Cascada's Natalie Horler Opens Up About 'Everytime We Touch,' New Dance Music & Plans to Return to America (Exclusive)
Cascada is back!
The legendary German Eurodance group, fronted by Natalie Horler, has provided us with countless dance floor bangers over the years, from “Everytime We Touch” to “Pyromania” to “Evacuate the Dancefloor,” as well as slamming covers of hit songs like “What Hurts the Most” and “Truly, Madly, Deeply.”
In the time since their 2004 debut with “Miracle,” the group’s managed to rack up billions of streams and views on YouTube, making them one of the most successful German music acts in history.
At the start of 2023, Cascada embarked on a return to the United States with a club tour run from January and February, stretching across cities like New York, Chicago, Houston and San Diego, marking the first Cascada run stateside in over a decade.
We caught up with Cascada‘s Natalie backstage before her New York City show at Bounce earlier in February, where she opened up about the longevity of their hits, getting back on the road in America, and future plans for touring and new music.
Click inside to read the interview…
Is this such a whirlwind for you?
It is. Yeah. To be fair, I’m starting to get tired. We’re winding down now. Obviously not gonna wind down on stage, but I was thinking: I’m starting to feel really tired. Do you work out? You know when you do a workout and you’re like absolutely knackered, and then you go relax for an hour and then you say, ‘Oh, come on! I’ll go and do that again!’ . [Laughs] It is what it is.
This is the first time you’ve been here in a decade. Why now?
[Laughs] To be fair, we’ve been speaking about it since several years ago. You have to apply for visas and stuff like that, it’s not like a decision to come over. You have to do it all the right way. It’s a lot of paperwork. It costs a lot of money. You’ve really got to make that decision. We’ve been very fortunate to be booked in so many different places. Sometimes things were just booked up, like, oh God, where are we gonna fit in the States? And then the pandemic hit as well. We were talking about it very directly in 2019, and yeah. That bloody thing. We should have come over a little bit earlier, but it has been in the works for years now. And now this has been where it’s finally happened. Yes. Finally.
What has the experience been like thus far?
Yeah, incredible. Quite humbling. It’s quite surreal really that people like you and have missed you, are so appreciative that you’re there. Absolutely. It really is touching.
It’s been just about two decades now. That’s longevity!
Fabulous. I’m so grateful. Seriously. I know lots of other artists that would kill for having that longevity, as you just said, being able to tour this frequently still. My year’s booked up every year and it’s crazy. I don’t know what it is.
The songs continue to have new life on social media, especially TikTok.
It’s crazy. If we didn’t have all the social media nowadays of the modern times, kids wouldn’t necessarily know of the music that was happening 15 years ago. They’re getting to know the music because of social media and streaming. Every one or two years, we do bring out a new track. If kids get wind of that, they have an easy opportunity to hear the other songs as well that are 10 years old. They seem to still be fairly timeless.
You have that thing that not many artists get to have, which is hits that people still know and love.
No, but it’s weird, right? I can’t understand it either. One thing I can control is – well I can’t control aging, but I can control the way I age. I’m still really young spirited. I make sure I keep fit. I do a stage performance that I could easily have done 10, 15 years ago. That hasn’t changed. I’m full of so much energy. So that’s one thing that I try and live up to, even though it’s been 18 years I think since I started. I hope that no one feels that they have an older artist in front of them. I feel that we can still connect really well. That’s sort of important to me. I don’t want to age anyway. [Laugh] I still feel 20.
Now, 2011 was the last studio album…
Oh God, that question about the album. Yeah. [Laughs] To be fair, it’s just to do with the fact that it’s a big sort of deal to do a whole album. It takes a long time. Everyone’s got to be invested in wanting to do it. It’s got to be worth it. At the same time, it’s easier to bring out a single track. Theoretically, you can take the last ones and put ‘em all on an album. Where’s the real difference really? Everything is so accessible now. It doesn’t really matter if it’s in an album because no one buys a CD anymore. You can make your own playlist. You can make your own album with the songs from the past five albums. I don’t find it that relevant anymore. On top of it all, music has become so fast paced now. People hear something, they either like it or they don’t, they listen to it for a few months and then they forget about it again. All in all, I think people lose interest very fast nowadays.
The culture has definitely shifted around music consumption.
Yeah. Say you work on an album for a year or two years. That is already is out of date, what you were working on at the beginning by the time you release that album. No one can argue with that, because that is just the way music is now. No one is sitting there on tenterhooks waiting for an album again because new music is shoved down your throat every week. It’s a difficult question really, but that’s the way I can answer it the best I can.
So what does spark the interest to do a song again, like “Never Let Me Go” with Timmy Trumpet?
You have to have the right track. Someone will send you a track, and you’re just like, ‘oh wow, that’s so cool.’ Or you’ll hear something and think, ‘Could you do something with that?’ It comes about fairly infrequently. Sometimes I have to press our producers a little bit like, ‘come on, let’s do something, let’s get in the studio.’ But it’s hard. I really do tour an awful lot. You really have to make time to do that sort of stuff. It’s sort of my priority, the live life. [Laughs]
How has studio life changed from the days of doing “Evacuate the Dancefloor” and “Everytime We Touch”? Is it more mobile now? Sending voice notes?
No, we do go in the studio physically. I’ve done that for demos. If you’ve written something to put down, you can do that in your home studio. I’ve got a set-up at home as well. I would never record a track in that way, I don’t think. Not if it’s not necessary. Over the years, Yann [Peifer] was living in Spain, so I was living in Spain for a few years. We did some studio work. The Original Me album, most of it was recorded in Majorca. Before that it was always Cologne. Now Manuel [Reuter] has his home studio set up completely at home, in his cellar. I go over his house and go and record stuff there around the Bonn area. Things have changed that way. We will Zoom in Yann because he’s normally not in the country. I’m always with Manuel in the studio, anyway.
What do you think of dance, and the direction that it’s gone in now?
I like it when I hear things that sound a little bit like the stuff I do or used to do, because I think things do come full circle, and I think it’s good. Same with fashion. Music does sort of repeat itself a little bit, and that’s cool.
Any future plans or aspirations for 2023?
To be honest, I think we’re all just enjoying the fact that after the pandemic and being home, we’ve all been on tour again, thankfully. I’ve been on tour since the summer of 2021 with little break. That’s extremely fortunate for me. We all thought it was a horrible time being at home, away from work. A big goal right now is to carry on touring the States again. We’ll be coming back at the end of the year. It’s already being planned. I can’t tell you which states yet. I’m sure New York will be a part of it again. Everyone’s always asking. “Come to Seattle, come to Washington!” Absolutely. But you can’t do it all in one go. This was the first time in so many years. You have to see if people wanna see you again. Thankfully it’s been very well received. We will be back. And I’m not just saying that. It’s really being planned already for the end of the year, and hopefully next summer as well. This year was just everything booked up in Europe, so we couldn’t do anything in the summer.
It’s a good problem to have.
It is. [Laughs]
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