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Rammstein

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Rammstein
File:Rammstein.jpg
Background information
Years active1994-present
MembersTill Lindemann
Rich "Scholle" Kruspe-Bernstein
Paul H. Landers
Oliver "Ollie" Riedel
Christoph "Doom" Schneider
Christian "Flake" Lorenz

Rammstein is a German band formed in 1994. Their musical style, which they have dubbed Tanz-Metall ("Dance Metal"), incorporates elements of metal, industrial and electronic music. Their songs are performed almost exclusively in German.

The band

Rammstein takes its name indirectly from the western German town of Ramstein, site of an airshow disaster in 1988. The band's signature song, the eponymous "Rammstein", is a commemoration of the tragedy that took place at the Ramstein Air Base. The extra "m" in the band's name means that it translates literally as "ramming stone" or "battering ram".

Even though the lyrics are in German, the band has enjoyed success outside of Germany, and with the album Reise, Reise (2004), they became the most successful German-language band of all time. Rammstein has had several top ten singles in Germany.

Rammstein bring on the flamethrowers - Globe Arena, Stockholm, 18 November 2004

The band's members all come from the former East Germany, specifically East Berlin and Schwerin. They are:

Riedel, Schneider and Kruspe were the original founders of Rammstein, following an attempt by the latter to compose American-influenced music with a West Berlin band called Orgasm Death Gimmicks. As Kruspe put it, "I realized it's really important to make music and make it fit with your language, which I didn't do in the past. I came back [to Germany] and said, 'It's time to make music that's really authentic.' I was starting a project called Rammstein to really try to make German music." He invited Till Lindemann, a basket weaver and drummer for the band First Arsch, to join the project as a vocalist. The four entered a contest for new bands and won, attracting the interest of Paul H. Landers, who knew them all and decided to join the band. "Flake" Lorenz was the last member to join; he had played with Landers before in the band Feeling B and was initially reluctant to come on board, but was eventually persuaded to join. Their first album was released a year later.

They have been nominated for two Best Metal Performance Grammy Awards: in 1999 with the song "Du Hast" and in 2005 with the song "Mein Teil".

Lyrics and style

Although it cannot be said that Rammstein sticks to any particular genre of music, they are most often described as industrial metal, and they are also often associated with heavy metal and hard rock. Some have categorised them with the controversial Neue Deutsche Härte movement ("Deutsche Hard Rock"). They have been strongly influenced by the much older Slovenian band called Laibach. Other bands from which Rammstein has drawn inspiration include - DAF (Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft), Marilyn Manson, Ministry and others.
Despite Rammstein's brutalist image, they do show a sense of humour in their lyrics. "Rein, raus" ("In, out"), for example, is clearly tongue-in-cheek. "Zwitter" ("Hermaphrodite") is a bizarre take on narcissism:

Wenn die anderen Mädchen suchten (When the others searched for girls)
Konnt ich mich schon selbst befruchten (I could already fertilize myself)

Similarly, the song "Amerika" features the tongue-in-cheek lyrics:

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar (America is wonderful)
We're all living in Amerika
Coca-Cola, Wonderbra!
We're all living in Amerika
Coca-Cola, sometimes war

Their newest single, "Benzin" ("Petrol") also exhibits some tongue-in-cheek lyrics, such as:

[Ich] brauch' keine Frau, nur Vaselin ([I] need no woman, only Vaseline)

Not only is there the obvious joke, but also the pun that Vaseline is a by-product of making petrol - the subject of the song.

Wordplay is used frequently in Rammstein's lyrics. "Du Hast" is a play on German marriage vows ("Willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet treu ihr sein für alle Tage?"). In the song, the traditional affirmative response "ja" is replaced by the negative response "nein". The song starts, in fact, with a play on words: "Du... Du has(s)t... Du has(s)t mich," meaning, "... You hate me" or "... You have me." (The words hasst, from hassen, "to hate," and hast, from haben, "to have," are homophones). The ambiguity is later resolved as the line is completed: "Du hast mich gefragt" ("You [have] asked me").

Rammstein often uses homonyms to create similar effects. For example, from the song "Los":

Es ist hoffnungslos (It is hopeless)
Sinnlos (Senseless)
Hilflos (Helpless)
Sie sind Gott [pause]
Los

As a suffix, "-los" in German is the equivalent of "-less" in English. As a command, "los!" means "off!" or "go!". Throughout the song it is mostly used as "-less", but in the last two lines given above, it can be interpreted in three ways. "Sie sind Gott. / Los!" can mean "They are God. / Go!" or "They got rid of god," while "Sie sind gottlos" means "they are godless".

Also from "Los":

Es wurde Zeit [pause]
Los

"Es wurde Zeit" translates as "It was time", so these two lines can be interpreted as "It was time. / Go!" or "It became timeless".

Some of their songs show unexpected influences. "Dalai Lama" is an adaptation of the famous poem Der Erlkönig by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Nearly all of Rammstein's lyrics are in German. However, the band did record English versions of "Engel" and "Du Hast", as well as covers of the songs "Stripped" and "Pet Sematary". In addition, the songs "Amerika" and "Moskau" contain not only German verses, but also English and Russian choruses respectively. "Ollie" Riedel commented on Rammstein's use of language, saying that "German language suits heavy metal music. French might be the language of love ("Amour" song), but German is the language of anger." (Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), October 24, 2004) For their latest album Rosenrot they even recorded a song with Spanish lyrics: "Te quiero puta!" (or "I love you, whore!").

Rammstein's style has tended to divide critics, some of whom have responded with memorably dismissive comments. Jam Showbiz (April 2001) described Mutter as "music to invade Poland to." New Zealand's Southland Times (Dec. 17, 1999) suggested that Till Lindemann's "booming, sub-sonic voice" would send "the peasants fleeing into their barns and bolting their doors." The New York Times (Jan. 9, 2005) commented that on the stage, "Mr. Lindemann gave off an air of such brute masculinity and barely contained violence that it seemed that he could have reached into the crowd, snatched up a fan, and bitten off his head." "We just push boundaries," said Till Lindemann in an interview with rock magazine Kerrang!. "We can't help it if people don't like those boundaries being pushed."

Movie and video appearances

Within only a few years of starting their career, Rammstein soon caught the attention of Hollywood for their explosive stage performances and energetic music. Directors David Lynch and Rob Cohen appear to be particularly strong fans; explaining why he set the first ten minutes of his thriller xXx in a Rammstein concert in Prague, Cohen said:

"I guess it was in 1997 I was going through Hamburg and I caught their [Rammstein's] show as they chased each other around with dildos spurting custard, the fire pots and all of that, this is a crazy band; they're very theatrical and exciting, but their music is very, very good and German; it's very interesting in terms of the energy it evokes." [1]

Rammstein's movie appearances to date are as follows:

Year Film Song
1997 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation "Engel"
  Lost Highway "Rammstein", "Heirate Mich"
  Wing Commander "Eifersucht"
1999 The Matrix "Du Hast" (uncredited)
2001 How High "Du Hast"
2002 Resident Evil "Halleluja"
  xXx "Feuer Frei!" (performed live on film)
  Lilya 4-ever "Mein Herz Brennt"
  FeardotCom "Sonne"
2004 Resident Evil: Apocalypse "Mein Teil"

Rammstein's song videos also tie in quite closely with films as they frequently "quote" from movies, including Quentin Tarantino's classic Reservoir Dogs in "Du Hast" and From Dusk Till Dawn in "Engel".

Shows

File:Rammstein inferno.JPG
"Other bands play, Rammstein burns!" - Brixton, London, February 2005

Rammstein has achieved particular fame (not to mention notoriety) for its hugely over-the-top stage show, using so many pyrotechnics that fans eventually coined the motto "Other bands play, Rammstein burns!" (a quip at Manowar's song "Kings of Metal", which states, "other bands play, Manowar kill").

The heat is so intense that on occasion, people have been carried out of Rammstein concerts suffering from heat exhaustion, and lighting gantries have been seen glowing red-hot from repeated fireball hits. The variety of the pyrotechnics can be seen in a recent concert playlist, which includes such items as "Lycopodium Masks", "Glitterburst Truss", "Pyrostrobes", "Comets", "Flash Trays" and "Mortar Hits". The band's on-stage antics have included:

  • Band members using head-mounted flamethrowers ("Lycopodium Masks", also called "Dragon Masks") while singing/playing (example: "Feuer Frei!" video);
  • Till Lindemann singing an entire song while on fire (example: "Rammstein" video); he now uses twin flamethrowers strapped to his arms;
  • Simulated sodomy and a liquor-squirting dildo;
  • Exploding drumsticks, drums, microphones and boots;
  • "Flake" Lorenz being roasted in a giant cauldron by a flamethrower-wielding Lindemann;
  • Rockets fired along cables strung above the audience;
  • Spark-shooting longbows, drumsticks, boots and guns;
  • "Flake" Lorenz destroying a keyboard in the style of The Who;
  • Microphones, guitars and keyboards on fire;
  • Band members surfing the crowd in a rubber boat;
  • "Flake" Lorenz driving around on a Segway HT during "Amerika".[1]

Rammstein's shows have become increasingly elaborate since the first ones ten years ago, when their effects were confined to pouring kerosene around the stage and setting it alight. After some unfortunate early accidents the band took to employing professionals to handle the pyrotechnics; Lindemann himself is now a licensed pyrotechnician.

The band's costumes are equally outlandish. During the current Reise, Reise tour they have worn Lederhosen, corsets and vague military uniforms with steel helmets, while during the Mutter tour the group kept to the themes of the album artwork and descended onto the stage from a giant uterus while wearing nappies.

According to Kruspe, the on-stage wackiness is entirely deliberate (Rammstein's motto according to Schneider is: "Do your own thing. And overdo it!"). The aim is to get people's attention and have fun at the same time: "You have to understand that 99 percent of the people don't understand the lyrics, so you have to come up with something to keep the drama in the show. We have to do something. We like to have a show; we like to play with fire. We do have a sense of humor. We do laugh about it; we have fun... but we're not Spinal Tap. We take the music and the lyrics seriously. It's a combination of humor, theater and our East German culture, you know?" (The Grand Rapids Press, Jul 22, 1999).

[1] At the Metaltown Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden on July 30, 2005, Till suffered a knee injury when "Flake" accidentally ran into him with the Segway. This caused concerts scheduled in Asia to be cancelled.

Albums

Rammstein have so far released five full-length studio albums: Herzeleid (1995), Sehnsucht (1997), Mutter (2001), Reise, Reise (2004), and Rosenrot (2005). Their only live album, Live Aus Berlin, was recorded from a show in Wuhlheide Park, Berlin, in 1998. While Herzeleid was well-received, Sehnsucht is widely regarded as Rammstein's breakthrough album. The production of the follow-up album Mutter was an experience fraught with difficulty for the band, which nearly broke up as a result of the strains. However, the differences were resolved by the time Rammstein produced Reise, Reise.

The band's latest album, Rosenrot, was released on October 28, 2005. A number of songs that were left out of Reise, Reise for dramaturgical reasons make up the majority of the album, but a number of new songs have also been recorded. The band performed "Benzin", the first single from the album, at four shows in Wuhlheide Park on June 23-26, 2005, and four shows in the UK (Newcastle, Birmingham, Glasgow and Cardiff) in July 2005.

The band will take a timeout in 2006, and may work on a new album in 2007. [2]

Covers and adaptations

Rammstein's songs have been covered by a number of other artists, notably the Pet Shop Boys, who remixed the song "Mein Teil", and Nina Hagen with Apocalyptica, who covered "Seemann". Recently, the group Gregorian reworked "Engel" as a Gregorian chant for their album The Dark Side. More unusually, the German composer Torsten Rasch has produced a classical opera cycle entitled Mein Herz Brennt, based on the album Mutter. The song "Alter Mann" was also done for the CD.

Rammstein has also done several covers themselves, including "Das Modell" by Kraftwerk, "Stripped" by Depeche Mode, and "Pet Sematary" by The Ramones, which was based loosely on the Stephen King novel of the same name and sung by keyboarder Flake Lorenz.

Controversies

File:Herzeleid original cover.jpg
The original Herzeleid album cover

Rammstein have not been shy of courting controversy and have periodically attracted condemnation from morality campaigners. Their stage act earned them a night in jail in June 1999 after the infamous giant dildo was used in a concert in Worcester, Massachusetts. Back home in Germany, the band has faced repeated accusations of fascist sympathies due to the dark and sometimes militaristic imagery of their videos and concerts, including the use of extracts from the propaganda film Olympia by Leni Riefenstahl in the video for "Stripped". Also, the debut album Herzeleid, released in Germany in 1995, originally had a cover featuring the bandmembers' upper bodies without clothing; critics accused the band of trying to sell themselves as "poster boys for the Master Race". Rammstein have denied this vigorously and the members of the band have said that they want nothing to do with politics as well as supremacy of any kind.

The song "Links 2 3 4" was written as a riposte to these claims. According to Kruspe, it means, "'my heart beats on the left, two, three, four.' It's simple. If you want to put us in a political category, we're on the left side, and that's the reason we made the song." (The Grand Rapids Press, July 22, 2001) Of course this is a two-sided thing, since "links, 2, 3, 4" is the usual command in marching practice in the German army, "links" referring to the left foot in that case. "Flake" recently stated on an on-line chat that the song was created in order to show that the band could write a harsh, "evil", military sounding song that was not about Nazi ideals.

In Germany, the band is often criticised as using obsolete Nazi German stereotypes of violence and badness for commercial reasons.

In April 1999, it emerged that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two boys who perpetrated the Columbine High School massacre, were fans of Rammstein and had declared it to be one of their favourite bands. Rammstein came under heavy criticism from conservative and Christian groups in the United States, who claimed (among other things) that Till Lindemann's rolling Teutonic r's were an imitation of Adolf Hitler's diction. In response, the band issued a statement:

The members of Rammstein express their condolences and sympathy to all affected by the recent tragic events in Denver. They wish to make it clear that they have no lyrical content or political beliefs that could have possibly influenced such behavior. Additionally, members of Rammstein have children of their own, in whom they continually strive to instill healthy and non-violent values.

Jeff Weise of the Red Lake High School massacre was also said to have been a fan. [3]

Following the tragic conclusion of the Beslan school hostage crisis in Russia in September 2004, the Russian authorities claimed that the hostage-takers had "listened to German hard rock group Rammstein on personal stereos during the siege to keep themselves edgy and fired up." [4] The claim has not been independently confirmed, and the Russian authorities are known to have been concerned that Rammstein was too appealing to "undesirable" elements in Russian society. A Rammstein concert in Moscow scheduled for July 19, 2002 was cancelled due to fears that it would attract skinheads.

In October 2004, the video for "Mein Teil" caused considerable controversy in Germany when it was released. It takes a darkly comic view of the Armin Meiwes cannibalism case, showing musicians of the band being held on a leash by a transvestite and rolling around in mud. The controversy did nothing to stop (and may even have helped) the single rising to No. 2 in the German charts.

The band's own views of its image are sanguine: "We like being on the fringes of bad taste," according to Paul Landers, while "Flake" Lorenz comments, "The controversy is fun, like stealing forbidden fruit. But it serves a purpose. We like audiences to grapple with our music, and people have become more receptive." (The Times, Jan 29, 2005)

Discography

Studio Albums

Singles

Videos

VHS/DVDs

The as yet untitled live DVD is to be released in early 2006. A teaser for the DVD is included on the limited edition of the Rosenrot album.

English Fansites

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rammstein.

Non-English Fansites

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