2018 with Metal Hammer in English

Interview: September 2018, Metal Hammer

For Paul Landers this is a premiere of a special kind. After his colleague in Rammstein, RZK released his own ESP guitar series in 2004, Landers is now presenting his first signature instrument. (Does this count as an instrument?) The Sansamp FlyRig PL-1 from Tech 21. In our extensive interview, he explains what types of musicians may find this small Preamp interesting. He also reveals some details about the upcoming Rammstein album. But first...

Question: Paul after nearly 25 years in Rammstein, you have now your first signature model: Sansamp FlyRig PL-1. What is your reasoning for having now decided to take such a step?

Question: Which brings us right to the PL-1?

Paul: Exactly. I've always had contact with Stefan Kuhn about the GT-2. Stefan is always a friendly guy and reserved, and he knows I'm completely satisfied with the Sansamp but didn't want anything for free. I'm not so much into sponsoring, more like collaboration. Eventually, Stefan asked if I would like to have my own pedal, which had always been my dream.

Question: When did Stefan ask exactly?

Paul: 400 years ago? No kidding. In the spring of 2016. I didn't think very long about his offer because it's important for that I have enthusiasm for a person who asks me. Stefan and Andrew Barta from Tech 21 are good guys and it's fun to talk and communicate with them. And that's what you need to do when you take on a project like this. I only work with people that I find I like. Even when choosing my plumber or electrician, I make sure they're nice people. That's another reason why I happily accepted the offer. I find the original FlyRig good, although the sound is too rock-y and amp-ish for my taste. I prefer the dead and very mechanical distortion [Zerr-Sound] of the GT-2. My problem was I could never play properly on the road because I didn't have the right sound. I tried to use my phone once, but it wasn't for me. I felt foolish putting my guitar into a phone. Sometimes I took the GT-2 with me, but then it gets complicated because you can't plug headphones into it and such. By contrast the PL-1 can do it all. It's suitable for use on the road, but also if you're giving a small concert for a Russian millionaire.

Question: So the technical base of the PL-1 is the GT-2?

Paul: Unlike other FlyRigs, this has two Sansamps. A distorted one and a clean. Plus a GT-2 setting with additional mid-EQ. We tried to make the PL-1 more versatile than the GT-2. The main-roast sound is inspired by the GT-2 but goes a step beyond.

Question: The clean channel is called Wasser [water] and the distorted is Feuer [fire]. Is there specific sound inspirations?

Paul: The clean channel is based on the Roland JC 120. I think the sound is very inspired. You play things you didn't know you were capable of. I would call it as, "makes playing [feel like] a hard on." That's why there's also ambient sound control so playing is really fun. The bathroom effect. The sound is more professional than you'd expect from a small box.

Question: How many intermediary prototypes were worked on?

Paul: Seven total. I would have kept on tweaking them, but Tech 21 rightfully insisted that the box had to be finished eventually. After the seventh prototype, they told me: "These things sound good, and we don't want to fly to the moon with them."

Question: What do you find could be improved on the GT-2?

Paul: I think the GT-2 has too much bass-ratio. That's nice for impressing others, but in real life no guitarist needs bass below 50 hertz. Every mixer cuts that out anyway without telling the guitarist. The PL-1 has low-pass ["low-cut"], so you can turn the bass way up but still the sound will remain defined in the lowest range.

Question: Will you use the PL-1 live? Or is it "only" for on the road?

Paul: I don't know yet if I'd dare to do that. Some prototypes were used already at concerts and functioned well. But it really shows its class when I'm on the road. My rack is somewhere in the stadium but I'm sitting in my hotel room and want to play. That's what the direct headphone output jack is for. Which is great because the FlyRig has built-in analog speaker emulation. The PL-1 is also great for vacations. Once a year, I travel to Cape Town with the bassist Olli to go wind surfing. And take this little box and a computer with me so I can record my ideas in my free time. It's great for rehearsals and songwriting when we lock ourselves as band into a small room. The PL-1 is suitable for concerts, but that wasn't the main focus. It's for situations more when you want to have a professional portable sound. For me it's great to be able to put this thing in my bag and take it me anywhere I go.

Question: When you started the work with Tech 21, was the retail price of the PL-1 considered criteria you took into account in planning?

Paul: No, but of course I knew it wasn't going to be some boutique-device. I trusted Tech 21 would say stop on their own if it was becoming not worthwhile for them. I only took care of the contents inside and the design. I left everything else to Stefan and Tech 21. To be honest, I don't actually know how much it will cost. I also don't care how many units the company ends up selling in the end. The main thing is that I have one! Obviously I'd be in a bad mood if it was the cheapest device in the FlyRig line. (laughs) By the way, thanks to the active EQ the PL-1 can be used for all styles of music. Including surf rock, blues rock, or whatever else. Especially unlike common simulations, Sansamp's drive sound sounds great even without a lot of drive. Crunch sounds generally only sound good combined with an amp.

Question: How did your live mixer react when you used PL-1 prototypes at Rammstein shows? Were he and your band members skeptical at first?

Paul: Yeah, they were. I found the first prototype to be really cool. It sounded so evil like a nasty synthesizer. That functions well by itself but sounds too extreme in combination with other instruments. That's no longer the case with the PL-1, which can be used in a band situation without problems. Passable sounds are a bit more central and a bit more GT-2-ish. My sound engineer is happy with the Sansamp GT-2 anyway. He wouldn't have demanded anything else. We even setup a PA to test which frequencies we needed live for usage of the PL-1. Because live is always a special case, that's where the wheat really gets separated from the chaff. This also applies to pickups. I don't especially like active pickups, but they are very useful when live.

Question: Speaking of usefulness, has the PL-1 already been useful in the preparations for your upcoming album? How many new songs are there?

Paul: The status is as follows: we are finalizing the new album. Everything has been recorded. The new songs are finished and we are about to start mixing. That should happen in October, and by then we will have decided what stays and goes. When recording, you always play more than you end up needing. Additional keyboards, additional guitar lines. We will decide what to use in the upcoming days. The process is always a bit tiring, but we take the time to do it.

Question: How many new songs are there?

Paul: A total of 16. Although we didn't actually want to record that many. If you have too many, it's easy to lose track. As I said, we'll be mixing for the rest of the year. So we'll probably release the album in the upcoming spring.

Question: So the rumors of a farewell tour are false?

Paul: Absolutely. We're not thinking about quitting at all. Especially since we've never been as close to one another as we are now. We're one of the few bands that still do things together and get along good. And when we don't get along, we try to talk about it so that we can again afterwards. Let's put it this way: God gave us this band so we could play with it and get paid for doing shenanigans. We just do foolish things and get paid a lot for that. So we'd be stupid not to continue. It's still possible, so we're doing it. We'd have to deal with heavy iron bars to voluntarily catapult ourselves out of this paradise.

Question: Sounds quite relaxed.

Paul: It is. Of course I can only speak for the present. If one of us kills his wife next year and ends up in prison, it certainly wouldn't be so relaxed anymore. Just an example, Flake has been enjoying playing live for the first time since last year. Before that he was always very scared on stage. So he could never enjoy it. Only now, slowly, he's starting to enjoy it.

Question: What kind of new songs can fans look to see?

Paul: God. As always, it's - well I tell people this all the time, like the new Mercedes S-Class. If you are lucky, it looks even better and bigger. No not bigger, well different. It moves with the times but stays true to itself. So what you always try to do as a band, what everyone tries to do: keep your style and at the same time develop further. Move with the times. I don't know if the album will be good, but we enjoyed making it. We like the songs. It's a bit like cooking from a recipe without tasting it in the middle.

Question: Rule is that if a band loves an album themselves, there will surely be fans who love it too.

Paul: That's how we've always done it. That's our theory: if we like it, others will probably like it too. We never ask ourselves, "what will others think about it?" We've never done that. Or if we try to, it backfires immediately. We have to like it, and we like the new songs.

Question: Is anything different than previous albums?

Paul: Yes, this time we concentrated more on playing. Which means we sat together more often and simply played. We're also better now than when than when we started the band, but that's not a big deal. As we get older, we slowly get to know our instruments. It's fun. We're still working on the sound to develop it further. We haven't reinvented the wheel with the new album but we haven't stuck the basic formulas either. We've tried to develop further within a framework. But that's what you inevitably end up doing if you're not totally stupid.

Question: The enjoyment you're having with the new album is apparent in everything you're saying.

Paul: Well it's better to enjoy what you're doing.

Question: What I meant is, during my first interview with you at the end of 1994, before the release of the debut album, I witnessed firsthand how difficult the decision making process was. I remember how you argued bitterly about the smallest details. That seems to have shifted.

Paul: No. No, it just sounds like that. Three years ago, I was a huge advocate of producing a new album. If I had known how difficult it'd be, I would have probably reconsidered. Especially since the album still isn't finished. It's really exhaustive because of the constant controversial struggles over ideas hasn't changed at all. I'm in a good phase right now because everything is nice again. But if you had met me a month ago, my mood would have been different. In a band, there's always mountains and valleys. Which is why the new album took so long and was very, very exhausting. We changed producers, changed the approach, and it's still very difficult. We fiddle endlessly with the music. The songs are great, there's nothing to that. But until everything is finished finally... We wanted to try something new but I'll tell you about that another time.

Question: In a sense, this side of things is a part of Rammstein and adds to the appeal, right?

Paul: Absolutely. We realized that too and it probably has to be that way. But I was hoping this time it might be more relaxed. But it wasn't the case! We're a little more relaxed now and can deal with it. Even talk about it. But the chemistry is still exactly the same as it was in the beginning. That's what makes it appealing, but at the same time also extremely exhausting.

Commentary

>I could have made friends with the Blackstar

Yes he really did say "make friends" because like the last metaphor about tubes, he's pretending amps are sentient.

>I withdraw to my studio and play with the GT-2 for a bit. Just like how some people go out for a last cigarette of the day. Somehow I'm a tad addicted to it (laughs).

The studio space in question seems to be,

>We're also better now than when than when we started the band, but that's not a big deal.

This bit also made me laugh but he should be a little more proud of this. Paul has definitely come a long way in his playing. He's also gotten massively better at his random body movement and choreography. As a woman, I can tell you this.

>If one of us kills his wife next year and ends up in prison, it certainly wouldn't be so relaxed anymore.

The jail comment is like the most hysterical foreshadow of all time. I can't imagine the stress they went through.

I don't know if I want to be the Paul Conspiracy Theorist so much but... when he says he had a digital emulation device break and he started using the GT-2; that something about this correlated with the Ahoi tour cycle. But he was filled with EMG pickup changes and guitar shifts. I may be perceiving that.

Why? Well, his mention of the Blackstar. That's a company that did not exist until 2007 and began becoming well known in 2008. That's why he called himself too 'old' (at the ripe age of like 43-44 lol). He was seemingly looking for a new solution just before LIFAD touring. Then gave up to stick with the GT-2.

My conspiracy headcanon is that he started using the GT-2 again at LIFAD. That concert on In Amerika sounds like the dead mechanical sound that he is. It sounds extremely thick mechanical transistor grindy to me. That's why I like his sound anyway. It's very metallic, but kinda distorted like an old radio. Yet still kind of deep sounding while somehow being thin and airy dually. As it doesn't sound buried. It really does remind me of old radios. (It's likely intentional.)