OOR 2002 - Nr 10 - Rammstein interview
Last December they played three sold-out converts in Amsterdam's HMH, this year they are one of the closing acts at Pinkpop. In June they will play again in the Netherlands, at the Gelredome in Arnhem, which will undoubtedly also be sold out. Rammstein is no longer a band just for sensation-seeking metal fans. The key to their success? The Germans are masters of calculated provocation. Although they will never admit it themselves.
In their own country, their records consistently number one on the album charts, they have played in Australia and Japan, and slowly but surely they have reached the U.S. conquered. There people have fallen en masse for Till Lindemann's captured lyrics, distasteful rolling 'r' and the Teutonic thundering cadence that drives the group. The band from the former GDR has now sold two million CDs there, their songs are played on the radio (unique, since not a single American understands German) and they were nominated for a Grammy. An honor that no German act has received since Milli Vanilli (!). The story of guitarist Richard Bernstein, bassist Olli Riedel, drummer Christoph Schneider, guitarist Paul Landers, singer Till Lindemann and keyboardist Flake Lorenz, all from East Berlin, has to be the most bizarre success story of the last fifteen years. be pop music. Perhaps that period is too short. Perhaps Rammstein's glittering international career is just as bizarre as the story of a dimwit from Flanders who, as Eddy Wally 1), scored a killer hit with Cherie as far away as Russia and China. Perhaps even more bizarre.
"The secret of our success is that we have always stayed true to our style. We have refined it here and there over the years, but our music has always remained typical Rammstein, and I think the audience would like to keep it that way. " That is the measured answer from drummer Christoph Schneider, who sits together with Flake Lorenz at the Rammstein management office in eastern Berlin. There is a reason why their answers during the interview are so short and concise. The band members do not like to give us a glimpse into the kitchen of Rammstein and the language barrier therefore serves as an excellent line of defense (they only do interviews in German).
Of course, the success of this band does not lie in the fact that they have remained true to their style. Thousands of bands all over the world remain true to their style and do not go further than the youth club of the neighboring village. Rammstein is so popular because it is a total concept, similar to the Gesamtkunstwerk as envisioned by German composer Richard Wagner. A multimedia total experience that feeds our subconscious fear and hatred for everything German and at the same time holds up a mirror to show us how ridiculous those gut feelings actually are. Who takes all the cliché images (Blut und Boden) that we have about Germans as true and at the same time makes fun of them in a grotesque way. Rammstein plays that game with a velvet technique and at all levels: music (punishment and martial), lyrics (dark and commanding), artwork (cold and distant) and live show (grand and imposing). The Gründlichkeit with which the six Ossies approach this results in a parody of Germans that can only be described in one way: typically German. Thought out from A to Z, Herr Schneider? Of course not: "Rammstein simply makes loud music. We play what we can play and it sounds the way it sounds."
During the day they all had jobs, after all, 'unemployed' did not exist in the dictionary of the German Democratic Republic. Olli was a plasterer, Christoph installed telephones, Paul was a heating engineer, Till woven baskets and Flake made tools. Just as Father State directed all facets of daily life (a well-known expression in Die Ost was 'every second is one of them', referring to the fact that your neighbor could be an informant for the feared secret service), it also had a strong involvement in the existence of amateur musicians. Since living expenses were cheap, they had it relatively easy: one or two performances at the weekend were enough to finance your hobby. Everyone knew everyone, the music circuit was small and well-organized. Oliver Riedel played in the folk band The Inchtabokatables, while Paul Landers and Flake Lorenz scored a premiere with their punk band Feeling B by being the first East German punk band to release an album. Richard Bernstein had a crossover band. In that capacity, the regime left them relatively alone, although they had to be careful not to come across as subversive and anti-totalitarian in their lyrics. When the Wall falls in 1989, the six's first encounter with the free West takes place in the form of West Germany superstar David Hasselhoff (Knight Rider, Baywatch), who stands on the ruins of the tightly drawn concrete border between East and West sing his hit Looking For Freedom. They have no idea who he is. Four years later, Christoph, Olli, Till and Richard decide to turn their backs on their old, moribund bands and start a new one.
"German bands always try to imitate their American and English colleagues," says Christoph Schneider. "We did that in the early days, by mixing hip-hop with hard guitars. You know, what every band on this planet does. That was mainly Richard's idea, we tried to build on his style. But hip-hop, that just had nothing to do with us. We didn't feel anything about it at all." Yet it is the same Richard Bernstein who said about those early days in the Berliner Morgenpost: "I had the opportunity to go to California and experience the bands we imitated up close. Only then did I realize that culture and climate determine what kind of music people make. I returned to Germany and started writing music that is characteristically German." According to Schneider, that picture requires some nuance. "Richard is the most stubborn of the bunch, we always have the most difficulty convincing him of our ideas, especially in the early days. If he had the sole say, the band would sound much softer and poppier. Only when Paul and Flake joined, our current, martial style was born. They had a punk past. That mentality appealed to us much more, as Germans we could at least get along with punk. Richard wants to take credit for the way we make music, but the fact that we sound so German is above all Paul's merit. In the other bands he played in, he also had highly developed ideas about how a band can distinguish itself. He always thinks a lot about that and is in that sense the theorist behind Rammstein. We owe it to him that we were able to muster the courage to take the risks we did then."
The band name was quickly chosen. A year before the fall of the Wall, on August 29, 1988 2), a terrible accident occurs during an air show at the Ramstein military air base, in which a stunt plane crashes into the audience while burning, resulting in seventy deaths. The enormous force of the explosion scorches people in front of the camera. Rammstein, that is. The name is a prime example of the sharpest tool with which the band has become so successful; Rammstein understands the art of calculated provocation like no other. Till Lindemann goes one step further by singing the song Rammstein wrapped in a burning coat. The lyrics ('Ein Mensch brennt/Fleischgeruch lieft in der Luft/ein Kind stirbt/die Sonne scheint') could still be seen as a factual summary of the images of the air disaster, but that coat suddenly puts the song in a completely different, lugubrious and sinister, daylight. Rammstein behaves like an elephant in a china shop, but does so as subtly as a butterfly!
That song in question comes from the debut Herzeleid, which was released in 1997. Artwork (see 'controversies'), lyrics, music and appearance of the band members immediately sparked a heated discussion in Germany about the band's image, which distrusters quickly labeled as 'fascist'. Drummer Christoph Schneider defended Rammstein's creative and musical choices at the time, saying that "we are indeed muscular, have short hair and sing in German, with a rolling 'r' (with which Lindemann, according to some German newspapers, imitates Hitler's way of speaking during speeches). But that does not mean that we are fascists." Later he said in OOR about this smear: "Germans of course struggle with that eternal feeling of guilt. They want to be everything, but please not German. It is very difficult to talk about that without immediately being called a Nazi. Who says: 'I am German', he is a Nazi." The Nazi ghost is persistent, because even during the release of their latest album, Mutter, a student of German literature claimed that the record title is a clear reference to the mother country Germany. Quatsch, says Schneider. "We play with the image people have of Germans. Rammstein comes across as a militaristic band that barks its orders at the audience. We embody how the rest of the world imagines Germany. That image is made up of clichés, many of which are directly related to the war. Yet I see it more like this: we embody everything that has made Germany famous, good and bad."
It may have been the naivety associated with growing up in the isolated GDR that prevented the band from properly sensing how sensitive the Nazi past still is. Yet even after that debut and the wave of criticism that album provoked, Rammstein likes to flirt with his 'right-wing' image, although they continue to claim that they do not do this consciously. Flake: "You can also turn a Britney Spears lyric into a Nazi lyric. Ooops I Did It Again, Hitler...do you see the connection?"
Nevertheless, they use images of Leni Riefenstahl for a video clip (see 'controversies'). And some of Lindemann's choruses show that the Germans can also express their calculated provocation in a more subtle way. Those of Heirate Mich ('Heirate Mich! Hei! Hei! Hei!'), Du Hast ('Du! Du hast! Du hast mich!') and Rein Raus ('Rein? Raus!') do show demagogic traits that are reminiscent of bad times. And when they feel it necessary to convince us of their political color, which they do on Mutter in the song Links 2 3 4, they do so to the sounds of a military march. It is typical of Rammstein to say that their heart beats on the left while the music conjures up images of endless rows of shiny, polished soldiers' boots marching in mechanical step across Unter Den Linden.
The great thing is that the band gets away with flirting with everything that is labeled as rightwing and wrong, and that it can leave people in the dark undisturbed as to whether the six Germans are all serious or not. Rammstein makes grateful use of Till Lindemann's texts. Not one of them (except for the aforementioned Links 2, 3, 4) has a political connotation, with which the singer defuses the situation. On the other hand, they are a perfect vehicle for the band to practice their favorite activity: calculated provocation. The surly, possibly or not genuinely tormented singer emerges in his lyrics as a lugubrious man who, especially on the first two CDs Herzeleid and the 1999 released Sehnsucht, hunts for sexual satisfaction like a predator. On two conditions: it has to be his way and he will not tolerate any objection. In Herzeleid's Weisses Fleisch he tries to find satisfaction in S.M.: 'Du auf dem Schulhof/ich zum Töten bereit/Und keiner hier weiss/von meiner Einsamkeit/Rote Striemen auf weisser Haut/ich tu dir weh/und du pity laut.' Pay particular attention to how one simple word ('Schulhof') gives the song a charge that makes you feel extremely uncomfortable. In Heirate Mich (from the same album) he does this again, by introducing the listener to the world of necrophilia. 'Mit meinen Händen grab ich tief/zu finden was ich so vermisst/ich nehm dich zärtlich in den Arm/doch deine Haut reisst wie Papier/Und Teile fallen von dir ab.' On Sehnsucht he once again explains in detail that he is purely interested in his own satisfaction ('Bück dich befehl ich dir/wende dein Antlitz ab von mir/dein Gesicht ist mir egal'). On the same album he also delves into incest, such as in the song Tier, in which a father sexually assaults his daughter: 'Was macht ein Mann/der zwischen Mensch und Tier niet unterscheiden kann/Er wird zu seiner Tochter gehen/sie ist schön und jung an Jahren/Und dann wird er wie ein Hund/mit eigen Fleisch und Blut sich paaren'. From Speil Mit Mir the following stanza: 'Wir teilen Zimmer und das Bett/Brüderlein komm und sei so nett/Brüderlein komm fass mich an/rutsch ganz ganz dense an mich heran.' Mutter deviates from his predecessors in that Lindemann seems to have moved on from his sexual perversions, except for the song Rein Raus: 'Tiefer tiefer/sag es sag es laut/tiefer tiefer/ich fühl mich wohl in deiner Haut.' The provocation is now found through other channels, such as in the song Ich Will, which, given the earlier accusations of fascist tendencies, has a strikingly popular character: 'Wir wollen dass ihr uns vertraut/wir wollen dass irh uns alles glaubt/Wir wollen eure Hand sehen/wir wollen in Beifall untergehen.' Of course, shivers run down your body when Lindemann cuts Snow White into a morbid fairy tale (Mein Herz Brennt): 'Nun liebe Kinder gebt fein eight/ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen/Ich hab euch etwas mitbracht/hab es aus meiner Brust geissen. '
"Pain, suffering and heartbreak have always been a source of inspiration for us," says Christoph Schneider about the lyrics. "When we started the band, we all had relationship problems, some of us even had to leave our children. At that time, music was an outlet for our frustrations for all of us. Ten years have passed and for me personally, suffering plays no role in my life anymore, but for Till it absolutely does. And there are a few band members who have to be in a constant state of pain and sadness in order to feel good. Although I do think that we will slowly have to break new ground if Rammstein is to continue to exist." So to think that the band has become more cautious is a wrong assumption? "Yes, we have always played with ambiguity. In the very beginning we just tried everything. Until we heard the public reactions: 'Can a band make something like that, isn't it all too German?' Should we explain everything or leave our image open without providing any text or explanation? We opted for the latter. This action-reaction dynamic is something we have been dealing with for years now, with public criticism serving as an indicator: If people think we are going too far, then we know we are doing the right thing. Furthermore, it is a matter of remaining brave and saying: Was die Leute finden ist mir scheiss egal. Still, I think we have closed a phase with Mutter. We can't continue to flirt with taboo themes, we have already pushed the boundaries of that."
The fact that Rammstein can cut so undisturbed with his sharpest knife (provocation) is due to their most blunt instrument: the live show, in which they perform a modern variant of Dante's inferno as post-apocalyptic half-zombies. During the Sehnsucht tour, the band members appeared as robots and machines. Their hair is dyed silver, with long coats full of nail studs and rubber and bright blue lenses. Cold and expressionless, they stared into the crowd. Till Lindemann descended onto a trapeze staircase, while jets of fire sparkled from beneath him. he carried flamethrowers shaped like Freddie Krueger fingers. His voice rolled over the audience like a Teutonic march: punishing and unrelenting. He punished himself with a whip, and a little later, using fire-breathing boots, he rolls over cartwheels across the stage. Deep red blood seeped from his silver hair. A woman in angelic robes descended into a rusted steel cage, while flames spouted meters high into the air around her.
The band manages to convey all this with so much seriousness that the few moments in which Rammstein allows you to think that you might also find it all very funny have an even more alienating effect. When the two guitarists and the bassist enter the stage during Wilder Wein with ridiculously large sombreros, for example. Or when Flake goes crowd surfing in a rubber boat. Or, indeed, when the same Flake gets liters of semen sprayed over him by Till (Bück Dich). The band continues to do so happily during their current world tour. For example, large glass jars containing children's corpses are placed on stage in strong water, while at one point Flake appears to be a surgeon under an operating lamp, complete with white coat and doctor's gloves. They themselves of course deny it, but associations with Doctor Mengele still pop into your head completely involuntarily. Don't worry, it's a completely innocent association, because Rammstein is fun. Isn't it? Well, it's not that simple. Compare it to schlager. Watch a schlager program on German TV (Schlagerparade Der Volksmusik is highly recommended) and you will see the similarities. The singers from Tyrol and Bavaria look terribly out of place in their lederhosen and dirndl dresses, with their undeniable Prodent 3) smile and blow-dried hair in front of plywood sets of snow-capped mountain peaks, alpine meadows full of flowers and log cabins. But damn, they still really like it. Flake: "There is humor in what we do, but it has crept in completely involuntarily. People see us as something comical, but that has never been our intention." Christoph: "What we are playing now sounds authentic to our ears, we can identify with this. What we make is what we feel inside, what we experience as real. We bring comedic subjects with complete seriousness, that is our craft. Till brings ridiculous topics into the spotlight with a deadly serious face and dramatically accented voice. We like that. It's good to keep people in the dark." Oh well, otherwise Rammstein can still use the excuse, entirely in German tradition: Es sei nur ein Scherz gewesen.
Five controversies surrounding Rammstein
On their debut CD Herzeleid from 1997, the six band members are depicted bare-chested against a background of a gigantic orange-yellow sunflower. The taut and oiled chest muscles, the short, severely shaved haircuts, the separation of band members by hair color (brown on the right, blond on the left); everything indicated that, according to the Rammstein critics, the Berlin band presented itself here as a representative of a new, superior Men's race. With this, the six made a giant swing across the political spectrum: from ex-communists to neo-Nazis in the space of a month.
On Saturday, June 5, 1999, singer Till Lindemanne and keyboardist Flake Lorenz were arrested immediately after a performance in Worcester, Massachusetts. The scene during Bück Dich in which Lindemann stood behind a bending Lorenz to simulate anal sex with a strap-on dildo, rubbed local law enforcement officers the wrong way. They handcuffed the two, who then had to spend the night in jail and were released after paying bail (25 dollars).
At the moment Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror organization forced two hijacked passenger planes into the WTC buildings, Rammstein's members were also in the air. They set course for the United States to continue their world tour. All aircraft that were in the air at that time and flying towards America had to immediately turn around, including Rammstein's. However, all the necessary stage equipment had already been flown over, so a week after September 11, the Germans toured America with a show full of fireworks, meter-high flames and explosions.
Rammstein recorded the song Stripped in 1998 for a Depeche Mode tribute CD (For The Masses) (later also on the Australian tour edition of Sehnsucht). For the accompanying video clip they used images from Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia documentary about the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. Riefenstahl was Hitler's court filmmaker. Goldie and Asian Dub Foundation were the first musicians to publicly accuse Rammstein (MTV, NME) of having Nazi sympathies. Fellow Berliner Alec Empire (Atari Teenage Riot) had a more nuanced opinion but did say: "You can't use Riefenstahl's footage and then say it was just a joke. My grandfather died in a concentration camp, so forgive me if I here don't see the joke." Richard Bernstein subsequently stated that the band had used the images purely for aesthetic reasons. "We thought they were beautiful images. That's probably what people in the cinema thought at the time: beautiful images."
Painfully topical given the terrible shooting at a gymnasium in Erfurt. Two years earlier, on April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed twelve students and a teacher and then themselves at Columbine High School in Litteleton, Colorado. The perpetrators are said to have been incited to their actions by the music and lyrics of Rammstein and Marilyn Manson; right-wing and Christian groups immediately called for a ban on both bands. Christoph: "It was put that simply, but of course it is not that simple at all. Typical of American politics to point to one guilty party in their world where everything is black and white." Flake: "It's fortunate for us that Osama bin Laden is not a Rammstein fan."
1) Eddy Wally was a Belgian singer who enjoyed some popularity among 'regular' folks, but to 'critical music journalist' made pretty much the epitomy of 'tacky' music. Being Belgian is for some Dutch a source for ridicule in itself.
2) Nitpicking but the airshow disaster in Ramstein took place on August 28 (not 29) 1988
3) Prodent is big brand of toothpaste in the Netherlands
List of other Rammstein OOR interviews
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