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Pitfather (Dutch) November 2004

One of Germany’s most successful bands Rammstein has it’s 4th studio album out titled Reise, Reise. Although the album is typical Rammstein including everything one can expect from them, the album is a real explore of the band’s boundaries, which makes the band sound more human then ever. Luckily Rammstein took a little time to have a chat with Pitfather about their new album, the problems inside Rammstein and more. So there I sat with Paul Landers, guitarist of the band, eager to ask everything I always wanted to know about them! But NOT before I was interviewed myself by him about the Dutch language. After he could decently say thank you in Dutch, we had a most pleasant conversation showing me that Rammstein has it all back on track and even has inspiration enough to come with a part2 of their new album by the end of this year!





Congratulations with Reise, Reise. I think you succeeded in exploring the ultimate boundaries of how Rammstein can sound without losing your identity.
We hoped so much that we could succeed in that. Of course we always try to do that but if it will work is something else. But we do not like to repeat ourselves; there is no fun in that. We are not like AC/DC. We like that band but that would not work for us; we do not feel comfortable with that. We are also not radical like David Bowie, we do not burn the bridges behind us. We actually try to do it just like you just said, it is our goal to sound as different as possible within the Rammstein boundaries. We are fortunate that we develop ourselves as individuals and when all 6 of us change, the sum changes. So when we make a new record, theoretically when every Rammstein member has changed a bit, the album should also. How is the music scene, how is the world, how is Rammstein, how is our alcohol addiction, it all of course puts its mark on how we sound.



But this time it is REALLY different. There even are blues influences ("Los") and a real love Ballad ("Ohne Dich")!

Ballads we always had. There are people in the band that have problems with the song America, with Moscow, with Ohne Dich, with Los. But now we bring Los now, we like it all. But the other 3 songs I just mentioned are songs that are not really liked by all of us.



You have 6 different people in the band and you decide in a democratic way about the songs?
Not democratically, I think that sucks. We have 6 opinions and the result is a mix. Democracy is a word that is often misused. The way it is used present days then I would say Rammstein is no democracy. We are 6 kings, we all get our share and influence in the band!



The song Amerika I found very funny, ironic and a good laugh. Without wanting to judge Americans or say they are all the same as what the song describes them, I think it is the way many Europeans see that country. But were you not afraid since you have a lot of US fans that you would insult them with the song?
That is not how we see it. When we come up with a song, we do not think about what others might think of it. Not even what the Germans would think if they hear the lyrics. We only make music the way we like it best. And sometimes a subject HAS to be written about, we had to make a song about America. And so we just do it. Because America behaved pretty bad in foreign politics, we could not ignore the subject, the song Amerika had to be written. We did not want to do it PERIOD, we never made a song with a political tone in it. This was the first time!



A lot of journalists were eager in the past to judge Rammstein about how they manifest themselves, you know what I mean? The last thing they could have been waiting for is Rammstein doing songs with a political factor in it?! You perhaps gave them an extra reason to keep "judging" and criticize Rammstein for how they are?
Why? In the first place we do not think a moment about what the journalists think about us. We do not make music for them, we make music for people in general. Our fans can sense it if an article is written by a journalist or just a person. Not that journalists are not people! No, I mean something else. We have the experience that journalists do not like us, perhaps because we are to dumb, to stupid for them. To simple and perhaps to rude. Journalists are mostly sensitive people and we are perhaps a little to commonplace for them? To come back on the question, when Afghanistan were bombed after 9/11, we had critical articles about it on our Rammstein website. Then the Americans started to hate us already. We got messages from fans telling us they would now burn all their Rammstein albums.... So, we gave our opinion about America once before the song Amerika. And more clear then in the song. This song is ironic. The texts on our websites were real direct and the Americans did not appreciate it at all. So if we blew it over there, we did it before the Amerika song. But we blew it other times before, that is sadly the way it goes when Rammstein come out for their opinion. And it they do not want us over there anymore, well then a tour would be much shorter and I am at home much more! Then I am happy too. America is a giant country, we are in the tour bus all the time and play in all this states that now all voted RED. Our fans over there are totally ok, real cool kids. They are really happy when we come and play there. But the country in general, the way they do politics, I must say it does not attract me anymore. Their politicians behave very badly the past years and taking that in account, Rammstein perhaps would be more comfortable to play in China or some other country. We never pushed Rammstein to their troths over there in the US, we did a large-scale offensive but we were always wanted over there. America is a big market, when we sell records there in the same proportion as in Germany, we sell 8 times more then we would in Germany! We would be crazy not to go there. But it goes how it goes and if they do not want us over there anymore, it is bad luck and life goes on.



What I noticed is that many of your own German journalists talk shit about you and in the other countries it is different. Here in the Netherlands we even had a Rammstein week on the radio. Why do you think is that, not only because the non-German journalists understand less German?
That is quite easy to explain. German journalists are German and Germans have big troubles with their past. We in Rammstein do not have that problem with our past and we try to deal with our past as naturally as we can. But that is not the way the German journalists approve. In Germany it is not appropriate to like your own country, to be proud of it. Most Germans have a distorted relationship between their country and their own identity, their nationality to be precise. Rammstein try to be normal, we try to think Germany is like it is and we are Germans, that IS IT. Nothing more, nothing further. We are not necessary proud of it to be German, why, but we are not ashamed about it either. But in Germany it is normally to always look to the ground and think it was not us who did all that bad things in the past time. And German journalists pick on us instantly because we are clearly German with Rammstein. We noticed, if we even say what a beautiful country is it here (in Germany), they instantly shoot you for saying that! Everyone who acts and reacts open will be attacked by it. The Germans did not cope with their past in the right way, they hide in their own worlds and do not say: yes it was us who did all those terrible things, let’s do it better in the future and forget/deal with the past. When you look at the world history, several nations have had their bad time in history. The Mongols, the Romans, the French, the Turks, all have tried to conquer the world. Now it it’s in some way the Americans, but of course not so extreme like the Germans once did, few nations did it like that. But the Germans do not see it like all nations had their bad time, they still feel responsible and ashamed.



And when you march over the stage with powerful guitar-riffs and German lyrics coming out of this huge man Till Lindemann, they get annoyed.
We do it on purpose just to annoy them! Singing in German in general is enough to piss them off. They expect a German band to sing political correct in English. But with Rammstein it does not sound good if we sing in English. We tried that in the beginning but it was not ok. Now we sing in German, look German and act German on stage and that is much more then the German journalists can cope with. We pissed the off more by using images in our video for Stript which had a bad image. Then it was too late. When they want to lead everything back to our past then it is their problem. We notice now that the situation slowly starts to improve but I think it will take another 10, 20 years before it has really improved. No problem, it is improving but it needs time. I hope we will not become like the Americans, they love their country a bit too much, that would be too much for me.



I can understand the German language pretty good but the deeper message (if there is any) I do not get in the Rammstein lyrics so I have some questions. The song Reise, Reise: what do journeys/travels (Reise) have to do with one person fighting the other and another people fighting whales/fish?!
We have 2 kinds of lyrics. We have the lyrical lyrics which consist of German words that sound good and we have the lyrics telling a story. Like Du riechst so gut in which the subject is clear and we have songs like Sehnsucht which consist more of images of a sudden subject by Till. The lyrical lyrics have more like a feeling they express which is open to everyone’s imagination without a deeper story behind or in it. Reise, Reise is the way sailors or waked with in Germany, they not say WAKE UP but say Reise, Reise. What does it have to do with the rest of the lyric I do not know exactly but it brings a melancholic dark feeling over me. I never tried to analyze it. If you just translate it, it will not work, it sounds rather dumb and simple then. It is open to every interpretation, one person kills another, another person kills a fish while fishing? The bad and the good things? The whole song is just the translation of a mood, it is not a story. We have songs like Laichzeit which I still not know the deeper thoughts about it. The songs that have the hard to understand kind of lyrics are the ones you can listen to over and over without getting bored because they leave something to your imagination.



A song like Mein Teil is also an example of HAVING to be written by Rammstein, when I heard the song the first time I thought yeah this is typically something for them.

That is a funny story right?! A sad one because it is a real story about one guy eating the other and the other even approved it that he is been eaten!



Another thing about the new album is that the lyrics are more about things currently happening in the world, I mean less fantasy lyrics more real stuff.

The themes we can write about are not endless when it comes to being suitable for Rammstein. There are sudden things we can write about that fit Rammstein, but those things/subjects are limited. Look at it like an action movie, there is not a lot you can do in that, you can do some shooting, some fighting, jump off a cliff. There are a lot of cliches in that and a part 2 can always be made. But we try not always to do the same stuff. Like with Heirate mich, not again in that direction.



I just noticed it, with songs like Moscow, Amerika, Mein Teil...

It is also that for our first album, our singer Till had 30 years to write that lyrics. It was 30 years of life. The other albums only had 3 years to write. Of course we took some things from the past we did not use yet but most of it was newly written. That is why they are more about current things happening in the world. But a song like Stein um stein is also a good one, right?!



Yeah, the first time I heard it and not listened to the lyrics word by word, I thought about the Palestine people that are surrounded by the Israeli wall

I see a man and a women who embrace each other so much that they will die living totally in their own world. A world consisting only of their selves, no friends anymore. It happens all the time that a person wants a little freedom in a relationship and the other can not or will not give it. It is the answer from Till to his girlfriend I believe. Se wanted to marry him and he wrote this text and she didn’t want to marry him anymore.



Another question, it is quite known that for a while there was tension in the Rammstein camp. What I would like to know is how you managed to get over it and continue Rammstein?
It is real simple. Rammstein is for all of us individually the best thing that ever happened to us. With 6 we accomplish much more then we would individually. Of course, when success comes in and so money, people change. Not a lot if you are lucky, when you are real lucky nothing changes but with some bad luck people change because of that success and money. That happened to Rammstein. We had sudden members that became different, less easy and less cooperative. We are always a 360-degree circle. Divided in 6 parts. But when some members’ part grows they push others away, decreasing their part. The circle cannot expand more then 360 degrees and the others felt unhappy. Rammstein is only Rammstein when all members have their natural share in the circle and that was not the case anymore. We said this is not going to work this way. We must change something. Because we were with 6, the remaining members could convince the changed members that Rammstein was actually something real great to do. We draw our conclusions and everybody could think of what they had in the band. In some natural way, the band came back together. The idea was that if one of us quits we all quit. Perhaps when a guitarist leaves it is not that serious because we have 2. But it would not work and it would be less fun so we would quit. For myself I see it that if Rammstein gives me no joy anymore, my life is no fun anymore and vice versa. So it was actually very easy and now we know what we have. In a group there are always compromises. And we are 6. Compromising you can only do if you know what good things we have with Rammstein. So we took a deep breath and naturally it came together. Every now and then we are free and that means to do what we want. This 4th album we made only with pleasure. No stress. Mutter was Horror and Hell. Reise, Reise was without stress and struggle. Perhaps almost too relaxed! We did not make it easy for ourselves, talked and thought a lot about songs. But when your job makes fun, you want to do much of that job. This way it felt so good that it did not feel like a job. A job is when you need holidays, we do not need that we are on holiday all the time now!



Did you made any promises to each other not to go solo?
No that is part of the freedom we give each other now. If we want now we can do it. Everyone who has ideas that he can not use in Rammstein is free and perhaps has to do something solo. Then he can say this is how I want it. That is why Rammstein became more relaxing. Who wants can do what he wants outside Rammstein. And come back later and do something together in Rammstein. We have so many ideas that in fall of 2004 we bring out Reise, Reise part 2! We all had good songs and it was too much. So we bring the other songs out later.



I am very curious what would come out of you guys solo!
It would be good stuff I think! I myself do not need a solo album!



Thanx a lot for this interview, I’m looking forward to your show tonight!
No problem, enjoy the show!



Interview by Dennis van Elteren

Pictures by Mariska Roerdink

© 2005 Minx