Information
Date: September 1997
Source: LAB DVD
Interviewed: Rammstein
Interview
Richard:For me Rammstein is really the first natural boy group band.
Paul: A six-way marriage
Till: The main idea is love in all forms and in all variations.
Paul: Rammstein is Rammstein
Paul: In the GDR you were required to work. You couldn't "not work"
Olli: I trained as a plasterer
Schneider: Something with installing telephones.
Paul: Boilerman
Flake: Toolmaker
Paul: You virtually weren't allowed to make amateur music with out having a real job. You still had to have an alibi-job.
Richard: Before Rammstein we all knew each other. We were all friends.
Olli: A couple of come from Schwerin and were making music there. And some of us were making music in Berlin at the same time. Band musicians in the GDR inevitably got to know each other.
Till: Back then I made punk music. Pretty much the same with Paul. Olli played in a folk-fiddle band. And Richard comes from the crossover.
Paul: Then there were five of us. Only Flake the Keyboarder was missing. We really had to talk him into it. He didn't want to play in the band. He said it was to silly. He said it was to blunt, boring and strict. On the one hand we knew we need a Keyboarder, on the other, a person who'd speak up with their objections. Rammstein is like Goulash and needs a pinch of sugar for taste. We were always saying,"man, Flake come on and join the band." "Are their six or five of us?" He never really answered and he still hasn't even today.
Richard: We wanted to join machines together with hand made music. We then made a kind of demo at home. At night Till used to record his songs under the bed covers. It was late at night and we didn't want to disturb the neighbors. We sent this tape away and won the Berlin Senate's Music Competition. On top of this we all had problems in our love lives. Either we had just been left. Or we'd just left girlfriends. Of course a lot of discussion resulted out of this sorrow. There was a connection between discussion and making music. A kind of elemental force existed back then.
Olli: Pain or sorrow is the best starting point for artistic expression.
Schneider: We all had this feeling
: Its a new beginning . A new name, new music and all the possibilities
of a new
system. Mean that you could make record contracts. We'd thought about
what we could do differently to the mainstream, Our musical picture
of the West was: a bunch of good musicians. All of them trying to copy
American and English bands. And so very few individual band developed.
Flake: We found our style by know what we didn't want. No American Funk or Punk or something we couldn't do. We recognized we can only do what we play. And this music is very simple, blunt and monotonous.
Paul: It suits the way we are.
Richard: We're a very, very open band that's always trying out new paths.
Paul: Each member of Rammstein has
a different opinion on every topic. Of the six of us, one is always strongly
opposed.
Schneider: For me there've been two important developments. First the music's become a bit more sensitive not so coarse and angry as on the first album. The best part about the second album is that Till began to sing. And not just talk.
Richard: The big bang when writing a song, and it works, when the harmony changes, when you've the feeling that the song's finished, that feeling is the most rewarding experience for me, I like playing a role on stage and being dressed up. Its good fun. For the others probably as well. In my opinion this is a big part of the show.
Till: Our stature and stage presentation
is flirting with the entire thing. Its got nothing to do with some sort
of
"man cult" on our part.
Flake: We just do what we feel like.
Paul: There's a bit of theater involved, but the guy who plays Mephisto has to be a bit Mephisto to play him.
Flake: You can't really misunderstand our texts. They're just normal romantic lyrics. Every sixteen year old has already seen so much shit on TV. Were as dangerous as choirboys by comparison.
Till: I don't know why people get so hooked onto these taboo topics. There're maybe two, three or at most four on one album. For some hard riffs I really can't think of anything else. It'd be like putting a baroque frame round an abstract picture. At some point it has to fit.
Paul: Hard Riff, Hard Lyrics.
Soft Riff , Soft Lyrics.
Flake: Its the same with our photo. After making our first cover photo. They later wrote in the papers. "They're selling themselves as members of the master race." Its all total nonsense. Its just a photo.
Paul: I'd rather be Spaniard. Then we wouldn't have all these problems.
Schneider: To just scratch the surface, and then read things that aren't there. That I find really presumptuous.
Olli: Our audiences understand us better than journalists do. Unfortunately the journalists do the writing and not our audiences.
Flake: The news media amaze us again and again with their ideas.
Till: I always try to make extreme statements, cloaked as allegories. A bit oblique, like in the pop songs of the 60s. With lyrics like: " I want to stay with you tonight." And everyone knows they're both just going to fuck.
Schneider: What I like about our lyrics is they're on two levels. Never with a bias in one direction.
Till: women want you to go after them. That's the normal mating ritual. Male peacocks have a large plumage. And each spotted woodpecker is more colorful than the female.
Schneider: I can well imagine it's impressive to see us in concert. But I don't know what I would think if I weren't a part of the band.
Paul: We're the quality control. What we like is good, and that has always been good.
Schneider: Some people say keep doing the same thing.
My first pay Olli: I earned my first pay as an apprentice Richard: As a cashier at a bottle return. Till: I earned my first pay in a peat-cutting company in the summer holidays. I was fired after three days.
Hope Till: With out would mean the end. Schneider: If you've no hope left inside, than you can't do very much. Richard: Yes, absolutely, every day and every morning.
Belief Paul: It comes with time. Schneider: A very important thing. Till: Unimportant.
Respect Richard: You should have a bit of respect for everyone. Paul: You lose it with time. Olli: Its a good thing. Till: Important.
Dominatrix Olli: Dominatrix? Yea, why not? Paul: Not for me. Schneider: Not my line. Till: I know one.
Flake: When we wanted to make our first video. We didn't know a movie director. We simply sent our CDs to all the directors we knew from movies. Including David Lynch, he wrote us a nice letter : "sorry no time, but the music's good." He had the CD in the car and had to drive to the shoot location every day. So he just happened to listen to it and got used to it.
Richard: You hardly sense success yourself. You usually sense success from the people that approach you. The people reflect this by reacting differently from before. Because in their eyes you are suddenly a star.
Schneider: I'm happy that we're all around thirty, we can deal differently with success than eighteen year olds.
Flake: We've been making music now for sixteen or seventeen years. Towards the end it can't go fast enough.
Richard: The most important thing for this band. Is staying together, For me there can only be Rammstein in the constellation. If someone left that'd be the end of Rammstein. That's why staying together is the most important