Metal Hammer Hungary Interviews Paul

For those of you who don't read Herzeleid, morlac has translated and posted there a really good interview with Paul. He has very kindly given me permission to reproduce it here. This is his translation with corrections to the English. Though I was given a free rein with this I have kept my corrections to parts where I fully get the intended meaning:

According to the news, you started to work on this record in 2007. What took you so long?

The making of a Rammstein album is never an easy task. It takes a lot of time till things come together. On the one hand, we like to do an extensive job, and on the other, we are six totally different people. We can hardly agree on the style and the direction, but this is public, so this time too the process took one more year than we expected. The idea was we would write the songs all together in the fitting room, unlike the last two albums. That's all very well, but we haven't worked like this before. We had become unused to each other. We had to get used to writing the songs without being separated into small groups, but the whole band together. But to do this we first had to put away our egos and forget our past problems. We had to clear our relationships with each other. Until that was done we couldn't start the work. We had too many ideas and it just made the task weightier. If we had wanted to work out all of our new ideas we would be still in the fitting room. We had to sort things out, and determine priority. Sometimes we felt like the work buried us and we wouldn't ever finish this record.

Approximately how many song ideas did you have?

It's enough to say we had to throw away 30 song ideas. And there were some very good ideas amongst them! It was very hard to pick the songs that we wanted to finish. We started to work with approximately 20 songs. When the picture became a bit clearer we all relaxed a bit. Then came our producer, and because he was satisfied with our themes another big stone was lifted from our hearts. Until that we were totally lost. At the end we weren't even sure about the chosen 20 songs, whether they were good enough or not. If I think it through, none of our discs were as hard to make as this.

When you joined together before the work did you declare some direction for yourselves?

Well, yes, but at same time we wanted to work intuitively. Let the songs evolve, and do not stress about styles, hardness, softness, etc. Basically we wanted a harder, heavier album than the last one.

It is possible that the remaining songs will be released on a next CD as in the case of Rosenrot?

No way. We don't want to use the remaining songs that way. We didn't even finish them. The case with Reise, Reise was different. There those songs which didn't get a place on the album were already finished, recorded, and mixed. At that time we planned to release another CD in the near future, a second part, a sequel, what would contain the leftovers.

Now there is no plan like this. Honestly, we wanted to get our contract over with Rosenrot, so that's why we needed to release another album in a short time, and the prime songs were already used.

Why did you record LIFAD in the USA?

Because we have never worked there before. We tried some places in Europe. We enjoyed them all but we didn't want to go back to any of them. We desired new adventures, and it works well if we are working far away from home, the family, and the publisher. We realized long ago that we can work more intensively this way. Initially we didn't think about the USA. First we wanted to work on an island in Greece, but that studio was under construction and they didn't finish it in time.

What do you think, is it noticeable where the album was recorded?

No. This has no effect to the songs, to the feeling, because we go to the studio with finished material only. It would take twice as much time for the recording process if we experimented there, reformed songs, or even wrote new ones. It's hard enough to work without this too. If we arrive at studio with a finished song there are less problems.

Jacob Hellner was your producer again, as always. Don't you think about trying somebody else?

Jacob is an excellent producer. Our relationship with him is great, and he can handle the band well too, but it's become a routine to always work with him. We thought about this, especially at the beginning, but then he helped so much with his appearance and he put hope into us, so we didn't think about it any more. Without him and his group this disc wouldn't be done yet.

It's quite surprising that a successful band like Rammstein can suffer from the lack of self-confidence before recording a new album…

We are such shy guys. (laughs) We worried about things that we shouldn't. Jacob told us we shouldn't fix something what isn't broken, and he is always right. We have achieved much more with this band than we dreamed of. It helps too that Jacob isn't German. He is Swedish. Especially working with Till.

How you mean? I don't understand.

Jacob doesn't speak German. He doesn't understand Till's lyrics. He doesn't care about what he sings about. For him, Till's voice is just an instrument that he has to place in the picture. They can work together very well, although Till isn't a simple person. Somehow at the rehearsals Till’s voice isn't so good as in the studio. We also like that Jacob is a workaholic. If there is work he doesn't know anything about switching off, resting, not even a free weekend! At the beginning of Rammstein we had the luck to work with a British producer called Greg Hunter, who didn't do anything, just lay on his sofa in a half-coma. Sometimes he slept too. We tried not to wake him up with our uproar, but at the same time we thought he isn't the person we need.

How did you start to work with Jacob?

At the time the first Clawfinger album, Deaf Dumb Blind, was fresh; it had a great sound what we all liked. We saw on the cover that the producer was Jacob Hellner so we decided to work with him. Our publisher contacted him and he came to Hamburg to meet with us. We did a spree and when he said he hated Marshalls. We immediately knew we had found our man. We wanted an individual sound, different from the other bands.

In the song Haifisch you squarely alluded to Bertold Brecht’s "beggar-opera”, and before you have quoted Goethe. Is this a culture mission? The spreading of the German culture?

When this band launched the Wall in Berlin just come down, and everyone felt shame because of the past. Nowadays the situation is better, but still there are many people who feel shame because they are German, and we would like this to fade out, to show our values. We don't have to be ashamed that we are Germans. This is just a fact. The German culture isn't better than the others, but it's ours. We grew up with that.

In the case of Jacob, its a positive thing that he doesn't understand Till’s lyrics, but for the masses the biggest appeal of Rammstein is the thought-provoking, sometimes playful, sometimes provocative lyrics.

This is true especially for Germany, but we have fans all around the world, and most of them understand our lyrics only if they use dictionaries, because they aren't German. Many people like the sound of the German language, and they think it fits well with our music, and it's true singing in German is very hard. I mean in the rock genre. But of course for the hit songs it is possible! (laughs) And the basic philosophy of Rammstein is we are primarily playing music for ourselves. When we write songs, when Till creates song lyrics, we don't even talk about the question of the success and the money. We are such selfish bastards, that's the truth! (laughs) We don't thank to our fans when they buy our CDs or listen to our songs. We create something the best way we can. We like the issue. Everything else is just a bonus for us. The butcher doesn't thank you either, if you buy some frankfurters from him. Think about it. You go to him because you like the frankfurters, and not because you want to help him out, and you know you won't get bad meat. This is the case with Rammstein too. If you like the music then you buy it, copy it, download it, and listen to it. There is nothing about this that we have to thank them for.

Of course we like that there are many people who like us, but we would write the same music, we would shoot the same music videos, if we had only 12 fans, because we play primarily for ourselves. The fans will vainly demand that we make an album like this or like that. Deciding things like this is not their business. If they don't like the new CD then they will go and listen to another band. This time we wanted to make a heavier record, and this has overlapped with the demands of most of the fans, but this record would be the same if they wanted to something totally different. It's the same with Till’s lyrics.

I think it's a very big task to get agreement with all six members, right?

Right. We are not alike. We are six people, and we have almost nothing in common except the music. This is the only thing that holds us together. But of course we can laugh a lot. Sometimes we enjoy each other’s company a lot, but in the musical aspect, in ideology we are not the same, but somehow this is okay I think.

About the music: first there is the conservative part. They wouldn't change anything. They are like the AC/DC fans. They get confused by even the smallest changes. (laughs) If they ran the band we would still make the same style music as on the debut Herzeleid album in 1995. And there is the other section. They always want to turn Rammstein topsy-turvy. If they ruled that would lead to a catastrophe too! The people out there would be just shocked at each of our releases. The hardest part is to find the middle path, to reform ourselves within the frame of Rammstein, without losing our individuality.

So what do you think about LIFAD?

Heavier, harder, more raw. The aggressive energy of the old Rammstein has appeared on this record again, but without turning back to the dancy/industrial world that marked us before. A lot of fresh inspiration came from current metal music. I like the harder themes too, and our drummer LOVES the brutal music. If he dominated all our songs would be full of doublering. (laughs) He loves bands like Dimmu Borgir or Meshuggah. He’d like to form an extreme metal band from Rammstein. That wouldn't be a good idea, and it's also impossible because we are six people and we would pull Rammstein in six directions.

Let's talk about the new scandal-video, Pussy! Where did you get the idea to make a porn clip?

I often ask myself this now too! (laughs) There wasn't a lot of brainstorming behind this. Once the disc was done and we sat down with the publisher they suggested we do it the typical, old-fashioned way. This means the first clip should be a typical Rammstein song to send a signal to our fans that we are back and we have a new album, but we all found this boring. Our idea was to pick the most atypical song and make a video for it that would catch everyone's attention. Let's shake up the system! It seemed the best choice was the poppy disco hit song Pussy. What should we do with a song titled Pussy? We already knew we wanted to work with Jonas Åkerlund, so we sent him the song. He replied some hours later and he said he had an idea: "What would happen if he filmed a porn clip for this?” We said yes immediately! We didn't even think about what we'd got into…

Did you regret it? According to the news six and half million people saw it just in the first week…

There is not doubt as to the effectiveness of the advertisement, but I'm not sure about whether it's good for us in the future or not. Even the shooting was vulgar, and after we saw the final product we just looked out from our heads.

How was the clip made? They montaged your heads onto the bodies of some porn actors?

What do you think?

Somehow I don't think you would act in real porn scenes.

Me neither! (laughs) Although there are some people in the band who stick to that, they are visible during the whole video. (laughs)

What did the publisher say?

Of course the first reaction was they don't have anything to do with this thing! (laughs) I wouldn't say they liked the idea, but they think with their own logic, and they didn't have any idea about what could be done with a video what won't be transmitted on TV, and it can't be uploaded on YouTube either! Their main problem was this. We already knew we would introduce the new clip on a well-attended hardcore porn site, and the plan came to fruition. But from that time our familiars, friends, and even our families looked at us strangely. This thing that seemed to be a great idea isn't great any more after the scandal, but of course this isn't a thing that we all agree about. Some of the members are starting to be sick to death of the constant scandals that accompany our activities. It would be good to concentrate into the tour, playing music, but it's hard this way.

I can understand the disapproval of one of my best friends. His nine year old son is a very big Rammstein fan, and he and his friend of course watched the video. My best friend says what we did with this video was hugely irresponsible. He said he has no clue about marketing, advertisements, etc, but he is very angry because his son watched filth like this. And unfortunately I couldn't really respond to this.

He also spoke about the albums:

Herzeleid – 1995

We first met before the release of the debut album, but most of us knew each other because the rock scene of East-Germany wasn't so big. After the wall crashed Germany could be united again, and this gave us many opportunities, but at the same time all of the West's bands fell onto us, so we had to recover. There was a short time when we wanted to join the trends, like for example grunge, but in a short time we realized it would be stupid to do that. Then we decided we didn't want to join the mainstream. We didn't want to join the American bands. We would be a true German band with German lyrics! It is clear we are much stronger this way. We put our origins in the window. We worked with a German mentality. We built in some German Folk elements, but we left space for the classic rock and for the industrial effects like Ministry. So Rammstein was born with this debut. Our shows were successful already, and we got help from a multi.

Sehnsucht – 1997

Between us we felt Rammstein could be successful in America too, but it was hard to reassure our publisher. There simply wasn't a precedent. With German lyrics no one could be successful out there. We had to find those who could potentially believe in this. We had some very good shows before the release of the new album, so we could get into the collective arena tour of Korn and Limp Bizkit. We were at the best place at the best time! (laughs!) American radio broadcast Rammstein more and more and on top of that our singer worked out that we should play on the stage with a gigantic pyro show, and it had great effect! First he just started to blow up some crackers during the instrumental parts, but later his brain flew off! Till used to joke about how we can thank the pyro for our success (laughs). Once we were arrested in America because of our obscene act on the stage with our keyboardist…

Mutter – 2001

For me, the Mutter is our best material. I love the music itself, plus I have a lot of nice memories about the recording. We recorded it in the south of France, in a very calm place. The environment was dreamy and we felt guilty because we felt so good ourselves while working (laughs). And you can feel on the album this good mood. If you compare it to the previous albums it's totally different. This material brought a total break-through to us! Thanks to the successful American tour more and more people started to believe Rammstein could be successful all around the world, not only in Germany. Finally we could reach the UK too! It was funny to see the faces there. They tried to sing along with us, but they didn't have any idea what the lyrics were. (laughs) I will be honest, we didn't expect this. On the record you can find my two favourite songs, Sonne and Links 2 3 4. With the Links 2 3 4 we wanted to say we have nothing to do with politics, but as always there are some people who misunderstand the lyrics.

Reise, Reise - 2004

The success of Mutter depented the band a bit, and when Richard tried to take control the harmony dissolved. We had serious internal problems. We even spoke about breaking up! Then he started his own project, and the harmony came back. We recorded this in the south of Spain, to get out of the usual environment and to shake together again. At that time Richard moved to New York. He calmed down, and the democracy came back. We wrote the song Amerika just for fun, but the war in Iraq gave a totally different meaning to it. Some people took it amiss. Why did we make fun of them if they are fighting for us too? What can I say to this? This really was a political song, but with a lot of humour! Our another scandal song was Mein Teil, based on that cannibal story, but this is merely real life. We just wrote a song about what we saw in the news, but of course we brought to the stage a huge cauldron to "cook” someone…

Rosenrot – 2005

This record is a sequel to Reise, Reise, but more a medley. It had some songs from the Mutter era, from previous eras, and of course some new songs too. I don't reckon this as a real Rammstein album. It is in our main discography but somehow it isn't. For me, it's simply Reise, Reise vol. II. Some very surprising material got placed on it, with some experimental themes. We thought it can take everything, because it's already a miscellaneous album. In the song SNVM we worked with the singer from Texas, Sharleen Spiteri. She has fantastic voice but at the end it isn't really Rammstein, if you understand. These collective works can be very exciting and interesting, but the Rammstein sound is so special, so twitting to these six people, the final product will immediately be strange if someone joins us. But this material was good for take a rest for a year. We didn't even talk with each other very much in that time.

LIFAD – 2009

The long break was good for the band, but there were some people amongst us who wanted to take one more year! (laughs) But some of us burned in desire to play music, to write new songs, and of course to go on tour. It was hard to start. This record was made in two years. But we didn't have a time limit. There was one time where we had a six week break after two weeks of work! (laughs) But I can proudly say, this is one of our best records. First of course the song Pussy caught everyone's attention, with its porn clip, but the song about Josef Fritzl, Wiener Blut, is much harder. It's not like Mein Teil part II. It's musically total different, more experimental. It's scary. It's like a short horror movie. It was very hard to give birth to this record, but it was worth the suffering. During the recording we even discussed how the democracy in the band isn't always a good way. The task should be done and for that, sometimes, we need a leader.

Again, huge thanks to morlac. Google Language Tools simply doesn't cut it, and it's really nice to have a proper translation.

[discuss]