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Gothic Magazine - Interview with Paul - December 2005

Rammstein faithfully can be called the most successful German band worldwide momentarily. Always sold out concerts, growing fan-base all over the world and only one year after the successful album “Reise, Reise” a new record at the start. Gothic talked to Paul Landers about the new album “Rosenrot”, the lust to provoke and a healthy group feeling.


Gothic: Rammstein is known for a special feeling of community, of being a group in which nobody stands out and nobody is in the background. How comes?

Paul: There are different ways to make music. There are bands with a boss, like Nine Inch Nails. Then some with two bosses, like the Beatles, and the third one always cries, because he is not allowed to take part. Then there are trios and some other forms of dictatorship and democracy. We are six supervisory board members and the one who shouts the loudest and who has the best arguments will win. It was this way right from the start. We are best when all take part. I like to use this metaphor: you have six test tubes. Pour their content in a glass and when you add the last tube’s content the whole substance will start to glow. It is not important how much you use of each test tube’s content, one drop or the half of a tube, only the community counts.

G: Listening to the new album “Rosenrot”, where are the most significant developments?

P: You can look at it from each and every perspective, but: there are none! The most of the songs came into being at the same time like the songs from the predecessor “Reise, Reise”. You can see it as a double album which has been released in two parts with time in-between.

G: And why is the new album released one year later?

P: There are several reasons. First: some of the songs weren’t ready at the time of “Reise, Reise”, second: now we have made the five albums we were obliged to do and our contract with the record company is fulfilled. That was important for us, because now we all can take a deep breath and we can start fresh negotiations. New game, new luck.

G: Therefore the short pause between the two albums?

P: Exactly. Eight songs had been recorded in times of “Reise, Reise”. Therefore there is no musical development. But in the meantime we have developed more courage to try things out. If you are successful you think you have to try new things. E.g. with “Los” we realised for the first time that we can do without distorted guitars. We were delighted to discover it works this way, too.

G: ”Rosenrot” sounds very lyrical. What was your motivation to pick this title?

P:“Rosenrot” was already in the run for a title for the last album; first “Rosenrot” then “red” and in the end it became “Reise, Reise”, even if I did not really like it, even if I cannot tell you why. In the beginning we thought of “Reise, Reise Vol 2” for the new album. We then listened to every song of the album and decided to choose “Rosenrot” in the end. The title rocks and fits with the theme. It is open for associations and describes the character of the music, which indeed still is lyrical, quite fitting.

G: On the new album fire again is a central topic in your texts. But the cover is quite a contrast; a ship stuck in the ice, dark, cold colours in the background, are there any more similarities?

P: Yes and no! A basic idea was that if “Reise, Reise” had a red cover then the next one had to be quite the opposite; the difference should become clear. I have no idea, why we have an icebreaker on the cover; we just liked the picture.

G: So I was totally on the wrong track with my interpretation.

P: Which would have been?

G: As the album deals with German lyric my first thought seeing the ship with the name “Rosenrot” was that the German lyric nowadays is, like the ship, a bit stuck in the ice?

P: I would not say so, but the idea is not bad. That’s why we don’t like to make any statements. Journalists always want explanations of our texts, but most of the times our explanations are so more boring than anything else other people think of.

G: Back to the songs in detail. The first single is “Benzin”. Why did you choose this song?

P: We always try to pick a hard song as first single. Probably we never will be played on the radio and “Benzin” gives a good impression of the album. We thought the song to be fresh and hard and chose it.

G: Unfortunately I have to admit that the song, for me, is relatively emotionless and it does not really catch me.

P: The text did not have time to ripe. The song was made in seconds, but therefore it is fresh. The song is different to the others on the album, it is clear and not so deep and meaningful like a lot of the other songs.

G: Another song deals with the topic of homosexuality. “Mann gegen Mann” seems to be provocative and probably will be the cause for some excitement?

P: Homosexuality is a kind of sexuality and with the latter we like to deal from time to time. So it just was a question of time when we would pick that topic again. Besides, we already have written many gay songs, but the others weren’t that much musically elaborated. But of course there will be some who will misinterpret the song, but that’s not our problem.

G: The title “Rosenrot” is like a homage to former German artists. Would you agree?

P: If you like to see it this way, yes! I won’t give any explanations. People always think that we have such a great fantasy. And quite a lot of the times we try to create a third dimension with our videos. “Ohne Dich” for example: if you listen to the song you will think of a man/woman-relationship, but the video is about a real close male friendship. If we manage to give the song a totally new aspect without taking its power away I really like it and you get 100 points.

G: And if people do not think that far? Do you try to push people gently in the right direction with your texts?

P: Difficult to say. We just like to provoke. If people are irritated that’s a part of our being comfortable. We like to play with the audience and with the critics.

G: Isn’t that a reason for Rammstein’s success?

P: Absolutely. In my opinion an artist has the task to question society. Art has to change things, has to attack and has to be controversial, otherwise you have missed the topic. We do not paint stills of daisies, that’s not interesting enough for us.

G: A good critical song is “Spring”. It criticizes the lust for sensation of some people. Are you confronted with such things on a daily basis?

P: Of course, otherwise we would not have made this song. Actually I have met someone who has experienced a similar story. People, if they were honest, would admit that they would like to see blood and shootings. You can see that while watching the news, when you can wallow in the misery of other people. People like to hear hat but would never admit it. Everybody has aggressions and lusts deep down inside. In some extend they are served by the media, but if we would not have television we would have witch hunting or gladiator fights again. Humans need that.

G: What about if you hear the media reporting that a teenager has run amok and he has listened to bands like Rammstein and Slipknot? How do you respond to such clichés?

P: I don’t answer that. It is funny that in these days there are really people who think that way. I then prefer to say: next question, please. If I am asked such a question I suddenly understand why we are misinterpreted.

G: So I am no potential mass murderer because I like to play ego shooters on the computer?

P: That’s thought in too short dimensions. There are countries without computer games, so there has to be everything in order then, hasn’t it? Recently I have read a book about a woman who has grown up in a native community in the jungle. They had such perverted war rituals, it was extreme. So there is no “perfect” world there and all natives are happy and wear flowers in their hair. There are fights in the most brutal manner. In my opinion cruelty is a part of the human nature. In some to a greater extend, in others less, but I assume that everybody has something of it in him. Sometimes it is expressed by playing an ego shooter on the computer and killing people there. But that is much better then piling aggressions up, because in the end this is much more dangerous. Concerning football you have the “hooligans”, which meet with the hooligans of the other club just to smack up each other. But they have their own rules in that scene, and if they need to bash, let them. In ancient times you had knights who invaded the neighbourhood because they were bored. It always has been that way. At some point in their life they get a job and a family and realise: “Oh God, I was bad in my youth.” Or they make music today (laughs).

G: With “te quiero puta” there is for the first time on an album a song Till sings in Spanish. How comes?

P: To be honest I have no idea what Till is singing about. But people who can speak Spanish have told me the song won’t be played on the radio. So we have reached our goal. We take care that what Till sings fits with the music. Till had seven different texts in German for that song, but we did not like them. So Till had the idea to write a Spanish text. That fitted, maybe because none of us was able to translate it.

G: “Stirb nicht vor mir” is a wonderful ballad, recorded with guest singer, Sharleen Spiteri, the singer from “Texas” somebody no-one would have expected to collaborate with you.

P: If nobody expects it from us then that is good in general. We had a lot of discussion in the band concerning that song. The song is on the album partly in German and partly in English now. But we have a pure German and a pure English version of it as well. Maybe they will appear on a single some time.

G: The last song “Ein Lied” is a bit like a mixture of a lullaby and a hymn to the fans. Am I right?

P: Why not? If you like to see it that way, then it is o.k.

G: Enough of the album, now to new plans. What would be a utopian project of Rammstein?

P: We would like to play the bad gang in a Hollywood movie. The German bruisers or something like that. They like to use Germans for that, because they consider Germans to be so absolutely evil. If they do not know what to do then they use something German (laughs).

G: Keeping in mind that Rammstein is Germany’s most successful band: what has to happen that Rammstein will represent Germany in the European song contest?

P: Phew, difficult to say. Before we should have to play then in Thomas Gottschalk’s show (German prime time show leader), but we won’t do that. It’s always a difficult matter when you are famous what to do and what not. There are such casting bands which do everything for fame, but we do not stand in need of doing it. Television is our limit. We tried it two times and it turned out so miserable, we do not like to do it again, same goes for talk shows. We do not like to be on tv and the MTV Awards really were an absolute exception.

G: With my last question I return to criticism: Germany for quite a long time was a country known for famous poets and minds. What do you think of Germany today?

P: Oh, good question. Germany has not found back to its real self. It still suffers from the consequences of the war, because for a long time after the war everything coming from Germany was considered to be bad. Slowly but surely it is time to be allowed to think of what being German means and where oneself stands in this country. One should encourage people to think about what they can do to make Germany a place where people like to live. In my opinion we do a good share to make Germany more attractive. Every time I am in a foreign country I get as a reaction of people thinking of Germany: Mercedes, BMW and Rammstein.

G: That’s quite an honour.

P: Yes, absolutely. But everybody can start with himself, although this sounds so common. I really appreciate that we are back to search for a healthy “we”-feeling. In former times patriotism was something attached to the political left wing and it was used to express the proud of the own country. Unfortunately we lost this attitude and we now kind of fight for giving back patriotism to the left wing because patriotism must not get in the wrong person’s hands.

© 2005 Richie_baby