Ray Winkler designs stages for Lady Gaga, Abba, Elton John – and for the Rolling Stones. Why they always need it big and what the future of pop looks like. A talk about the biggest shows in the world.
Interviewed by
Michael Zirnstein, Munich
In 1963 at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, England, the amps couldn’t keep up with the screams of the fans. But the viewers have long since been overwhelmed when the Rolling Stones appear. And that is also due to the gigantic stage constructions that the “entertainment architects” Stufish invent for the British band. The company of Marc Fisher, who died seven years ago, has already done nine tours (immortalized as a giant teacher doll at Pink Floyds “The Wall”) staged the British rock heroes, always new, sometimes under a technoid cobra in the “Voodoo Lounge”, sometimes in the middle of the seven deadly sins in “Bridges To Babylon” in 1997. That was the first Stones Tour that Ray Winkler, who has just graduated as an architect, took part in. He now runs Stufish and develops stage concepts from Lady Gaga to AC/DC. In the past week alone he recorded his works for Elton John in Frankfurt, Abba in London and of course the Rolling Stones at the start of the “Sixty” tour in Madrid.