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California über alles, San Diego 1-Dec-01 Kerrang!

Backstage at the Cox Arena

It’s not the best start to the day. Flake Lorenz, the skinny, bespectacled keyboard player with Rammstein is standing next to a gate in the backstage area of San Diego's Cox Arena, talking animatedly in German to a member of his road crew. There's a mildly perturbed look on his face, and he occasionally gestures in our direction. Rammstein are here at the Cox Arena as part of the Pledge Of Allegiance tour. In a few hours' time, they'll take to the stage armed with pyrotechnics, dildoes and flame-shooting headgear for now, though, there's an interview to he done.

Unfortunately, no one - especially not Flake Lorenz - seems to know anything about it. Lorenz doesn't appear to speak much English, and no one's told him that we're here to speak to him and his band. He doesn't even recognise the name of the person we've been informed to contact. Flake and a few others in the band are trying to get to the beach, and answering questions in English seems to have all the appeal of finding a snail crawling around in his salad. Eventually he smiles and tells us to be patient. Then he leaves.

Forty-five minutes later, Rammstein's tour manager eventually turns up. Apologies are offered, before he leads us to Rammstein's tour bus, where guitarist Richard Z Kruspe- Bernstein and drummer Christoph Schneider are waiting for us. We're in.

"I would prefer not to do interviews," shrugs Christoph Schneider. "I think it's more exciting when you don't know so much about a band. I think that in America, though, it's different. You have to present yourself in public every so often or they forget about you."

The inside of Rammstein's tour bus looks like the inside of any and every other tour bus currently trundling around America. They must keep the flamethrowers and pyrotechnics in the boot, as there's nothing in here that would make anyone think that a rolling arsenal was blazing around the US. Instead, there are merely a collection of maps marked with red ink to show directions to venues, and a few German men's magazines filled with photos of blonde, bikini-clad Frauleins. As far as these things go, it's unremarkable in every respect.

Except one: we're here. A few months ago, setting up a Rammstein interview and photo session would have been like planning a military operation. Recently, though, the band have brought down the wall that has, in the past, divided them from the media. Six months ago, you wouldn't have seen shots of Till Lindemann having his head shaved in the band's dressing room. Today, that's no problem.

As Christoph Schneider tacitly admits, the reason for this thawing of attitudes is that, in America at least, Rammstein have lost some ground recently. In 1997, the sextet joined Korn and Limp Bizkit on the inaugural Family Values tour, effortlessly turning themselves into one of the few arena-sized acts that actually sounded and looked good in a big venue. The tour, combined with the success of the 'Du Hast' single, helped persuade 1.4 million Americans to part with their cash in exchange for the band's second album, 'Sehnsucht'. But this time around, things, while far from disastrous, haven't gone quite so well. Rammstein's latest album, 'Mutter', might have been a hit across Europe, but the good citizens of the United States don't seem to have taken to it like they did its predecessor.

Consequently, this Pledge Of Allegiance jaunt is an opportunity to raise their profile once more. "I don't know why, but I feel much more comfortable here than on the 'Family Values' tour," says Richard Z Kruspe-Bernstein. "That one seemed much more professional, as it had a revolving stage and every change-over between the bands was done quickly." Dark-haired and friendly, Richard talks faster and with more assurance than Christoph, who has a refreshingly blunt honesty and speaks with a low voice and thick accent. Although hulking singer Till Lindemann, guitarist Paul Landers and bassist Oliver Reidel are never seen before the moment they take the stage, Richard and Christoph are completely at ease fielding questions, contradicting any notion that they'd be anything other than enthusiastic. According to Slipknot guitarist Jim Root, Rammstein have been a pleasure to tour with. "They actually seemed a little shy about meeting us," Root explains. "Till came into our dressing room early on, and we said, 'Hey, come on in! Have a beer!'. But he was like, 'No, no, I just wanted to say that you have a really great show, really great band'." System Of A Down bassist Shavo Odadjian also scoffs at the idea that Rammstein's lack of fluency in English has affected international backstage relations.

'Hell no!" exclaims the California-bred Odadjian. "Some of those guys speak better English than I do!"

While Christoph believes that Americans are indeed missing out on a big part of what Rammstein are about by not understanding their lyrics, Richard disagrees. "I don't think that a lot of people can understand what Slipknot are yelling about most of the time."

When they formed seven years ago, Rammstein were intent on celebrating their German-ness. Tired of seeing every band from their native country imitating American acts, the six musicians embraced their heritage. "This was a project where we tried to do a 'German' state of music," explains Richard. "By that I mean a really straightforward and direct sound, maybe even a little too 'stiff' rhythmically, without a lot of looseness. That's very much a part of German culture, but we can also laugh at ourselves and our culture."

'We're even considered a little too over-the-top in Germany," grins Christoph. "We come off as more German than most Germans."

The humour in what they do is often hard to discern behind that thick wall of sound and the OTT visual. But it is there, not least in Lindemann's guttural, almost operatic singing and twisted lyrical themes. "I think our sense of humour is very dark," admits Richard. "But we play roles onstage like any actor would."

There's no question that Rammstein's fiery stunts overshadow the meaning of the songs. When the pyros explode, you can feel the beat from hundreds of feet away even as your ears bear the brunt of the gunpowder's attack. "We were a little bit stupid and naive in the early days of the band," grins Richard, who plays a large part in planning the band's stage-show. "in the beginning we would do all the pyrotechnics ourselves. We had one accident where the entire backline fell down and was burning behind us. After that, we decided, 'Okay, we'll work with professionals from now on!'."

On the Pledge Of Allegiance tour, Rammstein's 35-minute slot means that some of the more visual elements of their stage-show have been curtailed. Still, the audience does get to witness the sort of explosive power not normally seen outside of a B-52 bomber - not least the spectacle of seeing the band sporting helmets that shoot jets of flames 20 feet in the air. "It bothers me, because we're more than a pyro circus," says Christoph. "But obviously it's what the Americans like at the moment."

"Sometimes we've done whole concerts without the pyrotechnics," says Richard. "When we played Chicago a couple of years ago, they decided that we couldn't use anything in the venue. So we played it without anything, and it was one of my favourite shows we've ever done. We can do it."

Skipping aside the fact that they patently couldn't in London earlier this year, when Westminster Council rescinded the licence the band needed to use pyrotechnics at the last minute, Rammstein make it abundantly clear that safety - theirs, as well as everyone else's - is firmly on their minds. This is not the sort of band that their tour mates can watch from the safety of the wings: there's simply too much firepower up there to allow anyone not keenly aware of the timing of every single explosion near the stage.

The rest of the bands on the Pledge Of Allegiance tour already know what to expect, and they love Rammstein for it. Later on, System Of A Down grin knowingly when their dressing room, located in the bowels of the arena, is rocked by the continuous shelling of German artillery.

Still, according to Rammstein, it's not all about the big bangs. The band have noticed that English-speaking audiences go particularly ballistic for 'Du Hast', which makes sense. Even if your German is the wrong side of rusty, it's hardly difficult to follow.

"That one's pretty understandable for American audiences," admits Christoph. "But we can't play the slow songs and ballads here, because they wouldn't know what we're singing about. For me it's a big deal, because I think that we have some very good lyrics, and one can't listen as intently if one doesn't know what we're singing about." He shrugs. "Maybe it's not that important to some fans."

Both Christoph Schneider and Richard Kruspe admit that Rammstein are at a crossroads in their career. After seven years, the pair are concerned that the band might not have much more left in them. "Being together for months on a bus with six members is just a nightmare," sighs Richard. "We're not 20 years old anymore, we're grown-ups."

'We're at that tense time," agrees Christoph. "If you can make it as a band past seven years, you can stay together for a long time. But everybody's feeling like maybe doing something different at the moment - getting some distance from the band."

Until then, it's time to enjoy what Christoph calls "the pyro circus" for what it is: one of the greatest shows in rock today. Whether you come for the huge beats or for the smell of burning kerosene, Rammstein are simply the best at what they do.

"Let me put it this way," smiles Richard. "We want to entertain people. We're musicians, and we like to play with fire."

RAMMSTEIN play London Brixton Academy on December 2.

Words:Joshua Sindell & Photos: Lisa Johnson

Kerrang!Issue of 1 December 2001

© 2005 Sue Lindemann