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Part 1
(until 8:30)
Interviewer:
9 years ago the first single and album of the band Tokio Hotel from Magdeburg
were released. We all know how it continued, there was mass hysteria among
teens, they sold millions of records, not only in Germany, but also abroad. The
band won actually every imaginable award except the Grammy in the following
years. Among others the „1LIVE Krone“ in 2007, which was given to you on stage
by whom…?
Bill
(laughs): Haha, that was you!
Interviewer:
You experienced all of this in such a young age, how old were you? 15, 16?
Bill:
Yeah, 15 or 16..
Interviewer:
But the Tokio-Hotel-mania had its price then, you couldn’t even move freely
anymore because of so much fans, and in 2010 the twins, Bill & Tom, pulled
the brake and escaped to Los Angeles, Gustav and Georg stayed in Germany. That
happened four years ago by now, the new album „Kings of Suburbia“ was released
at the beginning of October, and I’m sitting in Los Angeles with Bill and Tom.
Please tell shortly where we are right now.
Bill: We’re
in the „The Village“ studio in Santa Monica…
Interviewer:
1LIVE, one hour at Tokio Hotel in LA…
Interviewer:
1LIVE with Tokio Hotel, or rather one half of the band. I’m sitting in a big
music studio in LA with Bill and Tom, where they both still live. Well, not
here in the studio, but in the city.
Tom: Well,
also here in the studio… (laughs)
Interviewer:
What’s your connection to this studio, „The Village“?
Bill:
Well, we discovered it a while ago and we just thought the building is so cool
because it’s such an old studio where so many people already recorded and there’s
just such an amazing traditional studio-flair, which other studios don’t have anymore.
Tom: Yeah,
a good atmosphere…
Bill:
Exactly, and we recorded some stuff for the album here and really like to come
here and rent it sometimes.
Interviewer:
Do you know who already recorded here?
Tom: Just
a bit, well I think it’s rather the question who has not already recorded here.
But there are incredible stars among them, legends, among others Aerosmith,
that’s our favorite band for example. But everyone has recorded here, there are
also private studios, for example John Mayer has his private studio up there
and I also think some other people have private studios.
Interviewer:
Pink Floyd…
Tom: Pink
Floyd has also recorded here…
Interviewer:
And you can experience this spirit in those rooms?
Bill:
Yeah, I have the feeling that there’s still also this smell of all those
technique stuff and…
Tom: Yeah,
also those vintage devices that just sound amazing and we just like to come
here for live recordings with the band. It’s really amazing, it’s a typical
studio where you bring your computer sound and add some live elements with the
band.
Interviewer:
Do you still know when you made the decision that you are going to move here
[to LA]?
Bill: It
was a relatively spontaneous decision, we first wanted to have a second home
here where we just can escape to sometimes, and we wanted to keep something in
Germany, but then people broke into our house, this happened on our 20th
birthday and then our last haven we had in Germany was also gone and we didn’t know
where to go anymore. Then we said, okay before we create a new prison for
ourselves somewhere in Germany, we’ll just escape completely. And within, I
think, four weeks we searched online for a house and we took our family and
friends and our dogs and flew to LA. And uhm yeah, we just didn’t come back
anymore.
Interviewer:
And this burglary, do you know who it was?
Bill: No,
uhm.. at that time there were always so many people standing in front of our
house and we also had security there all the time. It surely was one of them [the
people standing in front of the house] and surely everyone saw that, but no one
wanted to help us, not even the police. They could never find out who did it. I
only know that in the house everything was digged out and my entire underwear
was on the floor…
Interviewer:
Underwear?!
Bill:
Yeah, they rummaged around everywhere and photographed everything and so on.
And I said, okay I can’t stay here anymore.
Tom: But I
think everyone knows that, doesn’t matter if it’s a private person or not, but
everyone who’s house got broken into knows that I think. It’s such a disgusting
feeling. You somehow feel kind of raped, because that’s your privacy and nobody
wants everyone to know what’s in your bedside cabinet or so. Not that you’d have
some weird things in it… (laughs) Nah, but it’s really like that, you somehow
feel raped. When we got there, we already tapped the ashes of our cigarettes on
the floor and so on, it already wasn’t our home anymore. But in general it’s not
that we’re committed to LA, it just came along spontaneously. Bill wants to
move to New York so bad, and I somehow want to go to a place that’s kinda more
unusual, not necessarily a metropolis but where you could do some cool stuff. A
motorcycle tour for a year in India maybe or so, or also being on the road with
a backpack…
Interviewer:
Would you accompany him or..?
Bill: Well
nah, I would accompany him of course...
Tom: … but
he doesn’t have a motorcycle license…
Bill:
Exactly, that’s the first thing, and then, uhm… I can’t imagine it for such a
long time.. I have to say I’m a city person in general. I also like it quiet
and nature and so on, but… I can imagine going to India and then going on a
trip there for two months or so, but living there… I really feel comfortable in
big cities. New York or so… I really love to be there. I just like it. I also
have the feeling that I’m going out way more than Tom, I just like being among
people, I like those big cities.
Interviewer:
You already adressed this „golden cage“, how was one typical Tokio-Hotel-day in
Germany when you were still there? How can one imagine it?
Tom: Uhm…
always very organized. Well, first it was like that we were on the road all the
time. We had years in which we were on the road 320 to 340 days minimum. And
then you come home after a tour and you fall into a sort of limbo. Because you
don’t even know... well, you’re in this „tour-bubble“ then and you have all
people around you, assistents, managers, tour managers, and people who manage
everything for you, you actually only run after the crowd…
Bill: The
day is always automatically directed by others. And that’s the thing which gets
me really unhappy after a while because I actually don’t want this at all in
life. You also can’t just simply get out, when you want to go to the cinema and
watch a movie or eat a pizza somewhere. It’s always that you have to inform
someone first and then they tell the security, who are calling the location… so
everything needs a huge scheduling, and even if you want to drink a coffee
somewhere it needs to be planned and scheduled.
Tom: It sounds
like complaining about first world problems, which it actually is because…
Bill: It
really is, because it also has a beautiful side, it’s fun, I really like being
on the road and everything, but you just need the balance. And we just said…
Tom: We
want to have the other side now…
Bill:
Exactly, you also have to get along alone again for a while, and live on your
own…
Tom: Then
you can enjoy it differently again being on tour with the band and being on the
road with all those people, when you also have the other side.
Interviewer:
In TV interviews you said that the first year you did nothing. What is „doing
nothing“?
Bill:
Well, doing nothing for us was uhm, getting up in the morning and having no
schedule. We had no deadline for the album, we had nothing in our calendar, and
for one year we just did what we wanted every day. We got up in the morning and
said „Oh, today we want to go to the amusement park…“, so we went to the
amusement park…
Tom: …then
you go play paintball, then you go karting…
Bill:
Yeah, or you go to a concert, go to festivals…
Tom: Just
normal things, you go to „Bed, Bath & Beyond“ to buy new pans and such
things…
Interviewer:
New pans?! (laughs)
Bill:
Yeah, pans. Because we had nothing when we came here, we just had our suitcases
and we first furnished our house and bought new things. And yeah, then we also
partied a lot. I think I partied every day in some club…
Translation by Herzblut @ TokioHotel_Info || Please use with credit, thanks!
Part 2
(from 8:30 to 16:15)
Interviewer:
1LIVE today with Bill and Tom from Tokio Hotel in LA, where they live. Where
are Gustav and Georg actually?
Tom: They
are in Germany right now, but they will come here next week again and then we’ll
do some promo (please note that the interview was done in November already),
and then we’ll do some small performances until, I don’t know, the end of the
year, promotion, playing some songs here and there, and next year we’ll be on
tour together.
Interviewer:
Don’t they like being on TV as much as you do or why do I always have the
feeling that when I see your interviews that they’re a bit…
Bill: Well,
they’re not…
*something
makes noise*
Interviewer:
That’s the dog by the way…
Bill: To
be honest, they actually really don’t like it that much being on TV. They don’t
have a big problem with it [being on TV], so it’s not like they think „We don’t
want that at all“ but if they don’t have to, it’s totally okay for them that we
do that. They really love to be on stage and play the songs but all the other
things like photoshoots and interviews are just not their cup of tea.
Interviewer:
Somehow the focus is always on you, so they find that rather good? It’s not
like they say „We also want to have that“…?
Bill: Nah,
they also had a way more relaxing life because of that. Many people think.. we
also see it among the fans when they say „Oh again it’s Bill alone on the cover“,
but we don’t have such discussions at all internally. We never talk about how
long someone occurs in a video or who is on which photo. There are no fights
between us about that, and there have never been. I think everyone has their
position and task in the band and is happy with that.
Interviewer:
Are they involved in the creative process when you write new music, or are they
only in the video and play along?
Bill: Uhm,
it varies. Concerning the music, Tom is doing most of the stuff, because he’s also
producing and…
Tom: …well,
because he’s also the most talented…
Bill
(laughs): Nah, but Tom already had some songs finished and then we went in the
studio and added live instruments with them. They also bring their input to the
work of course and they also have ideas to maybe change something when Gustav
wants to change something with the beat for example.. But they don’t actively
write songs because…
Tom: They’re
just like.. they play their instruments.
Bill:
Exactly..
Tom: And
you can’t write that many songs with drums… (laughs)
Bill: But
we also once were on such a „songwriting-holiday“ together, where we flew away for
two weeks and…
Tom: The
problem…
Bill: …and
we played and jammed around a bit.
Tom:
Exactly.. we played and jammed. But we have to say that as a band we’re incredibly
undisciplined. Bill and me are more disciplined on our own than when we’re with
the band, because we have such an energy, for example when we’re rehearsing, we
actually only make fun all the time, and we’re only rehearsing one song maximum.
And the rest of the day we…
Bill: …hang
around.
Tom: Yeah,
we chill and hang around, eat something and play table tennis or so.
Interviewer:
It’s always said that everything you do is completely calculated, nothing is
left to chance. What would you say about that?
Tom: On
one hand I see it a bit as a compliment, because it only means that it somehow
must be good what we’re doing and that it comes across like we’re giving
thought to it a lot, which we do, but there’s no masterplan or a huge
machinery. People always think „Oh God, they have such a huge record company and
all those clever managers and consultants“ which created this and planned it,
but we never had that and we most probably will never have that. For example we’ve
also never had a typical manager. We always did everything on our own, and I
think Bill and me we couldn’t even handle that. We would go crazy if there was
someone who’s counseling us the entire day. To be honest, I hate to get
advices.
Interviewer:
So you have the control about everything that’s happening? And can one say that
you’re a bit of control freaks?
Bill:
Totally. Actually we’re kinda sick control freaks, we’re actually pissing off
everyone in our team with that because it’s hard then for some people to do
their job well. Because they always come back to us with all the things and
when Tom and me are in Vegas on the weekend, then we don’t answer anything
sometimes… (laughs)
Interviewer:
That just happened…
Bill:
Yeah, that just happened, but for me it’s just… that’s our baby, that’s our
band. And I can’t live with it if other people make decisions for us. If I make
decisions on my own and it doesn’t work out well then, I know I fucked it up
all on my own and I can live better with that then, than if I know that some
idiot made this decision for me and it went wrong. I couldn’t deal with that at
all. And as I said, I have always been self-determined and that’s really
important to me.
Interviewer:
Above all you knew that you wanted to make this thing, you wanted to go out,
play live and reach the audience and so on. Since when did you know that?
Tom:
Actually we had a relatively small hope…we had the band all the time, also
during our school time and always played some gigs on the weekends, and we were
always happy when we had some bigger performances where we got 250 € or so,
those were the biggest performances for us to date.
Interviewer:
Just like nowadays, right?
Tom: Just
like nowadays, exactly, so we could earn some pocket money.. But uhm, we never
had… I mean, in Magdeburg there were like a handful of bands and you met in the
clubs at the weekends, but there is no record company or management or… there
is no music industry. So we never really had hope that a video of us will play
on VIVA or MTV. We couldn’t even imagine that. And that it worked out in the
end actually still feels like a wonder today.
Interviewer:
Now of course everyone comes and says „Oh that thing with all the sexed up
stuff, the video and single cover with this weird clit mouse is all planned“…
Tom: I
have to say that somewhen we noticed that all the people said „Oh now you have
created such a sex package“ … Anyway I think that sex as a strategy doesn’t work
for guys as well as for Christina Aguilera for example… (Bill laughs)
Interviewer:
Or Miley Cyrus…
Tom:
Yeah.. But I think in general it works better for women. It just happened,
because Bill wanted to shoot this orgy video all the time and…
Bill:
Yeah, it’s really true.. But I also have to say that the people get it all
together and consume it so quickly. But when you make the videos, there are
longer periods of time in between of course. We shooted the video for „Girl Got
A Gun“ for example way earlier than the one for „Love Who Loves You Back“ and
then we don’t see it „together“ anymore. We decide our idea actually relatively
spontaneously, what we want to do. It also depends on the situation, you don’t sit
together at the table and think about how to attract the most attention or how
do you make a good promo action. But it really happens in the moment. You have
a vision for the song and an idea to it, and it just somehow happens. And when
it’s released the people consume it so quickly, they watch one 3-minute-video
and then the next one.. and then it’s a package for them, but which was months
of work for us, which we didn’t see as coherent.
Translation by Herzblut @ TokioHotel_Info || Please use with credit, thanks!
Part 3 coming soon!
