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Classic Rock: Captains of Industry – June 2002 Issue 41

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Homo-erotic, far-right propagandists or misunderstood champions of electro-industrial metal? Meet Rammstein, the most popular German band on earth.

Five-sixths of Rammstein troop into a backstage room at London’s Brixton Academy and sit in a neat line on a comfy sofa. Four of them are hearty German types, all bulging muscles and booming voices, while the comparatively weedy Christian 'Flake' Lorenz, is cultivating his mad scientist look with white coat and big glasses. The last of their number, singer Till Lindemann, doesn’t give interviews. Presumably, then, he’s making preparations for his big entrance, due in an hour or so, when he will be lowered onto the stage from the ceiling on a giant pod while dresses as a hunchback.

Three floors below us at the Academy, a long, black snake of teenage goths and veteran metal-heads winds around the entire venue, attracting the attentions of bemused touts (the most confused of whom is offering "tickets for Frankenstein") and assorted scalpers with their barely-dry unofficial T-shirts and poster.
Against the odds, Rammstein are burning the haus down. They are the first rock band to have a hit album in America (‘Sehnsucht') sung entirely in German. Their sound, a bombastic mix of orchestral keyboards, concrete guitar and Lindemann's mad vocals, inspires a cult-like devotion in their fans. The Rammstein stage show - which, along with the hunchback, incorporates setting each other on fire and soaking each other with the ejaculate from a giant dildo - is certainly not designed for mass appeal, either. And yet appeal it does. Brixton Academy is full to bursting point, and the band's record company boss tells us that Rammstein could easily have sold out Wembley Arena, such is the demand for tickets.
Rammstein's third album, 'Mutter', does much to encapsulate the band's approach. Again sung entirely in German, it has a grandeur and sadness to it that deflates many of its sillier moments. Instead of making the band seem inaccessible, the German language lends them a mystery and a romance that would be missing had tried to express themselves in English.

The six members are East Germans and all are in their mid-30s, so they grew up behind the Berlin Wall under one of the world’s more ferocious governments. Their exposure to the west was limited ("Everything was 10 years behind"), and after years of touring over here they still use a translator in interviews. There are, they explain, nuances and subtleties to the language of their songs that defy succinct translation. ‘Sehnsucht’ for example, can mean ‘hunger’, but it can also mean ‘longing’. But the band are now so popular that they don’t have to bother anyway.
Interviewing the assembled five members of the band is an amusing experience – it’s a bit like watching a subtitled film. Someone says something funny, and everyone who can understand laughs. And playing against stereotype, Rammstein are funny; a lot of what they do is accompanied by a nod and a wink. Guitarist Paul Landers is an engaging interviewee, as are Flake, second guitarist Richard Kruspe-Bernstein, bass player Oliver Reidel and drummer Christoph Schneider. On tape, in German and filtered through a translator, all their voices sound identical: loud, German and boisterous.

How would you describe the philosophy of the group?
"The philosophy has changed. The first philosophy we had was hard rock, dance and rhythm, with women as the audience. But that has been changing.

Has the women part changed?
"Yes, now in the concert and after"

How would you describe Rammstein as it is today?
"We want to change people. We want to be as visual as possible. Trying to be modern, open-minded, to develop ourselves. There was a time when we concentrated on electronica because that wave was very popular. We just tried to do it in our own way. Once that era had passed we tried to do something else again. And another thing that is very important is that we must all stay together. Rammstein is all of these members."

A lot of Westerners’ perceptions of East Germany was of huge women shot putters and meat queues.
"Ha ha ha ha ha. We must call our music shot putter music...Actually, we had a teacher in PE, she used to be a shot putter. Or the discus, rather. She was two metres twenty. She was taller than the tallest pupil. And of course we were afraid of her..."

What was it like to grow up in East Germany?
"We didn’t know any different. We were happy. It was very simple, very easy, very natural. People were friendlier to each other, they helped each other more. Money, of course, didn’t count because it was worthless. And you had to have connections. The State was powerful. But there were gaps that the State created that you would fall into. So you could get rich, for instance, of you made earrings."

Like a black market?
"No, no. If you were creative you might take your bed linen and just makes something – two jackets perhaps – and you would sell those jackets and get more money than a worker would make in a month. From that point of view it was easy to live in the East. A worker would have different perceptions, different views. But in the end, of course, you would run out of bed linen."

Was there a particular kind of youth culture? Could you join a band?
"You could get a licence. You could form a band and play in front of a commission, and the commission would evaluate you, or put the band in certain categories. The categories were constructed to show how much money you could make. So of course if the State didn’t like it you weren’t allowed to play. The State didn’t like our music, or rather our lyrics, so we translated them into English. Because nobody could speak English, we got through. That was one type of culture. Then you had those music students who were sponsored by the State; they had money from the State. Of course they were quite boring. And you had another category right at the bottom: the punks, that didn’t go to the commission or didn’t even try to play there, and they could play at parties."

Were influences from the West coming through to East Germany?
"The music influence came very late because everything in East Germany can 10 years late. You could buy records on the black market but it took a long time. That’s one of the reasons why the East hasn’t been influenced, maybe, because they weren’t exposed to it."

How quickly did life change when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989? "Too fast. It changed too fast. There’s nothing really left from the East right now. Culture-wise, the West’s tide is so strong. The East didn’t have any chance to survive."

And what do you think has been lost?
"Warmth. If you want to understand it, maybe you could draw a parallel – not a true parallel, but the same in a way – between the American Indians and the cowboys: the way they were dispossessed. The Americans were quite ignorant in a way. They didn't know what they destroyed. On the other hand, I don't want to complain. We lived through the East. The band wouldn't exist if the East hadn't fallen."

When the Wall came down and you could hear Western bands, did you have to reassess what you were doing?
"Yes. Well, we realised what crap we played. And also, we all listened to different bands. Flake came from a punk band - it was at the border of what was permissible in the East. That border disappeared. With Rammstein we're quite pleased that we're back at the border of what's allowed."

There's a perception that your music possesses many unpleasant German National characteristics. Is that a fair perception?
"Well, we tried to do what we actually can do. I had an experience in America, seeing their bands and how they perform with their [national character]. I came back and tried to be a German band, with German lyrics, and trying to use electronics and what we call 'schtampfeet'- like a marching beat. It's German, yes, but it's not a negative; it's not in a stereotypical sense. But then it's not an insult to say we're German. We are a German band. To us that's not an insult, but a compliment."

But in the minds of those listening, even if your imagery has certain connotations...
"We don't want to be nationalistic. Maybe patriotic. All these German bands are trying to sound close to American bands or British bands; we try to combine it with good German qualities. Personality. The music just seems to sound that way. So England also has to learn to lose its prejudices; it's a new country now. And the same applies to the Germans."

In Britain, there's a painful irony to everything we do, especially in music. Is there anything about the nuances in the language of your songs that use that?
"The lyrics are very difficult to translate into English because they're not using modern or fashionable or slang words; it's the beautiful German language, which would be very difficult to translate. They also have a sense of humour that may not survive that. To use one example, we have one song that's called 'Bend Over', and because we don't have a girl in the band the singer just symbolises the act."

German HM bands like SADO have always seemed quite obsessed with S&M. It seems to be in Rammstein's image, too.
"We didn't even know they were German bands. We thought they were English bands, or American bands. Even Accept..."

No! Accept were the most German band of all time.
"No, no. We didn't know. That's the sad thing. Flake doesn't listen to any new or modem influences. If any member is responsible for the old sound, it's him. He listens only to Johnny Cash."

So is the S&M stuff just to shock, or did you have a genuine interest in it?
"Initially it was kind of a joke for one song called "Fire Wheels', but we just carried on. The band just uses what comes into our minds. We're not die-hard S&M or die-hard heavy metal, just whatever is available. Everyone came from different backgrounds and different musical backgrounds. That makes it what it is. We have to write about what we are. Sometimes it's really hard because we have six members. And it's hard to be a democracy. We must sometimes speak for hours to make one decision. Every single point on the record must be discussed."

Are you living the rock'n'roll lifestyle that comes with success?
"We threw a TV out of a window. You have to do that."

Has there been commercial pressure applied to you to write in English?
"We did that. We tried it, and it didn't work. We didn't do it again. You could go on and debate for hours whether it would make more sense to write now in English, but how can you say? We could be more successful if we sung in English, but then maybe we're as successful as we are because we sing in German. Singing in German gives people the chance to listen to something unique, to some new stuff. Again and again people say to us that the language really fits this kind of music. I think that people accept it, and that's cool. We never had the pressure, because we never thought we'd play in England or America. And then when we were successful it was because we were singing in German, so it became superfluous to sing in English."

Singer Till Lindemann, with immaculate timing, enters the room just as the interview ends. He is, as author Martin Amis once memorably described someone, about six foot one in all directions. Under the East German regime he trained as a swimmer, and the evidence remains in his Viking frame. At 39, a few years older than his bandmates, he is cordial and quiet, no doubt aware of the mystique he brings to his role. If any of the six can lay claim to providing the emotional core of Rammstein, perhaps it's Lindemann. Some details of his life are on record. He was born in Leipzig, but grew up in a small town outside of the city. His parents split up, and some fan sites report that he was beaten by his father. He has been married, and has two daughters. in a curious twist, Rammstein guitarist Richard Kruspe-Bernstein subsequently had a child with Lindemann's ex-wife, before marrying someone else. He inspires much intrigue and lust among his followers: "After some serious detective work, I have discovered that he is pierced in the left ear, but doesn't use it..." writes one particularly determined follower, who also imparts that the singer lost his virginity at 16 "on a haystack", once made a living as a basket weaver and "sometimes wears glasses". If Lindemann enjoys such devotion, he's not letting on. The best we can muster is that he quite likes Chris Isaak and Marilyn Manson. These details come to light as the band are photographed by Ross Halfin. Surmounting the language barrier by volume alone, Halfin yells at them: "You know Jimmy Page? You know Led Zeppelin? Yes? Well Jimmy Page told me he likes your guitar sound." Suitably chuffed (as you would be), the band enjoy themselves under the Halfin barrage. In addition to Lindemann's musical tastes, a mutual admiration between Rammstein and Metallica emerges, as does the meaning of the band's name ("it means , ramming stone', like a battering ram'). Half an hour later, Rammstein are on stage. Beginning with 'Mein Herz Brennt', the hugely entertaining 'Kashmir' pastiche that starts the 'Mutter' album, all of their finest qualities are on display. By the time they've started setting light to each other using flame-thrower masks, you begin to think that this is the most riotously entertaining metal show since Kiss were in their pomp and used a tank as a drum riser. Minus his hump, which he discarded after the first couple of songs, Till Lindemann is an imposing ringmaster. As he leads the audience in the umpteenth bout of head-banging before a final, spectacular blast of stage explosions, a few last words from the interview reverberate: "There is no division between what's ironic and what's serious, because sometimes what we find serious other people laugh at. It's up to the audience. Make up your own mind."
John Hotton
Photography Ross Halfin.

© 2005 Sue Lindemann