Information
Date: End of 2001
Source: Hi Music
Interviewed: Flake
Translator: English translation from Dutch by
Leonie Bandell
Interview
The German band Rammstein has sold out the Heineken Music hall three times and the latest album "Mutter" has reached gold in the Netherlands. The five give at the end of June their last concert for the coming three years in the Geldredom in Arnhem. This is enough reason to question the keyboard player of Rammstein, Flake Lorenz.
Interviewer:To go straight to the
point: what's the story behind your success? Flake:It
goes piece by piece. When you get famous in Germany slowly, then Europe
and the US will follow some time later on. We didn't get the fame for
free. We stood the first time around 4 o'clock at night in a club in
New York, where nobody noticed us.
There was no room backstage and we changed on the street. The pyroshow
is the first thing people notice. The second time in that club we were "that
band with all that fire" and the public had grown larger.
Interviewer:Next to the show the simple, German lyrics also attract attention. How do those lyrics get written? Flake:Our singer Till first writes a poem, but then you still don't have lyrics for a song with a couplet and chorus. The band further finishes the lyrics together. Sometimes it will take upon half a year before a song is finished. The singer doesn't want his poem to be altered too much, which will give some argument.
Interviewer:You're from East Germany. From the ending of World War II, the East German security service Stasi had made files from everybody in Germany. What do you think about that? Flake:There has been a file set up about me, which I was allowed to look into for eight weeks. It precisely reported the concerts I've been to and the band I'd played. A commission decided whether you were allowed to perform with your band. The only way to avoid that was to play in a church, which was free from Stasi-supervision.
Interviewer:What are you doing to relax besides Rammstein? Flake: I'd go for a walk or watch a couple of movies. I see a lot of other bands perform. I love Johnny Cash, just like the latest record of System of a Down. Coldplay is very good, with whom we had a terrific tour in Australia this spring. PJ Harvery and Placebo were also there. Besides that I relax a lot in my hometown Berlin. Wherever you go and how much you'll see, one will notice that the place you come from is most beautiful. Berlin smells great, the people there are in a honest way friendly, it is a town which is open to new ideas.