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Bright Eyes - October 2005

Interview with Flake

In the year 2005 Rammstein are the only international stars from Germany who are able to sell out the biggest stadiums. With their excessive shows, the artistically lyrics and the typical staccato like guitar riffs, which have become their absolute trademark over the last ten years, the six from Berlin/Schwerin know how to provoke the world of shallow pop and glitter. Only twelve month ago Rammstein had left for a grand "Reise, Reise". The album, in combination with the tour, was a giant triumph, but even this can’t stop them from releasing a new record right now. With "Rosenrot" a second album follows quickly, similar to 1996/97 with "Herzeleid" and "Sehnsucht". I meet a cooperative keyboarder Flake Lorenz in the noble Hyatt hotel at Potsdamer Platz.

First I want to know why Rammstein is anything else than a one hit wonder and what the reason for this huge success are.
Flake begins: We are a band which has grown organically; we met because we wanted to make a special kind of music. This is a good basis for a certain quality. For us as a band the musical result of the music is very important. We take much care of it and we really suffer when something does sound like shit. Two years later I am still angry about something which does not fit in a song in my point of view. And we are authentic. The audience recognises that we do not pretend anything, that we do what we really want to do, on the records and on stage. We are not directed by anyone or don’t do things we do not agree with. We make our music out of our own free will.

So Rammstein’s trademarks mirror you as persons?
Flake: That is very important for us.

How does the typical style, made by Rammstein, develop without wearing out? Is that a part of the organic growing of the band you mentioned?
Flake: We have noticed that our records become more rock and "way-out". When you have listened to the new album "Rosenrot" you will have noticed that it is not always four or eight beats, instead the rhythmic structure is changed often and we have more open parts. I, personally, like this development; we have freed from the stomping machine sound of the first three albums. That sound was harder, less compromising. Some people see a danger in the development, and certainly there are Rammstein fans who do not like what we do now. For me what we do now is more satisfying than always doing the old 2 and 4 beat.

So we already started talking about "Rosenrot". My first impression was: quieter and less provoking than any other Rammstein album.
Flake: Well, there isn’t really that much left we could come up with. Rammstein fans, young ones and insiders will see it this way, but for some others and for Bavarians Rammstein always will be THE evil.

On a side note: let’s savour this perception. Then we again have the typical Rammstein provocation, haven’t we, Mr Stoiber?
Flake: Even the new songs motivate people to say that the devil is coming. We no longer care about this criticism.

The only thing provoking on this record are the lyrics of the "pool-voyeur-song" "Feuer und Wasser", everything else is quite "normal" in comparison to "Bück Dich" or the cover art of "Mutter". Of course it is interesting to know why Till is singing in a swimmer’s point of view looking at the intimate body part of a woman.
Flake: The case is quite obvious. Till was a swimmer and he finished second best in a European championship. Therefore he has spent a lot of time in the pool, and in this time he mused about things and that is the result!

Besides the musical success the monetary one also is amazing for me. Rammstein are not only a trademark but also an enterprise, although the contradiction of "art vs. commerce" crosses my mind immediately. How do you deal with it? The common opinion is that an artist is a bad merchant.
Flake: We do not deal with the economical aspect at all. It only would distract us from making music. I, personally, would not like to deal with it at all. I do not like it, I go against it. With management we have people in whom we trust and who deal with it to enable us to concentrate on the music. Of course we have to trust them quite to some extent what we do due to the long lasting collaboration. Our manager we know even from times before Rammstein. For us he is like a member of the band who plays the instrument of management.

Flake’s appearance in the interview is significantly different from the martial behaviour in the show: casual clothes, calm, nice and amiable, he creates the impression that money is not of real importance for him. So is money a means to gain freedom?
Flake: No, honestly. Money does not mean more freedom. You even can do what you want to do without any money. I always wonder about people who procrastinate doing something and blame the lack of money for it:" I would love to fly to America but I can’t afford it". If they have the money they will find another reason not to go. In the end they do not want to fly to America at all. And a lot of people blame the lack of time. I then ask them: "But you do have the time to watch tv?!" All of us already were making music in the east. We had only little money, but even then we paid attention to the fulfilment of our wishes. If you wait until you will have the money it will be too late. I was fond on big old American cars in my youth. I had to buy one immediately after the fall of the wall. So I scraped all my money together and lent some money from my parents to buy such a car for 3000 DM. I bought it immediately although the car was only worth 300 DM. I missed the money in other parts but I did it. I had my car and that was a good thing. To come back to your question: no, my life has not changed much. For me it was always important to do what I wanted to do. If you can’t do it directly you’ll have to find a way round, and other things were not that important for me.

Being asked why, although Rammstein are well known stars now, they keep their private life private and do not seek contact to the fans, on stage or other occasions, Flake replies:
Flake: This is what I talked about before. You can’t buy it (freedom) with money. If you have a look at other stars going through town with some bodyguards I only can feel pity for them. I have seen it with Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit in Australia. He was totally upset when people addressed him. "You can’t go anywhere in private; it is so horrible to be a star". Well, how dumb and stupid can you be to put on a red bobble cap, which will catch everybody’s eye, and have eight bodyguards in tow? If I see a guy with a red bobble cap and eight bodyguards of course I will have a look, too. It is his personal choice. If you act pretty normal you can live peacefully.

Even the press has its problems to get in contact with the band for an interview...
Flake: ..we trust management that we give sufficient interviews to the right magazines. In my opinion we say quite a lot. Everybody does his job, the press and us.

"Fortune favours fools" is not what comes to my mind when I have a look at your success. You seem to act clever and intelligent; everything seems to be well thought out with Rammstein: the image, the economical performance, the show and even the lyrics of the songs. Does Rammstein consist of sly dogs only?
Flake: No, no at all! You can’t brag well with us. We think more with the heart.

But in my opinion a danger arises with the metaphorical and ambiguous texts of Till as they reach a certain level at which not everybody will see the connections let alone understand them.
Flake: That’s true, but normal, too.

What is Rammstein live on stage? Musical, art performance or a metal rock concert?
Flake: I call us a troop of strolling players. If you step back and then have a look at us it is pretty strange what we are doing. But we don’t notice because we do it every evening. But there are those moments when we ask ourselves "What the hell are we doing here?" Things have gone far from an original rock band in some areas.

And there is no interaction with the audience...
Flake: What (interaction) we have experienced as quite unpleasant when we listened to bands explaining their fans "now this is the song xy from the album z". Nobody needs this. Even the "Thank you" and "you were a great audience" in my opinion is just a lie. You curry favour with the fans in the worst manner, completely unbelievable. Some concerts were spoiled for me this way, e.g. Philip Boa, when he gasped: "I am so down, I can’t make it any longer" etc. Who cares? We already get into contact with the audience with our music. That speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

To come back to the new album "Rosenrot" I asked Flake if the big blue ship on the cover was caught in a stopping restriction and there fined by two traffic wardens?
Flake: The two guys there are us, the band!

...only two?
Flake: Yes, because we always do promo and interview tours in pairs. Paul and I always travel with the ship sailing in northern direction. We love ships in general, therefore a ship on the cover. On our first tour we had a stage decoration which resembled a steam ship. We always would have liked to perform dressed up like sailors, everybody in a special function: a ship’s cook etc.; and the costumes would have a maritime touch we like very much.

The cover for "Rosenrot" already had been used for "Reise, Reise" in Japan.
Flake: Originally the cover was one option for "Reise, Reise", too. We had countless drafts, on the table, on the floor, everywhere, because there were so many. A ship already amongst them, but we could not agree on anything. A lot of us thought it to be matching thematically and for me it was my favourite which I kept in mind. The black box fitted perfectly with the song "Dalai Lama" and the plane crash. But the Japanese told us they would not be able to use it in the display shelves because the artwork would not work in Japan. So we gave them the other cover because we were happy with it. The new album originally should have had the title "Reise Vol.2" instead of "Rosenrot" but it was impossible because of technical reasons, something strange like that the title could not have been found in order files because they are sorted alphabetically, it could have been mistaken with "Reise, Reise" and such things.

I had the impression that the songs on the album are from different eras, am I right?
Flake: Yes, that’s true. "Rosenrot" or "Mann gegen Mann" for example are older, but it’s not just an utilisation of carryovers. In fact the songs did not fit thematically with the songs on "Mutter" or "Reise, Reise"

The album has a strong focus on the keyboard. A lot of parts are underlined with sounds which have been used for Captain Future.
Flake: Oh, shit, what the heck is Captain Future? I thought of "Star Trek".

Well, the tv series of the 80’s.
Flake: I have grown up without a telly.

As my remarks just have produced an irritated smile on Flake we dropped the topic and switched to the choruses.
Flake: They were all real. Real people, sitting in the Berlin Teldec studious with us. We have recorded here in Berlin to be able to do it quickly because songs are similar to food: if you do not consume them they begin to rot and then you start to redo things because you don’t like them anymore.

How was it with "Mann gegen Mann" then? If the songs is from the era of "Mutter" you have rearranged it, haven’t you?
Flake: No, we nearly took the song like it was. We just recorded the song newly so that it would fit with the sound of the new album.

So it had been conserved well and remained fresh?
Flake: It was a bit strange because the song is of quite a different nature. We all liked it musically, but some in the band had problems with the text and thought it to be derogatory concerning gay men.

In my opinion the song is anything but derogatory because Till portraits the inner conflict of a man, who is all gay in his heart but can’t live it because of society’s coercion, in a very sensitive way. To put it in other words: this is the less provocative song of Rammstein.
Flake: Yes, I agree. Only those who will just listen superficially and then will notice "Schwuuulaaah" will see it differently. The song is not derogatory at all in my point of view and gay friends of us, to whom we presented the song before release, think the same by the way. They even wanted to have it more extreme.

"Benzin" is the first single release. The song is very average....
Flake: ...in my opinion that’s true! I also do not like the cover that much, but you can think about it" he accepts the challenge.

Me, the metal fan, I have to ask the keyboarder Flake about one or two blast parts of Schneider’s drumming.
Flake: Nothing was planned in this concern. Things developed organically and just happened. I like the drumming on the album!

Interview time was over although I would have had some more questions concerning "Rosenrot", but if you are looking for answers just convince yourself of the output of the fifth album. We won’t see them live in 2006 because they have toured much with "Reise, Reise" and don’t want to do a world tour subsequently. But Rammstein would not be Rammstein if they would not release a live dvd this year, although this is just me guessing.

Notes: When Flake comments that everybody except a few peole and Bavarians will take Rammstein for what they are he plays with the image of Bavarians in Germany. They are thought to be the most pious people in Germany, still sticking to the rules of the church and the bible, and therefore are easily provoked by others with "lesser" moral standards. (So Rammstein for them has to be the evil.)
That is the common clichée.
The reporter returns by addressing Flake as "Mr Stoiber", the prime minister of the federal state of Bavaria (Germany consist of 16 federal states, Bavaria is one of them, for more details look here:
http://userpage.chemie.fu-berlin.de/adressen/bl/bundeslaender.html )

© 2005 Translation by Richiebaby