Date: 09/01/25

Mood: stressed

Listening to: We Don't Need Who You Think You Are - Skunk Anansie

Exploring Old Rammstein Fansites #2

A look into past fansites for interesting tidbits, forgotten ideas, old news, and happenings surrounding album releases. In this post, I will cover mostly Mutter, LIFAD, and Sehnsucht era. As well as the transition in 2003.

Much like volume one, I have been spending excessive time going through old R+ fansites. Welcome to volume 2 now in my series of short lived posts. As I presume I will eventually run out of things to find. I realized a lot of R+ fansites are poorly archived by the way. People make out the Wayback Machine as this great resource, but 70% of the time a link or image is broken. Despite working at the time. The old crawlers were not very good.

2001-02 images recovered!

I... managed to get a single gallery on an obscure fansite archive to actually load (99% of the time nothing works). I was so happy and taken aback at the same time, I cried. They were all lost 2001-02 images. My god I pushed my luck messing around and found functional images by about 50% of the time and got some thumbnails of other missing photos.

Here's the spoils of my digging in the archival mines.

I want to especially point this one out. I am obsessed with it. As you can see.

No one at at all, not a soul:
Me: PAUL BUT SLIGHTLY TILTED ON AN ANGLE 💖😌✨🐇🐇💖🔥🥰💖💖✨🐇💖✨💖👀✨💖🐇😭💖

No, but actually I'm being serious!! My favorite photos of him have traits in common and that I love him slightly adjacent on an angle or side profile. I'm being real.

I added listings for the missing images too at my gallery's complaint list. If anyone is a fan of someone else here's the functional link. You can try your luck with others. The thumbnails do not load, just click the images anyway and see if they work. My guess is when people see the broken thumbnails, they give up. No! Click it anyway lol. I don't know what qualifies obscure/lost images for anyone else. I know precisely what is rare in a Paul context but that doesn't mean a whole lot in the general scope. All the images I found looked that they're 2001-02. I didn't see anything 90s of notable interest at a glance. I also found a bunch of them working here and here (once again, try the broken links anyway) but I don't know how rare/missing these are for other men. Please take a look if you are seeking obscure Rammstein photos and see if you notice anything for "your guy" you understand photos of. Seriously all I am good for is Paul lmao.

Wait, actually I found a thumbnail of a missing 1997 Koln signing image at WOM. I think 90% of my crying was knowing how close I was to that photo loading in full size lol. (I was drunk while browsing. To be fair. Yes, I'm the ~emotional~ one when I get buzzed.) Here's thumbnails of images I found trapped in a small format... sad.

I managed to upgrade a few pics as well. I also managed to get a few without watermarks anymore and several many with a bigger crop or size. And another thing is finding versions in higher quality condition without artifacts! This has been incredible. Bask in the difference! It's stunning how I can "retire" these old versions of lower quality. (Just three examples.)

October 1998... excuse me!?!?!?!?!

Look, I have been digging through the most obscure fansites for anything interesting and weird... and I finally found the holy grail of weird things. A forgotten obscure article by a guy who tagged along to two Family Values Tour shows in IL and MN. He writes about all the bands with some random R+ moments thrown in. The main take away? They like to dance in the tour bus while drunk. (This was somewhat shown in the In Amerika doc too.) Very normal I guess. Also the little bit in this article has Till learning the English word for faggot and I laughed so hard. This is peak 1998 male culture. Peak nu metal bands. I can sense the weed smell embedded to his shirt a mile away. I live vicariously through this article's sense of the vibe of the times. It's so accurate. The bit with the woman naked on the sofa took me out. She sounds fun and pretty through my own imagination of her as described.

And then I found it. What do you MEAN the lyrics of Pussy originate from the FVT????

Jay Gordon, Orgy: Till came to us all serious. He's like, "I've written a song in English. I want to know what you think of it." So he starts singing [affects an exaggerated basso profundo], "I've got a dick. You've got a pussy. We could fuck. Let's do it real quick." We're like, what the fuck? [laughs.] ⟫ Source

Till sat on the chorus of Pussy for 10 years. I will never forgive him for this. After extensive digging, I'm thinking the "I can't get laid in Germany" is Till clowning on this. 2005 German culture reference??? 1998 American tour lyrics????? Pussy is crazy as hell.

1998 Family Values Tour

I found this mysterious statement from Paul about the arrest moment of Halloween. No idea the origin of it. But it sounds right of the events. The "guitar left" made me chuckle though.

September 1996, Berlin

I finally found text archive of a news article about the burning sign incident with clearer detail. Often this story gets repeated with omitted ideas or without explanation of why. For example, there were five injured people (sometimes mistaken as four) and then it's said they were transported to different hospitals without explaining why. Then the band tells it like because of this split, they split the band up to visit both hospitals after about it. Why the split? Well the news article explained why. The person with the most severe burn injury was sent to a different location than the others. That also explains the 5 vs 4 discrepancy when the story is repeated.

April 2003

When you go through old sites and re-discover a lost, ancient April 2003 photo of Paul and Schneider nobody has looked at since 2006.

September 2003

I was better able to find the original source text of the French site's ideas about the Paul interview post-Knorkator CD release show. Retrieving this write up has been a pain to locate but I finally got it in original format of English. Still can't find the DE text lol.

"Spieluhr" was also planned as a single first, but the song didn't come along like that with Rammstein. It became too slow and therefore they replaced it with "Halleluja", although that was already brave, as hardly anyone knew this song. The same applies to "Engel". They don't really like playing it because it is so slow live. It just sounds better in the radio and studio version. ⟫ Source

Fascinating lore about Spieluhr because nothing about that song strikes me as worthy of a single in the final version. Halleluja is a better choice for sure, but even then... it ended up a b-side. (Tragic.) I don't remember where I read this interview with who in the band, but someone asked about "Pastor" (Halleluja working studio title) being released soon for Mutter and someone reacted with, "wait, how do you know that song name? who told you about this?" lolll. I think it was Schneider.

I kind of get what he means by Engel. When you watch the song on video being performed live, it's great. When you are standing there at the show, it feels a bit... weird. I think the added wings and elaborate ideas in the future version helped the song a lot when played live.

And something more: Rammstein have absolutely nothing against concert recordings, they find such things quite enjoyable. Only their label boss has something against it. Just to make it clear once again!

I also dug up an Icelandic interview with Olli where he explained why Das Modell wasn't released then, which is interesting to consider Paul's mention of it in 2003. It does seem like they re-approached the video a second time to consider its release.

Now everyone knows that a video was made with Das Modell, (old Kraftwerk standard). Will that video be released?

"When the song was released we were very busy and had no time to make a video, but we gave someone permission to do it without us. It was made, but it was so badly done that we didn’t want it released. It was when Diana died and the video had some references to that and criticism of journalists and the such. We would have released it if it had been well done, but it wasn’t, unfortunately." ⟫ Source

August 1998

Okay I'm sorry but this news publication called the band as, "Rammstein are the product of a group of unleashed toddlers in their adulthood" and I can't stop laughing. Oh my god. The late 90s and early 00s media are filled with this hyperbole problem over painting the band in a certain image that's exaggerated beyond belief. It's sort of absurd how they repeat this information like a cargo cult without making their own impression or conclusions.

June 2001, Iceland

I found a translation of a local Icelandic report on what R+ did while traveling there. I think Iceland left a very good impression on them. I remember later in August of an interview, Paul brought Iceland back up. I am pretty sure...

Anyway, the article would explain the activities behind all of these Icelandic images of them doing tourism. Enjoy context!

2001, Poland fanchat

I found this obscure fanchat online with Polish fans with Schneider and Till. I can't stop laughing at this question and answer.

Q: I know that some of you come from punk bands. What do you think abot neo-punk like Offspring, Green Day, or German Donots?

A: Offspring and Green Day are not punk music. It is American high school music. Exploited, that was punk! ⟫ Source

Mutter cover & concept photos

I found a short obscure article which cites Alien Resurrection as another influence on the Mutter concept photos and themes in general of birth. God, this makes so much more sense!! Because I was convinced Reise, Reise is supposed to be the movie Falling Down. It looks like they partly took influences from films to a degree for this era of album images? Interesting. The band has never hid their early influence from random films they like. I always wondered why Mutter was 'random', but this makes sense!

The album cover angered many religious people, namely Catholics. It made news to some degree. I found this article about it where Paul gave a quote. He just said that many bands are far more graphically worse about gore so he has no idea why this matters. Well, he's not wrong. I am pretty sure other bands have far worse music or imagery about children or babies to be bothered by than this.

2001.01 Australia interview

I found this very obscure English interview piece from Paul which has weirdly interesting ideas in it.

As for religious imagery in their songs, Landers says that far from being devil-worshippers, Rammstein are just non-religious "in the conservative sense."

"I can only speak for myself but I do believe there is a force in life that ensures everything in life happens for a reason." says Landers, who despite this cannot explain why Rammstein fans operate websites with titles like dethangelz.com. ⟫ Source

First of all, to explain dethangelz.com (which appears to be fiction this guy made up) the answer is simple. You're a normie being exposed to 90s and 00s alt culture. It isn't going to make any sense. It was also in style to type funny like that and use a Z or randomly drop a vowel like A. This is a modern trend too with the whole culture of people nowadays who remove vowels from usernames or replace U with V. It's a stylization culture choice made by the trends of the time. We still do that but in new ways.

And truthfully, I have no idea what this clown is talking about. As someone who has traversed at least 50 R+ fansites in the Wayback Machine from various lists, webrings, and links.html pages. I have never ever seen a fansite like this and have no idea what this journalist clown is talking about. Basically all R+ fansites use the band name or lyric reference. The only thing he could mean is wilder-engel.de but that is a reference to songs.

Second, his hot take on religion or spirituality is a very rare opinion to see stated by people in this band lol. He was like 34 when he said this, would he stand by it now? Interesting take. I made note of this whenever I try to figure out his personal type letters lol. I have a similar-ish view.

>and does so in perfect English.

Yeah he speaks it by 2001. They explained they preferred to be interviewed in English and then respond in German. They cited it's because of vocabulary and they worry about misunderstandings. Given how much pressure they were under about politics, I can understand wanting to be careful. I always assumed it was a matter of limited vocabulary to express what is needed when it comes to nuances. Understanding a language doesn't mean you're going to know the correct words meant to be used naturally. I noticed Paul struggled with this several times where the question was too complicated for his mental dictionary even if he knew the answer. He sometimes questions his vocabulary still.

Half this article is inaccurate and strange despite being a direct interview.

>imagine Till wailing his way through Du hast while engulfed in flames

None of this makes sense. Du hast has no flames. And he's engulfed during Rammstein with the burning coat. Which has no wailing. It's a very talk-sing type of song that is more like spoken word than anything.

>Metallica are running scared. Having recently refused to play after the German juggernaut on a festival stage in England.

I think this poor journalist fool is talking about the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park problems the band had with Ozzy's misunderstanding and his wife or something. I don't know what else this could be about. They were not boycotted in England itself or at a show there. Instead, the England show was canceled at Ozzfest which is very likely related to this conflict at Rock am Ring and Rock im Park (both in Germany) in 1998. Nothing to do with Metallica.

What are you talking about?? Huh? I looked at every single England based show prior to January 2001 and there's nothing anywhere close to making this plausible. The only one that comes anywhere near relevant is the Ozzfest 1998 UK cancellation but R+ were the ones who dropped out. No other show in England makes any sense. The 1997 one was canceled. This other one was a solo show. The 98 was canceled. Then nothing until June 2001, after this publication. What the hell is this about?? I have never heard this lol. I have found yet another claim about the Metallica thing to Richard, but he ignores that entirely in his response. How does this work with the claim of England? R+ barely ever performed in England to make this make sense. This article's timing to October 1998 forces the concert to be before that month. Yet nothing in England aligns. The only thing that makes sense, is once again, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park 1998. Which is the Ozzy wife problem.

That doesn't seem correct anyway because in this 1999 Schneider said this,

Q: Sincerely after your now one and only concert in Poland during the Odjadzy Festival 97, I was hoping that soon we will have another chance to see Rammstein live. Unfortunately, in spite of a few announcements, we haven't yet witnessed your next concert. I heard you were to support Metallica on their concert in Warsaw on the 1st of June.

Schneider: We received the offer from Metallica management to play as a support during their tour in middle-Eastern Europe, including also Poland. Unfortunately because of a lack of time, we couldn't participate in this. ⟫ Source

So if Metallica really felt that way, it seems bizarre. When actually, they wanted R+ to support them which is crazy to think they didn't take it. I'd cancel the other things and take the Metallica gig lol.

>their latest video was banned by US MTV for a "scene with a weapon" deemed too graphic for TV.

Hold up, what? If this interview was around January 2001, what is this about? They had no recent videos. The latest video at that time was the one for Stripped. But it was due to lots of controversies unrelated to any weapon. This would have to be an allusion to Du hast which does have a gun with Schneider but why is something from 1997 being called "latest" and referenced in nearly 2001??? I could only guess US MTV was counter reacting to 1999's problems after the fact to be a relevant subject when the video was freely played on US TV and very heavily in rotation.

>paternity suits??
>intra-band controversy
>blah blah Khira

I hardly find old fansite archives talking about that. All that ever happens were people being confused by the surname problem and it ended up a FAQ trivia factoid. You're late to the story by a solid 10 years, buddy. That daughter was many years old by then. Why would it be a recent controversy? All that happened 'recently' was everyone staring at the Live aus Berlin credits to be confused about a strange surname.

Then I realized, this very poorly educated journalist has entirely mistaken Till's gossip rag problems with a supposed ex-gf and daughter in 1998, with Richard's daughter and the ex-wife. This is why Paul would be confused and decline this entire thing. Let alone not have the details to even speak on someone else's problems. The journalist has no idea what he's even referencing or asking about.

Half of this man's article is misunderstood nonsense and bad journalism. Embarrassing!

Heading to LIFAD era

This was the era of nothing happening but then there was the LIFAD announcement of being worked on. In the meanwhile, random things came up. In January there was a mention that Gert Hof would maybe continue on to do the stage work for LIFAD. I don't think this actually happened though. But perhaps was in talks.

There is mention on this page too of Emu mentioning wanting to do South America touring. Which did happen in Nov-Dec 2010 eventually.

I found mention of the band in part at a Knorkator concert in April 2007. Including the after party. That's where these images originate from by the way. Also he attended another one in April 2008, big time Knorkator fan/friend apparently. In all honesty, if you enjoy the weird humor element to R+ you might like this band too. They have a massive ballad that is also a Kingdom Hearts AMV. For real. If it was possible for any band to feel like a shitpost, it's Knorkator.

For their 2003 release actually Paul did a few remixes for them under a pseudonym. Basically zero fansites noticed or reported on it I have come to realize. I found one (1) fansite from Poland who noticed.

When Paul does independent work, you'll never even know about it unless you sit at the GEMA database refreshing like a loon. Apul is a distorted Paul obviously. Behold - man independent. It sounds like this.

There was also the long running issue of a possible best of CD release. This has been discussed before but became a topic again in 2007 several times. Elements of this rumor and idea turned out true, which supports it being based on something happening to have been suggested. As the page states, the best of was supposed to have the Vergiss uns nicht song on it. Which ended up on Raritaten digitally in 2015 and was put on Mein Land's single as the b-side. Much R+ music was put on Spotify in 2014 and then later the special CD compilation. I have always been confused by why the Made in Germany compilation and Raritaten concept were spaced apart so many years, or separate at all. This idea in 2007 makes it seem like they were meant to be one release concept. Literally, delete the MiG box set's remix disc and turn that one into the Raritaten compilation. Problem solved lol. It would have made the MiG set even more valuable. It'd be a best of, rarity collection, and this DVD compilation all in one. It'd have something to every type of buyer.

Another piece of information, to be taken with a grain of salt: according to sources close to the group, the best of was planned to be released on a new label created by Rammstein. Nothing has come out about it, and it is possible that it has been abandoned. ⟫ Source

This is sort of true in terms of plausibility about why this rumor exists. In a 2007 interview, Paul mentions being free agents and having fulfilled their contracts for albums. This puts them in a position to start a vanity label or make free-er choices.

Q: The album Rosenrot is known to be the "sister album" to Reise Reise. Will there be any other "sister albums" in the future?

Basically we had a bunch of songs extra from Reise Reise and we had a contract for 5 albums with universal. Rosenrot was the last of the 5 albums to fulfill the contract. So we took a bunch of the songs that for theatrical reasons didn’t fit into Reise Reise or would have been b-sides and we also wrote 4 or 5 new songs. There were several reasons for that. One we wanted to take a break for a year. Two we wanted to finish the contract. And three, there were good songs there so we may as well want to get them out.

Q: What happened with the contract then?

We've got no contract right now and we're free to look around. We got all the cards in our hand so everything's open right now. ⟫ Source

I am totally 👀👀👀👀 over this given Emu's dismissal in 2010 as the manager. By the way, I cannot find any public announcements or news articles about Emu's departure. You'd think this would have been news, but no. Nobody mentions it in 2010 even if it happened. I can't even figure out where in the year it happened such as early or late. I wanted to know the timing in the LIFAD promotion timeline. Because dismissing your long term manager since the 90s mid-album and mid-tour is pretty insane. I would instead expect this to happen in 2011 in the gap between LIFAD and MiG. That makes more sense for timing. But I mean... if it happened in 2010... then it did.

April & November 2008

In April 2008 Paul was located at another Knorkator concert and said,

"At first we really wanted to make the album go hard, but it sounded like any other metal band. It didn't sound bad, but we wanted to stand out a bit. You need to know it's Rammstein. It shouldn't be forced either."

By November 2008, LIFAD was formally confirmed for fall 2009. Stating accurately that the projection is autumn 2009 with maybe a single in the summer to lead into it was also stated somewhere around spring 2009.

Finally in September 2009, we get the first word about Pussy as a single. I have now learned that French say chatte for pussy. Amazing. There's the announcement for the video to be released on visit-x.net. Where nobody on planet earth remembers that the Ich tu dir weh video also premiered on this site lol.