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Till Lindemann interview – Vienna Online

Vienna Online spoke with Till Lindemann about the album "Mutter" and the forthcoming tour

VO: How do you feel about new album, and what is the biggest difference to the first two?
Till Lindemann: We are very pleased with it, it is better and above all sharper than our first two. The style has moved from Techno to a more acoustic sound. So it’s back to the roots. Music journalists would describe it as more “pop”.

VO: What is the story behind ‘Mutter’? Is it about a cloned child?
Till Lindemann: It is up to the individual to make their own interpretation, the lyrics are purposely ambiguous. But your idea about the cloned child is close to my own.

VO: Did you come up with your own ideas for the video “Sonne”?
Till Lindemann: Yes, the idea was ours, director Jüergen Haidmann only advised us during the production. The song “Sonne” was actually meant for a Boxer, for the Klitschko brothers, for their entrance to the boxing ring. There’s the counting: One, two..but we wanted it to be less aggressive otherwise, with the video, it would have to have something to do with boxing, and that was too much so we came up with the Snow White idea and that immediately appealed to us.

VO: What inspires you, how do you come up with your ideas for the songs?
Till Lindemann: Usually, my band colleagues give me a track to work on at home, I will often listen to it with bottle of wine and very loud, and wait for inspiration. I try to hear what fits with the material. With “Sonne”, for example, I could clearly hear something rising up and then it became the sun.

VO: You are known for your spectacular stageshows. Can you give us an idea of how they will look on the new tour?
Till Lindemann: We have some promotion to do now, then we have only two months preparation time, but we’ve engaged an American stage designer and we will take great pains to produce another extravagant Show.

VO: More pyrotechnics again?
Till Lindemann: Yes, of course, that’s all part of a Rammstein Tour

VO: The press love to label you right-wing. What can you do to challenge this image?
Till Lindemann: We have completely and totally dissociated ourselves from this image in innumerable interviews but journalists continue to write the same thing nevertheless. On the new CD there’s a song, which makes it quite clear that we have no right-wing ideas, that is “Links 2-3-4”.

VO: Do you now regret the using the Leni Riefenstahl footage in your video for “Stripped”?
Till Lindemann: No, because we used the footage for it’s artistic value, we thought they best fitted the song. One should not mix art and politics anyway, Riefenstahl was an artist and we are too.

VO: Have you any musical icons?
Till Lindemann:: A lot, but they haven’t particularly influenced us. Everyone has their favourite Bands, mine for example are Ministry, Type-O-Negative, Limp Bizkit and Placebo.

VO: What is your favourite webpage?
Till Lindemann: I have to say none, I am not good with technology, my Band colleagues only recently gave me a cell phone, because they could never contact me.

© 2005 Sue Lindemann