations on winning this year's Terra Relicta Dark Music Awards. Since the album won the competition, you must already have quite a good fan base supporting you.
Dero Goi: Yes, absolutely, and thank you very much for the nomination. Thanks also to my fans who were voting for me. That's truly a pleasure and an honour. First of all to be nominated by your magazine and that so many fans of mine showed such support. I appreciate the fact that so many people out there like my first solo album. It, hopefully, talks to them, and the songs touch them. That's the main goal for an artist, right? To be as versatile as possible, as actual and current concerning what's going on in the world, and then, of course, you want to touch and reach people with what you feel about this world.

Jerneja: I'm interested in your artistic name, Dero Goi. What does it mean?
Dero Goi: Well, I was in the band Oomph! for over 30 years, and when we started in 1989, everybody was talking about nicknames, artificial names, artist names, and I just came along with this strange and weird name. Dero is a judge in Latin, meaning "your honour", and then I just added Goi. It felt weird, yet special and unique at the same time. So, that's the main story about it. We listened to bands like U2, and they had Bono, The Edge, and so on. Everyone has had such an extraordinary artist name, and we were thinking about what we could do. Do we want to be in a band with our real names or with nicknames? We decided to go with the artistic names, and mine was Dero Goi.

Jerneja: Oomph! is one of the first bands, if not the first, of the so-called NDH (Neue Deutsche Härte) music...
Dero Goi: As I said before, I was in Oomph! for over 30 years, and yes, we did this NDH thing. They said that we influenced bands like Rammstein because Rammstein was founded in 1993, as far as I remember, and Oomph! was founded in 1989. I also started a side project called What About Bill, which was more like a swing and jazz thing, a really different branch, and now, with my solo album, I do this synth-retro-pop of the 80s. When I explore new dimensions, I try to open the doors I've never opened before. 

Jerneja: Yet, music is not the only way you express yourself - you are also a comedian...
Dero Goi: I have many ways to express myself, and in between music, I like to be a funny guy. I love comedy very much. I still perform as a stand-up comedian sometimes, but not in general. It's not my main thing because my main thing is and will be being a musician.

Tomaz: You released your debut album, 1984, as a double album. Why didn't you go with two separate albums instead?
Dero Goi: When I was composing the material for my solo album, it was during the first lockdown in 2020, so I was forced to compose on my own, and I had so many influences from the dystopian nightmare that was developing all over the world. So, I was astonished that I composed 40 or 50 songs in half a year. Then I was thinking about what to do. If you release two albums in a row, it's just a moment that you record, but then you develop, and my new material is four years ahead of what I composed in 2020 and released as my first solo album. To me, it's better to release the stuff I've created in a certain period as a whole. My new material sounds more like I feel right now. To me, it's very important to release stuff of my current mood. I don't like to spare stuff for later releases. I never liked that, because you develop as an artist and human being. The new material I composed and partly recorded is different from what I composed and recorded in 2020. That's the main reason. I wanted to release as many songs as possible on one single album. Even though we are now five years after those events from 2020, it still works within us; it's still relevant; it still has an impact on society.

Jerneja: And what will happen with those 35 or something remaining songs that didn't make it on your first album?
Dero Goi: Well, hard to say. I already composed 30 new songs. Maybe some of them will be like B-sides for singles or released as rare tracks. I won't release them as a new album because I have written so many new songs that reflect my current state of being, which, I hope, is a better one since you are, hopefully, constantly developing as a human being and an artist. Like I said before, it's only one moment that you can capture within one album.

Tomaz: The lyrics on the album are very personal. You talk a lot about yourself, what happened to you and how you look at things, even though you, publically, rarely talk about it.
Dero Goi: This is not true. I have had many interviews in which I have testified, for example, about how I came to faith in Jesus Christ...

Tomaz: Yeah, but only in German media...
Dero Goi: Yes, that's also true. Most of them were for German media. Every now and then, I also give an interview for the foreign press, but rarely. But, as an artist, you can express your best throughout your art. That's my humble opinion. When I have something that needs to come out of me, I write a song about it. It can be about politics, my faith, economics, or whatever. I mean, there are so many things happening all over the world and developing in a very fast way. That's why you need to be vigilant and sober; you have to go through life with open eyes as an artist, and then, you are influenced permanently by this bizarre and grotesque world. It's weird enough to reflect it musically if you ask me.

Jerneja: When I first saw the title of your album, 1984, it made me think of George Orwell's novel. Is there a connection?
Dero Goi: Absolutely! It's one of my favourite novels. When I was writing the new material back in 2020 - those times were dystopian to the core. It was like the whole Orwell's novel came true. The whole world was marching in one step: "Wear your mask! Obey! Get the shot!" It was so dystopian, right? On one hand, the things happening during that pandemic reminded me a lot of that novel, and on the other hand, I was travelling back in time musically since I was forced to work on my own. So, I sat in front of my computer and keyboard and started writing my new songs on synthesizers. When I started my musical career in the middle of the 80s, I also started with keyboards and synthesizers. I thought of those times when I was still a teenager, and those are probably the most impressive times for each human being. The music you listened to as a teenager has the biggest impact on you as an artist. Back then, I listened to bands like Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Eurythmics, Visage, D.A.F., Einstürzende Neubauten, Kraftwerk and similarly. So, of course, I remembered those times and that music had a big influence on my album. The dystopian development and nightmare around us in 2020, 2021 and 2022 - these circumstances influenced me a lot. I carefully picked the album's title because the music is more like a retro-synth from the middle of the 80s, and on the other hand, the world developed like in Orwell's novel 1984. It matches perfectly, in my opinion.

Tomaz: But, even though that everything regarding the album 1984 points to the golden 80s, as well you claim that you were influenced by the music of that times, it still sounds very modern and fresh. It's not something that somebody could say that it was already done back then.
Dero Goi: Yeah, thank you very much! Hopefully it does. I really like to explore new dimensions. You can hear my influences from the early and mid 80s, from synth-pop, new wave, darkwave, and as you said, you can hear new and fresh elements. I like to combine stuff that was done before with stuff that has never been done before. This way you create your new kind of "pizza", like it has never been done before. I mean, we all deal with almost the same ingredients but we can try and combine them in a new way. As an artist you must think what combination of music wasn't yet there. This is why I really try to experiment a lot. This is why I also appreciate my side project, What About Bill?, where I do jazz and swing. I apreciated my time with the band Oomph! from 1989 to 2021, and now I enjoy my first solo album in which I really express myself in this futuristic, dystopian, current thing, even though that I also deal with many retro elements. That's a cool combination and I appreciate very much to hear you have a feeling that it's also packed with new and fresh elements.

Tomaz: I was watching some videos of yours, and noticed that you like to use some AI, especially in the video for the album title track "1984". Do you like to use and work with the help of AI and do you use it to create music as well?
Dero Goi: I don't use AI in music at all, because I think that we have to take care that we will not turn into complete soulless society. What we must realize is that artificial inteligence might be very fast and you can use it to aquire information of this or that thing in a very fast way, but, it's soulless, totally without any soul and we have to keep that in mind. Of course it's good for a musician to experiment with new tools that you have, because you can have cheap videos which look very expensive. That's a cool thing for now. But, I think that there's a danger, because real human beings transport real emotions, but artificial figures and persons they do not have any soul, so we need to take care. The main thing is the message in the music. I mean, this song, "1984", should wake people up. We are sorounded already with the soulless surveilance. So, the oppression, surveilance, that can really look through us with x-rays, from the toe to your hair, that is a danger of course, because you have the right for your privacy, to your intimacy, and it gets lost, more and more and more. This is a critical approach to AI, and yet I used the AI at the same time. It's clear that the video for "1984" is artificial inteligence based, but again, I would never stop doing real movies or real videos. With real ones you can far better transport true emotions and your soul, because we human beings usually have a soul. It's a double edged sword. On one hand you can be very creative in a very fast way but on the other hand you know that many things get lost. There are already entire albums that were created by artificial inteligence. I guess that I won't be astonished to see a movie with Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe in the near future. You just need to digitalize them and you can use them for an AI movie. This is spooky in a way. We live in strange days, no doubt about that, but again, we need to take care that machines don't take over. They are soulless, they are like hyper-inteligent psychopaths or sociopaths. They don't have any emotions. They can pretend to be sad, or ask you about sadness and logically work with that, but they could never feel sad, lucky, happy, or in love. It's impossible because they don't have any emotions, any soul and they won't be ever able to have a soul. Again, we have to take care, because they can simulate, they can mimick emotions. We need to distinguish between real human beings and AI, but I know, it gets harder and harder day by day.

Jerneja: You are right, but also people can mimick emotions. Many people just say things that others want to see and hear...
Dero Goi: Definitely! We are the best at that. The society gets artificial more and more, and people are faking stuff. I mean, look at instagram, look at all those profiles where they show themselves in the narcisistic way. This doesn't help us to be more empathetic or more emotional. In the end this self-centered behaviour destroys our souls. We have to take care. I think that every culture will bring up counterculture. There's gonna be people who will say "enough of that", because it's too cold, it's too soulless. We have to go back to nature again. I'm pretty sure that there's going to be a counterculture that will quit sooner or later with this kind of technology, very drastically, just to feel better, just to feel more human and just to feel more connected with nature.

Jerneja: I have a few questions related to religion. Tell me what triggered your conversion from agnostic to evangelical Christianity in 2021. Interestingly, you had a project with Chris Harms (Lord Of The Lost) in 2020, and I jokingly wonder if he had anything to do with your conversion.
Dero Goi: Well, this has all been a process that has been developing over the last ten years. I have always been searching. I've always been asking myself what the reason for living is and if I have enough religious capacity to believe that nothing has created everything randomly out of nothing. That would be the 80s approach, and I said to myself that it sounds absolutely ridiculous because nothing can only create nothing, and life can create life. Non-life can't create life. We can't phantom this. A stone can't create life, for example. So, if we believe that in the beginning, there was nothing, and it exploded, it sounds ridiculously funny. We are confronted with information and intelligence in the universe. We have information all over the universe, which is a natural law, like gravity, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology or whatever. We are confronted with an absolute objective truth. I said to myself that if this was the absolute and objective truth, then there must be an absolute and objective truth giver. Those laws are unchangeable. They don't change randomly - they remain the same over thousands of years. Then we have our brains/intelligence, and we can find out that we are packed with DNA, which is information. So, only an intelligent mind could program a program for life. I came, through a logical or scientific approach, to the result that there must be an intelligent designer. The next question was, who was it then? We can pick a lot from "wannabe" gods. At that time, I was confronted with a certain crisis in my life. My father died after his long-term alcohol abuse, and then my youngest son was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer. All these things were just comulating, and I went on my knees asking god to reveal himself to me. I said: "I need your help, because I'm lost. I know that you are out there, so, please reveal yourself to me". Then Jesus Christ revealed to me. That's my testimony. I can just say that I was depressed and suicidal for 35 years, and now I'm not anymore. Now I found the truth, which literally set me free, as it says in the Bible. I'm not a follower of any religion because religion to me is catholicism or orthodoxy. In general, even the Christian religion has twisted the meaning of the gospel. The gospel says that we are lost, fallen. We know what sin is and that we need to die. We must die because the vague of our sin is death. He warned us that we would lose our lives if we ate the fruit of knowledge about evil. So, now we are evil ourselves, and the question is, how can we get rid of this? Everything is so imperfect - I mean wars, abuse, diseases, even dangerous plants, dangerous animals, and so on. It's all due to our fallen nature. How can we get perfect again? By ourselves, that much is true, so I realized that there was only one who claimed to be god and died for my sins because he loved me. He died on the cross and resurrected on the third day. He surpassed death so that I can live forever again. I know that we know perfection. We long and strive for it - in architecture or any art. Also, in appearance: to get bigger tits, a beautiful face, and so on. We strive for perfection because we know we lost it when we ate from the fruit of knowledge of evil. So yeah, that's my testimony. I just came to the result that there was one true living god, and I found him in Jesus Christ.

Jerneja: What about the gods of other religions or myths?
Dero Goi: I don't believe that other gods can be true because they contradict each other. It's the same as at the same time claiming that one plus one equals two and one plus one equals five. It's not logical, in my humble opinion. Things that contradict each other can't be both true at the same time. That's how I realized there was one true living god, and I found him in Jesus Christ. That does not give me the right to persecute, mock, or even put in jail or kill others. That has been done by religions but under the influence of the devil, in my opinion. If you're truly set free by the holy spirit of god, then you'll never do that. You will just point to the truth but you'll never say that somebody is not allowed to believe in Allah, Budha or Krishna. I don't think that that's the truth but you are free to do that. I can only recommend that you search for the truth so that it reveals to you. Jezus Christ - either he's the truth and the light or a lunatic. If he's the truth, then it's worth asking him to reveal himself to you. That's my approach to that, but you're free to believe whatever you want. I have met so many people who do not even know what they believe. They consider themselves atheists or agnostics, but they can't tell me what they believe. They don't even know that they believe in a scientific impossibility that nothing has created everything, which is really hard to believe. They believe that because they are told to believe that. That's the most tragic form of faith, because when someone tells you to believe something that doesn't even make sense. No one has told me to believe what I believe now, I just asked god to reveal himself. That's the most honest form of faith, in my humble opinion. It comes from the inside. Religion on the other hand comes from the outside, and it's forced on people, and religion doesn't save you anyway. The true living god can come only from the inside.

Jerneja: You converted to evangelical christianity which tends to be even more conservative than other branches of christianity.
Dero Goi: Ok, yes, my approch on it is. So, if you believe that there's absolute and objective truth and it reveals to you in natural law for example, then there must be a natural law giver, which I found out in Christ, but the question is if is his word also the truth. I found out that the Bible is very reliable, and you can't debunk it. People have tried to debunk the Bible over the last 5000 years, but every place that is mentioned in the Bible is a really existing place. Every person has been revealed as true, because there's coins, stone plates or scrolls with names of this figures on them. So, the persons are real, the places are real, and the world knows that even the big flood is real, because each culture knows about the big global flood. If you believe that Jesus Christ is the one true living god, then his word is also the truth. That means you have to be conservative in that way too. The Bible says that heaven and earth will perish but his word will remain, and that's what also Jesus Christ said. If his word is the truth then of course I'm the Bible believer. Am I conservative? Yeah, I'm fine with that as well, no problem with that. That's my conservative approch on my faith, because if you don't believe that the word of god is reliable then you tend to create Jesus that doesn't exist, or a gospel that doesn't exist, or you change the word of god, even though it's proven that the Bible hasn't changed much over the last 2000 years, just concerning the new testament. We have the scrolls from Qumran, the Dead Sea scrolls, and well, it's proven that the Bible hasn't changed. Of course, many people think that it's manipulated and changed, and I thought so too, but those scrolls prove that the Bible is reliable, and it hasn't changed. I don't believe that god will allow us, little human beings to change his word, because then he wouldn't be omnipotent or all-powerful, omnipresent and so on. I believe that god is perfectly able to preserve his word. In that way I'm conservative, or I can even say that I'm radical christian now. I mean, radical sounds like that I want to persecute others, or that I want to forbid others to live their religion, but I don't want to do that. I just have my foundatition and that's the Bible. I believe in Jesus Christ, but I'm not a member of any religion. I have a living and vivid relationship with Christ, because I'm absolutely sure that god wants relationship, and that he doesn't want rituals or traditions, he dosn't care about that, he wants to be taken seriously, so that he can take you seriously. I wouldn't consider myself evangelical, even though that people say that my way of living christian faith is evangelical, but the truth is that evangelicals are very heterogenic, so I'll rather consider myself as a "born again follower of Jesus Christ". The Bible says that you need to be born again to see the kingdom of god. You need to receive the holy spirit and that comes from above. That's when you open yourself to the one true living god. This is for everyone, it's not just for few selected people, but not everyone wants that, and that's the tragedy about it. I won't consider myself as a lutherian, evangelical, or whatever, I'm just a biblical believer.

Tomaz: How much has your "conversion" to do with you leaving Oomph!?
Dero Goi: Well, it was not the main reason but it was the last drop that brought the crate to explode. It comulated over the last 15 years. We had problems and we developed in different directions concerning politics, concerning faith, and so on. I don't know, we were in a constant fight, and that's not healthy in a long term. You know, as a founding member I would have a chance to forbid them to continue with the name, but they wanted to continue and search for a new singer. I was ok with that and said why not, because if they really wanted to go on with the band they should do it, I had nothing against that. So, my conversion was not the main reason but it was one of the reasons. We were in a constant fight in the studio about everything. We were arguing about the style, about the beat, the lyrics, the way I should sing, and so on and so on. So, it was a constant fight. Then again in the interviews, we had a fight about what it's allowed to say and what not. I said, "come on people, are we living in a free world or in a dictatorship already". It wasn't healthy anymore, at least for me. I feel far better now, and I guess that they are also happy with the new singer, hopefully. I wish them all the best.

Tomaz: But how difficult it was for you to leave Oomph!? How it was to take such a decision, because Oomph! is a popular and established name in the music scene? I guess that it must have been very emotional to leave that band and start completely anew as a solo artist?
Dero Goi: You know, the good thing is that I prayed about it. My heart told me that it's not good to continue with this band, because we would really get sick otherwise. It was not healthy, it was toxic. It was just about permanently fighting and it didn't make any sense anymore. If you ask me, you should have fun going to the studio, it should be fun being on stage, you should have fun composing new stuff and you should have fun doing interviews together. It was not like that anymore you should quit with it. Otherwise it wasn't that difficult, because it developed over the last 10 or 15 years. Then there was this lockdown and everybody could think for themselves. So that was a good thing because the whole world went silent and you were forced to think a lot about your own life, job, marriage, children, or whatever. It was healthy to think about the core values, and I came to the result that it's better that way, better to continue as a solo artist. If you make too many compromises in a band where everybody went into a different direction, it gets really hard to have fun. Sometimes it's better to quit with something before it's too late, otherwise you can get seriously sick over these circumstances.

Tomaz: And how did you get in contact with the label Dependent for the release of your solo album 1984? Did you know them from before or you've searched for a label and they answered?
Dero Goi: Well, I released my demo snippets in 2022 and then various labels got in contact with me and one of them was Dependent. The contract sounds great, they understand me and my vision. For them it was interesting to hear this retro-synth combined with modern stuff, and that I'm a conservative christian it's a very rare combination. It sounds so unique and they said that I'm welcome there. I'm happy that I work together with them because they are very open minded and have the same approach to art. To them freedom of speech is the main thing. To me it's the same. In the western world this strange thing called "cancel culture" is spreading like a cancer and that's not good if you ask me. If you cut out your thoughts in your brain just because it's not political correct, it's not a good development. It reminds me of the east German police in 1984. This is also why this album got this title. We are developing with turbo speed in that direction.

Tomaz: In music or generally in art it's the opposite as it was in the 80s or in the early 90s. Back then the more controversial and unique you were the better it was...
Dero Goi: This is why I say that the new punk rock is conservatism, hahaha.

Jerneja: Do you have a favourite song on the 1984 album?
Dero Goi: It depends on my mood. I have quite a few favourite songs. The title track, "1984", and a B-side track, "The Devil Is A Liar". I also love "A Long Way Out" because it describes my way out of the darkness. There are many songs, but still, it depends on my mood. I also like "Shitstorm", for example, because I was confronted with various shitstorms when I outed myself as a born-again believer in Jesus Christ. Yeah, I shared my conservative values, like, for example, that I'm critical towards LGBTQ and that I'm against abortions. Then many people said that I'm a fundamentalist, but you know, it's good to have a fundament on which your faith is based. People are freaking out just because I have values that I share. I deal with all this the way that I write songs about it. In songs like "Shitstorm" or "Saturday", I deal with all those accusations and all those names that people called me. I said to myself, "why not work with all this things, and why not do a song about it". That's the best way to deal with it constructively. I like to solve problems rather than bite them permanently.

Tomaz: Did it ever happen to you that you had to cancel a show just because of your views?
Dero Goi: Not yet, but I know many people in Germany don't want me to be on their stage. So these left-leaning people in the concert or the music business don't like me anymore because, to them, I'm now a conspiracy theorist, right-winger, or whatever. To them, I'm a red flag if you want to. As you said before, I don't know why they don't remember those glorious 80s when it was cool to provoke and to be different. They obviously don't remember that anymore. I don't know, but I have a feeling that those who consider themselves tolerant are the most intolerant persons. They have such a distorted self-perception that they even think that they are democrats, but they are so totalitarian with their cancel culture. They make it very easy for themselves because they consider those who are against them as people who spread hate speech, but in fact, it's just the speech that they hate. It's funny, in a way, and I like to reflect their absurdity within my art. That's what I'm doing on my current album. I reflect on the world as I see it, and I also reflect on my critics and their grotesque and bizarre behaviour because they think that they are so open-minded. I try to deal with all these negative things in a positive way. That's the only thing that I can do as an artist. I have a feeling that more and more people are getting narrow-minded and intolerant, even though they consider themselves as democratic and open-minded. They are not; they are just narcissistic to the core. Only a typical narcissist can't stand the opinion or lifestyle of others. You know, I'm not the one who wants to cancel people who disagree with me. I'm absolutely interested in debating with them because I want to understand them. They consider people like me as people who spread hate speech, and they want to cancel me. The speech that they hate is my speech, but my speech is not a hate speech. What can you do? You can just mirror/reflect them - hopefully, they will see how grotesque and bizarre their behaviour is.

Jerneja: Probably everyone considers themselves tolerant because being intolerant doesn't sound appealing. However, it's one thing to think something about yourself and another to be that way; one thing is words, and another is actions.
Dero Goi: As for me, I'm still open to debate with everyone, even with those who completely disagree with everything I stand for. Those can be very interesting debates. But, the development is that these kinds of people find each other in eco chambers, bubbles, so they are just among themselves. It's like an incestuous behaviour, and this is why they don't develop. Then they are among themselves and say: "Look at them! Those are the enemies!". I mean, true debates are between those who oppose each other - that's really interesting, but it gets lost more and more if you find yourself inside those bubbles and eco chambers. That's a very frightening development if you ask me. It's anti-democratic, anti-enlightenment, and it's not good. That's the essence of fascist behaviour, and they don't even realize this. You know, there was an Italian socialist, Ignazio Silone, who said that the modern fascism or fascism of the future would not claim to be fascism but anti-fascism, and so, here we go.

Jerneja: I'm quite familiar with the New Testament, and there is no record of Jesus ever judging anyone, let alone doing anything to hurt them; he practised unconditional love. Other religions preach this love, too, and also otherwise, many have it on their lips... yet it is hard to find anywhere... But let us go back to music... I read that your father "forced" you to sing Elvis Presley's songs as a child. Did that in any way encourage you to become a musician?
Dero Goi: Well, there were those adult parties - my dad was a singer, guitarist and a big Elvis fan - and I just joined them. He said, "Come on, this little guy is my son, he can also sing it", and I did. It is, actually, how I was forced to sing, and in a way, it was cool.

Jerneja: Your influences are also quite broad. From Frank Sinatra to ABBA, The Beatles, besides those of dark musical genres, of course.
Dero Goi: Yeah, definitely. I love the versatility. I'm not fixed on just one specific music. I like rock, pop, and jazz. I even like funk, rap, hip-hop, or whatever. It just needs to talk to me and present a certain message that I can identify with, and then everything is fine. I even love classical music. I appreciate Beethoven or Wagner - this is really awesome stuff. I also love certain film scores. I'm not fixed on one specific genre at all.

Tomaz: Do you have any plans to tour Europe anytime soon?
Dero Goi: As long as it's possible, why not? Hopefully, the times will change, and we will soon have a more open-minded society where we can co-exist with our different opinions. I would like to tour wherever I can, and if I get an invitation, I'll definitely do it. I have already toured in Russia, where a live band of Russian musicians joined me on stage.

Jerneja: What does it mean to you to play live?
Dero Goi: The best thing for a musician is to present your material live on stage. This way, you get the most authentic reaction from the audience. I mean, if you just release an album, for example, you can only read the comments, but on stage, you cannot sneak around the pudding anymore. You get it straight into your face; you get a real and honest reaction from the audience. I really appreciate being on stage, whatever I do, be it as a jazz musician, rock musician or synth-pop artist. Being on stage is the most authentic and vivid thing for an artist.

Tomaz: When you perform live, do you also perform Oomph!'s songs?
Dero Goi: It depends. Sometimes, I'm on the stage with a pianist and keyboardist, and here and there come in the repertoire some Oomph!'s songs, mainly ballads.

Tomaz: And when can we expect to hear new music from you?
Dero Goi: As soon as possible. There's gonna be two new songs shortly, which are unreleased B-sides. Then again, I'm already working on my next album and planning to release it at the beginning of next year. 

Tomaz: From a musical perspective, can we expect your next album to follow the same style, or will you come up with something new?
Dero Goi: With my solo project, I'll more or less continue in this way, a fusion of synth-pop of the 80s, new elements and some guitars here and there.

Jerneja: Thank you very much, Stephan, for taking the time to do this interview and being outspoken. Is there anything you would like to say in closing?
Dero Goi: Thanks a lot to everyone who has followed me over the last couple of years. Keep the faith in what I'm doing, and if you still appreciate what I'm doing as an artist, thank you very much. So, thank you very much for your faith in my art or in me as a person. Hopefully, I will be able to astonish and surprise you with my new material over and over again because that is my goal. I hope you will keep your eyes open, your heart open, your mind open, and be as open-minded as possible. Thank you for this interview. God bless you all.

Photos by:  Agata Nigrovskaya

Dero Goi links: Official Website, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, YouTube