Interview with the podcast hosts of Feuer & Brot  “We Should Celebrate Ourself Much More Often”

In the podcast "Feuer & Brot", Alice Hasters and Maxi Häcke discuss a wide range of topics, from politics to pop culture. In this interview, they talk about how the podcast began and how their friendship has carried them through all these years.

Instagram Stories have just been introduced, TikTok is ready to go, and the German podcast scene is still quite small. In 2016, Alice Hasters and Maximiliane Häcke launched the podcast "Feuer & Brot". At the time, Alice was studying in Munich and Maxi was living in Berlin. The two had known each other since childhood. The aim of the podcast was to stay in touch and to counter the male-dominated podcast scene. We interviewed the two of them for our "Podcast Portraits" series.

Where does the name “Feuer & Brot” (= fire and bread) come from?

Alice: In Year 12, a friend said to us, "You're like fire and bread.” He probably meant "fire and water" or "water and bread". We thought it was funny and did some small projects under that name before starting the podcast.
 
Would you still call the podcast that today?
 
Maxi: We would probably give it more thought today. Back then, we chose the name because we wanted to leave it open as to where the journey would take us. The fact that you can't imagine anything under the name is perhaps a disadvantage. On the other hand, you can imagine anything under it, which could be an advantage. Besides, the name is almost as old as our friendship, so I wouldn't know what we would call the podcast today.

How has your podcast changed since 2016?
 
Maxi: The podcast has always been political, but of course we have grown alongside the format. Alice started writing columns for the "Kleinerdrei" blog in 2016, and she suddenly gained a lot of attention in 2019 with her debut non-fiction book, "Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen aber wissen sollten". This has naturally changed our sense of mission. We now have quite high standards for our format. At the beginning, we were more relaxed and didn't think as much about possible consequences. I've definitely become more cautious in that respect. Before, I wanted to blurt everything out, and Alice had to slow me down. Nowadays, I sometimes have to remind myself to be brave and not to be so afraid of criticism.
  The variety of topics in your podcast ranges from "Millennial Cringe" to "What East Germany Needs Right Now". How exactly can we imagine a typical "Feuer & Brot" listener?
 
Alice: We mainly get to see our audience at our live events. They are really great people. I would say they are mostly a bit younger than us and mostly female and feminist. And really lovely!

When you shed light on a topic, it always seems very well researched. With such a wide range of topics, how do you manage to delve so deeply into the various issues that you can talk about them for an hour?
 
Alice: First, Maxi does a lot of research, then we divide the findings into thematic sections. The episodes are usually a mixture of political analysis, cultural criticism and personal reflection. But to be honest: Maxi and I can talk about anything for at least an hour. We always come up with something.
 
You describe your podcast as "a conversation between friends". However, if you look at your choice of topics, you don't primarily think of two friends chatting at the kitchen table. How does being friends manifest itself in the podcast?

Maxi: By the fact that we're still here, right? No, seriously: many podcasts split up at some point because working together is a challenge and some friendships probably suffer as a result. It hasn't always been easy for us in stressful phases either. But we show a lot of understanding for each other and try to support each other. For the podcast, however, the friendship is a blessing, as we can bring our own humour to difficult topics and discuss more intimate subjects. An episode like the one on "Wanting to have children" wouldn't exist without the friendship.  How have your "friendship conversations" evolved compared to the past?

Alice: We've grown up, so the topics we talk about have changed and expanded. Maxi is now a mum, and we both have successful careers. We think more about care work and class relations in our analyses than we used to. As Maxi said, I used to be the cautious one. Now it's the other way around.

What are your plans for your 10th anniversary next year?

Maxi: Very good question! We've neglected the last few celebrations. This was partly due to limited time and my relatively recent experience of motherhood. But maybe we'll manage to perform live on stage more often next year. We would definitely like to! We should celebrate ourselves more often, especially in times like these.

What are your plans for “Feuer & Brot” over the next ten years?

Alice: The secret to our longevity is that we've never made big plans; we've just let things happen. We will continue to do that.
 

August 2025