MY PREDILICTION FOR THE OLD GERMAN LANGUAGE

How did it all start with Rammstein?

One day, someone gave me an old drum kit and I began to play the drums. I, too, wanted to be a musician but I had absolutely no talent for it. Earlier on, I had tried the guitar but never really got to grips with it, never had the patience. The drum kit, on the other hand, took me in - it was something to hold on to, something stalwart. I was constantly banging away on the thing and, as was usual in the East, after only four weeks I had my first band together. This band was totally chaotic, with me on drums and at some point we even lost our guitarist - he was always ill and ended up moving away. Richard helped out every once in a while. He was my first point of call. I met him in Schwerin. He attracted my attention because of his funny haircut: he had a long ponytail, short at the front with blond streaks - basically he looked like a stripy squirrel. Then we did our first tour of the East, around 10 towns in all, with Richard and 0 helping out. On stage we burnt old cars and smashed everything to bits. In the bass drum of my kit I kept a few live chickens and the animal rights people obviously weren't too happy about that. I always sang the encores, playing bass. And at some point Schneider thought about a solo project, just him and me.

How do you write your lyrics?

The music comes first, then I start on the lyrics. I prefer the old German language, it goes straight to the heart. When I listen to modern songs, it doesn't feel right to me. I think lyrics need to be able to work by themselves - when bolstered by good music they can only get better. The press often accuses you of "fascist aesthetics"

How do you deal with this?

Till: We're all from the East and in those days pretty much everything was taboo. In the GDR there was a large sphere of silence. Censorship in all its facets and obviously anything political was outlawed. All of a sudden, the wall came down. Now the time had come, I thought, to let out all those repressed thoughts. So I tackled them all: violence in the family, loneliness, incest etc. I mean, topics that are very emotional, where a lot of anger had built up inside of me over the years. I wanted to communicate with people about these things and for that the song is a perfect medium.

Millions of CDs sold by us support the fact that there is a great need for confrontation. But suddenly a lot of journalists claimed that our music, the lyrics and the show are reminiscent of "fascist aesthetics". That's complete bullshit. The show is reaction to the lyrics and music. At out first big gig, 1996 in the Berlin Arena, where you designed lighting and stage, we were showered with the same accusations. Of course, everything about the shows was completely overblown, all the white light - it was something alien to them, it was something nobody had ever seen before. And that's when the press wrote about "fascist aesthetics" They simply didn't understand that this was a form of theatre. With your show at the Berlin victory pillar the same thing happened to you: all of a sudden you were Albert Speer and Leni Riefenstahl rolled into one. We did have our problems with the Riefenstahl phenomenon: Artistically, I think she's good, all over the world she is well regarded in this respect. I find her Olympics film is very interesting, but this doesn't automatically make me a Nazi. Some journalists are like small, aggressive yapping dogs that love to piss on you and that can get really annoying.

-I showed your video "Live from Berlin" to the reknown Greek composer and musician Mikis Theodorakis who most definitely is not associated with "fascist aesthetics" - he thought it was fascinating and was so impressed by your voice that he asked to record a song with you

Till:  I was very happy about that and felt honoured. He doesn't listen to it like a German person who has trouble accepting his Teutonic roots, but as a musician and a consumer. If this project with Theodorakis should work out, if we ended up singing together, I would be very happy. I mean, what could some stupid arse hole say to me after that.

Till Lindemann

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