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herrlindemann · 6 months

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Sonic Seducer, June 2015

The exotic blossoms of a band break: After Rammstein said goodbye to the collective scene after their furious final show at the Wacken Open Air in summer 2013, the individual group members are slowly but surely returning with solo projects. While guitarist Richard Kruspe kicked things off last fall with the release of the second long play from his all-star artist collective Emigrate, spring 2015 will also be dominated by the Berlin industrial metallers. While keyboardist Flake Lorenz is trying his hand at writing books, frontman Till Lindemann is also letting the sparks fly again in every way possible: On the debut album of his solo effort of the same name, the flame-retardant muscle man has enlisted the help of Hypocrisy/Pain mastermind Peter Tägtgren. Together we'll be firing on all cylinders for 'Skills In Pills' from June onwards - and all in English!

The good news at the very beginning: the all-clear can be given. Despite all the rumors and speculation, the founding of Lindemann does not mean the end of Rammstein, as Till solemnly explains in the preliminary discussion about his latest field of musical activity. "Peter and I have been planning this project for ages. We had to keep postponing it because of time constraints — either he was on tour or I was busy with Rammstein. For me, Lindemann means more of a vacation from Rammstein. 15 years together is a long time. During this time we lived almost exclusively for the band and neglected our private life a lot. Some band members have small children and we are aware that we need more time for our families and whatever else is going on these days. It was urgently necessary for some of us to take a longer break from Rammstein. A break during which you can collect yourself again and really relax without the next appointments being on your calendar."

Anyone who knows the New German Hardness pioneer and the Scandinavian death metal veteran knows: you won't rest for a single minute on the twelve tracks of 'Skills In Pills'. On the contrary. As the names Rammstein and Pain suggest, on their first album the Lindemann/Tägtgren duo created a darkly bombastic, subtly electro-fied hybrid monster that stomps through the metal forest with glowing eyes, broad shoulders and a dirty grin to make his way through the mainstream and underground regardless of the losses. A real man's record, the result of a German-Swedish friendship that has now lasted a good 15 years. A long shared history that, according to Tägtgren, "starts with bar fights and continues through vomiting in Chinese restaurants" to the present day. Sounds too weird for a PR stunt, as Lindemann confirms. "We met when Flake and I got into a fight in a small bar somewhere in the north of Sweden. Peter somehow got in the way. I previously only knew him from seeing metal clubs and bars in Stockholm, but had never spoken to him. Back then we hung out a lot with the guys from Clawfinger and our mixer at the time, Stefan Glaumann. A time when I was out every night and knew all the clubs. Peter and his brother really saved our asses in that fight and kept us out of a lot of trouble. He calmed the heated tempers and said to these guys: By the way, that's the singer from Rammstein, they're okay. Afterwards there was home-made beer for the whole house. Then we all crashed really badly together."

Instead of burning off their excess energy in trendy shops in Stockholm, LindGren now prefers to spend her time on 'Skills In Pills'. With instant neckbreakers like 'Ladyboy' and 'Golden Shower', the bizarre fetish metal smash 'Fat' and the polarizing family planning guide 'Praise Abort(ion'), the duo will be open-mouthed and perhaps one or two scandal headlines from June onwards in relevant tabloids. The new pieces are based on Till Lindemann's notorious, deep black humor, which was often misunderstood in Rammstein and in his two previously published volumes of poetry. In English form, all non-German-speaking regions now have the chance for the first time to immerse yourself in the eerie and beautiful world of thoughts of the R-rolling fifty-something. Brutal humor for everyone.

"It’s just part of my job. I've always tried to let a certain kind of humor shine through; even if sometimes it wasn't much fun to record the songs. I can't judge whether this is the light, carefree side of Till Lindemann. The biggest difference is definitely that the songs are in English - a completely new field of work that I'm working on today."

The album was created in Peter Tägtgren's semi-legendary The Abyss studio in the tiny village of Pärlby, around 200 kilometers northwest of Stockholm. Where over the last twenty years milestones have been recorded by mostly black metal formations such as Dimmu Borgir, Dark Funeral and of course Peter's numerous in-house projects, last summer they clubbed their way through their collection of acoustic pills in a relaxed mood. Relaxed feel-good atmosphere à la Lindemann. "In his studio you can literally throw a fishing rod into the water from the comfort of your own home. Peter did the editing of the songs and I fished during my breaks from recording. We approached this project without any great expectations or plans. We just wanted to do something together. Everything has developed step by step into what you can hear and see today. Initially we thought we'd record a few songs and put them online to see how people would react."

"We are very serious about music," concludes Peter Tägtgren. "We are extremely proud of what we have created together with this album. But at the moment the project is still in its infancy. You have to see how much the audience likes our work. If it goes down well out there, I could imagine playing concerts with Lindemann. But at the moment it is still too early to judge. We'll wait for the feedback first."

The Lindemann album ‘Skills In Pills’ will be released in June; The detailed interview with Till and Peter can be found in the next issue.

#till lindemann #peter tägtgren #lindemann #rammstein #2015 #interview #translation #*scans #thanks to ramjohn for the scans!#*

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herrlindemann · 7 months

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Sonic Seducer - July 2015, interview with Till and Peter

Youth-threatening Teutonic Roc bogeyman for some, almost cult-like revered New German Hardship light figure for others: In the development of German-language music, no one has polarized the masses to an even remotely comparable extent as Rammstein singer Till Lindemann and his troupe. After firing on all cylinders at the boundaries of good taste with his infamous cult formation over the last two decades and, at the same time, mastering the rise to become the most successful local rock act, the notorious industrial metal oddball is now also catching up with his English-language solo project 'Skills In Pills' dirty grin for the next general attack on morals and customs.

He almost took part in the Olympic Games as a competitive swimmer in the early 1980s; After his apprenticeship as a basket maker, Till Lindemann has been one of the most controversial singers and lyricists in the German-speaking music landscape since the end of the 90s at the latest. Someone for whom nothing and no one is obviously sacred: a devious pyromaniac who sets himself on fire on stage while he loves to talk about taboo topics that grab headlines such as necrophilia, cannibalism, drug abuse or sex in all love and life situations. Hot iron in the truest sense, some of which can also be found on Lindemann's solo debut: On 'Skills In Pills' the Berliner has teamed up with his long-time friend and Hypocrisy/Pain mastermind Peter Tägtgren, who combines Lindemann's darkly erotic adult fairy tale with the corresponding atmospheric, hard industrial -Metal substructure supports. Till Lindemann and Peter Tägtgren in a not always entirely serious conversation about pill madness, bizarre fetishes and failed family planning.

The lyrics on 'Skills In Pills' are quite controversial and will definitely make headlines here and there. Will the record also be released in English-speaking countries and available there in a clean version?

Till: The record will be released worldwide. I don't know yet if some songs might need to be toned down. Maybe we need to change the word cunt to aunt. With Rammstein it's almost a kind of tradition that people are always indignant. I'm already used to it. This time it will certainly not be worse than with Rammstein.

With English-language texts throughout, this time there may even be worldwide scolding! Is it at least a little intentional to piss off the audience with such offensive lyrics?

Till: No, it just happens. The lyrics arise as they arise, not out of any need to stand out or piss off anyone. Even if I wanted to express it in a different way, it always only comes out the way people know it from me (laughs). I can't do anything about it. There's always a wink somewhere in my songs. If people don't understand the humor, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm not forcing anyone to buy the record.

Is it important to you today that your humor is understood?

Till: Until about ten years ago, it wasn't important to me that I was properly understood. It was important to me what people thought and how they perceived me. Today I'm more relaxed. Not to say: I don't care at all whether people understand me correctly.

Peter: If you don't understand the humor on this album, then you have a serious problem. Everything on this record can of course be understood with a grin. In my opinion there is a really brilliant artist behind it who can juggle words very well. There are also some serious songs like ‘Home Sweet Home’ which is about cancer. But the majority of them like ‘Cowboys’ or ‘Golden Shower’ are really not serious. Funny adult stories.

Can you identify 100 percent with the lyrics?

Peter: Absolutely. I think every man can do it. Maybe not necessarily complete with the lyrics of ‘Golden Shower’; Personal preferences tend to differ. But the rest has a really good sense of humor.

And maybe the transgender song 'Ladyboy' doesn't mean you?

Peter: I hope not!

Till: You have no idea...

Do you ever wonder what's going on in Till's head?

Peter: Sometimes, but if I'm honest, I don't really want to know. I see what he's singing about. Maybe some things shouldn't be said at all.

Till: It was such an intense time. Peter knows me extremely well now.

The album sounds like a lot of fun in the studio - like a real man's record.

Peter: Oh yes, I can only confirm that. We really had a good time while working on the songs.

How did the recordings go? You both are known as passionate party makers who like to have a blast!

Till: (laughs)

Peter: It wasn't that intense. Both of us can definitely handle a beer or two and a few whiskeys on top of that. Let's put it this way: first comes work, then comes pleasure. We can both be very disciplined when it counts. We share the attitude that you shouldn't waste time unnecessarily, but rather get things done as quickly as possible and then celebrate properly.

Which of you can tolerate more?

Peter: We haven't tried that yet, but we'll find out. We tried to drown our new record label. The result was that I was the first one down.

How would you describe Till? His strengths, his weaknesses?

Peter: A guy with a million ideas. So far I have always been the driving force in my projects - this time it was a very nice feeling that someone else took the reins. I think Till is more determined and ambitious than me. I think we complement each other quite well. We didn't have to fight each other in the studio to impose a certain opinion, but we could always agree on what was best for a song.

Till: Peter compensates for my weaknesses with his strengths. We are like plus and minus. And vice versa. But it works really, really well. Peter played all the instruments. All I had to do was finish my lyrics, travel up to his studio and sing everything. I would consider my use of words to be my greatest strength. Peter and I are the so-called perfect match.

What was the most difficult part of creating this album?

Peter: Everything except the lyrics and the music! The songs basically composed themselves. Then of course there is the ugly side, which no longer has anything to do with the music and is all about business. That's always the moment when it starts to get annoying. That was a real downer. Lindemann was originally planned as a purely leisure activity, as a kind of holiday hobby or perhaps as group therapy. We couldn't have known at the beginning that everything would degenerate like this and develop into a big thing. People caught wind of it and everything got bigger and bigger from then on. We are both artists, we prefer to have nothing to do with the business side.

Were there big discussions about the pieces?

Peter: Actually everything went pretty smoothly, but there were still some tracks that were pretty hard to crack and that neither of us were really happy with for a long time.

Till: Peter is this type of real metalhead who always has a guitar in his hands and is constantly strumming something to himself. Fortunately, he had no intention of including any solos in the songs. I hate solos. Right from the start he was really thundering on the guitar - I even had to rein him in a little at times. I'm more of a gothic person: atmospheric keyboards, slow bass and everything a little more atmospheric. Pianos, strings… Peter can arrange that very well too. Nevertheless, I sometimes had to cool down his metalhead spirit a little so that a song could develop in a relaxed manner.

No disagreements regarding content at Lindemann?

Peter: Few. Of course I have a different musical background than Till. But the more songs we wrote together, the easier it became. At some point something clicked and we understood what we wanted and how we needed to go about it.

Aren't you worried that your collaboration with Till will be held against you in tight-knit metal circles?

Peter: No, absolutely not. When you start making music young, you feel like you have to fight everyone and everything to prove yourself. Today I don't have to prove anything anymore, I just do what I want. If I get the idea to record a blues album, then I record a blues album. You should only listen to what you want to do yourself and not pay attention to what others might think or expect of you.

Till, did you ever feel like you had to prove yourself with Rammstein? Rammstein appeared so confident right from the start.

Till: Every young artist feels like they have to prove themselves. You're always under a certain amount of pressure to improve from time to time. Even today. We certainly exude a certain self-confidence. But this is not God-given, but is based on many different creative processes.

You recently explained in an interview that you would have liked to hide in the early days of Rammstein and found your role as frontman rather unpleasant. Seems like you've gotten used to being the center of attention.

Till: I'm actually not that concerned with being in the spotlight or the focus. With Lindemann I'm just fulfilling this agreement, which was filled with a lot of Jägermeister, to do a joint project with Peter at some point. Originally I just wanted to record a song and put it online. Peter said he would like to write a whole album together. Then we started working on the next track and after a short time we had five pieces finished. So we thought about an EP. But then we had so much fun that we worked on more pieces. It just bubbled out of us.

In your opinion, do you communicate different things in English today in a different way than you would in Rammstein or in German?

Till: I haven't thought about that yet.

Peter: For me it's easier to express myself in English than in Swedish. Even if I'm talking to a Swede! Sometimes you just use English terms because you can express things quicker and easier than in your native language.

Would you also sing these lyrics in German?

Till: No, definitely not. My message from the start was: If I ever started a side project, it would definitely not be in German. That would be too much competition and friction with Rammstein. Rammstein is Rammstein, Lindemann is in English and I feel extremely comfortable with that. At first I wasn't so sure whether I should actually do it because my English isn't very good and you can still hear the German in me.

Peter: I said from the beginning that I found his pronunciation very appropriate. The rawer and edgier, the better. It would sound very strange if Till Lindemann sang the lyrics in perfect, slurred American instead of his rolling pronunciation. That wouldn't be Till.

Instead of English, you learned Russian at school in the old GDR - would an album in Russian also be conceivable?

Till: It would definitely be a challenge. I probably couldn't do it off the cuff, but would need to brush up on some things and need someone to help me with the lyrics. But an album in Russian is conceivable. Maybe even very soon! It would also be worth considering making a record in many different languages such as French, Spanish, Italian etc. I speak a little Spanish. We've already done Spanish songs with Rammstein.

Your first attempts at non-German were with Rammstein. Have you already tested what it would sound like?

Till: The record company back then wanted us to do “Du hast” and “Engel” in English. Why we did ‘Pussy’ and ‘Amerika’ in English is a mystery to me today.

What did you discover about your artistic abilities while working on ‘Skills In Pills’?

Till: I was very surprised that everything worked out so well. Before our project, I listened to Richard's [Kruspe, Rammstein guitarist] album. We are both from the East. Richard fled before the Berlin Wall came down. We met in Berlin sometime after the fall of the Berlin Wall, before he moved to New York. Suddenly he spoke English fluently and also started making music in English. I really admired that. Above all, I admired his courage in taking this step. And it was a big step from a boy from a small town in East Germany to suddenly making English-language music in New York City. I was proud of him and wondered if I could do the same. But it was crystal clear to me that I would sing in German for the rest of my life. Because people like it. There were many voices who asked that Rammstein never sing anything in English.

People have always wondered about your texts, how much autobiography there is in them. This also applies to the new, sometimes quite revealing to coarse lyrics like 'Ladyboy', 'Golden Shower' or 'Fat'.

Till: A lot. I don't have anything more to say about it. I don't want to explain the lyrics too much.

Is writing a form of self-therapy for you?

Till: It's definitely a good thing. Sometimes it feels good to talk about certain things. Not always, but in certain situations. When someone very close to you dies, it can be very liberating to write about it. When you wrap it up in music as beautiful as Peter's, of course it's all the more beautiful.

What are the lyrics to the title track of ‘Skills In Pills’?

Peter: Of course it's about this society in which people pop a different pill for every occasion: one to sleep, one to stay awake, one for a headache, one to last longer. Pills, pills and more pills. At the same time, you condemn drugs, but you don't count all these pills, while they are almost as addictive and just as harmful. Of course, a headache pill isn't comparable to coke, heroin or marijuana, but at the end of the day they're just drugs.

What is your favorite pill?

Till: The blue one (laughs).

You've already caused a stir with your first outtake 'Praise Abort' - a single about the 'blessings of abortion'. You obviously like making enemies!

Peter: Definitely our families. But seriously: all people who feel offended by this text should get in line! But that's just the way it is: Some people don't really think about it before they start a family. You may have never heard of condoms or other forms of contraception, bang all day and end up sitting with a whole bunch of kids. Then the woman cheats and everything goes down the drain. You're kind of digging your own grave.

Till: Some people are really irresponsible with their children. They want children, but don't know how to raise them, how to teach them things and prepare them for life. And in the end there are only freaks running around outside, as you can often see.

#till lindemann #peter tägtgren #lindemann #rammstein #2015 #interview #translation #*scans #*#thanks to ramjohn for the scans!

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