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EMP Magazine – Winter 2005

They’re back sooner than any of their fans had expected. Rammstein, Germany’s leading band, the only true superstars of the German Rock-scene still doing business. Just as they scored a double hit with ”Herzeleid” and “Sehnsucht” ten years ago, the Berlin group are bringing out “Rosenrot” as a follow-up to the revolutionary long-player “Reise, Reise”. However, before we talk with bass player Oliver Riedel on a houseboat in Paris, let’s take a short look back at the highly successful career of the Rammstein troupe.

It was 1995 when someone played me a tape of an unknown German band. Just another newcomer? Wrong!!! The high octane production, the slicing guitars and militaristic lyrics were something quite new. To begin with the band wanted to be seen as a unit and individual personalities were unimportant. Rammstein got its strength from the way the band members pulled together in a spirit of camaraderie. The sic-headed band was ready for take-off!

Back in East-Germany, all the band members played with different outfits. Christian ‘Flake’ Lorenz played with Paul Landers in Feeling B, who even had a following in the west; Oliver Riedel played bass with The Inchtabokatables, while vocalist Till Lindemann played drums with First Arsch and Christoph Schneider was the drummer with Die Firma. Guitarist Richard Kruspe had a rather different career path. Before the Wall came down he escaped to West-Germany through Hungary and Austria, founding a band called Orgasm Death Gimmick. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he returned to his home town of Schwerin to play with Das Auge Gottes for a short time. There he met Till Lindemann, the former east-German swimming champion, who was earning a living as a basket weaver. In 1994 they came up with a collaborative project that brought Kruspe, Lindemann, Riedel and Schneider together on a first demo. The quartet was reinforced by Landers and Lorenz and a demo was produced for a band competition with the prize of a studio session. Game, set and match to the sextet! In 1995 they supported Project Pitchfork on tour and signed a deal with Motor Music, starting to record material for the debut-album “Herzeleid” with the help of Clawfinger’s producer Jacob Hellner.

The foreign press was critical about Rammstein at the beginning, seeing them as a slick, cold mix of Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson, In Germany “Herzeleid” quickly cleans up around it. The perfect mix of hard-as-nails guitar riffs, excessive techno beat and expressive, provocative lyrics make Rammstein something unique. Thanks to well-known film-maker David Lynch, who used the tracks “Rammstein” and “Heirate mich” for the soundtrack to his movie “Lost Highway”, Rammstein-fever breaks out in America overnight.

In 1997 “Sehnsucht” did huge business both in Germany and in America. A gigantic tour followed between 1998 and 1999.After the relative, commercial demise of The Scorpions, the Berlin six-piece is now seen as just about the only German act of international significance.

2001, following extensive live-gigs, marked the launch of the third studio album ‘Mutter’, which, like its predecessors, went directly to the top of the charts. Rammstein were hailed as the Olympians of Rock and, following a fantastic concert-tour, returned to their private lives. The new album “Reise, Reise” then appeared in 2004, already becoming the year’s most successful European long-player by October. During their summer shows the band announced there would be a follow-up in October 2005.

It is high time that bass-man Oliver Riedel explained how come Rammstein is bringing out a new album so soon after ‘Reise, Reise’. “We had already recorded 18 complete titles during the ‘Reise, Reise’ session, so that we already had seven new songs ready for another album. We didn’t want to wait too long before bringing these out/ The fact is that when we record tracks and they are allowed to lay around for too long, they get worse and worse from our point of view. Our original idea was to release the new album as ‘Reise, Reise 2’. The fans were supposed to know that these recording also came from the old ‘Reise, Reise’ session. We had to write four or five more songs, which we did in the last three months. The result is ‘Rosenrot’ (Rose Red)”.

There are obvious parallels with ‘Herzeleid’ and ‘Sehnsucht’. Again in that case you had almost recorded all of the ‘Sehnsucht’ album. You originally intended to call ‘Sehnsucht’ “Afrika”. Is this recording strategy a preferred modus operandi? “Not really. This time the pieces we had already recorded with ‘Reise, Reise’ were left unchanged. In the case of ‘Sehnsucht’ we went over a lot of things and changed them.”

“Rosenrot” is one of the finished songs from the first session and was intended as the first single even then. Now the new long-player is to be called “Rosenrot”, is the song of the same name destined to be the first single from it? “When we knew that we had seven finished songs and that ‘Rosenrot’ was one of the stronger numbers, we decided to call the new album ‘Rosenrot’ also,” explains Oliver. “Every album has strong and weaker numbers and we wanted to keep some good songs back for the new album. We originally intended ‘Reise, Reise’ to be a little harder and if you listen to the new CD you will find some quieter ideas there too. ‘Rosenrot’ is much more melancholy and romantic than ‘Reise, Reise’, even though some of the recordings were made at the same time.”

In you new sleeve-notes about ‘Rosenrot’ you write a convoluted connection between Goethe, the brothers Grimm and Rammstein, something that is often very clear from Till’s lyrics. “That’s not really a key interest for us in the band. Of course there is a lyrical, romantic aspect to Till’s texts, but we never intended or wanted to be compared with Goethe or the brothers Grimm.

The front cover of the new release “Rosenrot” is actually the cover of the Japanese version of ‘Reise, Reise’. How come? This is a very unusual way to choose artwork for covers. “The Japanese didn’t want the normal 'Reise, Reise’ cover, which I personally find quite audacious, but they thought that the flight-recorder cover wasn’t for them and that we should find a different motif. We then gave them a suggestion – that was the image with the boat – and they liked it. In the final analysis, we like the design so much that we decided to turn it into the cover for ‘Rosenrot’. This means that the image will be available to everyone, not just the Japanese! Originally we were going to call the new album ‘Reise, Reise2’ and this would have suited the cover design better. But now the ship has been named ‘Rosenrot’ and that’s OK too.”

Let’s go back a few days. You didn’t tour America with ‘Reise, Reise’, even though the US is home to some of Rammstein’s most frenetic fans. Why was this, particularly in view of the fact that your guitarist Richard lives in the States and Rammstein are very popular there? “We originally wanted to play a tour in South America and Mexico in October/November. Unfortunately we had to cancel because our keyboard player Flake lay in bed with Mumps. A far as America goes, it costs a horrendous amount to tour there. At present there is something ungrateful about America – OK we can play all over the larger venues for 2,000 to 3,000 people, but if you can play for 10,000 or 15,000 fans at the same time in Europe, then of course you’ll automatically choose Europe. Long tours have sapped a lot of our energy. Maybe if we have a big hit in the States that would also be supported by the radio stations – then perhaps we would take on the American market again. You have to do a lot of promotional work there and graft really hard for success. The Americans have very short memories. The mentality in Europe is quite different. We are sounding out the markets for our material. We played all over Europe and in Japan for ‘Reise, Reise’. We should really go to Australia and also reschedule the South American and Mexican tour once Flake is OK again.”

Your tours have turned into genuinely bombastic campaigns. Don’t you ever get tired of this and how do you cope with the long months on the road? “Despite our huge success and the long tours we have undertaken, everything is OK for us internally because the standard we have now reached on tour means that each of us has enough freedom to pursue his own interests. This makes it all very pleasant and means that touring is really great fun.”

What about a “Rosenrot” tour? Can your fans look forward to seeing you soon? “At present we have no plans to tour with “Rosenrot”. We are discussing a rescheduling of the cancelled shows in South America and Mexico and maybe we’ll play a few festivals next year.”
Sven Lehnert.

© 2005 Sue Lindemann