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Katja
Rieckermann - New Song - New Book - Interview |
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You know the song “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” from when Rod Stewart recorded
it on his 1978 album Blondes Have
More Fun, but you have never heard it played like this before.
Saxophonist, arranger and composer Katja Rieckermann and TMTQ turn in a
stunning dance version of the song, with new vocals by Sir Rod Stewart.
Rieckermann who toured with Stewart for fourteen years and during that
time she began her solo career, which to date has produced three albums,
the self-titled Katja (2007),
Horn Star (2010) and
Never Stand Still (2015).
Katja Rieckermann has performed with a diverse group of artists, which
include, Carole King, Brooks and Dunn, David Foster,
Mary J. Blige, Al Green and Jeff
Goldblum.
Katja Rieckerman first started thinking of recording “Da Ya Think I’m
Sexy,” “about two and one-half years ago. Originally it was going to be
an instrumental version of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and it was going to
be very close to the original with the tempo and the vibe of it. I wrote
a couple of horn sections for it and we recorded it.
I sent it to Rod for approval and said what do you think? I am thinking about
releasing this version. Do you like it? He wrote back, yes I love it.
How about I sing on it? I was like wow! That is crazy. Of course, that
would be fantastic. He ended up singing over the original track that I
sent to him.
I
contacted award winning composer and arranger Sandi Strmljan who
produced my second solo album Horn Star. He suggested doing a remix
version and involved Tim Brettschneider (TMTQ). They sped it up and
turned it into a dance track.
I am really surprised at how much people love it.
Rod Stewart has been so generous
already with all of this. He has been unbelievable and I cannot thank
him enough for what he has done for me. He is amazing. The response has
been really great. People like the music and the video. I am super
happy,” says Katja Rieckermann.
We wondered if perhaps there is a risk in covering a song that once
topped the charts in America, England and Australia.
“Of course, there is a huge risk. Rod has so many fans and so many
followers and this style of music that we went for, which is Dance
really has nothing to do with what Rod is all about. It is completely
different. I didn’t know if the Rod Stewart fans would like this, but
they seem to embrace it really well,” she says.
Earlier this fall (2019) Katja Rieckermann went to Germany to visit her
family and friends and to promote the new single. She was interviewed by
numerous media including a television station. The new single release is not the only recent major event in Katja Rieckermann’s career, as she turned author and published the book 101 Soulful Funk Licks.
She explains, “Jeffrey and I started a project for Big Fish Audio called
Dig It, which is basically a
sample library. It was supposed to be a seventies construction kit. We
would deliver everything from drums, bass, keyboards, organs, horn
section and saxophones. If anybody was a composer and was looking for
something in that line they could purchase the project and use any of
the samples in there and call them their own.
Having said that, while I was working on it I thought it would be cool
as a bonus file to give people saxophone licks, so they can create their
own saxophone solos. I started collecting licks that were in the style
of that era like seventies Blues solos and funk licks, for instance like
Maceo Parker or David Sanborn.
Big Fish Audio ended up not using those solo licks in their project.
Here I was with all of these licks collected and that I had written out.
I thought maybe I should write a book, because there aren’t many books
that have that kind of thing. Most of the saxophone books with licks are
based on Jazz and they are a lot more complicated licks, so I thought it
would be a good idea. It might be a niche. I just needed to design the
book and then release it. This friend of mine did that and then he
released the book on Amazon. This book is good for all levels of
players.”
So how did this all begin? We could tell you that Katja Rieckermann
popped out of the womb ready to play the saxophone, but her destiny in
music took a rather circuitous route.
“I was born in Luebeck (Germany), but I actually grew up in Bad
Schwartau, which is an even smaller city of 20,000 people and it is
about ten minutes away from Luebeck. Luebeck is very close to the Baltic
Sea and Bad Schwartau is in the middle of that. I grew up going to the
beach all of the time. My parents always had a yacht. During our summers
we would be at the beach or we would take the boat and go to places
nearby with our boat. It was pretty awesome. Our house was very close to
a forest and I spent a lot of time there. I also did a lot of horseback
riding. There was a lot of nature and I spent a lot of time on my
bicycle. I did stuff like waterskiing or swimming in the sea or stuff
like that. I did not grow up being a city girl. I think I lived more of
a country life.
I wanted to start playing the saxophone when I was twelve. I loved music
and especially the saxophone, but my parents didn’t want me to play
music. It was also because of my brother Ralph who became a successful
musician. He played bass for The Scorpions for about twelve years. He is
a little bit older than me and he was playing guitar at the time. Ralph
was rebellious as a teenager and my parents thought if you did music you
become rebellious, so they didn’t want me to become like that. They
didn’t want me to play an instrument and they didn’t support it. That is
why I didn’t pick it up until I moved out.
I moved to Paris when I was nineteen and it was right after I finished
school. It was totally and definitely a big culture shock. I was there
for a year and I studied French. When I came back I moved to Hamburg and
I lived there for ten years. That is when I started to play the
saxophone. Before that I
hadn’t done anything in music. I hadn’t played an instrument before and
I had no musical knowledge.
I never really studied music at university like people would think. I
just took lessons and I practiced a lot. I tried to sound like David
Sanborn (she laughs lightly), which never happened. I used to bite my
lip until it was bleeding, because I was trying to play the high notes
(she laughs again). People always want you to read music and they give
you Charlie Parker solos to learn. I did what everybody else who was
playing the saxophone was doing, playing Charlie Parker and John
Coltrane. I listened to those solos, transcribed them and learned them.
I tried to sound like them. I realized quite early that I was never
going to become a great Jazz player. I love Jazz and I like to play
Jazz, but I am not a Bebop player. That was never my thing. It was too
difficult for me, with all of those chord changes done super-fast. I
never focused on being a great sight reader. I read music, but if it is
super-fast and if there are lots of sharps or flats I have to look at it
slowly at first and then I can play it.
I bought my first alto saxophone, it is a Selmer Mark VI silver plated
in Cologne and I still play it today. I took a train to Cologne
twenty-five years ago to buy it.
The next big move in Katja Rieckermann’s life came in 1997 when she
decided to move to Los Angeles. "My
brother had already lived here and my parents had bought a house in the
Hollywood Hills because they also wanted to spend a lot of time in Los
Angeles. I was teaching saxophone in Hamburg at the
time. I was in a relationship with a guy and that fell apart in the
summer of ’97. I needed to get away and I thought I should go and visit
LA and see what the house my family now owns is all about. When I came
here my brother ended up taking me to the
Baked Potato a lot and it was
where all of these great musicians were jamming Steve Lukather would
show up, people from Guns N’ Roses. I would introduce myself and say I
was visiting from Germany. I would ask if I could sit in with them. They
would say sure. They were impressed with me and they said come back
anytime. My relationship (in Germany) was over and I was on my own. I
didn’t like teaching that much and teaching was not what I wanted to do
for the rest of my life. I enjoyed it, but I wanted to do cooler and
bigger things. I decided I was going to move to LA.
I went back home to Hamburg, I sold everything that I owned and I moved
here one month later. It was a very sudden decision, but I had a place
to stay, because we had the house here,” says Katja Rieckermann As for her transition to Los Angeles she says, “I didn’t know many people in the beginning, as you can imagine. I just focused on practicing a lot. I would practice all day long. My saxophone was my best friend, so I have always had company. At night I would just find clubs where live bands were playing and I would go out with my saxophone. I would go up to the band, introduce myself and say I play the saxophone. Could I sit in with you guys? That is what I did for years, so I ended up meeting tons and tons of people and made friends.”
It was in Los Angeles that the Rod Stewart connection came about.
“It happened in 2001 right before September 11. When I met Carmine Rojas
who was the musical director for Rod Stewart, he knew who I was already
and he said oh you are a saxophone player, right? He said it is too bad
I didn’t know you two weeks ago, because I just had to hire a female
saxophone player for Rod Stewart’s band. Then he said just in case
things don’t work out with that other girl, give me your information, so
I did. Two weeks later I got a call from him and he said we have been
rehearsing with this girl for five days and Rod didn’t really like her
and it didn’t work out with her. Can you come in for an audition
tomorrow? I said sure.
Carmine came by I think it was five on a Thursday evening and he dropped
off a disc with the live recording of five songs for me to learn
overnight. Oh my god I practiced all night. There wasn’t any sheet music and I had to learn the songs by heart. I was super nervous. I couldn’t sleep. I practiced for hours. The next morning I went in for the audition I didn’t really care that much, because I didn’t think I was going to get this gig anyway.
To me it was like, I am not going to get this gig. I
ended up getting it, so I think that was the best attitude to have. I
went in with no expectations.
When I was auditioning for him and I was standing in the middle of this
rehearsal room with everybody looking at me, (including) Rod and his
wife Penny, who were standing behind the mixing board. When I played my
solo on “Some Guys Have All the Luck,” I closed my eyes and when I
opened up my eyes I saw Rod and Penny behind the mixing board and both
of them had their thumbs up. That was probably the most special moment
of my life.
I found out (I got the gig) right after the audition. After I played
three songs they said okay you’ve got the gig! Carmine took me to the
side and he said that is the good news. The bad news is we aren’t going
to rehearse anymore, because we rehearsed with that other girl for five
days. We are loading out everything from the rehearsal space today, so
you have to learn the whole show by yourself. You will have to do the
first gig without any rehearsals. We are going to be on tour for two
months, so you have to organize your life. It was a lot, but I managed
to do it,” she recalls.
Thinking about those fourteen years touring with Rod Stewart, Katja
Rieckermann says, “Rod has been so generous and amazing to me throughout
all of those years and he was always super supportive. I was the first
one in the band to release my own solo record. When I released my first
album in 2007 called Katja we
were out on tour. He was so proud and so nice. He said if you want you
can sell the records at merchandising. Bring it on tour. When we were on
tour I had a lot of solos with Rod at the time. After one of my solos he
would take my CD cover and he would put it up on the big screen and he
would tell people that I had just released my own solo record. It is
available at merch, please go and buy it. He has always been super,
super supportive and really generous.”
She also shares a side of Rod Stewart that not many people get to see,
how well he treated her and others in the band, “I think there were a
couple of birthday parties that he organized for me. There was one time
when we were in Australia and another time when we were in Uruguay. He
would always do stuff like that and take us out for dinner. When we were
in Uruguay he personally picked a gift for me. He got me a leather coat
and a super cool scarf on my birthday. It was super, super sweet.”
“It is difficult and touring is not for everybody. It gets lonely at
times, because you are in a different city or a different country all of
the time. When I was on tour I lived in this bubble and I wasn’t in
touch with my friends at home that much. Some people might be different,
but I would go into this touring mode. When it is lobby call you have to
be there at the right time. Don’t be late for anything. You have to stay
focused, be professional and always show up. Touring can be tiring too,
especially when you are on a tour bus. I don’t sleep very well on a tour
bus. If you have to take a lot of flights, flying can be exhausting. I
had a great time and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. I got to see the
world. Usually we got to travel really nicely and we stayed in nice
hotels. We were very blessed,” she says.
As for the future, Katja Rieckermann says she would like to take her own
band on tour and that was the plan in 2015 when touring with Rod Stewart
came to an end. She had been doing gigs with her band in the Los Angeles
area, with an eye on doing the same in other countries.
“…but that didn’t work out, because I was working with a manager who
screwed me over. It took me a while to recover from that and now I am
looking for a new manager and a new booking agent to book some gigs,”
she says.
As for the type of music that Katja Rieckermann listens to for enjoyment
she says, “I am “Old Skool.” I like music of the seventies and I love
the eighties too. I have very eclectic tastes. I love Jazz, but I also
like Rock and Roll and Funk. I love Soul music. I don’t really listen to
contemporary music that much.” Her love for the era of music that she alluded to is borne out on the third of the three Katja Rieckermann solo albums, Never Stand Still. “It is the (music of) the seventies and Motown. I love that stuff. Of course I love anything that has horns on it. Tower of Power is one of my favorite bands of all-time and I was very pleased to open up for them twice this year. As a matter of fact just before you called Tom Politzer the solo saxophone player for Tower of Power sent me a text message and said hey are you opening up for us again tonight? I didn’t know anything about that. Apparently, they are playing here in the area and they were wondering if I was opening up for them again. Unfortunately, because I didn’t know about it so I didn’t plan to do that this time," she says. Part of the video (for “Da Ya’ Think I’m Sexy”), was shot at the Saban theater when I opened up for Tower of Power last January (2019).
Visit Amazon to purchase your copy of
101 Soulful Funk Licks and
while you are there or on another of your favorite online stores
purchase Katja Rieckermann’s version of the song “Da Ya’ Think I’m
Sexy.”
As for our experience leading up the time of our conversation with Katja
Rieckermann and during our conversation one could not ask for a more
gracious individual to interview and she was very generous with her
time. We already knew she was a fabulous musician, but now we also know
she is also a pretty special woman.
Please take time to
visit the website for Katja Rieckermann.
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I
thought now I have these newly recorded vocals of Rod and it is too
close to sounding like the original, so I should do something super hip
and new. 
For
a moment we talk about the rewards and challenges of long tours,
especially during the fourteen years she toured with Rod Stewart.