On Tyranny: Australian Punk Project Schkeuditzer Kreuz Says Authoritarian America Would Ban Band From Playing New Song Live
“People forget that yes you’re allotted certain freedoms as a citizen of a country. It just seems like the notion of responsibility has gone completely out the window.”
-Kieren Hills of Schkeuditzer Kreuz
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The land of the freedom to commit crimes, the home of the craven. That’s what America is increasingly being perceived as by artists living elsewhere in the world, according to Australian punk project Schkeuditzer Kreuz (and anyone else with a pulse, frankly).
With the Trump Administration canceling visas for foreigners who have published a single social media post criticizing the US government, deporting authorized workers to gulags in countries where they’ve never previously set foot and directing masked thugs to shoot ministers in the head with PepperBalls® (did you know those projectiles are trademarked? Isn’t that rad?!), is anyone reading this article still arguing with a straight face that Authoritarian America hasn’t arrived?
But back to Schkeuditzer Kreuz, a project comprised by independent electronic music producer Kieren Hills. We caught up with him in late September, shortly after the release of his band’s new album, Swan Grinder, which he’s now supporting in Australia and New Zealand (dates below). Schkeuditzer Kreuz refers to a major junction in Schkeuditz, Germany – specifically the interchange that connects the A9 and A14 autobahns. The band’s motto is “one human and some machines, making noise, in the face of it all.”
With that badass info in mind, it’s our pleasure to welcome the first Australian musician to participate in On Tyranny, The Bad Penny‘s ongoing series about how authoritarianism directly damages artists.
Hey man, thanks for participating in On Tyranny. So, are you currently in Australia or Germany? Seems like you straddle both countries.
I’m in Zurich. Got a couple of days off from this tour and am hanging out in a friend’s apartment, recovering a bit, going through merge counting, stock banking … and eating good food.
Some of those terms may as well be in German to me. Are you an accountant by day?
No, I’m just working out all the finances so far on the tour: what I’ve got, what’s sold, how much money is in the kitty, et cetera.
Has it been a tougher tour financially this time around, given the global economic situation?
Yeah. I’ve only done a handful of gigs on this tour so far, in Germany and Switzerland, and while they’re not [struggling economically as some other countries,] it is tougher. People are hurting financially everywhere. Petrol prices have gone through the roof. Still, the tour is going pretty good.
Yeah, I saw that after Russia launched some drones into Poland, NATO reached an agreement not to purchase Russian oil.
I’m not sure. I’ve been a bit disconnected lately. But there’s definitely some weird shit going on there.
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“Right now, [the anti-immigrant and racist right-wingers] feel quite big, but in reality, they’re not that many people. Most people find it just embarrassing.”
-Kieren Hills of Schkeuditzer Kreuz
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For someone who seems to be as well-informed as you are about current events, how do you manage to disconnect?
I’ve only been disconnected the last few days because I’ve been playing gigs every night and sitting in bars with nice people and not touching my phone. [I’ve been focused on] hearing what people are saying about their own towns rather than trying to look at what’s going on in a wider sense as much as I normally would if I was at home.
That must be refreshing, to be paying attention to people getting involved in their local communities, where they can have a greater direct impact and see the fruits of their efforts versus on the federal level.
Totally. Even more so, when I’m on tour and a long way from home, I can’t do the stuff I would normally do at home. So listening to what people have to say about their local situations and talking about that is [refreshing].
Are you finding as you tour through other countries that, when people talk about what you refer to as their “local situations,” concerns about the rise of populism and nationalism are prevalent just about everywhere? As a corollary to that question, you’ve summed up the theme of Schkeuditzer Kreuz’s latest material as “we’ve always been at war.” Are you talking about humanity at its essence or global military conflicts specifically?
There are periods where it’s quieter and yet I can’t [pinpoint] a period where there’s [no unrest somewhere in the world]. I wrote it around international conflict, but it’s not just the constant battles [these days], as you say – which may be against someone in your own country or on your own streets. There’s this [blanket global] hostility, and it feels really fucked right now.
I grew up with Thatcher and Reagan, and that definitely wasn’t a golden age [of global stability]. But now we have 24-hour access to it. You can live stream whatever conflict is happening, whether it’s personal conflict or wars or massacres … it’s right there all the time. Everything feels more divided right now. Social media implies that we all hate each other, and when you use social media, you’re really only seeing people who either think just like you or who absolutely fucking hate what you think. But the reality is most people just want to get through their day without major drama.
The other thing is that you can do what you want on social media; the worst that can possibly happen to you is you get blocked. No one’s going to punch you in the fucking head, so you can get away with being a fuck-wit. I’m not encouraging violence, but sometimes … people forget that, yes, you’re allotted certain freedoms as a citizen of a country, however a sense of responsibility comes with it.
It seems like the notion of responsibility has gone completely out the window. On a very basic level, it comes down to some people refusing to apologize, like they never admit that they made a mistake. And that righteousness seems to be fueling this cult worship of strongmen Orbán and Erdoğan. They’re “macho” men who never admit they’re wrong, rise to power and then really fuck shit up for everybody.
Not to mention your own idiot-in-chief. I don’t even want to fucking go there today. There’s nothing I could say that would be new to you or to anyone else. I don’t want to say anything that gives it oxygen right now. It’s just fucking insane. There are times when I really wish I could just switch off social media completely and just exist. But it’s kind of hard because most tours are booked through it — not to mention promotion and all that stuff. It’s not actually possible to totally switch off.
Along those lines, are there certain nights you dread playing your songs because they deal a lot with the issues we’ve been discussing? Are you ever, like, “I need a break.”
No. It’s great every time. It’s very cathartic. It just gets all that fucking shit out there. I don’t say a lot between songs, but I do [share] a few words here and there about what [some of my songs are] about. Some people come up to me and talk to me very openly and earnestly about the words I said and what they mean to them. It’s gold.
On the other hand, I sing about subject matter that is less palatable in some countries right now. My recordings for a previous record were destroyed because someone claimed their content was unfit for export. They were printed and pressed in another country that [later] decided that wasn’t OK, and they destroyed the lot. Weird shit fucking happens.
I’ve been in some really, overtly stand-and-deliver political punk bands, where every song is an essay on a subject. Now that I say that, the lyrics of one of my songs is probably enough for me to not be allowed to play in your country.
Which one?
“Keep Dancing.” Because the first line is: ‘“Keep dancing on the graves as they’re dead, of those with no fucking mercy for those that they’ve bled.” It’s about partying when the fuck-wits lose. That’s probably going to go down so well there right now [he says sarcastically]. It’s a political essay of a song about a community fighting back and supporting those who can’t necessarily support each other. It’s what I think of as the basics of my ideology. It’s pretty simple. But there’s no place for subtlety in a three-minute punk song, especially when you dial it up to 11.
Australia has its own history of oppression, with its treatment of the Aborigines, as well as strict censorship laws, no?
Yes, 40 years ago, Australia banned a lot of films. But generally, it’s not super-strict right now. And, yeah, the treatment of Indigenous people as second-class citizens, and just a lot of wider racism and anti-immigration [sentiments, are still rampant]. It’s all based on stupid fear. There were these fucking idiots marching in Australia a couple of weeks ago to end mass immigration. It sounded exactly like what the National Front was saying in 1980. There was no fucking difference, except they’re now talking about Muslim people, whereas back then they were talking about Asian people. Right now, [the anti-immigrant and racist right-wingers] feel quite big, but in reality, they’re not that many people. Most people find it just embarrassing.
Australia’s got a weird fucking history because of that weird love-hate relationship it’s got with the British Empire. And right now, the British Empire is nothing. It’s the American empire that is fucking everything and has all the power and that we look to both for leadership and protection and for control. And right now, with all due respect. your country’s fucked, man. It’s a fucking shit show. There are people here that fucking love it and want to [replicate MAGA nihilism in] Australia, but there’s a lot people are just, like, “That is everything we don’t want to be.”
Australia is protecting its artists at least, though, right? We get delegations of Australian bands that come to the States to play, even here in Idaho.
In some parts of Australia, in Sydney and Melbourne, there’s laws about supporting venues and music. But some people move into an entertainment zone and immediately start complaining about the noise and get the venue shut down. [Fortunately,] now they’ve got entertainment zones where they’re just saying, “If you’re going to move there, you’re going to deal with it.” It’s so important, because we lost a lot of venues due to COVID.
It doesn’t feel like the support will be there forever, but right now it’s there. I know people who get grants to tour or release records, and it’s great. Governments have been propping up orchestras and opera for hundreds of years. They’ve never been expected to survive purely on their own ticket sales. Same with most art galleries. Why shouldn’t that extend to other kinds of art, you know?
Swan Grinding Oceania Tour Dates
Australia:
Friday: Banshees Bar & Artspace, Ipswich
Saturday: Vinnies Dive, Southport
11.23: Old Ambulance Factory, Nambour
11.29: Hotel Metro, Adelaide
12.6: Café Gummo, Melbourne
12.7: Blacksound Records, Melbourne
12.13: The Croatian Club, Newcastle
Aotearoa 2026:
1.23: Dead Witch, Ding Dong Lounge, Auckland
1.24: Underworld Tavern, Wellington
For more on Schkeuditzer Kreuz, go here.
Check out these recent installments of The Bad Penny‘s On Tyranny series:
• Charlie Nieland on How LGBTQ+ Artists Can Push Back Against ICE, MAGA
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