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Till interview - Ostsee-Zeitung 21-Nov-02

"There is nothing worse than average"
Interview with Rammstein singer Till Lindemann about his poetry book „Messer“

Berlin (OZ) Till Lindemann, Lead singer of the rock group Rammstein, in the last few years has written poems as well as song lyrics, now published by Eichborn under the title “Messer” together with an artistic series of photos of Lindemann. In the OZ interview, the versatile artist says the poems would come about, no matter what.

OZ: Since when have you been writing poetry?
Lindemann: At 28 or 29 I began to note down text structures. They were sentence fragments, individual words, still not poems.

OZ: Did you enjoy poetry in school?
Lindemann: Not at all, just the opposite. If you are forced to read something then that’s never fun. Instead of being able to choose them yourself, it was just: Write about this one or that one! But that is just school. In the long run one must discover it for oneself. Everyone must decide whether to take a detour and not only stay on the main street. It’s always that way in everything. Whether the poems are published now or not, it doesn’t matter to me. For me they were an absolute discovery, although late. My father (the child book author Werner Lindemann) also wrote poems, however, I found them awful. For this reason it took me a while, until I came out from my shelter.

OZ: As a teenager sport was obviously important to you. You were a successful swimmer at the Rostock Sports Club, junior vice-European champion nonetheless.
Lindemann: I never liked the sport school actually, it was very intense. But as a child you don’t object.

OZ: Don’t you have good memories of your hometown?
Lindemann: Sure. I don’t go there though only to Rostock, because my son lives there, and I like to walk along the beach at Warnemünde.

OZ: In the past did you dream about becoming famous?
Lindemann: Not at all.

OZ: Now you are, is that important to you today?
Lindemann: Not really. One gets complimentary tickets for the cinema and you can pay the bills easier. Otherwise it doesn’t matter to me.

OZ: Does it matter how you come by your poems?
Lindemann: That doesn’t matter at all to me.

OZ: With the band Rammstein you resisted that assumption, you would often agree on ideas between yourselves. Do you have any concerns with your poems becoming misunderstood too?
Lindemann: I have fears, but no concern. I am quite sure that will come about. It will probably happen that: Either the texts are accepted or rejected totally. Actually that can only be good that one can think about them in that way. One knows one way or another then, but there is nothing worse than average. When one works in this way it can swing between hot and cold.

OZ: Poetry generally stands for sensitivity. Your texts deal with the morbid and are verbal executions, as it says in the preface. Did you want to break taboos?
Lindemann: Sure, although that is not my primary intention. On the other hand one is always a little pleased that so many can get flustered by them. One should regard them with a grin and not take everything so seriously.

OZ: You make it fun to read, do the critics always try to understand your texts and explain them?
Lindemann: Absolutely (laughs). That is not the intention why I publish the poems, but for a beautiful side effect.

OZ: When you wrote the lyrics, did you already have it in the back of your mind to publish them?
Lindemann: That only came about in the last two years actually. It was down to Gert Hof (book publisher). He was of the opinion; it would be a shame not to print them. I had always given him a quantity of poems, and he sieved through them. All at once there was a time for completion because he had found a publishing house. I did not believe it all at first.

OZ: What inspires you to write poems?
Lindemann: That can be something experienced, dreaming, reading or watching television. There’s so much, topics are everywhere.

OZ: Most men find it hard to make public their most intimate thoughts. Not you obviously?!
Lindemann: Being open didn’t happen on one day or another but happened in small steps. My experience is that the people always waited for even more from my texts. Sometimes I have said: Okay; now I will change and be completely crude linguistically. We live in such a time that it had no effect. Nevertheless, I find it rather incredible if one says such intimate things in a flowery way. But if both are put together – the old language with these hard slogans of today, then it becomes almost Neo-Baroque. It is like an old column with varnish. It cracks.

OZ: Where is the difference, when you write song lyrics or poems?
Lindemann: With song lyrics I get the music first and try to develop around that frame. That is much more filigree and follows completely different guidelines. One must serve up a chorus; find individual words, searching to support the music with the words. With poetry I am completely free.

OZ: They also want you to do a Reading Show with your poetry?
Lindemann: Sometime, but there is still nothing concrete planned. My premise, however, always remains the music. We are already working on a new album

OZ: An American German Philosophy student wanting to do a psychoanalytical investigation of the Rammstein song “Du riechst so gut” discovered you have an Oedipus complex. Does it disturb you, when your lyrics are dissected in this way?
Lindemann: Actually, the guy wrote a fantastic paper and highly praised the song lyrics. But key words were omitted and taken out of context. This is exactly what sickens me about this sort of journalism because in rare cases - now for example – I can speak out. You are even made out to be an idiot and there is nothing you can do, although it’s misrepresentation, in certain respects its character assassination. That is just one instance where I really hate the strife. With Rammstein we also experienced it one time with a television journalist. He had edited an interview in such a way that my statements suddenly emerged in a completely different context and we appeared to be fans of the Nazi propaganda master Speer. It is a dirty trick to interfere with a story at other people's expense.

OZ: What did your Rammstein colleagues make of your poetry?
Lindemann: We’ve known each other for 20 years; there is the main embarrassment. They would never say: Oh, that is such rubbish.

Interview: GUNNAR LEUE
Till Lindemann, Messer, Poetry, Eichborn-Publishing House, 176 S. Euro 29,90,
ISBN 3-8218-09272

© 2005 Sue Lindemann