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Legacy article - June 2004

It's grand when old acquaintances cross your path by chance and spend
hours chatting over a couple of bottles of wine. It's grander still
when this friend is the keyboarder with a band named
RAMMSTEIN. It the greatest when one plays for Rammstein and the other
is the publisher of a music magazine who wouldn't let this chance get away. A musician like that probably has a lot of stories to tell if he's been successfully active in this genre for more than 20 years. From the beginning with the GDR band Feeling B to the meteoric rise with RAMMSTEIN, this guy has probably experienced almost everything. Even more astounding is the fact that Flake still manages to enjoy the little things. Our little meeting with him at home naturally brought one or another of these tellable stories to light. Already published on the internet is the fact that the band had broken up in November 2003 in a Spanish studio. Before they would be naturally eagerly rehearsing.

"It was first a joy to meet daily, to see everyone simply there enjoying themselves. And secondly, it was simply great to be able to develop music without stress, without knowing where it would take us. We all have our own ideas which we had jointly thought about. The band had been busy with this, arguing about this and so we had finally about 40 ideas. Titles or rifs. From this then, there were eventually roughly three or four versions. It was a lot of music that we were involved with. The greatest thing was that we had made so much music which wasn’t dipped into again. For example, one long day we played one song that we never touched again. That is important to me: to do things where nothing remains. Afterwards the way is simple. Because I’ve played a concert, nothing really tangible is left there. I once read a phrase ‘My life is a footprint in water’. So it also goes in the rehearsal room. That was an important and beautiful time and that is one of the reasons I make music."

Then, what comes first, the text or the music?
"In the practice room, Till presents us with texts he thinks are important and says: 'Maybe something occurs to you'. And sometimes it's the other way around. We have a definite opinion, a definite feel about the music, and ask Till to think up some words. Normally he just listens to the results of our attempts and has to decide for himself what it means."
Is there outside pressure to write new songs?
"No, we have toured so long that afterwards we crave a more normal work schedule."

And what significance do you place on touring?
"It isn’t the significance of touring but in the nature of the thing when you give a music concert. If one has released a record, one tours with it. That is more or less fun. But actually music is for me the song writing and not the performance of the title. Without wanting to insult anyone, to give a concert makes you an idiot. There is nothing to that but staying power and no diarrhea to fight because one, for example, is in Mexico."

How do you personally find the new songs?
"If we didn’t think they were good, we wouldn’t make them."


So you are a democratic band?
"Almost too much! That is generally also a problem in politics. If democratic politics were functional, everyone would be right, so it is with each band member. Because it isn’t functional. parties are formed to which each person, more or less, can feel he belongs. With us there is no way to bundle, we are just six men. One can’t say we decide by majority. But that isn’t good because the majority can also be wrong. So what we hit on is, that we accept, if two in the band are really against something, for example have a serious problem with a song, that we accept this opinion. We are a democracy in a further sense. With us it isn’t the majority but the group welfare. This is very difficult but in my eyes, the only acceptable method. If one wants to make music together, then one must find solutions together. One who doesn’t want that, makes music alone and loses with that all the quality (of the group). We are only good together. If I defend my ideas and you later hear what the band has done you would see an absolute advance in quality. It would be a shame if I released a song in an ego phase without knowing the band’s reflections... I see myself, among other things, as a diplomat and a helper in this world. What is all important is music for young people that helps them find the borders between themselves and society and their parents. That is to say, it must simply allow the parents to say ‘ Oh God what is that hottentot musik?’ For that I accept hostility, misunderstanding and swipes in my private life. If the parents also find the music good, it’s function wouldn’t be fulfilling any more. I am, among other things, for this purpose that children and teens will become adults."

Back to the first rehearsal...
We’ve now made new music which with the previous Rammstein records has not taken place. We were now a group in which it was as important to eat together as to make music. That based the entire thing on cordiality and understanding and that was very good. We spent the whole year making records and nearly forty and knowing money is not the reason for all we do. Fame counts for nothing if one becomes famous. You mark then that everything is lies and deception. We now want to make things that we won’t feel bad about. And sometimes there is a voice that says "The point is you are dependent on public opinion." And to that I say "It doesn’t matter what people find good. They don’t need to buy records from me. You can say it’s disgusting, stinking shit! To me it’s all the same, I want to make what I find good."
Can you give me a little more information about the new album?
"Yes, the working title was ‘Amore’ because of the theme of love like a red thread that floats through the album. The second intended title was ‘Rot’ because red is the color of love."
That, I agreed, were some new pieces to hear, producing to my mind anyway a new quality to the whole band. I can say to you that the new album for me is the best since Herzeleid.

Don’t you fret, this is not all the information I have for you. It would be too early to make such a statement at this point.
"When we were the first time in Mexico City, we played together with Kiss in the Stadion del Sol. In the middle of the night we flew back on a Boeing 747 and Till said to me shortly after we started, ‘Man, if we crash now, we’ll take a couple thousand people to their deaths.’ You must know we flew straight over the slums. All at once there was a bang and it came from the front. And I thought aha, the cockpit has exploded, to die, thanks. In airplanes there are these height notices. We were at 5,600 feet and you could see 5,400, 5,200, 5,000. And then the monitor went out. OK, well, that was it, I thought. Till said to me, ‘Show time over if the engine burns.’ What I didn’t know: if you’re
in the clouds, the light is scattered. We sat in the front, the blinking red light from the wings naturally shone through the clouds. For me it looked like in the war. I simply closed the window blind. We sank further and further. In that moment I took Till’s hand and said, ‘In fact, I don’t want to die!’ Between our hands accumulated a stream of sweat and around us it was deadly silent. The lights were out and the monitor was dark. ‘So,’ I thought, ‘I will appear in news reports. One will read sometime, ‘Plane crashed – 200 dead - Afterward the cause will be searched for.’ I can only say to that: I know now how the feeling is to sit in such an airplane shortly before the impact. Paul (guitarist) turned around to us. Very slowly, like a marionette, he makes a gesture like nothing I had ever seen. He simply waved to us. It was like, ‘Guys, it was great knowing you.’ I looked at Till and thought through everything, what in my life up to now was past and anyway, what was in my head was only a ‘Na, ja...’. We are then, however, not collided, it continues on... what I much later experienced: in the airplane was a lightning hit and through that are all computer programs shut down. From this moment, have the pilots again flown this giant airplane as before with linkage to the back wings. There are failure risks like everything else. Eventually, they had all the programs started up again but for fifteen minutes we flew for what seemed like eighty years. All at once the stewards came through again and asked what do you want to drink? Our flight connection was like riding a cable car. There was at any rate the feeling of being born again. Looking back, Till said that precisely on the verge of the bang, a text came to him, ‘I wanted to write ejaculation!’ However, after this, a long time is really, really good. Given what has now passed, it couldn’t have gone much worse.
Written, asked, drunk and laughed by Alexander Ertner in the presence of Flake.

© 2005 Unknown