We have overstepped borders
Rammstein are the most controversial band in Germany. And the most successful. Singer Till Lindemann about provocation, his home country, the dark chambers of his soul – and why he is a happy man for the first time
Playboy: Is Rammstein art?
Lindemann: There are moments of this band which have become art, which have immortalized. But in general I would say we make entertaining music.
Playboy: Was this the plan?
Lindemann: In the beginning we only wanted to attract attention. With extreme lyrics and extreme music. We were so fed up after the fall of the wall with all the old bands from the East which just sounded like American folk rock music. They copied each and everything: sound, hair-do, tattoos. We wanted to give those copyists a good slap in the face.
Playboy: Your provocation is calculated?
Lindemann: What can be called provocation today? In times of the East it was a provocation to go through town with a plastic bag on which “Axel Springer Verlag” was written. Provocation has to do with the reprisals you have to face. And in entertainment industry it doesn’t really work to talk about provocation.
Playboy: But you understand that someone would consider a song like “Mein Teil”, which is about the cannibal from Rothenburg, to be provocative? The text is: “Heute treff’ ich einen Herrn, der hat’ mich zum Fressen gern/weiche Teile und auch harte/stehen auf der Speisekarte/Denn du bist, was du isst/und ihr wisst, was es ist/es ist mein Teil“ (Today I’ll meet a man/ who likes me so much he would eat me/soft and hard parts are on the menu card/because you are what you eat/and you know what it is –it’s my tool)
Lindemann: But this was not our imagination, it really has happened. We thought it to be so unbelievable that one man fries the penis of the other in a pan and then they will eat it together. The Pet Shop Boys seemed to have liked the song, they have remixed it.
Playboy: For many years now Rammstein is the most successful German band in Germany and abroad. Which nerve do you hit?
Lindemann: We reveal emotions. Necrophilia and child molesters you won’t find in mainstream songs. We sing about it, and a lot of people are consternated but attracted by it at the same time.
Playboy: Most disturbing is you singing in the first person singular about these topics. Why do you do it?
Lindemann: It’s more direct. That’s the polarising effect: I am the cannibal, I am the child molester. In my opinion it would be cowardly to write it in the third person and make her responsible.
Playboy: Did the American shock rocker Marilyn Manson visit you during your US concert tour?
Lindemann: We met him several times. Nice guy. He lives the rock star image completely, has always bodyguards around him and even feels like a rock star while being under the shower. That’s a curse, too. I don’t want to be in his position. He has to decorate himself with silver tinsel, I just take off my pants after the show and that’s it.
Playboy: Talking to you one is surprised by your soft voice, sounding totally different to your deep voice on the records.
Lindemann: This is my normal baritone voice; when I sing I press my voice with force from below. I do it in a non-professional way, there is not much technique.
Playboy: Deep voice and a rolling “R” – does Rammstein therefore sound so evil?
Lindemann: Maybe. I sing out of instinct. That is a deep feeling – to sing out loud and hard something evil, which is buried deep down in the soul. You work up your life; it’s a kind of therapy.
Playboy: Also for the listeners?
Lindemann: I really believe that our concerts and music is of help for the soul. We receive a lot of mail from people that we were the only band who deal with topics like violence and incest. People write us they have experienced such things themselves and are thankful that we write about it. Now even women write us; that’s different to the beginning. In former times we were more an exclusive men’s club. Nowadays half of the people who come to our concerts are women.
Playboy: Rammstein as a substitution for a therapy?
Lindemann: There are many aspects. And we are a kind of harder David-Copperfield-Show. Fathers visit our concerts with their children to show them good fireworks.
Playboy: Have Rammstein concerts always been that based on pyrotechnics?
Lindemann: Yes, right from the very beginning. In those times we used a coke bottle with a mixture of gas to pour it into the whole room and then lit it. The whole room burned for seconds then.
Playboy: Is fire your passion?
Lindemann: No, not at all, but I hate it to be observed on stage. When a guitar solo was played in former times I stood liked glued to the microphone. I always thought: I have to do something against it or I will die of loneliness and boredom. Fortunately a friend of mine was a pyrotechnist.
Playboy: You are burning on stage. How dangerous is it?
Lindemann: My leg has been burnt, because the trousers caught fire inside. My coat now is isolated that good so nothing can happen to me. It is made of a butcher’s apron consisting of small metal petals and a three centimetre thick isolating material. No problem to be in flames with this thing for four minutes, before the fire will reach my skin through it. After that I am filled up with adrenaline. And love it.
Playboy: Where is the limit?
Lindemann: One time the fans really thought I was burning: we made up a scene like I was having an accident and my leg was burning. Flake came with a fire extinguisher, but it contained a flammable powder. I was in flame, the music ended, the lights in the room went on. I rolled on the stage and assistants came with real fire extinguishers. We did that on 20 shows, but had to stop, because fans considered it to be too much and complained in the internet. They were really shocked.
Playboy: Which effect for the stage would you like to invent?
Lindemann: Permanent downpour. It’s such a fun to play while it rains. We did it for a video, but you can’t do it on stage, because the electric power in connection with the water would kill you.
Playboy: Why do you present yourself on stage so martial?
Lindemann: If we would make hippie guitar music we would wear bell bottom trousers and sun flower shirts. With our outfits we have set a frame for the picture we want to paint on stage. The war make-up and the naked upper bodies are part of it. We call it “OF” (“o” for “Oberkörper” = upper body part; “f” for “frei” normally: free, here: bare). We ask each other in the dressing room before the show: Do you do “OF” tonight? Nope, I have put on too much weight, maybe next week.
Playboy: What was the weirdest outfit?
Lindemann: We wore it in a small, dirty club, when we did our first three gigs in New York. It was totally crowded, and we played “OF” and with traditional leather trousers.
Playboy: Without the fear to serve German folkloristic clichés?
Lindemann: Absolutely. Over there Germany is Mercedes, leather trousers and kraut. After the concert two black Hip Hoppers came to us and said: we hate that metal shit, but you guys are ace.
Playboy: Did you ever perform on drugs?
Lindemann: In former times constantly. We have tried everything but injections, but from joints to cocaine we gave it all a try. It was like a competition: how extreme is this band? Only for the effect.
Playboy: Why did you stop?
Lindemann: On the one hand the shows have become too big. On the other hand my body gave me a warning signal. When we were recording in Stockholm, I could not mount two steps of the stairs, because I was so full of cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine. A tiny little white flag showed up and told me: if I go on like that I will have to face some problems.
Playboy: Nowadays Rammstein have some famous fans like Heino (German traditional folk music icon).
Rammstein are the most controversial band in Germany. And the most successful. Singer Till Lindemann about provocation, his home country, the dark chambers of his soul – and why he is a happy man for the first time
Playboy: Is Rammstein art?
Lindemann: There are moments of this band which have become art, which have immortalized. But in general I would say we make entertaining music.
Playboy: Was this the plan?
Lindemann: In the beginning we only wanted to attract attention. With extreme lyrics and extreme music. We were so fed up after the fall of the wall with all the old bands from the East which just sounded like American folk rock music. They copied each and everything: sound, hair-do, tattoos. We wanted to give those copyists a good slap in the face.
Playboy: Your provocation is calculated?
Lindemann: What can be called provocation today? In times of the East it was a provocation to go through town with a plastic bag on which “Axel Springer Verlag” was written. Provocation has to do with the reprisals you have to face. And in entertainment industry it doesn’t really work to talk about provocation.
Playboy: But you understand that someone would consider a song like “Mein Teil”, which is about the cannibal from Rothenburg, to be provocative? The text is: “Heute treff’ ich einen Herrn, der hat’ mich zum Fressen gern/weiche Teile und auch harte/stehen auf der Speisekarte/Denn du bist, was du isst/und ihr wisst, was es ist/es ist mein Teil“ (Today I’ll meet a man/ who likes me so much he would eat me/soft and hard parts are on the menu card/because you are what you eat/and you know what it is –it’s my tool)
Lindemann: But this was not our imagination, it really has happened. We thought it to be so unbelievable that one man fries the penis of the other in a pan and then they will eat it together. The Pet Shop Boys seemed to have liked the song, they have remixed it.
Playboy: For many years now Rammstein is the most successful German band in Germany and abroad. Which nerve do you hit?
Lindemann: We reveal emotions. Necrophilia and child molesters you won’t find in mainstream songs. We sing about it, and a lot of people are consternated but attracted by it at the same time.
Playboy: Most disturbing is you singing in the first person singular about these topics. Why do you do it?
Lindemann: It’s more direct. That’s the polarising effect: I am the cannibal, I am the child molester. In my opinion it would be cowardly to write it in the third person and make her responsible.
Playboy: Did the American shock rocker Marilyn Manson visit you during your US concert tour?
Lindemann: We met him several times. Nice guy. He lives the rock star image completely, has always bodyguards around him and even feels like a rock star while being under the shower. That’s a curse, too. I don’t want to be in his position. He has to decorate himself with silver tinsel, I just take off my pants after the show and that’s it.
Playboy: Talking to you one is surprised by your soft voice, sounding totally different to your deep voice on the records.
Lindemann: This is my normal baritone voice; when I sing I press my voice with force from below. I do it in a non-professional way, there is not much technique.
Playboy: Deep voice and a rolling “R” – does Rammstein therefore sound so evil?
Lindemann: Maybe. I sing out of instinct. That is a deep feeling – to sing out loud and hard something evil, which is buried deep down in the soul. You work up your life; it’s a kind of therapy.
Playboy: Also for the listeners?
Lindemann: I really believe that our concerts and music is of help for the soul. We receive a lot of mail from people that we were the only band who deal with topics like violence and incest. People write us they have experienced such things themselves and are thankful that we write about it. Now even women write us; that’s different to the beginning. In former times we were more an exclusive men’s club. Nowadays half of the people who come to our concerts are women.
Playboy: Rammstein as a substitution for a therapy?
Lindemann: There are many aspects. And we are a kind of harder David-Copperfield-Show. Fathers visit our concerts with their children to show them good fireworks.
Playboy: Have Rammstein concerts always been that based on pyrotechnics?
Lindemann: Yes, right from the very beginning. In those times we used a coke bottle with a mixture of gas to pour it into the whole room and then lit it. The whole room burned for seconds then.
Playboy: Is fire your passion?
Lindemann: No, not at all, but I hate it to be observed on stage. When a guitar solo was played in former times I stood liked glued to the microphone. I always thought: I have to do something against it or I will die of loneliness and boredom. Fortunately a friend of mine was a pyrotechnist.
Playboy: You are burning on stage. How dangerous is it?
Lindemann: My leg has been burnt, because the trousers caught fire inside. My coat now is isolated that good so nothing can happen to me. It is made of a butcher’s apron consisting of small metal petals and a three centimetre thick isolating material. No problem to be in flames with this thing for four minutes, before the fire will reach my skin through it. After that I am filled up with adrenaline. And love it.
Playboy: Where is the limit?
Lindemann: One time the fans really thought I was burning: we made up a scene like I was having an accident and my leg was burning. Flake came with a fire extinguisher, but it contained a flammable powder. I was in flame, the music ended, the lights in the room went on. I rolled on the stage and assistants came with real fire extinguishers. We did that on 20 shows, but had to stop, because fans considered it to be too much and complained in the internet. They were really shocked.
Playboy: Which effect for the stage would you like to invent?
Lindemann: Permanent downpour. It’s such a fun to play while it rains. We did it for a video, but you can’t do it on stage, because the electric power in connection with the water would kill you.
Playboy: Why do you present yourself on stage so martial?
Lindemann: If we would make hippie guitar music we would wear bell bottom trousers and sun flower shirts. With our outfits we have set a frame for the picture we want to paint on stage. The war make-up and the naked upper bodies are part of it. We call it “OF” (“o” for “Oberkörper” = upper body part; “f” for “frei” normally: free, here: bare). We ask each other in the dressing room before the show: Do you do “OF” tonight? Nope, I have put on too much weight, maybe next week.
Playboy: What was the weirdest outfit?
Lindemann: We wore it in a small, dirty club, when we did our first three gigs in New York. It was totally crowded, and we played “OF” and with traditional leather trousers.
Playboy: Without the fear to serve German folkloristic clichés?
Lindemann: Absolutely. Over there Germany is Mercedes, leather trousers and kraut. After the concert two black Hip Hoppers came to us and said: we hate that metal shit, but you guys are ace.
Playboy: Did you ever perform on drugs?
Lindemann: In former times constantly. We have tried everything but injections, but from joints to cocaine we gave it all a try. It was like a competition: how extreme is this band? Only for the effect.
Playboy: Why did you stop?
Lindemann: On the one hand the shows have become too big. On the other hand my body gave me a warning signal. When we were recording in Stockholm, I could not mount two steps of the stairs, because I was so full of cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine. A tiny little white flag showed up and told me: if I go on like that I will have to face some problems.
Playboy: Nowadays Rammstein have some famous fans like Heino (German traditional folk music icon).
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