Quelle/Source: @decodeltd/Twitter
Scans by tokiohotelchina
Translation
Jolie meets Bill and Tom Kaulitz
The Tokio-Hotel-Twins talk about their new home Los Angeles, wild orgies and Helene Fischer.
You really have to accomplish something like that first: Tokio Hotel have been out of the spotlight for four years – in spite of that, the Pullman Hotel in Erfurt is surrounded by fans that want to take a picture with Bill and Tom Kaulitz. They moved to Los Angeles in 2010 and are now in Germany to promote the new album of their band, called “Kings Of Suburbia”. Their celebrity status is however challenged by their english bulldog, Pumbaa, who wants to be pet by everyone and constantly runs in front of the camera. During the interview you immediatelly notice how similar the identical twins are – they even finish each others sentences. There was only one topic they didn’t agree on: Anise-Candies.
Jolie: You’ve got a really cool dog there, Bill.
Tom: We live together, therefore you can say that Pumbaa is our dog.
Bill: No, he’s my dog. You’ve got your own.
Tom: But he’s a big hound dog and didn’t even come with us. Travelling with him is very strenuous.
Jolie: Which one of you takes the dogs out for walks?
Bill: I take Pumbaa out – but only when there aren’t a dozen fans surrounding us or if I can leave through the garage. In any other case an assitent, sadly, has to take him for walks. In Los Angeles it’s always us, who do that, though.
Jolie: People like going for a walk in the morning in Venice Beach there…
Bill: We have a completely different rhythm than the people there. They all get up at eight in the morning and do Yoga or Pilates, get a healthy drink afterwards and buy a salad from the organic market. No one smokes, no one drinks too much. At two in the morning night clubs already close – everything in L.A. is very reasonable. And we…
Tom: …are usually awake until six, seven in the morning…
Bill: …and sleep until late afternoon. We actually live a very european lifestyle.
Jolie: Why did you choose to move from Germany to Los Angeles, specifically?
Bill: That’s a question I’ve been asking myself now too, because L.A. is a little too boring for me. The people and the fashion in New York would inspire me much more. In L.A. you have to make sure that you don’t let yourself go. Everyone there wears flip-flops and shorts because of the heat. But after spending some time in Hamburg, where it was grey and cloudy, it was wonderful.
Jolie: Do you feel like you can call the US your home now?
Tom: Home, for me, always refers to your own house – doesn’t matter where it is. As long as my dogs, my family and my friends are there with me, I feel home. But when we come to Germany, we have a feeling of being in control. We understood that country (culture/mentality) completely, there was no culture shock. But a lot of things in the US are also awesome, like the park service and Restaurants or hotels. Why isn’t this a normal thing here as well? I would love to just throw together the best of both worlds to create the perfect country.
Bill: The visa and greencard formalities alone, always remind us that we’re not Americans (laughs). I also always connect home to the taste of “Schmalzkuchen” and german bread.
Tom: Yup, as well as roasted almonds.
Bill: Yes, yes, yummy!
Tom: And I love Anise-candies.
Bill: Ew (Tom laughs)
Jolie: Your career took off when you were teens, now you’re 25. Do you feel like adults?
Tom: Honestly? I feel like less like an adult today than I did with 15.
Bill: When I was 15 I hated it when people would ask me for my ID, for example…(falters for a moment) when I wanted to buy alcohol (both laugh). In the past I felt ready for everything. I wanted to earn my own money, live on my own and be responsible for as many things as possible. But everytime I don’t have to show them my ID now I always ask myself: “Why?” (laughs)
Tom: Since I’ve grown a beard people rarely ask me for it.
Jolie: Do you come off as younger or older to women?
Bill: Just recently a women at a party wanted to know how old I was. I let her guess my age. Then she looked at me, thought about it for a while and said: “Maybe 34?” I was shocked. And what does she do next? She makes it worse by saying: “It’s so hard to say with your costume on.” And I just went: “Which costume?” She said: “You have so many tattoos and piercings.” It was unreal.
Jolie: You’re probably not going to see her again.
Bill: Definitely not. Although, at the end she did say that my eyes look very young. (both laugh)
Jolie: Does being an adult have its drawbacks?
Bill: I can’t recover that fast from partying all night anymore. I always end up thinking: “Oh my god, look at those eyebags!” Or: “We should drink less.” We do notice that we have to take more care of ourselves.
Tom: Maybe we should start living that healthy-L.A. lifestyle as well. (laughs)
Jolie: More salad, less burgers?
Tom: We’re lucky, because we can eat what we want and not gain any weight.
Bill: All men in our family stay really thin right up until they reach an old age. But I do have to admin that we’re unhealthy eaters.
Jolie: Do you at least compensate for the unhealthy food with sports?
Tom: In the past we went to the gym a lot, but we haven’t been going there regularly anymore.
Bill: I hate that. We only go there to look reasonably good. I always feel like I’m under pressure when I see all those fit guys in their tanktops there.
Tom: By the way, that’s another pro about living Germany – you can hide everything under your winter clothes.
Jolie: In the video for your single “Love Who Loves You Back” you are dressed revealingly and there’s a wild orgy. Who came up with that idea?
Bill: I’ve been wanting to shoot such a music video for a long time, because I really like the last scene in the movie “The Perfume” – which is quite similar. It was important for me that we show same-sex couples, skinny and big and old and young people in the video. Because I think that you can’t choose who you fall in love with.
Jolie: Are you all of the same opinion, when it comes to those decisions, as a band?
Bill: Creatively we all decide everything together, the individual tasks then get allocated.
Tom: With the orgy the only question that came up was, if we would all participate or not. But we all agreed pretty quickly that only Bill would take part in that.
Jolie: Did you, in the US, hear about the huge success that your colleague Helene Fischer (German singer) has had in Germany?
Bill: I heard of it, but it’s hard for me to comprehend. She’s probably a really nice women, but I’m really not into her music style.
Profile – Tom:
– The guitarist likes going out to “Hyde” in Los Angeles: “It’s a bar and nightclub in one with a good smokers’ corner.”
– Which dish can you always successfully prepare?: “Penne Pasta with Ketchup”
– What did you want to be when you were six years old?: “Mechanic”
– What do you think of right before you go to sleep?: “(Note: I sadly can’t make out what the scans say :()”
– What’s the most expensive item you own?: “Bill”
Profile – Bill
– Bill named his dog Pumbaa after the wart hog from “The Lion King”: “Thankfully he’s easy to train.”
– What’s the first thing you do in the morning?: “(Note: I sadly can’t make out what the scans say :()”
– What’s the most expensive item you own?: “Tom”
– Which three traits are typical for you?: “(Note: I sadly can’t make out what the scans say :()”
– What do you think of right before you go to sleep?: “(Note: I sadly can’t make out what the scans say :()”
Translation by Icey @ loveth-music.com
TOKIO HOTEL Answers Some Questions From Their Fans!
Tokio Hotel took some time to answer some questions sent by their fans! Read on for more!
By: Feliz Borja
.jpg)
Photo courtesy of MCA Music, Inc. Philippines
After five long years, German rock band Tokio Hotel is back with their new album "Kings of Suburbia"!
During a MYXclusive phone interview with guitarist Tom Kaulitz and lead vocalist Bill Kaulitz, we had the opportunity to ask the band some details about their comeback album "Kings of Suburbia"!
During a MYXclusive phone interview with guitarist Tom Kaulitz and lead vocalist Bill Kaulitz, we had the opportunity to ask the band some details about their comeback album "Kings of Suburbia"!
"We worked on this for a long time actually," shared Tom. "We took some time off after the last record and we just need to live life and I think that's what this new album's all about. We put a lot of life and a lot of love into this record," he continued.
As for the title of the album, Tom revealed that "Kings of Suburbia" is about a feeling that they had when they were still kids, growing up in their hometown. "It's a feeling that everybody of us always had. It's a special meaning for us."
Prior to our phone interview with the band, we asked some Tokio Hotel fans to send us some questions that they want to ask Bill and Tom and the twins were nothing but excited to answer them!
TOM: "We didn't really just sat down and discussed this change. We just started to make music and we just wanted to see what comes out of us. It was really natural. The working flow was really different for this album. It was a supernatural process."
TOM: "I think the hand tattoo is pretty amazing and it took a lot of pain and a lot of work so that's one of my favorites."
TOM: "I think I would pick 'Love Who Loves You Back' because it's our first single and we had so much fun making the video so I think I would pick that."
BILL: "My mom actually loves it! She loves all of it. My mom is probably the biggest fan of Tokio Hotel! She's been always super supportive. She loved the video, she loved the message. She's a fan of it!"
BILL: "I think the biggest inspiration was life, getting to know people and the freedom I had in Los Angeles. I thought I was locked up in Germany and I thought I wasn't part of actual life. So I think the biggest inspiration for me was that freedom and to just enjoy myself, enjoy life and grow up, experience life."
And for the most common question from the fans: "Are there any plans of visiting the Philippines soon?"
"We're just planning our tour and we're just thinking about where and when we'll play. We hope that next year, we'll get to travel all over the world. We would love to play in the Philippines! We'd love to see our fans and play there so yeah, this might gonna happen in 2015!"
Aside from answering the questions that you sent them, Bill and Tom also left a message for all the Tokio Hotel fans out there!
"We just want to say thank you so much to everyone! We see the comments and we feel the support and we can see the love. It's so great and we're so grateful for everything they do and it's amazing! We hope to see everyone soon!"
We know you're all excited for a possible visit from Tokio Hotel next year and that's really something to look forward to!
Translation
Through the Monsoon and back again. Five years after their last album, the escape to America and an inevitable maturity process, Tokio Hotel show themselves as an entirely renewed band - more international, more electronical and with different hairstyles. But instead of parts, Bill & Tom Kaulitz only know how to spell the history of their band as a continuity. How they urged to be on stage as a duo as B like Black Questionmark, and suddenly had worldwide success as Q like quartet, found in L.A. the missing F like freedom again, caused a spectacle in J like Jerusalem in the meantime, but which P like Pumba doesn't know anything of, because their English bulldog wasn't even born back then. Welcome to the big Tokio-Hotel-alphabet!
by Harald Peters
Photos by Brad Elterman
A - TOM KAULITZ: Autobahn!
BILL KAULITZ: Oh yeah, we haven't driven on the Autobahn for so long!
TOM: The Autobahn is one of my favorite things in Germany. It's the thing I miss most when I'm in LA: driving fast, no speed limit, anarchy.
INTERVIEW: And less traffic jam?
BILL: The traffic in LA is a horror. I don't drive a car in LA, I generally don't drive a car though.
INTERVIEW: Tom, do you have a doll next to you on the passenger seat, so that you're allowed to drive on the faster carpool lane when you're alone?
TOM: Nah, I always have Bill next to me anyway.
B - INTERVIEW: I have two key words for B.
TOM: Bill?
INTERVIEW: Exactly.
TOM: Bill, the slightly ugly (Bill: hahaha), less well-off...
BILL: ...the disadvantaged twin.
TOM: Yes, exactly!
BILL: You'll also have to explain that now, Tom!
TOM: Well, concerning the look it's obvious, I don't have to explain much in that matter. He's the younger one, the more naive one of us. And the one who's carrying all the responsibility, also job-wise...
BILL: ...that's me.
TOM: Nah, you're the less well-off twin.
BILL: What's the second key word?
INTERVIEW: Black Questionmark.
BILL: Ah, our very first band name. I don't even know anymore how old we were back then, but we thought the name is really cool.
TOM: Wasn't the name inspired by a song from Nena?
BILL: No, her song was only called Fragezeichen (Questionmark). But that wasn't gloomy enough for us, so we thought about "Black Questionmark" and so we translated it into English.
TOM: We thought it sounds more international and markedly mysterious.
INTERVIEW: How can one imagine Black Questionmark?
BILL: It was only Tom and me. Back then we just started to write our first songs, and in a way we were different that other bands. They first rehearsed their songs, until they could play them. But when we wrote a song, we directly wanted to perform it on stage.
TOM: The problem was: We actually had no skills. I knew how to play four chords on the guitar.
BILL: And I had a keyboard on which I had to push some buttons, so that it played bass and drums on its own. Those were such pre-produced loops.
TOM: But we already performed in the "Gröninger Bad" with that, where we got discovered by our producer later.
INTERVIEW: How big was your audience back then?
BILL: Maybe 15, 20, 30 people.
C - BILL: I can't think of anything with C.
INTERVIEW: Comeback?
TOM: Oh, that's nice!
BILL: For us comeback is a difficult word, because see it differently. The last album was five years ago indeed, but after that we were on tour for a long time. In South America for example, and in 2011 we were in Japan and Russia. After that we took a break for a year and then started to work on the new album. So for us it's not a comeback.
D - TOM: D? D like Dora. Bill, do you want to tell something about your ex-girlfriend?
BILL: (laughs)
TOM: "Drums" comes to my mind. I always wanted to be a drummer.
BILL: To be honest, Tom would even be the better drummer. (laughter) I wanted to say that he's not as good as a guitarist as he would be as a drummer. Because he's always knocking on everything.
INTERVIEW: Does that mean that you'd be incredibly good as drummer or that you're not that good as a guitarist?
TOM: I think I'd be incredibly good.
BILL: The thing with Tom is that he plays guitar on stage, but in the studio he does all sorts of things. He also produced the current album.
TOM: The truth is that I can't play any instrument really well. But I can do a bit of everything and I'm creative enough to make it sound good.
INTERVIEW: I also have Devilish on offer.
TOM: Devilish resulted from Black Questionmark.
BILL: That was our first real band formation then with Georg and Gustav, the precursor for Tokio Hotel.
TOM: You can hear two songs from that time on the Super-Deluxe-Version of the new album.
INTERVIEW: Are they any good?
BILL: Nah!
TOM: Wait a minute! I heard them and thought they're awesome. How old were we, when we recorded them? Twelve or something. Well, for that age! I was totally stoked for myself.
INTERVIEW: DSDS?
BILL: That was a trip we won't do again.
INTERVIEW: Deutsch? (German?)
TOM: We still speak it, also in America. By the way, I think it's incredibly embarassing when Germans always use english words...
BILL: ...but it also always happens to me.
TOM: Yeah, me too. But I think it's incredibly embarassing.
E - INTERVIEW: EDM?
TOM: E. D. M.
BILL: I can't say much about that.
TOM: Me neither. What's another word with E? Eargasm, excessive weekend... I think Georg might know something. Georg?
GEORG: Electronic!
TOM: Right, electronic music has been extremely important for us in the last years. Bill and me partied a lot, listened to a lot of electronic music, been to several festivals, EDC in Las Vegas and Coachella, which is why the album is also very influenced by that.
INTERVIEW: Actually exactly this was my point with EDM?
TOM: But EDM is a term which, well, everyone uses and which means everything and nothing.
F - TOM: Faul! (Lazy)
BILL: Freedom! That's the most important thing for me at all. But in our job freedom is the biggest challenge. Concerning the creative work we have all the freedom we want of course, but concerning the rest, the private life, it becomes more difficult. Especially the life in Germany didn't have a lot to do with freedom anymore for us in the end. Therefore we went to America and reclaimed our private life there. There we can simply go out again.
INTERVIEW: Because no one recognizes you there or because everyone is somehow famous in LA?
TOM: Both.
BILL: You can hide there in the mass super well. You put a basecap on, head down, and you won't attract Attention anymore. There are so many freaks, especially in Venice and Santa Monica, all the musicians and actors strand there, everyone wants to be in the Entertainment business and tries to attract attention. There Tom and I can go underground quite well. Especially as the Paparazzi have to decide which hotel or party they want to go to in the evening, because there are stars in the city 24/7. So we can lean back and relax.
G - TOM: Girl got a gun.
BILL: Wait, didn't I have something else for G?
TOM: Georg and Gustav. The Gs, how they are called as well.
BILL: Well, no need to say anything about that, hahaha.
TOM: Nah, this would get really boring, people would flip pages immediately. Let's rather take Girl got a gun.
BILL: Yes, that's one of the first songs we wrote for our new album.
TOM: There's also a great video for the song, probably the best Tokio-Hotel-video of all.
INTERVIEW: In the video angry women hound an eroticized, anthropomorphobic fur monster, a furry.
BILL: Yes, that's Toko, our big penis-soft-toy. First we wanted to sic transsexuals on him, but then we decided on dragqueens, because they were simply better in the casting.
H - INTERVIEW: Hair!
BILL: Hair? Hair, hair, hair! I sometimes just change them, but they actually aren't that important to me.
INTERVIEW: I thought you have a bunch of wigs?
BILL: No, I only have one, a long hair wig, which was made of the long hair I had at DSDS (German version of Pop Idol)
INTERVIEW: Is it comfortable?
BILL: Totally! It's custom-tailored and it's wonderfully comfortable. I actually want to wear more wigs, that's way more relaxing. I won't have to sit at the hairdresser for so long then, won't have to always dye my hair and can simply change my hairstyle if I want to. I'm asking myself why I didn't have this idea earlier. In the past people often thought that my black hair was a wig. But it wasn't. And it was so exhausting: Every morning I had to tease my hear for one and a half hours. One day I'll certainly die of all the hairspray I breathed in. Everyone who had to witness that back then is suffering a trauma now, so do I. But now, I think I'll have some new wigs made for the tour.
TOM: We're all really looking forward to that.
I - TOM: International! The fact that we have released abroad since 2007, 2008 - and that it went quite well for us since the beginning - has definitely contributed to a certain relaxation. Because the markets work differently and you're not dependent of a single market anymore, we just have more freedom in our work.
BILL: But actually we never had the plan to work abroad. It just happened.
INTERVIEW: Do you have a different image in other countries?
BILL: In America we are seen as a cool Indierock-band. Our age has never been a topic there. Everyone there is starting their career in the showbiz at the age of 6 anyway. We were almost regarded as old with 18.
TOM: Only the fact that I'm the most popular band member is the same worldwide. We tried to change that a couple of times, because actually it would be better if the singer was the role model...
BILL: ...but we won't carry that off anymore.
J - BILL: Jerusalem, we played a concert there in 2008. And shortly before the show the German Embassy invited us to a city trip, which they hadn't announced before. It was great actually but the proplem was that I was already in my costume.
TOM: Nice that you also refer to your clothes as costumes by now (laughs).
BILL: Anyway, I already wore my performance clothes, my hair was sprayed, my make-up was on and then we were on the way to all these holy places... They people who saw us just thought "What's going on there?" I felt so uncomfortable. I was the freak of the nation.
TOM: But the concert afterwards was great.
INTERVIEW: I have another key word: Jugendpreis Fernlernen. (Jugendpreis Fernlernen is the award they got for their secondary school leaving certificate)
TOM: That's the award we're especially proud of (laughs).
BILL: I think we only got that [award], so that media reports about it.
INTERVIEW: How does the award look?
TOM: Let's put it this way: The award doesn't look good, but we have some which look way worse. Also the "Echo" isn't really pretty. And when we got the "Goldene Stimmgabel" there was already a part broken off. Which other awards did we get?
BILL: The Golden Penguin...
TOM: Right, the Golden Penguin, another classic one. That's Austria's "Bravo-Otto" so to say. The Bravo-Otto is high-quality made though. The awards which always broke very fast, are the "Comets".
INTERVIEW: Why broken? What are you doing with the awards?
BILL: Well, when you're moving house a lot, they fall down at times.
TOM: Most of them already break backstage.
BILL: I already knocked out my tooth on the "Bambi", haha.
K - INTERVIEW: Kings of Suburbia.
BILL: The idea for the album title crossed my mind last year, when we were in the car here in Germany on our way to Georg and Gustav. It's about the feeling you already have as a little boy, when you think you're the king of your own universe.
TOM: It's a mix of self-confidence and a feeling of freedom, I still have that feeling today. When you're partying with your friends or something good happens to you. A feeling which is extremely good and important, even if it only concerns the own universe which is generally completely unimportant. And we had this feeling to create something essential in the production of our album, therefore it became the title.
L - INTERVIEW: Leipzig, Loitsche, LA.
BILL: Oh, I never noticed that...
TOM: What's coming after LA? Lima?
BILL: Las Vegas! But actually we don't have a lot of memories about Leipzig because we're only born there, and already before our first birthday we moved to Hannover. We lived there until we were six or seven, then we moved to Magdeburg and from there to Loitsche. Most of our memories are from when we lived in Loitsche, that's wasn't so nice.
TOM: ah, it really wasn't nice.
BILL: And LA is actually a quite boring city.
TOM: A huge suburb.
BILL: I would like to move to New York.
INTERVIEW: But New York doesn't spell with L. You could move to Long Island in the best case.
BILL: I want a secondary home in New York.
TOM: I think we should keep it up with the L.
M - INTERVIEW: Monsun. (Monsoon)
BILL: A super important song for us...
TOM: ...which we will have to perform at concerts for the rest of our lives.
BILL: But I would love to perform it again and again anyway.
TOM: But it's time that we'll modify it, it will get hard with the pitch otherwise.
BILL: But we always played it during the last tour though?
TOM: Yeah, but at that time the guitars were already tuned way lower.
BILL: Okay well, then we'll just modify it.
N - INTERVIEW: I couldn't think of anything with N.
TOM: Isn't there a favorite film that starts with N? But your favorite film is Titanic. But we can talk about that later at T again. (giggles)
BILL: Let's take night life.
TOM: Very good.
BILL: Night life was the biggest inspiration for me with this album, because I could just freely go out for the first time and I really love to go out. In the last four years I did that quite often, maybe even a bit too often. Could be that I had to catch up on something. We also tried to go out in Germany, but it was never as awesome because of the known reasons. But in LA we could really plunge into night life. If I sit at home and don't go out on the wekend I become depressive.
O - BILL: What about on the road?
TOM: Okay.
BILL: Many people think that tour life is a lot of fun, but in fact I actually find this is the most exhausting part of our job.
TOM: You have to know that the cliché of Rock'n'Roll and party isn't true, some might have that, but...
BILL: Party and Rock'n'Roll? Well, not with me. On the road I'm always only focussed on not becoming sick, to persevere three months, to perform every night and to stand on stage. That really takes it out of you. I have to drink tea the whole day then, smoke as little as possible, little alcohol, privately it's really quite boring. On the other hand it's amazing of course, to play the concerts. We'll definitely go on the road again.
P - INTERVIEW: How about Pumba?
TOM: Pumba is good.
BILL: We grew up with Dogs, and Pumba is the newest member in our dog family. Pumba is an English bulldog and he's ten months old now. We brought him over from LA, so he flew with a plane for the first time. He did that really well. I got him when he was eight weeks old, and he's a real star as you can see in our Tokio-Hotel-TV-episodes. There'll also be a stuffed animal version of him as merchandise article coming soon.
INTERVIEW: The dog?
TOM: Yes, we're getting a stuffed animal made at the moment, which looks like Pumba.
BILL: I'm looking forward to when he's playing with it.
Q - INTERVIEW: Quartet.
TOM: It may sound surprising, but we've been together as a band of four for fourteen year already.
BILL: And we don't have those fights and jealousies for attention, who's doing the most interviews, who's on the Pictures, all these tensions a lot of other bands often struggle with, they don't exist in our band. Most of the people never believe that, but even before we had success the parts were assigned. Everyone has his tasks and gives the others their space.
TOM: That almost sounds a bit corny, right?
R - TOM: "Run Run Run" crosses my mind. Great video, great song.
BILL: Yes, the song was absolutely new ground for us, for me especially because I didn't know if I could even sing that song.
TOM: I didn't know that either.
BILL: But everything worked super well. We also recorded the vocals on our own, unlike with the other albums we didn't have extra people who were responsible for the vocal-production. So, for me it's one of my most favorite new songs.
S - INTERVIEW: For S I have Star Search.
BILL: Yeah, Star Search, that was quite interesting because it was the first experience in front of the camera.
TOM: Of course it was interesting, but you could also say: Star Search, that was E like embarassing.
BILL: Oh well, if I watch the performance today I think it's quite cute. I especially think: "Gosh, I even had the courage to do that!" But I also have to say that it was mean of the people from Star Search to let me sing "It's raining men". I didn't choose the song myself. I couldn't speak english at that time and had no clue what the song is about, so that it's about raining men.
TOM: Such assholes, those castingshow-people!
BILL: No kidding! I mean, that they let a little boy perform this song to provoke a controversy.
TOM: I would have also recommended you this song. (laughs)
BILL: Everything I thought about back then was that I have two and a half minutes to show people that I have a band and want to make music. I always lured the camera team into our rehearsal room, which was quite successful.
TOM: We as a band can only say: Thank God you were eliminated!
BILL: Yes, that was great, well, in retrospect. Back then I was really sad of course.
T - INTERVIEW: T is Tom.
BILL: Tom - There's even less to say about him than about Georg and Gustav, haha. Nah, Tom and me we're actually like one person. Many people also ask us if we don't fight sometimes and can't stand each other. But no: We live together, we share everything, there's not a thing Tom doesn't know about me.
TOM: And vice versa it's the same.
BILL: We have such a strong connection, outsiders can't even imagine that.
TOM: I always think it's weird when I see other twins who don't have this connection. Because for me it's totally normal, but for them it's not normal at all. But maybe it's because that we don't only share our private life since we were 15, but also the job. Because of that there are actually no boundaries anymore.
BILL: I mean, it's not like we don't fight at all, but that has no bigger consequences. Nobody of us wants to move out afterwards or so. We have the same friends, we do the same things together in our free time, we are together 24/7. And what many people don't know, but which is totally true, is that he doesn't even get along without me. No kidding, really. I could travel to New York on my own, but that's a no-go for Tom.
TOM: Eh, says the guy who can't even drive a car.
U - TOM: Untenrum... (downstairs...)
BILL: Man, why can't I think of anything? That's just not possible!
GEORG: Urlaub? (Holiday)
BILL: Holiday is great! My favorite Destination are the Maldives. For a time we spent two weeks there every year...
TOM: I love it there.
BILL: You could just put me there for half a year. Many always ask then: "What are you doing there the whole time?" But it's not boring at all. It's just amazing there.
V - INTERVIEW: "Verrückt nach dir"... ("Crazy for you" - it's the movie they played in when they were little kids)
BILL: Verrückt nach dir? Great, our first TV-experience. Our mother told us that we were totally cheeky at the filming and that we locked the main actress in the toilet, because we found her so ugly. Tom always said: "I won't shoot with her, that woman has such weird bangs." He wanted to shoot with a pretty woman.
INTERVIEW: How old were you back then?
BILL: We were so young. Maybe six?
TOM: No, younger. I think we were five. But the main problem with this movie was that one of us was supposed to pee himself. First there was a fight about who should do it, in the end it was me.
BILL: They poured tea on his pants then which caused a huge Drama...
TOM: ...because I was in that age in which I was proud to not pee myself anymore ...
BILL: ...we wanted to to show that we're big boys already. Our mother had to always tell us that we were only supposed to do that for the movie. And then we locked the main actress in the toilet and threw away the key, so that we ourselves couldn't even find it anymore. The actress got a crying fit then.
INTERVIEW: How old was the actress?
BILL: Maybe 30-ish.
TOM: You could see us for about one and a half minutes in the entire movie, but we were the most complicated actors at the set.
BILL: We also had really sick airs and graces. One time we were hungry and wanted to eat something. And because we noticed that everything was revolving around us we required a certain sort of cornflakes in the hotel we were accomodated at. But they didn't have it. We only said: "If we won't get them, then we also won't continue filming the movie."
W - BILL: For W we'll take "What happened there?"
INTERVIEW: What?
BILL: Yeah, you wrote that in your E-Mail as a comment on the three songs we released as a pretaste for the new album.
INTERVIEW: Oh right, now that you say it.
BILL: We found that so funny. But "What happened there?" is also well suitable because probably many people will ask that. But the thing is that we didn't even try to sound differently with the new album. We didn't try to sound more grown-up, and also didn't intend to be more electronic.
TOM: We just did what we were up to. That's what I understand by staying true to yourself. It doesn't mean to only satisfy the expectations the fans have.
BILL: I also don't think that success can be planned and to go in the studio with the intention to write a hit. The only thing you can do is to implement at 100 % what you yourself find totally awesome. Even when I look back on our career, then everything we did was fully on purpose and nothing else. It was totally authentic.
TOM: It wouldn't work otherwise anyway.
BILL: We just wanted to record an album that we ourselves like to listen to.
INTERVIEW: But with "What happened there?" I didn't want to express my wonder about that you sound differently now than in the past. I just simply didn't like "Girl got a gun". Whereas "Love who loves you back" is a winner! And the song has even less to do with the old Tokio-Hotel-sound.
TOM: But the song was also in the album-teaser?
INTERVIEW: Really?
BILL: Oh God, you must have found "Girl got a gun" really bad if you didn't even make it to the third song. (laughs)
X - TOM: There only crosses my mind that Bill's favorite movie is "xXx - Triple X" and Vin Diesel your favorite actor.
BILL: Horror. Can we think of anything else?
GEORG: Xerxes!
BILL: Yeah, I think that's great. We namely like to celebrate Halloween, and Xerxes was the inspiration for my halloween-costume last year. Show some pics of it, Tom!
INTERVIEW: Oh I see, like the Xerxes in "300".
BILL: Exactly. And that was you, Tom? Simply a zombie, right?
Y - BILL: Youtube, there are the new episodes of Tokio Hotel TV. They deliver a really good insight to our life. They turned out to be quite funny as well.
Z - INTERVIEW: Ten years later. (in german "Zehn Jahre später) It must be ten years ago now, when you recorded "Durch den Monsun".
BILL: That's right! Yes, ten years later we've had a career with the band nobody would have expected. We didn't even want to release "Durch den Monsun" as our debute single. We didn't know the music business back then, I just thought: "I don't care what you release. The main thing is that we have a single." And I found it so funny when later the media wrote that our success is only due to the machinery of the music industry. That some random guy from the record company constructed Tokio Hotel and planned our triumph at his desk..
TOM: But it certainly took us two years until we even got a record deal. Everyone said no, also Universal. What nobody knows anymore today is that we first had a contract with BMG, which was surprisingly so good that it got cancelled again at the fusion of Sony and BMG, because everyone assumed that we would cause more costs than make money. Instead of us another band was signed then.
INTERVIEW: Do you know how things were going for them?
BILL: I think not that well. Also not for the one who cancelled our contract back then. But what I wanted to say: We neither had a professional management, nor a master plan. It just simply happened.
TOM: A big, unplanned career.
Translation by Herzblut @ TokioHotel_Info || Please use with credit, thanks!
Through the Monsoon and back again. Five years after their last album, the escape to America and an inevitable maturity process, Tokio Hotel show themselves as an entirely renewed band - more international, more electronical and with different hairstyles. But instead of parts, Bill & Tom Kaulitz only know how to spell the history of their band as a continuity. How they urged to be on stage as a duo as B like Black Questionmark, and suddenly had worldwide success as Q like quartet, found in L.A. the missing F like freedom again, caused a spectacle in J like Jerusalem in the meantime, but which P like Pumba doesn't know anything of, because their English bulldog wasn't even born back then. Welcome to the big Tokio-Hotel-alphabet!
by Harald Peters
Photos by Brad Elterman
A - TOM KAULITZ: Autobahn!
BILL KAULITZ: Oh yeah, we haven't driven on the Autobahn for so long!
TOM: The Autobahn is one of my favorite things in Germany. It's the thing I miss most when I'm in LA: driving fast, no speed limit, anarchy.
INTERVIEW: And less traffic jam?
BILL: The traffic in LA is a horror. I don't drive a car in LA, I generally don't drive a car though.
INTERVIEW: Tom, do you have a doll next to you on the passenger seat, so that you're allowed to drive on the faster carpool lane when you're alone?
TOM: Nah, I always have Bill next to me anyway.
B - INTERVIEW: I have two key words for B.
TOM: Bill?
INTERVIEW: Exactly.
TOM: Bill, the slightly ugly (Bill: hahaha), less well-off...
BILL: ...the disadvantaged twin.
TOM: Yes, exactly!
BILL: You'll also have to explain that now, Tom!
TOM: Well, concerning the look it's obvious, I don't have to explain much in that matter. He's the younger one, the more naive one of us. And the one who's carrying all the responsibility, also job-wise...
BILL: ...that's me.
TOM: Nah, you're the less well-off twin.
BILL: What's the second key word?
INTERVIEW: Black Questionmark.
BILL: Ah, our very first band name. I don't even know anymore how old we were back then, but we thought the name is really cool.
TOM: Wasn't the name inspired by a song from Nena?
BILL: No, her song was only called Fragezeichen (Questionmark). But that wasn't gloomy enough for us, so we thought about "Black Questionmark" and so we translated it into English.
TOM: We thought it sounds more international and markedly mysterious.
INTERVIEW: How can one imagine Black Questionmark?
BILL: It was only Tom and me. Back then we just started to write our first songs, and in a way we were different that other bands. They first rehearsed their songs, until they could play them. But when we wrote a song, we directly wanted to perform it on stage.
TOM: The problem was: We actually had no skills. I knew how to play four chords on the guitar.
BILL: And I had a keyboard on which I had to push some buttons, so that it played bass and drums on its own. Those were such pre-produced loops.
TOM: But we already performed in the "Gröninger Bad" with that, where we got discovered by our producer later.
INTERVIEW: How big was your audience back then?
BILL: Maybe 15, 20, 30 people.
C - BILL: I can't think of anything with C.
INTERVIEW: Comeback?
TOM: Oh, that's nice!
BILL: For us comeback is a difficult word, because see it differently. The last album was five years ago indeed, but after that we were on tour for a long time. In South America for example, and in 2011 we were in Japan and Russia. After that we took a break for a year and then started to work on the new album. So for us it's not a comeback.
D - TOM: D? D like Dora. Bill, do you want to tell something about your ex-girlfriend?
BILL: (laughs)
TOM: "Drums" comes to my mind. I always wanted to be a drummer.
BILL: To be honest, Tom would even be the better drummer. (laughter) I wanted to say that he's not as good as a guitarist as he would be as a drummer. Because he's always knocking on everything.
INTERVIEW: Does that mean that you'd be incredibly good as drummer or that you're not that good as a guitarist?
TOM: I think I'd be incredibly good.
BILL: The thing with Tom is that he plays guitar on stage, but in the studio he does all sorts of things. He also produced the current album.
TOM: The truth is that I can't play any instrument really well. But I can do a bit of everything and I'm creative enough to make it sound good.
INTERVIEW: I also have Devilish on offer.
TOM: Devilish resulted from Black Questionmark.
BILL: That was our first real band formation then with Georg and Gustav, the precursor for Tokio Hotel.
TOM: You can hear two songs from that time on the Super-Deluxe-Version of the new album.
INTERVIEW: Are they any good?
BILL: Nah!
TOM: Wait a minute! I heard them and thought they're awesome. How old were we, when we recorded them? Twelve or something. Well, for that age! I was totally stoked for myself.
INTERVIEW: DSDS?
BILL: That was a trip we won't do again.
INTERVIEW: Deutsch? (German?)
TOM: We still speak it, also in America. By the way, I think it's incredibly embarassing when Germans always use english words...
BILL: ...but it also always happens to me.
TOM: Yeah, me too. But I think it's incredibly embarassing.
E - INTERVIEW: EDM?
TOM: E. D. M.
BILL: I can't say much about that.
TOM: Me neither. What's another word with E? Eargasm, excessive weekend... I think Georg might know something. Georg?
GEORG: Electronic!
TOM: Right, electronic music has been extremely important for us in the last years. Bill and me partied a lot, listened to a lot of electronic music, been to several festivals, EDC in Las Vegas and Coachella, which is why the album is also very influenced by that.
INTERVIEW: Actually exactly this was my point with EDM?
TOM: But EDM is a term which, well, everyone uses and which means everything and nothing.
F - TOM: Faul! (Lazy)
BILL: Freedom! That's the most important thing for me at all. But in our job freedom is the biggest challenge. Concerning the creative work we have all the freedom we want of course, but concerning the rest, the private life, it becomes more difficult. Especially the life in Germany didn't have a lot to do with freedom anymore for us in the end. Therefore we went to America and reclaimed our private life there. There we can simply go out again.
INTERVIEW: Because no one recognizes you there or because everyone is somehow famous in LA?
TOM: Both.
BILL: You can hide there in the mass super well. You put a basecap on, head down, and you won't attract Attention anymore. There are so many freaks, especially in Venice and Santa Monica, all the musicians and actors strand there, everyone wants to be in the Entertainment business and tries to attract attention. There Tom and I can go underground quite well. Especially as the Paparazzi have to decide which hotel or party they want to go to in the evening, because there are stars in the city 24/7. So we can lean back and relax.
G - TOM: Girl got a gun.
BILL: Wait, didn't I have something else for G?
TOM: Georg and Gustav. The Gs, how they are called as well.
BILL: Well, no need to say anything about that, hahaha.
TOM: Nah, this would get really boring, people would flip pages immediately. Let's rather take Girl got a gun.
BILL: Yes, that's one of the first songs we wrote for our new album.
TOM: There's also a great video for the song, probably the best Tokio-Hotel-video of all.
INTERVIEW: In the video angry women hound an eroticized, anthropomorphobic fur monster, a furry.
BILL: Yes, that's Toko, our big penis-soft-toy. First we wanted to sic transsexuals on him, but then we decided on dragqueens, because they were simply better in the casting.
H - INTERVIEW: Hair!
BILL: Hair? Hair, hair, hair! I sometimes just change them, but they actually aren't that important to me.
INTERVIEW: I thought you have a bunch of wigs?
BILL: No, I only have one, a long hair wig, which was made of the long hair I had at DSDS (German version of Pop Idol)
INTERVIEW: Is it comfortable?
BILL: Totally! It's custom-tailored and it's wonderfully comfortable. I actually want to wear more wigs, that's way more relaxing. I won't have to sit at the hairdresser for so long then, won't have to always dye my hair and can simply change my hairstyle if I want to. I'm asking myself why I didn't have this idea earlier. In the past people often thought that my black hair was a wig. But it wasn't. And it was so exhausting: Every morning I had to tease my hear for one and a half hours. One day I'll certainly die of all the hairspray I breathed in. Everyone who had to witness that back then is suffering a trauma now, so do I. But now, I think I'll have some new wigs made for the tour.
TOM: We're all really looking forward to that.
I - TOM: International! The fact that we have released abroad since 2007, 2008 - and that it went quite well for us since the beginning - has definitely contributed to a certain relaxation. Because the markets work differently and you're not dependent of a single market anymore, we just have more freedom in our work.
BILL: But actually we never had the plan to work abroad. It just happened.
INTERVIEW: Do you have a different image in other countries?
BILL: In America we are seen as a cool Indierock-band. Our age has never been a topic there. Everyone there is starting their career in the showbiz at the age of 6 anyway. We were almost regarded as old with 18.
TOM: Only the fact that I'm the most popular band member is the same worldwide. We tried to change that a couple of times, because actually it would be better if the singer was the role model...
BILL: ...but we won't carry that off anymore.
J - BILL: Jerusalem, we played a concert there in 2008. And shortly before the show the German Embassy invited us to a city trip, which they hadn't announced before. It was great actually but the proplem was that I was already in my costume.
TOM: Nice that you also refer to your clothes as costumes by now (laughs).
BILL: Anyway, I already wore my performance clothes, my hair was sprayed, my make-up was on and then we were on the way to all these holy places... They people who saw us just thought "What's going on there?" I felt so uncomfortable. I was the freak of the nation.
TOM: But the concert afterwards was great.
INTERVIEW: I have another key word: Jugendpreis Fernlernen. (Jugendpreis Fernlernen is the award they got for their secondary school leaving certificate)
TOM: That's the award we're especially proud of (laughs).
BILL: I think we only got that [award], so that media reports about it.
INTERVIEW: How does the award look?
TOM: Let's put it this way: The award doesn't look good, but we have some which look way worse. Also the "Echo" isn't really pretty. And when we got the "Goldene Stimmgabel" there was already a part broken off. Which other awards did we get?
BILL: The Golden Penguin...
TOM: Right, the Golden Penguin, another classic one. That's Austria's "Bravo-Otto" so to say. The Bravo-Otto is high-quality made though. The awards which always broke very fast, are the "Comets".
INTERVIEW: Why broken? What are you doing with the awards?
BILL: Well, when you're moving house a lot, they fall down at times.
TOM: Most of them already break backstage.
BILL: I already knocked out my tooth on the "Bambi", haha.
K - INTERVIEW: Kings of Suburbia.
BILL: The idea for the album title crossed my mind last year, when we were in the car here in Germany on our way to Georg and Gustav. It's about the feeling you already have as a little boy, when you think you're the king of your own universe.
TOM: It's a mix of self-confidence and a feeling of freedom, I still have that feeling today. When you're partying with your friends or something good happens to you. A feeling which is extremely good and important, even if it only concerns the own universe which is generally completely unimportant. And we had this feeling to create something essential in the production of our album, therefore it became the title.
L - INTERVIEW: Leipzig, Loitsche, LA.
BILL: Oh, I never noticed that...
TOM: What's coming after LA? Lima?
BILL: Las Vegas! But actually we don't have a lot of memories about Leipzig because we're only born there, and already before our first birthday we moved to Hannover. We lived there until we were six or seven, then we moved to Magdeburg and from there to Loitsche. Most of our memories are from when we lived in Loitsche, that's wasn't so nice.
TOM: ah, it really wasn't nice.
BILL: And LA is actually a quite boring city.
TOM: A huge suburb.
BILL: I would like to move to New York.
INTERVIEW: But New York doesn't spell with L. You could move to Long Island in the best case.
BILL: I want a secondary home in New York.
TOM: I think we should keep it up with the L.
M - INTERVIEW: Monsun. (Monsoon)
BILL: A super important song for us...
TOM: ...which we will have to perform at concerts for the rest of our lives.
BILL: But I would love to perform it again and again anyway.
TOM: But it's time that we'll modify it, it will get hard with the pitch otherwise.
BILL: But we always played it during the last tour though?
TOM: Yeah, but at that time the guitars were already tuned way lower.
BILL: Okay well, then we'll just modify it.
N - INTERVIEW: I couldn't think of anything with N.
TOM: Isn't there a favorite film that starts with N? But your favorite film is Titanic. But we can talk about that later at T again. (giggles)
BILL: Let's take night life.
TOM: Very good.
BILL: Night life was the biggest inspiration for me with this album, because I could just freely go out for the first time and I really love to go out. In the last four years I did that quite often, maybe even a bit too often. Could be that I had to catch up on something. We also tried to go out in Germany, but it was never as awesome because of the known reasons. But in LA we could really plunge into night life. If I sit at home and don't go out on the wekend I become depressive.
O - BILL: What about on the road?
TOM: Okay.
BILL: Many people think that tour life is a lot of fun, but in fact I actually find this is the most exhausting part of our job.
TOM: You have to know that the cliché of Rock'n'Roll and party isn't true, some might have that, but...
BILL: Party and Rock'n'Roll? Well, not with me. On the road I'm always only focussed on not becoming sick, to persevere three months, to perform every night and to stand on stage. That really takes it out of you. I have to drink tea the whole day then, smoke as little as possible, little alcohol, privately it's really quite boring. On the other hand it's amazing of course, to play the concerts. We'll definitely go on the road again.
P - INTERVIEW: How about Pumba?
TOM: Pumba is good.
BILL: We grew up with Dogs, and Pumba is the newest member in our dog family. Pumba is an English bulldog and he's ten months old now. We brought him over from LA, so he flew with a plane for the first time. He did that really well. I got him when he was eight weeks old, and he's a real star as you can see in our Tokio-Hotel-TV-episodes. There'll also be a stuffed animal version of him as merchandise article coming soon.
INTERVIEW: The dog?
TOM: Yes, we're getting a stuffed animal made at the moment, which looks like Pumba.
BILL: I'm looking forward to when he's playing with it.
Q - INTERVIEW: Quartet.
TOM: It may sound surprising, but we've been together as a band of four for fourteen year already.
BILL: And we don't have those fights and jealousies for attention, who's doing the most interviews, who's on the Pictures, all these tensions a lot of other bands often struggle with, they don't exist in our band. Most of the people never believe that, but even before we had success the parts were assigned. Everyone has his tasks and gives the others their space.
TOM: That almost sounds a bit corny, right?
R - TOM: "Run Run Run" crosses my mind. Great video, great song.
BILL: Yes, the song was absolutely new ground for us, for me especially because I didn't know if I could even sing that song.
TOM: I didn't know that either.
BILL: But everything worked super well. We also recorded the vocals on our own, unlike with the other albums we didn't have extra people who were responsible for the vocal-production. So, for me it's one of my most favorite new songs.
S - INTERVIEW: For S I have Star Search.
BILL: Yeah, Star Search, that was quite interesting because it was the first experience in front of the camera.
TOM: Of course it was interesting, but you could also say: Star Search, that was E like embarassing.
BILL: Oh well, if I watch the performance today I think it's quite cute. I especially think: "Gosh, I even had the courage to do that!" But I also have to say that it was mean of the people from Star Search to let me sing "It's raining men". I didn't choose the song myself. I couldn't speak english at that time and had no clue what the song is about, so that it's about raining men.
TOM: Such assholes, those castingshow-people!
BILL: No kidding! I mean, that they let a little boy perform this song to provoke a controversy.
TOM: I would have also recommended you this song. (laughs)
BILL: Everything I thought about back then was that I have two and a half minutes to show people that I have a band and want to make music. I always lured the camera team into our rehearsal room, which was quite successful.
TOM: We as a band can only say: Thank God you were eliminated!
BILL: Yes, that was great, well, in retrospect. Back then I was really sad of course.
T - INTERVIEW: T is Tom.
BILL: Tom - There's even less to say about him than about Georg and Gustav, haha. Nah, Tom and me we're actually like one person. Many people also ask us if we don't fight sometimes and can't stand each other. But no: We live together, we share everything, there's not a thing Tom doesn't know about me.
TOM: And vice versa it's the same.
BILL: We have such a strong connection, outsiders can't even imagine that.
TOM: I always think it's weird when I see other twins who don't have this connection. Because for me it's totally normal, but for them it's not normal at all. But maybe it's because that we don't only share our private life since we were 15, but also the job. Because of that there are actually no boundaries anymore.
BILL: I mean, it's not like we don't fight at all, but that has no bigger consequences. Nobody of us wants to move out afterwards or so. We have the same friends, we do the same things together in our free time, we are together 24/7. And what many people don't know, but which is totally true, is that he doesn't even get along without me. No kidding, really. I could travel to New York on my own, but that's a no-go for Tom.
TOM: Eh, says the guy who can't even drive a car.
U - TOM: Untenrum... (downstairs...)
BILL: Man, why can't I think of anything? That's just not possible!
GEORG: Urlaub? (Holiday)
BILL: Holiday is great! My favorite Destination are the Maldives. For a time we spent two weeks there every year...
TOM: I love it there.
BILL: You could just put me there for half a year. Many always ask then: "What are you doing there the whole time?" But it's not boring at all. It's just amazing there.
V - INTERVIEW: "Verrückt nach dir"... ("Crazy for you" - it's the movie they played in when they were little kids)
BILL: Verrückt nach dir? Great, our first TV-experience. Our mother told us that we were totally cheeky at the filming and that we locked the main actress in the toilet, because we found her so ugly. Tom always said: "I won't shoot with her, that woman has such weird bangs." He wanted to shoot with a pretty woman.
INTERVIEW: How old were you back then?
BILL: We were so young. Maybe six?
TOM: No, younger. I think we were five. But the main problem with this movie was that one of us was supposed to pee himself. First there was a fight about who should do it, in the end it was me.
BILL: They poured tea on his pants then which caused a huge Drama...
TOM: ...because I was in that age in which I was proud to not pee myself anymore ...
BILL: ...we wanted to to show that we're big boys already. Our mother had to always tell us that we were only supposed to do that for the movie. And then we locked the main actress in the toilet and threw away the key, so that we ourselves couldn't even find it anymore. The actress got a crying fit then.
INTERVIEW: How old was the actress?
BILL: Maybe 30-ish.
TOM: You could see us for about one and a half minutes in the entire movie, but we were the most complicated actors at the set.
BILL: We also had really sick airs and graces. One time we were hungry and wanted to eat something. And because we noticed that everything was revolving around us we required a certain sort of cornflakes in the hotel we were accomodated at. But they didn't have it. We only said: "If we won't get them, then we also won't continue filming the movie."
W - BILL: For W we'll take "What happened there?"
INTERVIEW: What?
BILL: Yeah, you wrote that in your E-Mail as a comment on the three songs we released as a pretaste for the new album.
INTERVIEW: Oh right, now that you say it.
BILL: We found that so funny. But "What happened there?" is also well suitable because probably many people will ask that. But the thing is that we didn't even try to sound differently with the new album. We didn't try to sound more grown-up, and also didn't intend to be more electronic.
TOM: We just did what we were up to. That's what I understand by staying true to yourself. It doesn't mean to only satisfy the expectations the fans have.
BILL: I also don't think that success can be planned and to go in the studio with the intention to write a hit. The only thing you can do is to implement at 100 % what you yourself find totally awesome. Even when I look back on our career, then everything we did was fully on purpose and nothing else. It was totally authentic.
TOM: It wouldn't work otherwise anyway.
BILL: We just wanted to record an album that we ourselves like to listen to.
INTERVIEW: But with "What happened there?" I didn't want to express my wonder about that you sound differently now than in the past. I just simply didn't like "Girl got a gun". Whereas "Love who loves you back" is a winner! And the song has even less to do with the old Tokio-Hotel-sound.
TOM: But the song was also in the album-teaser?
INTERVIEW: Really?
BILL: Oh God, you must have found "Girl got a gun" really bad if you didn't even make it to the third song. (laughs)
X - TOM: There only crosses my mind that Bill's favorite movie is "xXx - Triple X" and Vin Diesel your favorite actor.
BILL: Horror. Can we think of anything else?
GEORG: Xerxes!
BILL: Yeah, I think that's great. We namely like to celebrate Halloween, and Xerxes was the inspiration for my halloween-costume last year. Show some pics of it, Tom!
INTERVIEW: Oh I see, like the Xerxes in "300".
BILL: Exactly. And that was you, Tom? Simply a zombie, right?
Y - BILL: Youtube, there are the new episodes of Tokio Hotel TV. They deliver a really good insight to our life. They turned out to be quite funny as well.
Z - INTERVIEW: Ten years later. (in german "Zehn Jahre später) It must be ten years ago now, when you recorded "Durch den Monsun".
BILL: That's right! Yes, ten years later we've had a career with the band nobody would have expected. We didn't even want to release "Durch den Monsun" as our debute single. We didn't know the music business back then, I just thought: "I don't care what you release. The main thing is that we have a single." And I found it so funny when later the media wrote that our success is only due to the machinery of the music industry. That some random guy from the record company constructed Tokio Hotel and planned our triumph at his desk..
TOM: But it certainly took us two years until we even got a record deal. Everyone said no, also Universal. What nobody knows anymore today is that we first had a contract with BMG, which was surprisingly so good that it got cancelled again at the fusion of Sony and BMG, because everyone assumed that we would cause more costs than make money. Instead of us another band was signed then.
INTERVIEW: Do you know how things were going for them?
BILL: I think not that well. Also not for the one who cancelled our contract back then. But what I wanted to say: We neither had a professional management, nor a master plan. It just simply happened.
TOM: A big, unplanned career.
Translation by Herzblut @ TokioHotel_Info || Please use with credit, thanks!
HIER könnt ihr den Original-Artikel lesen! || HERE you can read the original article!
Translation
Bill Kaulitz: "The balance was missing"
Four years ago the twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz moved to Los Angeles and enjoyed life out of the spotlight. Now they are back with a new album. In the Interview with "spot on news" Bill Kaulitz and Gustav Schäfer talk about the hiatus and and why their comeback actually isn't a real comeback.
The ex-teenie-band has just released their new album "Kings of Suburbia". Before that the four boys had been disappeared from the screen for four years. The twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz (25) ended up in Los Angeles. Also Gustav Schäfer (26) and Georg Listing (27) caught up on a lot of things in that time. But the new record is a success again. At the beginning of the sale the album was on #1 in various countries.
It must be a good feeling to know that the fanbase still exists...
Kaulitz: That's so cool! It has always been incredible. In the four years we still won awards from time to time. Our fans were always voting for us. Even in that time when we didn't do anything actually. The support of our fans is incredible and not taken for granted. Before our break we've been told: You can't do that, it's "career-suicide". But we accepted it. We didn't want to make an album we don't like or which is only half as amazing. But we just personally needed the time. And at the end of the day it wasn't career suicide.
Why did you move to Los Angeles with Tom in 2010?
Kaulitz: At the end we didn't have fun here anymore. We couldn't build up a private life apart from our career. The balance was missing. After our house had been broken in, we told ourselves: We won't look for a new house here again and build a prison for ourselves, in which you can't look into. Within four weeks we planned, packed our bags and just left.
Which things couldn't you do in Germany anymore?
Kaulitz: Actually anything. It already starts with ordering a pizza. Or in the hotel, we checked in with cover names. We can't stay at a place here for too long. We always had security people with us. There were always 20 people following us in the car and 50 stood in front of our house. Then your private life takes place inside of your own four walls behind a gate and a fence. You don't get anything of life or the world anymore.
How was it in LA?
Kaulitz: It was totally different. In the morning I asked myself: What will I do today? Am I going to the restaurant or go grab a coffee? Just the normal things, for example to plan the day on your own. If I wanted to go out with my dog now, it would have to be organized first. When you're on tour it's okay, but you just don't want that in your private life. You need the balance and we found it in LA.
There you could live like normal 20-year-olds...
Kaulitz: Absolutely, we partied in night clubs, and sometimes we were pissed like a rat. Just like others in our age do it as well, just without it being written in the newspapers the next day. We didn't want private stories anymore. The music wasn't in the foreground. It was way more interesting what we say or do, where we live, what we wear and who we sleep with. In the four years we didn't do any interviews, to bring in a bit of calmness again.
What did you not like about LA?
Kaulitz: For example that every club closes at 2am. At 1.45am you get your last drink and at exactly 2am in every club and bar the lights go on. So you have to already start drinking in the afternoon. I won't ever get used to that! It's annoying me so much that I even almost would rather like to move to New York by now. Furthermore we miss the german bread, plum cake and driving fast on the Autobahn.
Gustav, what did Georg and you do in that time?
Schäfer: Georg as well as I traveled to cities we have actually already been to for a hundred times, but where we didn't see anything apart from the airport and the hotel. Just like me Georg was also in Paris for the first time. There we went with the metro for the first time.
For the first time at all?
Schäfer: Yes, for the first time in my life. In Paris. We have also been on the Eiffel Tower, the whole tourist-thing with lining up and so on. That was fun!
Did you get recognized?
Schäfer: No, not at all. That was a good feeling.
So, also a break for you two...
Schäfer: Yes, we also caught up on the missing time with our families. For example just having lunch at Sunday noon. Of course we also didn't leave out partying.
Why now the comeback?
Kaulitz: For us it doesn't feel like a comeback. Until the end of 2011 we still were on tour in South America, Japan and Russia. Then we took a break for 1 1/2 years. It didn't feel like it was that long. Then we started to make music in the studio again. We didn't put our feet up for four years straight. Back then it used to be normal that bands didn't release a new album for four years. And we never split up. It was clear that we would make another album one day. Only the point of time wasn't clear.
Are you worried about the future? What if one day you won't have success with your music anymore?
Kaulitz: After the fourth album we are relatively relaxed. I think we'll always have a future with music. We can say that relatively self-confident. We built up a good base in the last ten years which will always be there. That has rather less to do with the success of a single album. Furthermore there are a lot of other fields in music: Tom for example wants to write and produce for other artists.
Can't you imagine something else?
Kaulitz: No. I'm incredibly thankful that we all could go this way. I can't imagine doing an other normal job, which I actually don't want to do. We have the luck every day to do what we love and like to do and what we also feel called to do.
Wolfgang Joop (german designer) likes your style. What does fashion and style mean to you? Is that art for you?
Kaulitz: Yes, totally. Fashion is my second biggest passion next to music. For me that also goes along with each other. I don't see myself as singer-songwriter who stands on stage and only sings. I have always been more of a singer and performer. I like to have a show. We do a lot more on tour than just playing our instruments. For me fashion is a part of that as well. I also fulfilled some of my dreams concerning that matter: I worked with photographers, labels and designers I have already wanted to work with for a long time. I really have embosomed Wolfgang and we get along very well. He's a great designer. One of my big dreams is to have a fashion line one day. I want to fulfil this dream for myself one day. But also concerning that I want to take time to do it seriously. I don't want to simply write my name on something. There are also already some designs and names I have been working on for some years now. By now there hasn't been the right moment yet, but it will come one day.
But for now the music's first?
Kaulitz: In the next time it's the album's turn. We have an incredibly full schedule, there is no minute for other things. Therefore it will still take a bit of time.
Translation by Herzblut @ TokioHotel_Info || Please use with credit, thanks!
Translation
Bill Kaulitz: "The balance was missing"
Four years ago the twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz moved to Los Angeles and enjoyed life out of the spotlight. Now they are back with a new album. In the Interview with "spot on news" Bill Kaulitz and Gustav Schäfer talk about the hiatus and and why their comeback actually isn't a real comeback.
The ex-teenie-band has just released their new album "Kings of Suburbia". Before that the four boys had been disappeared from the screen for four years. The twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz (25) ended up in Los Angeles. Also Gustav Schäfer (26) and Georg Listing (27) caught up on a lot of things in that time. But the new record is a success again. At the beginning of the sale the album was on #1 in various countries.
It must be a good feeling to know that the fanbase still exists...
Kaulitz: That's so cool! It has always been incredible. In the four years we still won awards from time to time. Our fans were always voting for us. Even in that time when we didn't do anything actually. The support of our fans is incredible and not taken for granted. Before our break we've been told: You can't do that, it's "career-suicide". But we accepted it. We didn't want to make an album we don't like or which is only half as amazing. But we just personally needed the time. And at the end of the day it wasn't career suicide.
Why did you move to Los Angeles with Tom in 2010?
Kaulitz: At the end we didn't have fun here anymore. We couldn't build up a private life apart from our career. The balance was missing. After our house had been broken in, we told ourselves: We won't look for a new house here again and build a prison for ourselves, in which you can't look into. Within four weeks we planned, packed our bags and just left.
Which things couldn't you do in Germany anymore?
Kaulitz: Actually anything. It already starts with ordering a pizza. Or in the hotel, we checked in with cover names. We can't stay at a place here for too long. We always had security people with us. There were always 20 people following us in the car and 50 stood in front of our house. Then your private life takes place inside of your own four walls behind a gate and a fence. You don't get anything of life or the world anymore.
How was it in LA?
Kaulitz: It was totally different. In the morning I asked myself: What will I do today? Am I going to the restaurant or go grab a coffee? Just the normal things, for example to plan the day on your own. If I wanted to go out with my dog now, it would have to be organized first. When you're on tour it's okay, but you just don't want that in your private life. You need the balance and we found it in LA.
There you could live like normal 20-year-olds...
Kaulitz: Absolutely, we partied in night clubs, and sometimes we were pissed like a rat. Just like others in our age do it as well, just without it being written in the newspapers the next day. We didn't want private stories anymore. The music wasn't in the foreground. It was way more interesting what we say or do, where we live, what we wear and who we sleep with. In the four years we didn't do any interviews, to bring in a bit of calmness again.
What did you not like about LA?
Kaulitz: For example that every club closes at 2am. At 1.45am you get your last drink and at exactly 2am in every club and bar the lights go on. So you have to already start drinking in the afternoon. I won't ever get used to that! It's annoying me so much that I even almost would rather like to move to New York by now. Furthermore we miss the german bread, plum cake and driving fast on the Autobahn.
Gustav, what did Georg and you do in that time?
Schäfer: Georg as well as I traveled to cities we have actually already been to for a hundred times, but where we didn't see anything apart from the airport and the hotel. Just like me Georg was also in Paris for the first time. There we went with the metro for the first time.
For the first time at all?
Schäfer: Yes, for the first time in my life. In Paris. We have also been on the Eiffel Tower, the whole tourist-thing with lining up and so on. That was fun!
Did you get recognized?
Schäfer: No, not at all. That was a good feeling.
So, also a break for you two...
Schäfer: Yes, we also caught up on the missing time with our families. For example just having lunch at Sunday noon. Of course we also didn't leave out partying.
Why now the comeback?
Kaulitz: For us it doesn't feel like a comeback. Until the end of 2011 we still were on tour in South America, Japan and Russia. Then we took a break for 1 1/2 years. It didn't feel like it was that long. Then we started to make music in the studio again. We didn't put our feet up for four years straight. Back then it used to be normal that bands didn't release a new album for four years. And we never split up. It was clear that we would make another album one day. Only the point of time wasn't clear.
Are you worried about the future? What if one day you won't have success with your music anymore?
Kaulitz: After the fourth album we are relatively relaxed. I think we'll always have a future with music. We can say that relatively self-confident. We built up a good base in the last ten years which will always be there. That has rather less to do with the success of a single album. Furthermore there are a lot of other fields in music: Tom for example wants to write and produce for other artists.
Can't you imagine something else?
Kaulitz: No. I'm incredibly thankful that we all could go this way. I can't imagine doing an other normal job, which I actually don't want to do. We have the luck every day to do what we love and like to do and what we also feel called to do.
Wolfgang Joop (german designer) likes your style. What does fashion and style mean to you? Is that art for you?
Kaulitz: Yes, totally. Fashion is my second biggest passion next to music. For me that also goes along with each other. I don't see myself as singer-songwriter who stands on stage and only sings. I have always been more of a singer and performer. I like to have a show. We do a lot more on tour than just playing our instruments. For me fashion is a part of that as well. I also fulfilled some of my dreams concerning that matter: I worked with photographers, labels and designers I have already wanted to work with for a long time. I really have embosomed Wolfgang and we get along very well. He's a great designer. One of my big dreams is to have a fashion line one day. I want to fulfil this dream for myself one day. But also concerning that I want to take time to do it seriously. I don't want to simply write my name on something. There are also already some designs and names I have been working on for some years now. By now there hasn't been the right moment yet, but it will come one day.
But for now the music's first?
Kaulitz: In the next time it's the album's turn. We have an incredibly full schedule, there is no minute for other things. Therefore it will still take a bit of time.
Translation by Herzblut @ TokioHotel_Info || Please use with credit, thanks!
HERE you can read the original article! || HIER könnt ihr den Original-Artikel lesen!
Translation
After a four year break, Bill and Tom talk with us about their life after leaving Germany. Gustav and Georg are happy that the band continued making music. An interview by Sophie Albers and Ben Chamo.
How do you feel now, after your first fan contact and press conference, after this four year break?
Bill: It was a long, but good, day. We actually just talked about that in the car: Everything went really well.
Tom: There are, of course, days that don’t go so well. I always try not to lose my train of thought, but sometimes you just have those days where the interviewers want to annoy you. But today: We got some good feedback, had nice conversations.
How close have you guys actually been in the past four years?
Georg: Very close actually.
Tom: Just as close as we always were, the only difference was that we didn’t go out with each other as much. We’ve been friends for 14 years now, not much can happen now to change that. We can go two or three months without being in contact at all, but when we meet again it feels like the last time we saw each other was only yesterday.
But geographically you’ve actually been quite far apart.
Georg: We (G & G) temporarily also spent some time over there, we talked on the phone and skyped with each other. We always stayed in contact in some way.
Gustav: If we couldn’t physically be there, then we saw each other via skype.
Could you actually have lived the rest of your life from the money you earned in the past? Could you have retired?
Bill: Depends on how you would have wanted to live. It depends on your standards. I honestly never thought about it in that way.
Tom: We could have lived a pretty normal life after releasing “Monsun” until the end of our time. It was never a topic that came up though, because we invested most of the money we made into our career. We’ve had people and companies working for us since we turned 15…
What type of companies?
Tom: Band companies. The band is our one true love and what we live off. We invest an unbelievable amount of time and money into our stage productions and videos. We did that since we started. It was always very important to us. We never really made sure to get the biggest profit out of something. On tour, a lot of partners always asked us why we spend so much money on our stage productions.
Did you miss being on stage?
Gustav: Yes.
Bill: Definitely! Absolutely! We attented a few concerts in the US and watched other bands play. I always thought: Aaah, I want to be on stage too.
Gustav: It does make you shed a little tear.
Bill: Of course it’s nice to be on the other side for once, and be able to relax for once. And I think you can also learn a lot, when you see what things other bands pull on stage. When you’re only standing up there without doing anything, you sometimes don’t know how the audience is going to like it. I enjoyed attending Coachella without the pressure of having to perform soon. In the condition I was in sometimes, it wouldn’t even have been possible. (laughs)
Tom: We’re also always extremely nervous before we go on stage.
What? After all these years?
Bill: Oh yes. When we’re on tour I’m the most nervous person in the world. I’m so nervous that I’m afraid of fainting at some point. I always feel like I’m another person in that moment. You can’t even approach me at that time because I’m so concentrated.
Georg: We always obsess about this together.
Bill: One and a half hours before each show, we have off-time. No interview, no pictures – nothing. Because we’re so nervous.
Gustav: And all three of them are so nervous that I have my own room. They really obsess over everything, like lunatics. It’s annoying.
Bill: But you also get nervous.
Gustav: I get nervous, yes, but I’d rather lie down for 20 minutes.
Bill: But the moment I’m on stage, everything is okay again. The worst part is before you go on stage. And it’s not getting better.
Did you choose the album release date (3. October) on purpose? Because of the re-unification of Germany?
Bill: Nope, I actually only noticed it when someone told me.
Tom: Are the stores actually open that day, so people can buy the CD?
Georg: No, that’s the problem.
Tom: We released our album that day and no one can buy it?
But you can download it. How hard is it, coming back? Georg, Gustav you led less of a “wild life” in the meantime, therefore you essentially had to make a decision: Back to the craziness or not?
Georg: To be honest, I never actually asked myself that question. It was always clear to us that the four of us would be doing something together and be on the road again.
Tom: We just didn’t want to work on a new album for a while. It wasn’t the disbandment of the band.
Georg: I didn’t spend a second thinking about that. “What will you do now, study business studies?”
(loud laughter)
Bill: For everyone else it feels like a longer period of time passed. In 2011 we were still on tour, then we didn’t do anything for a year and in 2013 we had actually planned to release our next album. But we made a last minute decision and said no, because it was going really well in the studio. We didn’t plan that four years would pass. We never said that we’re taking a break now. We just didn’t know when and how we would continue.
When did you actually get that tattoo on your hand?
Bill: Shortly after I moved to L.A.
Gustav: That one is already old.
Why something so morbid? (It’s the skeleton of his hand)
Tom: Pride in being ugly.
Bill: I thought it was beautiful. I wanted to get a tattoo that covers my whole hand and I found a tattoo artist in L.A. that I really liked. He also did all my other tattoos.
At the press conference you were labeled the representatives of the “selfie generation”. Does it mean something to you?
Tom: By now, yes. In the beginning we still wanted to print autograph cards. Then we realized that it doesn’t make sense anymore, because people only want to take selfies nowadays. We’re still from that classic time where everyone wanted to have something signed, but those times are over.
Bill: Yes, sometimes we even feel a little old school. When we started, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram! Ten years ago, when we released out album “Schrei” everyone was standing there with our album in their hand and they wanted to have it signed. Nowadays no one wants an autograph anymore! It even happens that people want to take a picture and I say “I can’t really do that right now, but I can sign something for you”, and then they say: “No, I don’t need an autograph”. We didn’t have any social media ccounts for a long time – we actually just started with that. Everything changed.
Tom: But I think that change is good, it also has positive sides. We just noticed that artists have their own medium now and that they can control it in a different way than in the past. We can send out something when we want to.
Bill: Only yesterday we activated our Tokio-Hotel-Instagram-Account
Your videos have been received by people as being very controversial. Why are you so against people describing them as being “provocative”?
Bill: I simply cannot understand why people are so enraged over the video for “Girl Got A Gun”!
Tom: I didn’t expect that. I thought they would find it atypical.
I thought it was funny.
Bill: Exactly! A lot of people took it way too serious. Oh my god, where do all those discussions about it lead?! We thought of that plushie being a cool gag/joke. But it shouldn’t be a huge deal that it has a penis.
Did you discuss it as a band? Did you find it less funny than the others, Georg?
Georg: We all thought it was funny. It was actually more about the cool video director for us.
Bill: Apart from that, there was quite a timespan between us seeing the videos and the covers. We chose them individually, it wasn’t a package that had been planned before. You have to look at those things seperately.
Tom: The single cover for “Love who loves you back” was my idea. I found it online and couldn’t stop laughing. I thought it was a perfect fit.
But it is a little cynical.
Tom: It has some depth to it for me. Look, I, for example, only found my love by watching porn online for years. By using the computer mouse. Like on the picture.
Bill: There are a lot of people out there that find their love on the internet. Just as many people have watched porn online at least once in their life. We thought that it fit the theme.
Tom, that’s not funny at all – it’s sad.
Tom: We still think that the single cover is funny.
Bill: It does have a meaning. We always decided on the conver art and the videos in the same moment we recorded the songs. Then we have an idea for it. We didn’t want to give the people a sex-package. That’s what the media is making out of it, but if you look closer, there’s more to it.
(Bill, accidentaly, bangs his foot against the table with his huge shoes.)
Bill, a question from women to women…
Tom: Women (laughs)
Don’t these shoes hurt?
Bill: Oh yeah, they are extremely uncomfortable. I actually almost faceplanted while we were leaving, because there were so many people and Pumba pulled me. I almost took them off then.
But why are you doing this to yourself?
Bill: Because they look extremely good. You just have to get through this sometimes. I always had a penchant for extraordinary shoes. My shoe bag is bigger than my suitcase.
Tom: You don’t just have a penchant for extraordinary shoes.
Back to the topic of sex and “Love who loves you back”. I generally think that motto, “Love, who you want, regardless of age, looks and orientation”, is great. But is love not more than sex? And we’re back to the topic of online porn.
Tom: Finding your big love often starts with sex.
Bill: Exactly.
Gustav: You don’t want to buy a pig in a poke.
Georg: It’s an important part of love. There cannot be good love without good sex.
Tom: We’re still in that phase where we have a pretty active sexlife.
Gustav: And afterwards you have the internet again.
Were you disappointed that your fans were so quiet at the press conference?
Bill: I actually didn’t think about this yet. It didn’t strike me as being negative. I think at concerts it’s going to get louder again. Today the media was were, therefore they held back a little. It felt good though. The tickets were exclusively raffled to few fans.
You could have also been relieved about that.
Tom: That they haven’t been screaming that loudly…there is hardly a more energetic audience than the one we had. By no means do I want the people to only applaud, and not scream anymore. There is no greater feeling for an artist when they’re on stage, than when people are going bonkers. Privately it’s a whole different story.
Will L.A. stay your home for now?
Bill: Yes. Even though I also really want to go to New York. I really love that city. L.A. is a little boring. I’m so hungry for life and adventures. I always think that I’m missing out on so many things.
What is life?
Bill: I don’t know. But for me, it already starts with the fact that when I’m home on weekends, I’m not able to relax at home and watch a movie. I always want to go out and socialize. I like when I’m surrounded by a lot of people. We also always have someone visiting us at home. I like having a full house.
Tom: We’ll stay in the US for now. It’s more relaxing for us.
Translation
Friendship, Sex, Money, and All the
Rest
After a four year break, Bill and Tom talk with us about their life after leaving Germany. Gustav and Georg are happy that the band continued making music. An interview by Sophie Albers and Ben Chamo.
How do you feel now, after your first fan contact and press conference, after this four year break?
Bill: It was a long, but good, day. We actually just talked about that in the car: Everything went really well.
Tom: There are, of course, days that don’t go so well. I always try not to lose my train of thought, but sometimes you just have those days where the interviewers want to annoy you. But today: We got some good feedback, had nice conversations.
How close have you guys actually been in the past four years?
Georg: Very close actually.
Tom: Just as close as we always were, the only difference was that we didn’t go out with each other as much. We’ve been friends for 14 years now, not much can happen now to change that. We can go two or three months without being in contact at all, but when we meet again it feels like the last time we saw each other was only yesterday.
But geographically you’ve actually been quite far apart.
Georg: We (G & G) temporarily also spent some time over there, we talked on the phone and skyped with each other. We always stayed in contact in some way.
Gustav: If we couldn’t physically be there, then we saw each other via skype.
Could you actually have lived the rest of your life from the money you earned in the past? Could you have retired?
Bill: Depends on how you would have wanted to live. It depends on your standards. I honestly never thought about it in that way.
Tom: We could have lived a pretty normal life after releasing “Monsun” until the end of our time. It was never a topic that came up though, because we invested most of the money we made into our career. We’ve had people and companies working for us since we turned 15…
What type of companies?
Tom: Band companies. The band is our one true love and what we live off. We invest an unbelievable amount of time and money into our stage productions and videos. We did that since we started. It was always very important to us. We never really made sure to get the biggest profit out of something. On tour, a lot of partners always asked us why we spend so much money on our stage productions.
Did you miss being on stage?
Gustav: Yes.
Bill: Definitely! Absolutely! We attented a few concerts in the US and watched other bands play. I always thought: Aaah, I want to be on stage too.
Gustav: It does make you shed a little tear.
Bill: Of course it’s nice to be on the other side for once, and be able to relax for once. And I think you can also learn a lot, when you see what things other bands pull on stage. When you’re only standing up there without doing anything, you sometimes don’t know how the audience is going to like it. I enjoyed attending Coachella without the pressure of having to perform soon. In the condition I was in sometimes, it wouldn’t even have been possible. (laughs)
Tom: We’re also always extremely nervous before we go on stage.
What? After all these years?
Bill: Oh yes. When we’re on tour I’m the most nervous person in the world. I’m so nervous that I’m afraid of fainting at some point. I always feel like I’m another person in that moment. You can’t even approach me at that time because I’m so concentrated.
Georg: We always obsess about this together.
Bill: One and a half hours before each show, we have off-time. No interview, no pictures – nothing. Because we’re so nervous.
Gustav: And all three of them are so nervous that I have my own room. They really obsess over everything, like lunatics. It’s annoying.
Bill: But you also get nervous.
Gustav: I get nervous, yes, but I’d rather lie down for 20 minutes.
Bill: But the moment I’m on stage, everything is okay again. The worst part is before you go on stage. And it’s not getting better.
Did you choose the album release date (3. October) on purpose? Because of the re-unification of Germany?
Bill: Nope, I actually only noticed it when someone told me.
Tom: Are the stores actually open that day, so people can buy the CD?
Georg: No, that’s the problem.
Tom: We released our album that day and no one can buy it?
But you can download it. How hard is it, coming back? Georg, Gustav you led less of a “wild life” in the meantime, therefore you essentially had to make a decision: Back to the craziness or not?
Georg: To be honest, I never actually asked myself that question. It was always clear to us that the four of us would be doing something together and be on the road again.
Tom: We just didn’t want to work on a new album for a while. It wasn’t the disbandment of the band.
Georg: I didn’t spend a second thinking about that. “What will you do now, study business studies?”
(loud laughter)
Bill: For everyone else it feels like a longer period of time passed. In 2011 we were still on tour, then we didn’t do anything for a year and in 2013 we had actually planned to release our next album. But we made a last minute decision and said no, because it was going really well in the studio. We didn’t plan that four years would pass. We never said that we’re taking a break now. We just didn’t know when and how we would continue.
When did you actually get that tattoo on your hand?
Bill: Shortly after I moved to L.A.
Gustav: That one is already old.
Why something so morbid? (It’s the skeleton of his hand)
Tom: Pride in being ugly.
Bill: I thought it was beautiful. I wanted to get a tattoo that covers my whole hand and I found a tattoo artist in L.A. that I really liked. He also did all my other tattoos.
At the press conference you were labeled the representatives of the “selfie generation”. Does it mean something to you?
Tom: By now, yes. In the beginning we still wanted to print autograph cards. Then we realized that it doesn’t make sense anymore, because people only want to take selfies nowadays. We’re still from that classic time where everyone wanted to have something signed, but those times are over.
Bill: Yes, sometimes we even feel a little old school. When we started, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram! Ten years ago, when we released out album “Schrei” everyone was standing there with our album in their hand and they wanted to have it signed. Nowadays no one wants an autograph anymore! It even happens that people want to take a picture and I say “I can’t really do that right now, but I can sign something for you”, and then they say: “No, I don’t need an autograph”. We didn’t have any social media ccounts for a long time – we actually just started with that. Everything changed.
Tom: But I think that change is good, it also has positive sides. We just noticed that artists have their own medium now and that they can control it in a different way than in the past. We can send out something when we want to.
Bill: Only yesterday we activated our Tokio-Hotel-Instagram-Account
Your videos have been received by people as being very controversial. Why are you so against people describing them as being “provocative”?
Bill: I simply cannot understand why people are so enraged over the video for “Girl Got A Gun”!
Tom: I didn’t expect that. I thought they would find it atypical.
I thought it was funny.
Bill: Exactly! A lot of people took it way too serious. Oh my god, where do all those discussions about it lead?! We thought of that plushie being a cool gag/joke. But it shouldn’t be a huge deal that it has a penis.
Did you discuss it as a band? Did you find it less funny than the others, Georg?
Georg: We all thought it was funny. It was actually more about the cool video director for us.
Bill: Apart from that, there was quite a timespan between us seeing the videos and the covers. We chose them individually, it wasn’t a package that had been planned before. You have to look at those things seperately.
Tom: The single cover for “Love who loves you back” was my idea. I found it online and couldn’t stop laughing. I thought it was a perfect fit.
But it is a little cynical.
Tom: It has some depth to it for me. Look, I, for example, only found my love by watching porn online for years. By using the computer mouse. Like on the picture.
Bill: There are a lot of people out there that find their love on the internet. Just as many people have watched porn online at least once in their life. We thought that it fit the theme.
Tom, that’s not funny at all – it’s sad.
Tom: We still think that the single cover is funny.
Bill: It does have a meaning. We always decided on the conver art and the videos in the same moment we recorded the songs. Then we have an idea for it. We didn’t want to give the people a sex-package. That’s what the media is making out of it, but if you look closer, there’s more to it.
(Bill, accidentaly, bangs his foot against the table with his huge shoes.)
Bill, a question from women to women…
Tom: Women (laughs)
Don’t these shoes hurt?
Bill: Oh yeah, they are extremely uncomfortable. I actually almost faceplanted while we were leaving, because there were so many people and Pumba pulled me. I almost took them off then.
But why are you doing this to yourself?
Bill: Because they look extremely good. You just have to get through this sometimes. I always had a penchant for extraordinary shoes. My shoe bag is bigger than my suitcase.
Tom: You don’t just have a penchant for extraordinary shoes.
Back to the topic of sex and “Love who loves you back”. I generally think that motto, “Love, who you want, regardless of age, looks and orientation”, is great. But is love not more than sex? And we’re back to the topic of online porn.
Tom: Finding your big love often starts with sex.
Bill: Exactly.
Gustav: You don’t want to buy a pig in a poke.
Georg: It’s an important part of love. There cannot be good love without good sex.
Tom: We’re still in that phase where we have a pretty active sexlife.
Gustav: And afterwards you have the internet again.
Were you disappointed that your fans were so quiet at the press conference?
Bill: I actually didn’t think about this yet. It didn’t strike me as being negative. I think at concerts it’s going to get louder again. Today the media was were, therefore they held back a little. It felt good though. The tickets were exclusively raffled to few fans.
You could have also been relieved about that.
Tom: That they haven’t been screaming that loudly…there is hardly a more energetic audience than the one we had. By no means do I want the people to only applaud, and not scream anymore. There is no greater feeling for an artist when they’re on stage, than when people are going bonkers. Privately it’s a whole different story.
Will L.A. stay your home for now?
Bill: Yes. Even though I also really want to go to New York. I really love that city. L.A. is a little boring. I’m so hungry for life and adventures. I always think that I’m missing out on so many things.
What is life?
Bill: I don’t know. But for me, it already starts with the fact that when I’m home on weekends, I’m not able to relax at home and watch a movie. I always want to go out and socialize. I like when I’m surrounded by a lot of people. We also always have someone visiting us at home. I like having a full house.
Tom: We’ll stay in the US for now. It’s more relaxing for us.
Translation by Icey @ loveth-music.com
Watch the LWLYB acoustic performance HERE !
Die LWLYB Akkustik Performance könnt ihr euch HIER angucken!