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Rammstein – Metal Hammer

Metal Hammer – April 2001

Industrial German noise engineers Rammstein have been accused of a lot in the past – primarily their flirtations with neo-Nazi imagery. Tommy Udo lets Richard Z Kruspe-Bernstein put the record straight – and fan the flames of controversy

Rammstein are back. Expect more over-the-top camped-up onstage pyrotechnics, more huge rubber phalluses, more rasping Teutonic vocals over pulverizing machine beats, more 'darkwave' mood music for the 21st century nu-gothz, and much, much more controversy.
Controversy is good. As a rule of thumb, if you upset bible bashing National Rifle Association-card carrying Middle America you're definitely doing something right.
Rammstein were second only to 0l’ Red Eyes Manson himself when their Family Values Tour reached the US in '98. Nervous pastors, sheriffs and fire departments huddled incongruously in gig venues to make sure Rammstein - occasionally performing butt-naked with fireworks going off in places you just don't want them to go off - contravened not the fire regulations, nor the laws of man, nor of God. Finally, in Worcester, Massachusetts - when Till and Flake strapped on those rubber dildos for their show-stopping big number'Bück Dich' ('Bend Over') -the local lawmen marched them off to jail, charged them with 'lascivious conduct' and put them on probation for six months.

A less endearing controversy ensued when that quality British journal, The Sunday Times picked up on German press reports that Rammstein were Nazi sympathisers. Tenuously linking them with black metal Satanic headease Count Grishnackh and his church-burning cronies in Norway, the paper believed it had uncovered an international 'Nazi goth underground'. So-called evidence took the form of a few clips from '30s Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahi's 'Olympiad', that Rammstein used in the video for their cover of Depeche Mode's 'Stripped'. And, naturally, the fact that they're German.
"We worked with a video director and a video director always has strong ideas about how things should look,” Rammstein guitarist Richard Z Kruspe-Bernstein tells us, calling the Hammerfrom his home in New York. "When we saw the footage we thought ‘Wow, this goes really well with our music’. We looked at the film and saw it for what it was. We didn't know at first that it was by Leni Riefenstahl. I like to keep a certain naivete about things. It was a piece of film. It was not at all a political statement."
Rammstein were forced to issue an unambiguous statement protesting their innocence: "We are not Nazis, Neo-Nazis, or any other kind of Nazi. We are against racism, bigotry or any other type of discrimination at all.” The controversy was fuelled by attacks from Goldie and Asian Dub Foundation - labelmates with Rammstein - and by fellow Berliner Alec Empire, of digital hardcore politicos Atari Teenage Riot. Empire accused Rammstein of selling records on the back of Nazi flirtations.
"In Germany, Rammstein is successful for all the wrong reasons," he said. 'I think they're not a fascist band, but I think that in Germany there's a lot of misunderstanding and that's why they sell a lot of records. I'm still waiting for them to make a statement. You can't just make a Leni Riefenstahl video and say that it’s just a joke. My grandfather died in a concentration camp and for me that's not a joke at all." But Richard claims Rammstein have been misinterpreted. “The problem is that we always tried to make statements, but people are not always interested in bearing the truth," he says. “On our new album there's a song called 'Links 2-3-4' ('Left 2-3-4') and the lyrics are 'They want my heart on the right spot/But 1 see below/it just beats left’ that perhaps gives more of a clue as to our politics. We are not a political band. We are not using our music as a political vehicle. Of course, we have our opinions as individuals, but we are not trying to tell people in which political direction they should go. We don't want the responsibility.”
Of course, if they came from London or LA nobody would bat an eyelid. But the controversy around Rammstein coincided with German neo-Nazi inspired attacks on immigrants and 'geistarbeiters'- so-called, guest workers', mainly of Turkish and North African descent - particularly in the depressed areas of the former DDR.
Formidably, German anti-fascist movements and laws are the strongest in Europe. Young Germans are constantly forced to come to terms with a past that includes the totalitarian nightmares of the Third Reich and the Eastern communist state. As a result, 50 years later, there's still an unfortunate stigma, and the result of coming a cropper with the kneejerk liberals if you show too many signs of cultural pride in Germany -thanks largely to a small minority of Nazi knuckleheads, screwing it up for everyone else.
Whether Rammstein's new album 'Mutter' and tracks like 'Links 2-3-4' help to shake the Nazi tag, or if the more 'humanistic' sound and spirit of the record will shake off the bonehead following is anyone's guess. What’s clear is that it's a very commercial record. The first single from the album 'Sonne' doesn't really give too much away, it's a deceptively pretty slice of lightweight goth froth that doesn't really set you up for the darker and bloodier stuff to come.
“The big difference is that on the first two records, German-only debut 'Herzeleid' and platnum-selling sophomore effort ('Sensucht’) is that we were very much in love with electronics, with samplers and all this machinery in the studio,” says Richard. "When we came to do 'Mutter' we tried to orient the music much more to the instruments. I believe that the songs are much more mature. You no longer bear the slavish dependence on machinery."

Germany doesn't have much of a metal history, apart from dinosaurs like The Scorpions and underground cults like Kreator.
German music at its best has always been pioneering industrial or electronic noise. Classical composer Karilheinz Stockhausen used to perform symphonies using radio static. He may have even influenced pure-noise terrorists like Einstürzende Neubaten, Faust and the pioneering electro-disco of Kraftwerk, right through to the Atari Teenage Riot/DHR axis today. This has now mutated into the creation of something unique, rather than the all-too familiar slavish imitation of successful British or American rock bands.
Rammstein are one of a few bands to sell shedloads of records in both Europe and the US without compromising and singing in English. In that sense they do take a pride in being German, which can be difficult for the don't-mention-the-war brigade to take. But they are closer in spirit to, for example, Latino hip-hop artists who rap in Spanish, or Welsh punk bands who sing in Welsh.
"We sing in German and write in German because it sounds right, it suits the music,” says Richard. “We use the voice as an instrument. Perhaps there are styles of music where German wouldn't sound quite so good and it would be better to sing in English. If we open the door to other bands from Germany and elsewhere to sing in their own languages then 1 think that is a good thing."

Now in the planning stages of a world tour that will kick off in Germany, Austria and Switzerland - following the album release this month - Rammstein are currently debating whether or not to do this year's Ozzfest. Maybe they're big enough to go out on their own in the US. They have won over some high profile fans too: film director David lynch (Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet couldn't make their video, but he got them on the soundtrack of Lost Highway and may work with them in future. And, at the '98 MTV Awards, Madonna famously announced she would be prepared to work with Rammstein anytime, anywhere.
”It's true,” laughs Richard. "She said that. There aren't any plans and we don't have the right song for her right now but one day we will and we will pick up the phone." Now there would be a sight to see: Rammstein and Madge kitted out in gigantic strap-on willies (surrounded by 10,000 chainsaw wielding dwarves) while she sings. In German.

© 2005 Sue Lindemann