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MetalHeart.de - Interview with Schneider -November 2005

Rammstein

Blue wonder in rosered

The fragment of a novel written by Novalis in the years 1799 and 1800 called “Heinrich van Ofterdingen” used a blue flower as a symbol for the poetic journey of a human being to its inner self and – even if this will sound like a paradox – as a symbol of infinity. The plant and the colour turned out to be used as a symbol forever tied to the era of romanticism. Rammstein, on the other hand, aren’t necessarily mentioned when it comes to romantic feelings. But with the title of their latest album, “Rosenrot” the thought of pyrotechnics, sex toys or cannibalism does not come to ones mind. And actually: if you do not stick to the clichés you can have your “blue wonder” in detail. The album title is chosen on purpose to raise memories of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, of images of sunsets, of flowers given as love symbols. But on the cover, and here the circle is closed, the dominating colour is blue. A ship stuck in the ice. The thought of Caspar David Friedrich’s painting “Das Eismeer – Die gestrandete Hoffnung “(The Polar Sea – The wrecked hope) is allowed. At least for drummer Christoph Schneider this comparison is no problem. “This time the romantic and calm vein of Rammstein is expressed musically, too” he explains the connection between cover and content. “Even our outfits on the promotional pictures tend in that way. We now have the courage to show this facet, too. All of us have aged and we are no longer the same like ten years ago”.

Thinking of “Seemann” (Seaman) on the debut “Herzeleid” the romantic vein of Rammstein is quite clear right from the start. But the public preferred to stick to the allegedly martial element of the group, discussed the pronunciation of the rolling “R” by Till Lindemann, and put the band, all known members of the wider left wing music scene, into the right wing corner. So many times the focus for the real important things got lost, including the sensibility for Rammstein’s arty nuances. “We always have had a romantic side” Schneider says, looking back into the old times, and adds an explanation why it wasn’t recognized ”We have covered it pretty good with strong guitar sounds. The old ballads, if you can call them that, were rough and raw as well as romantic. In the beginning we were feeling a lot of aggression and therefore felt obliged to very hard music. This basic feeling only offered two choices: on or off. Nothing in-between was allowed. Today we would have to create this feeling artificially, but that is nonsense in my opinion. If we feel the aggression it is o.k., but if other emotions start to get much more important then these have to be stressed. I am glad we are able to work that out adequately nowadays.”
“Reise, Reise” already offered a new versatility in the Rammstein cosmos. Internal negotiations and the basic thought of having the courage to chose a new path instead of sticking to the old set of coordinates and only doing repeating enabled a wider range of their musical horizon, a profit for the rhythm section in the band, too. Therefore the drummer balances the last years in a contented way: “When we started to work on new material after “Mutter” we rapidly realized that we could not draw anything new out of the old technical bound mixture of metal and EBM (Electronic-Body-Music) influences. The amount of riffs in this sector is not unlimited. The structures only change slightly, the rhythm is repeating, and, to be honest: we really were fed up with this kind of music. It had been fun for some years to concentrate on playing together like a well oiled machine. But then the time for a change had come. The result was “Reise, Reise”, an album with which we tried out new elements and where the journey could lead us to. From today’s point of view I have to admit that the growing impact of dynamic and the stressing of the human factor have done us good. The music is not that programmatic anymore but still 100 % Rammstein. Of course we were worried in the beginning. But when Till starts to sing, we recognized rapidly, it always is Rammstein without any regard to the calmness of a song.”

“Rosenrot” is the next step on this path. No wonder as a lot of the songs were written during the production of the predecessor. But it would be a fault to call the new album only a collection of left-overs. “We created so much material at that time“ Schneider recollects his memory “we already knew we wouldn’t be able to put it only on one record, and we do not like to make albums too long or double cds. But we were convinced it was such good material so we wanted to release it. Some songs hadn’t been chosen for “Reise, Reise” only due to the fact that they would not have fitted into the dramaturgy of that album. So we decided to do a following album and started to work out the songs and to record new ones right after finishing the concert tour. In my opinion this massive creative energy we had was due to the fact that we had made a long pause after Mutter which really was necessary to sort out some artistically and human problems. So we had a lot of time to experience. If we had given into it more we had ended up with 30 or more songs. But that would have been nonsense. We already nearly had enough material for a new record.” A record with an origin profile and with one or two surprises, but still in the same line as the predecessor. Although the album was not called “Reise, Reise Vol 2” in the end the kin is on purpose. It is no surprise that even the artwork of the two records shows some relation: a black box and a ship, stuck in the ice. This connection still was a musical challenge for the band, too: it can be imagined easily how difficult it is to create the same atmosphere of the old album production phase after a few months and to work it out for the new record as well in the purpose of creating a homogenous overall-impression. “It really was difficult” the drummer nods “and risky. If more time had passed between the two releases it would not have worked. Therefore the fast release was important for us. Otherwise we would have had distanced from the songs so far we would have worked them over again, because then they would have been songs from another era.”
The temptation of thinking everything over again, of changing the arrangements and working on the songs until perfection then would have been too great, new discussion would have been the result. Just one probable example: maybe the trumpet decorated “Te quiero puta” then maybe never would have been on the record in its actual form. Because Schneider does not hold back that there was quite some disagreement on that song: “The good thing about Rammstein is that every member can take part and is involved democratically in the decisions. Of course this sometimes means to step back, too. Concerning “Te quiero puta” I was sceptical. The serious, tragic-romantic side of our music is of greater interest for me. Of course Rammstein is funny, too, especially live. A lot is overdone then. That’s o.k. But in my opinion things turn out to be the funniest way if you are not laughing, when you perform humour with a petrified mimic or when you are funny without purpose, because you try to be dead serious and hard and exactly therefore you end up comically.” You can grin about the video of “Benzin”, the current single of the six. Of course everybody would have made a bet that the combo, known for its fiery live shows, would transfer the thought of the song into a huge damage caused by fire. Instead the versatile actors ride through the night as firemen. No blazing flames at all in the video. “It took us quite some time to reach that decision” the drummer of the well fire experienced band admits “It would have been too obvious to show a burning gas station or something similar. So we chose another path. Fire is a topic on its own for us anyway, e.g. with our shows for quite some time we felt the pressure to improve the effects every time in order not to bore the audience. But by now we have realized that the deal is not about to be more spectacular in this way. In the end quality and originality count; and with this conclusion we are quite relaxed, because we have noticed that with new songs new ideas will occur.” Proof of this can be seen in their videos for the singles. For Rammstein the videos are more than just added entertainment, more a valve for their creative ideas, which stirred up some controversies in the past. E.g. the optical workout of the Depeche Mode cover version of “Stripped”, for which they used material of Leni Riefenstahl’s “Olympia” film, or the video for “Mein Teil”, which the persons being responsible in the tv stations banned into the night programme. The clever way of dealing with the media machinery seems, in retrospective, to have had great influence on the story of Rammstein’s success, which began in the midst of the 90’s in Schwerin and in which the sextet developed from a band which was smiled at and which was considered to praise violence, to be plump and of questionable political beliefs to a required international band which was invited to take part in the soundtrack of “Lost Highway” by director David Lynch, which marked their breakthrough on the American market, while in Russia a book called “Rammstein- songs for learning German” was published. If you like Rammstein or not: they are a phenomenon.

Maybe all the nonsense which was published about Rammstein in the end has done their career better than it has done them harm? Even bad press keeps the ball rolling and feeds the curiosity of the audience? Schneider has a different view on the role of the media.” Basically media was not interested in us at all. The press only had put their focus on the potential of scandal in our work, which they thought to discover in our music, mainly in the beginning. Tv never was of interest for us. We avoided the well known programmes in which the music is only play back, and they tried to avoid us, too.” But if Rammstein does appear on tv then in big style, like in the “Echo” award show, in which all members acted on stage in their original fat-suits of the “Keine Lust” video. Schneider explains: ”That was an exception. We were free to choose what we wanted for our appearance and were able to play live. We took the chance and kind of performed the video on stage. It was a big fuss, because we needed six to seven hours for the make-up and a dozen make-up artists. But the result was great. The appearance was a statement and justified our presence on tv.”
There will be less presence with “Rosenrot”. Although they have hurried to make the album, now they need, quite understandable, a pause. “We just have been on tour everywhere, even in the other European countries” Schneider answers the question of possible touring. ”It was great, but people have seen us only a short time ago. We still are not sure how to solve the question of a life performance of “Rosenrot”, but I definitely can say there will be no tour in the next six months.” They do not need to hurry anyway. There are already so many superlatives in the band’s history and the success of “Reise, Reise” has underlined their status worldwide. The pessimistic reporting after Mutter, that Rammstein was finished, has come to an end. There was no guessing that the new record could have been the final arty statement of the band. And why? The ship may be stuck in the ice. But it is only a question of time until Rammstein will put steam under the kettle to reach for new shores. Meanwhile the task is to keep on glowing to the tunes of “Rosenrot”.

© 2005 Richiebaby