2004.10.23 - KERRANG_en

SLIPKNOT’S NEW MASKS: THE FIRST PHOTOS! ►
DOWNLOADINCk
ARRESTS , m
EXPLOSIVE K!
INVESTIG ATIO N. 1
DA'
‘i-k'iA.SlUDd
9 "770262 662124 11
ISSUE NO 1028
OCTOBER 23 2004/ £1.90

With bandmates like these...
Styling by: Posaunen Des Ruhmes Make up/wigs: Martin Turanskay Production: Arne Weingart @ Pilgrim Management
lorenz. c (key.b)
riedel
landers. p (gtr)
lindemann* t (voc) Schneider, c (drm) kruspe-b ernst ein. r.z (gtr)
...who needs enemies?
potter. ms (words) page. sJ (photos)
341 KERRANG!

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Hidden in
the grooves of L bi
Rammstein’s latest
album is the story
of how a group tora
apart by internal
tensions defeated
their demons and
rediseovered fun.
We joined them in
Berlin for a rare
glimpse into the
band’s Creative
heart and soul...
A BARE , bulb-lit room above a karate gym in
Berlin. Six burly men stand around, smoking and talking
on mobile phones. They are dressed as women -
East German military poiicewomen to be precise - in
uniforms, big black leather boots, lipstick and wigs.
Initially, it’s a bewildering scene.
Within seconds, l’m caught in the bear-like handshake
of the most muscular transvestite. And one
thought is flashing through my head: “Jesus fucking
Christ - she’s the singer in Rammstein! ”
Something is clearly very wrang here. Because
not only does Rammstein vocalist Till Lindemann
never, ever, meet the press, but he was also, until
today, quite butch.
But, like everything eise they do, Rammstein are
taking the preparations for K!’s shoot incredibly
seriously: they frown and sweat as they wrestle tights
over hairy calves, fuss with their wigs, inspect their
uniforms in the mirrors. And when they break for
make-up and gather for coffee, cigarettes and flurries
of text messaging, they correct each other’s posture.
It’s oddly touching.
Rammstein, you see, are having fun. The band
whose thundering industrial rock is a byword - on
these shores, anyway - for Wagnerian walls of sound
and the raging of tormented souls, are, for today,
more Monty Python than Metallica. And it suits them.
It’s strangely appropriate, too, given that their new
album, ‘Reise, Reise’ (‘Journey, Journey’) sees them
expanding their horizons with an unhinged,
Mephistophelean humour, extrovert outlook and dark
relish that previous outings only hinted at. ‘Mein Teil’
- chorus ‘Because you are what you eat’ - concerns
last year’s consensual cannibal sex-death scandal in
Germany; ‘Amerika’ is a double-edged swipe at
everybody’s favourite bogeyman; ‘Moskau’ sees the
East German sextet turning the tables on the former
Soviet capital. This sounds like a band who know
that, now, they can do what the Hell they want.
Which begs a question: ‘Reise, Reise’ isn’t a light
album by any Stretch. Nor is it any less intense than
earlier outings. It’s just that, after the troubled
sessions for the dark, claustrophobic ‘Mutter’, it
seems someone’s opened the shutters. Rammstein
are looking outward.
Clearly, something’s happened. Something’s
changed them.
But what?
THAT S A question easier to ask than to
answer. In past interviews, they’ve talked in general
terms: I want to know specifics. What follows often
feels like a series of police interviews. The picture
that emerges - of fisticuffs, of therapy, of a group of
friends who always loved and inspired each other
learning how to trust each other - does so
slowly, and sometimes painfully.
Recording.
Meet Till Lindemann, Rammstein’s
hulking singer. Normally a rugged fellow,
he now looks like a rugby-playing prison
matron. He sits in a skirt, legs apart. Till, it
is acknowledged, does not give interviews.
Yet here he is.
“Making our last album, ‘Mutter’, we fought
a lot in the Studio,” he growls, his cigars-andbrandy
voice emerging from lips smothered
in crimson Chanel No 7.
“We fought because of the pressure we
were under. There were tensions within the
band, and other pressures - the record label
advanced us money. And of course, the third
record is the crucial album; the one where people
decide if a band is going to make it or not. And...
well, what went on in the minds of those fans was
also reflected within the band.”
So the band pressed on with ‘Mutter’. Lindemann’s
lyrical vision got more and more personal. But so did
the others’. And they clashed. Something had to give.
“In the end, we couldn’t function properly,” says the
singer, Clearing his throat. “People wouldn’t step back.
And in an extreme democracy like this band, it is
impossible to work like that. A disaster is going to
happen. And it happened.”
Click.
A new tape rolls. Christoph Schneider leans
forward, introduces himself. The drummer looks, and
even talks, like a very kind school cookery teacher -
albeit one dressed as a DDR interrogator.
“It all came to a head with ‘Mutter’,” he sighs. “That
song was Till’s thing alone. A very personal song.
That was the first time we decided we didn’t want to
participate. All band members have to buy the lyric,
and be associated with it... and I couldn’t accept it.”
So?
“So we had a huge fight, and we didn’t see each
other for months... And yes, some people feit, ‘I don’t
wanna continue’. It didn’t get that serious that we
thought we were definitely finished. But it was a
turning point, where we reorganised.”
THE TUMJIIIGr point. The fightback.
Get the members of Rammstein on their own, and
you’ll hear very different versions of what exactly
went down. Someone - they won’t teil you who -
called a crisis meeting. Or, there was no meeting.
Things got physical, says one member. Nobody ever
fought, says another. They all took time off from
Rammstein, to think over their future within the band.
Nobody took any time off. They were all equally
to blame. Certain members were more to blame
than others.
But this isn’t wilful obfuscation - bizarrely, this is
honesty. You get a sense that everyone is being
completely honest... with what they recall of the
Situation. Like witnesses to an accident, they all recall
different things. If those things contradict each other,
that’s just because they refuse to dodge, to give the
convenient answers you want. To settle on a story.
Their truth is their truth. How very Rammstein.
The one thing everybody does agree on is the fact
that, once apart, Rammstein had the chance to do
what few bands ever manage. To Step off the wheel.
To see themselves as others saw them.
“Exactly,” smiles Schneider ruefully. “The distance
helped. We thought about each other, thought about
/ ■
TülHlCH *. omYTjB
*

what we had, and everybody came to the same conclusion -
we wanna keep the band alive, not just break up because of
some stupid fighting; stupid ego. It’s not worth breaking up for,
you know...”
BUT WHILE, thankfully, they all agreed that the world
was a better place with Rammstein in it, they also knew
something had to change. And the more they talked, the more
they realised that some of the most Creative forces within the
band were also the most potentially destructive.
It became clear that the guitarists, in particular, had put a
stranglehold on the others - without even knowing it.
Play/Record. Rolling.
Speaking: Richard Z Kruspe-Bernstein, livewire guitarist
and, today, Heidi-plaited uniform dominatrix. German accent
heavily Americanised. He sounds like Lars Ulrich. He chain
smokes. He courteously turns off his phone when it rings,
which is often. Because he has a confession to make.
“I was... I wouldn’t say blinded, but obsessed with my own
vision. I created all the songs down on my Computer, and went
in and said, ‘This is the direction I wanna go’. And of course
Rammstein songs are an organic process. But l’ve got this
drive, and I got pissed off... I was like, !We have to get this
record done’, and I really didn’t realise that it was kind of a
controlling thing. After a while, I realised there were issues in
the band,”
How did you realise that?
“We had a long meeting, and we spoke about it. Like, ‘We
don’t really have fun anymore1.”
Who called the meeting?
(.Exhaies smoke. Pauses.) “I don’t really remember.”
How did you react when they confronted you?
“I couldn’t really understand. I got really sad. You feel, Tve
worked my ass off, and you’re blaming it on me! You know
what? I don’t know what I did wrong!’. That was one of the
reasons I moved away, left the country... I had to move away. I
wasn’t happy. I feit like, you know, I did everything I did just to
help the band, and this was the thanks I got. I moved away to
New York. And slowly but surely, I realised what was wrong.”
Teil me exactly what you realised.
“I realised that sometimes a band has to make mistakes.
Especially in this band, everyone’s got to be involved. Because
we don’t have someone who leads. I learned sometimes you
have to cope with the fact that somebody might make a mistake...
and that that’s alright! And I had to relax and give up
control, which was - is - a real issue for me.”
What you’re saying sounds exactly like what Paul confessed
to me earlier.
(.Exhaies Cigarette smoke.)
So you two were the guys.
“Yeah.”
SAME Hoorn Different guitarist. Thirty minutes ago. Paul
Landers is speaking across the microphone between us. A
slight, Molko-esque figure, he looks like a design Student. He
wears a dress, but, so far, no make-up.
So what were you doing wrong?
He looks me in the eye. A sad smile. He makes a decision.
Starts talking.
“I have a problem. I should go to the doctor, because I don’t
trust anyone. I don’t know what the reason is. It must be something
in my childhood... But I don’t trust anybody but me. And
that’s not good for me, and not good for a band like us.”
But you know it. Are you trying to fight it?
“Yes. Otherwise they’d have thrown me out of the
band already.”
You’re smiling though. Can the rest of the band laugh about
it too?
“No, not quite. They still suffer from me.”
He pauses. His sad smile brightens.
“But they also realise that everybody has their little ticks.
Over time, you realise that everybody has their difficulties, and
with time, we’ve learned to appreciate them. They’ve all got
something, but l’m still very fond of them all.”
Is there a list of rules now, then? ‘Reise, Reise’ even sounds
like you changed certain things within the band...
“Yes. We realised the important thing is that we feel good.
On this album, everyone did what made them happy. If you
wanted to go to the rehearsal room, fine. If you didn’t, that’s
fine too - that’s our new recipe. Everybody in the band does
whatever makes them feel good. Do something you enjoy, and
people will hear it.”
OLLI • BASS. One-two. It’s working.”
Lofty Oliver Riedel smiles shyly. Shorn of his goatee, fully
made-up and with a wig covering his shaven head, he’s every
inch the gawky teenage girl, fidgeting in his seat throughout the
interview, arms folded tightly across his ehest. He stares at the
floor. He bites his cuticles. He explains how Rammstein got its
groove back.
“It used to be that if we had a 10am r.ehearsal, you had to
be there. Now it’s more like if you want to come, you come.
Don’t come out of a sense of duty, but because you want to
express yourself. Then we realised that this was something
productive and something came out of this. A new trust
between us.”
More freedom for you as an individual?
“Yes.”
It’s a tricky environment for individuals, Rammstein. The
six-piece makes every effort to maintain uniformity, a united
front. Their photos present them as a themed unit, a
conquering army, straight from a book of socialist iconography.
One is all and all are one. Is that something you’ve had
second thoughts about?
“Well, for the first album we didn’t even name the individuals,
but presented ourselves as one strong unit. We did that right
up to ‘Mutter’. Then we gave our names. We wanted even then
to become individuals. Now we have.”
Is that atmosphere of freedom reflected in the music?
“Yes. I was really relieved because when everybody brought
their ideas, they brought the right amount. Before, there was
pressure to come up with more and more ideas, which is good
on one hand, but you were sometimes forced to produce ideas
and you weren’t happy with what you were coming up with.”
THIS ONE S tougher. Off-duty, flicking through his copy
of Kerrang! a few minutes ago, keyboardist Flake (pronounced
‘Flar-ker’) Lorenz was quick to smile and exchange chit-chat.
But now he’s sitting over the mic, he’s all guarded stare, folded
arms and pursed, crimson lips. Every inch the suspicious
boffin. Is he playing the role? He pauses, watching the tape
roll. Crafty: he’s hoping it’ll run out.
So, this ‘Reise’, this journey... It’s Rammstein’s journey over
these three years, isn’t it? The great escape you’ve pulled off?
GOT ANY HOT WINGS? Rammstein's best flirting-with-outrage moments
TER IS
L UHDEMANH
■, ~ m m
LENI RIEFENSTAHL
The video for 193S's Stripped'
quoted the Olympic fiims of
Leni Riefenstahl, recentty
deceased filmmsker at Hitfer's
Nuremberg Raüies. "We've
never written a politica! song in
our !ife," says Flake, 'and we
probably never will, St's just
reverse discrimination becaus«
we are German. Kraftwerk had
the same thing happen to Ihem
20 years ago. Sf we were
Spanish or Dutch, there would
he no problem."
DILDOFUN
During live renditions of 'Das
Alte Leid' - with its 'Ich will
ficken'['I want to fuck0 ly ries -i
Lindemann has taken to
waving above his head a
grotesquely oversized dildo
that converts halfway through
into a genuine, army-capacity
flame-thrower with which he
menaces the crowd. He also
uses it to ejaculate onto a
ballgagged Flake. Bless.
HOT WINGS
Lindemann's trademark: durfng
Rammstein's anthem, he sets
fire to his arms (okay, fireproof
pads wrapped around his arms}
and spreads them like wings.
Ramstein is the name of the
Bavarian airbase at which an
air display was turned into fiery
carnage when two fighter
planes cotlided in a fireball and
80 people were killed. "Ifs
provocation!" the band
ciaimed, rightly.
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
"When we started, we would
pass among the crowd with
kerosene and set light to it,"
reminisces Paul Landers fondly.
"We can't do that anymore
because of regulations, but we
still get into trouble! Once in
Sweden, we'd planned to use
pyrotechnics, but the curtain
was very old and covered in a
fine dust. When we started the
fires, the cloud of dust ignited.
You could see the explosion
many kilometres away."

■ 4
“SQüffi PE0P1E SaY
BaOäSTEIH IS
t h a t’ s Ü/hat w ‘
WE THY TO DO SOüiETHIf^
SO VEKY SEHIOTJS.
CHRISTOPH SCHNEIDER
“It’s been a journey through time... but actually, no...”
But Rammstein has changed for all of you, hasn’t it?
A shrug. Sharp intake of breath. Of... what? Agreement?
Annoyance? Nothing. Then...
“We don’t feel the need to pack it all in anymore. When
you’re young, you think you have to say everything you can
in the shortest possible time. Then you realise that, really,
you don’t.”
The way in I was looking for.
ALL TOGrETHER now, relaxed and playing up for the
camera, the band make as queer a collection of individuals as
you’re ever likely to come across. And yet there is something
inseparable, something truly brotherly, about this rag-tag
collection of egotists, bookworms, rockers, intellectuals and
rabble-rousers.
Nowadays, they all agree with Riedel that they’ve
“recaptured the atmosphere” they had at the start. But if
‘Reise, Reise’ attests to anything, it’s that what led them to
the brink of implosion, into the shadowy world of infighting,
repression and depression, was their absolute refusal to go
backwards. To re-record ‘Mutter’.
“I think some of the fans might have wanted our first album
all over again,” says Lindemann. “But if that’s what you want,
go and play that one again.”
Landers agrees.
“It’s a matter of remembering what’s important. What we mean
by the feeling we had at the start is, when you start out, your
battle is to make the best record, to show what you can do. And
then you’ve done that. So then the battle becomes to be successful.
And then you have different battles. To maintain that level of
success, to resist the pressure to do things you don’t want to do.”
But if the band fought that battle in their different ways, the
sudden rush of realisation - of what really mattered, over and
above the squabbling - has done more than put the fun back.
It’s brought about a quantum leap musically too.
“There’s two sides to it,” nods Lindemann. “When you’re
young, you’re in a rage and you explode creatively. You can get
into massive fights about what you think of other bands, let
alone your own band! And that rage gets less. On the other
hand, you’re better... You’ve learned more, and when you’re
writing a song, or playing, and you think you’ve reached the
limit, you come across things you’d never have thought of
doing before.”
The hyperactive Kruspe-Bernstein has found new musical
horizons opening up, too - both as a solo artist and within
Rammstein. Has letting go made him happier, though?
“The thing is, guitar players, especially in this band, have
huge egos,” he laughs. “There’s a reason we picked these
instruments! So we especially had to learn. When we all
reconvened, I remember being in the Studio and thinking, for
the first time in how long, ‘Shit, I don’t know what to play!’. None
of us knew what we were gonna play. We just kind of jammed
around. Letting go was phenomenally important for this album,
and the way it sounds. It was suddenly, ‘Yeah, let’s fuck things
up! Let’s just do it, doesn’t matter if it comes out... all weird!’.”
“a l l w e i r d ” is, in fact, a pretty good alternate title
for ‘Reise Reise”s parade of five-star grotesqueries. Till
Lindemann calls the album “a newspaper; a document of the
time we were making it”. And if ‘Mein Teil’ served as a warning
that the band had conquered its internal devils and was ready
to take on the world outside, then new single, ‘Amerika’, is a
song the old Rammstein would never - could never - have produced.
It’s one of the key pieces for the album - more than a
good old dig, (Rammstein would never be quite so obvious), it’s
a recognition that the band, like every other European rock
band, has a stränge, double relationship with the USA.
“Americans find it impossible to tolerate humour about their
country,” smiles Lindemann. “The barricades just go up.
They’re the least humorous people on Earth... They should be
able to rise above it, but I don’t know if Americans can. Their
culture is all over the place, but they can’t seem to see the
wood for the trees.”
Yet the band owes some members’ involvement in music to
Uncle Sam, too.
“I was in a real rock ’n’ roll band when I started,” says
Kruspe-Bernstein. “Playing real American-style rock ’n’ roll.
And then, when I went to America, I realised that it was all
nothing but a lie for me to be playing that! That’s when I got
interested in the kind of music Rammstein plays.”
And yet, for the guitarist, whose ex-wife is American, the US
was also the place he retreated to when Rammstein turned
rocky.
“I underwent therapy there,” he confesses. “I was having panic
attacks. But you know what? I thought it was the band, but it
was New York City. That’s what gives you the panic attacks.”
And if airplay in the States has suggested that, so far,
America has failed to grasp the sly fun poked in lines like
‘Santa Claus is coming to Africa / And in front of Paris, there’s
Mickey Mouse’, that doesn’t seem to bother the lyricist.
Because they’re having a ball creating the songs again.
“We’ve relaxed now, we’re confident enough to try things
we’d never tried before. A song like ‘Amerika’ opens up a whole
new dimension - it’s a pop song! It’s opened up a new place
to us musically. I mean, we’re not going in some pop direction,
but a musician always wants to reach new listeners.”
IT S HOT just ‘Amerika’ that achieves this unique
doubleness either.
“ ‘Mein Teil’,” says Lindemann, “was [a story] we were drawn
to. Because if we had written the story behind it (the front-page
scandai o f 2003, in which a German man, Armin Meiwes,
advertised on the internet for ‘fit, chunky young men... willing to
be butchered, cooked and eaten’, then cut off and cooked his
willing victim’s penis with garlic and white wine, then slaughtered
and ate him. The ‘victim’ was consenting throughout and
even helped finish off his own penis) everyone would have
said, ‘Oh, that’s Rammstein, they’re exaggerating’!”
Is all the fun in the studio spilling over into a more - whisper
it - humorous Rammstein on record, then?
“Some people say Rammstein is funny,” muses Schneider.
“Or that we have a lot of humour. The thing is, we try to be totally
straight as much as possible, but sometimes it’s so overdone, it’s
getting to be funny, flipping over to the funny side. That’s what
happens when we try to do something so very serious! We didn’t
see it before but we’ve been told [people see it] a lot, and
we’ve also recognised our funny side. Sometimes we do it
deliberately now. A lot of our lyrics have humour in them...”
He smiles, clearly relishing the historical punchline he’s
about to deliver...
“But unfortunately, English-speaking people won’t get it.”
THERE ARE, you suspect, a lot of things about
Rammstein that some people just don’t get.
You also suspect that this is exactly the way they like it
That this insistence on being nothing but themselves, whether
it baffles people or not, is part of what keeps it interesting for
them. What are they like? They are like Rammstein. What
genre would they say they belonged in? Rammsteinesque.
That’s the essential riddle behind every one of their stern
expressions in these photos; behind the archive samples on
‘Moskau’; behind their dazzlingly OTT Videos, their —literally -
incendiary concerts. They are what they are. And it’s a unique
bond that now keeps this unique band together.
Paul calls it a marriage: “Only it’s a marriage between six
people. Which actually makes it easier... When you argue, it’s
not just silence. Someone can always step in and help.”
“There are six people here, so we talk a lot,” says
Lindemann. “It’s like a male-only monastery sometimes.
Everything can be said, and the main thing is to say what’s on
your mind - to break the silence that seems to build up - even
if it results in actual physical confrontation, violence. I mean, I
hear stories of British bands where the brothers beat each
other up every day, and I understand that. But...”
He’s distracted by Flake Lorenz, stumbling around, half out
of a pair of ladies’ tights, hair still in a neat bun. Lorenz sees
Lindemann, waves up at our balcony.
“But really, come on. There’s no way you could ever hit
someone looking like that!”
The laughter that explodes all around is spontaneous, generous,
affectionate and free. This is Rammstein, after all. ★
RAMMSTEIN’S NEW SINGLE, ‘AMERIKA’ IS OUT
NOW ON ISLAND/UNIVERSAL.
Go on, if you had to, which one
would you do? Answers on
postcards...
■ 1
3 8 1 KERRANG!