July 2004 with Volume.at in English

Interview: July, 2004 - Volume.at

Question: One would expect Rammstein to make a song with the content like Mein Teil, right? It's like a godsend...

Paul: Yes, it was a sort of natural choice. We've made three albums and we're slowly running out of subjects. Kids. Sex with kids. Sex with kids between themselves. Dead father. Dead mother. Brother killed. Somehow the subject ends up a bit "consumed", and so we're glad when life keeps providing us topics like this. We'd be fools not to use it... The cannibal Armin is a bit of a celeb everywhere. He's even called in the USA the "crazy German" who ate others. I can't remember anything like that before. He's a kind of negative celebrity, like Hitler but everyone in the world knows of him currently. Like Bin Laden.

Question: Who is the voice in the intro?

Paul: The intro is the bassist Olli, coming from some stupid shit in the rehearsal room. It's the original post Armin made online, "Searching for a fit 20-30 year old to slaughter, the master butcher." We wanted to do it so people would know what this song is about.

Question: In what ways does the new Reise, Reise album differ from Mutter?

Paul: I think it's different in the fact it's going to sell more (laughs). No, okay there's the emphasis toward playing by hand. A stronger push away from sequencers and electronics without becoming "peasantry rock". I hope... Anyway, we always have basic concepts for our albums and this time it was "everything for the vocals." So we did everything well for the vocals, even if that sounds stupid alone. That's to say that if we thought the song was actual shit, but Till sang something good on it, then we took it. Besides, we gave all the songs a shot. Before if we all didn't like a song, easy cut and gone. Now we work through it. That's why now we have some exotic songs we otherwise wouldn't have.

Question: The album has been finished. When you give it to the record company, are you 100% satisfied with the end result? Or is it the best you could do in the time you had available?

Paul: We're satisfied with most of the songs. The point here is, someday you have to just stop working on it. When you write music it's like this: the refrain of this song is weak still, the verse of that song is insane, this other one is missing a melody, this one drags on. Every song is like a child. And each child needs a different approach. One needs to see a doctor. The second one needs a tooth pulled. The third one needs to get slapped. The fourth needs to be sent to an asylum or so. And the fifth, we push into the sewer. If you're lucky, they will all grow up to be well adjusted children during the production process...

Question: There will be a video for Mein Teil. What will that look like?

Paul: We thought about it like, everyone should do something individually for an hour in a room. They'll stand there and do something for an hour they think fits well for the song. There's one that squirms. Another one cries. That happened, then was filmed. And edited it together. I'm not sure how well it turned out. It's not bad, but whether it turned out to be a milestone for a music video, we'll see...

Question: What did you do during your one hour of filming?

Paul: I thought to myself "what can I do that looks good?" Nothing. So I approached the director and said I could imitate a seizure. I could run into a wall. I could tear my hair out. I can suffer and then vomit. I have to eat lentils and then I'll throw up right for the camera. He said good let's do that. But then we had enough footage, so that's why I didn't need to do the lentils...

Question: Do you ever feel strange about your music and way you're presented?

Paul: Not really. If I saw us as an outsider, I would find us strange. Because I'm not an outsider, I find us perfectly normal. Like a Chinese pot bellied pig family at the zoo standing knee deep in their own shit - they think that's entirely normal. Of course I am not implying we're a family of Chinese pot bellied pigs. Even the noblest lion family in the desert thinks it's a normal thing to nibble on a rotting carcass...