Date: 10/29/25

Mood: nervous

Listening to: Amputate - Skinny Puppy

Exploring Old Rammstein Fansites #3

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 a small bit on Rosenrot.

Much like volume one and volume two, this may be my last entry unless something fascinating comes up that I find. I went through a lot, but a lot of archives are also broken. Sadly. Sometimes only indexes or a few small pages will work.

Side note: Last time I asked when Emu was dismissed as manager. I asked someone who might know. He said probably May 2010. I don't know if he's right. Nobody seems to be able to source how they know.

Oldweb Rammstein graphics

I try so hard to find sites with working images and most the time, there's nothing. Then sometimes I find a few. Mostly in our fandom, banners were preferred for some reason.

This is what I managed.

2005 Hungarian interview located!

I whined about not being able to find this interview on YouTube with any keywords or attempts to locate it. I found it in .avi format on some site that barely worked. Including the show name and air date. Megawatt from Hungarian VIVA 2005.03.15.

I uploaded it myself to prevent this from ever happening again to someone else.

Amongst 2001-02 women fans...

There was a forum associated to a fansite called the 'Ich will forum' where apparently a lot of women fans congregated. I cannot get this to load at all. I want to see women talk about the band so badly.

Enough to have the title, "RSBI (rammstein smut brigade)". But the best part? A member got Till to recognize them as the "Rammstein division of the sluts" lmfao I'm cryingggg. He's so great for this!!!! This is absolutely his signature oh my goddd.

The Ich Will forums was purely described by them as "Rammstein, but women only" gatekept and it's GLORIOUS.

"And the female-only rammstein forum, Ich Will. Ich Will is a forum for women of all ages to vent their collective lust about rammstein, as well as share stories of meeting them, write funny fanfiction, and lots more. We've become a strong community, with around 70 active members, in just 3 months. Ich Will is a membership by approval, to keep the trouble makers away. If your interested in joining, send me and email or instant message, give me your screen name, email address, and A/S/l, and I'll send you the password."

It was membership only and password kept. That's why I can't see any archives from the URL and I'm devastated. I know it's for the best that women gatekept this... but I'm still sad. I have sometimes seen fansite women reference this forum or referenced inside jokes, and it sounds amazing. Put me in 2001 and I'd be right there with them. I kept wondering why I could find no fangirl stuff properly in this era on fansites. It seems to have been trapped in this forum and would explain it. It was also all locked in that one Yahoo group of the Rammslash mailing list. They had hundreds of messages and chains. There's way more over there than just fics. I'm both disappointed, yet understanding why women gatekept it. This is definitely stuff the man fandom wouldn't handle in that era.

Just this slip right here of this signed Till paper, some random jokes that got repeated in blogs... it tells me everything about what was going on over there.

Old Fanarea design in the early 00s

If you never saw the old fan club site, in 2004 I got someone who took mini screenshots of it.

2002 Kerrang Awards

Something the people don't know is how Paul and Schnei at the 2002 Kerrang Awards in full format? is now lost somehow. All that lives is screenshots, audio, and some pics before/after. I also know I have seen like ~2 sec of Paul in the interview that survived. Okay.

Here's audio of the interview:

I have some images from before and after.

1999 USA after show pics

Speaking of female fans, when I was trying to go back to old versions of this gallery's cache instead of using the later URL, I realized she correctly identified this woman as Laura, with her own Geocities site too.

Laura's page has not archived the images properly at all but you can see they were there. She dates them to the June 2nd 1999 Pennsylvania show. I have been yelling in my head for a long time that I suspected these were from 1999 and not 1998. Well? Thank you Laura for putting these online. We respect fangirls in this house.

After consideration, I have realized that despite not having a watermark that Jeremy's story from June 17th Washington applies to these two images and probably origin from him.

"So, we waited and eventually Paul came out. We got 2 pics of him (and they even came out, check them out in the pictures section) and an autograph. He was just sitting by the backstage entrance on some stairs, talking to the opening band (Mindless Self Indulgence), eating cherries from a bowl. He was the only member that we ended up meeting, but I sure am glad I got what I got." ⟫ Source

He was eating cherries on the stairs. I mean yeah. Why not?? Do you know expensive cherries are in the US? Cherries and blackberries are the most expensive here. Yeah my guy, run up the bill on those free cherries. I would too. The food list from Vilnius mentioned a preference for fruits and mentioned grapes. I have seen another list like this from Ahoi tour and there was once again specification of fruits being really desired and that time mentioned citrus.

I managed to locate this functioning obscure CD signing image from the year.

March 2000

One month before debuting some demo Mutter songs at Knaack, there also was an early March update:

There is a message that Paul has left on the answering machine at the FanKlub, dial +49-30-44342370 to hear it. The message will be there from the 2nd to the 10th of March.

What he says (in German): They're working each day except Sunday from 11 AM until 6 PM in a cellar without windows. They have 20 new songs which are almost ready. When they finish these they will record the new CD in a big studio somewhere in Europe. They are also planning their new live show (laser, fire, water-show). They are going to put up photos in a photo gallery and write in the logbook in the FanArea. ⟫ Source

The water show reference is because they tried to put water in Feuer frei with Flake but quickly realized water + guitar electric cables/wires is a risky and bad idea for dangerous electrical fires. In very early Mutter tour shows, they did try the water idea though and some recordings like that exist. The laser element seemed to get incorporated into the Mutter set design's lighting conditions.

Speaking of the fansite I just linked, I discovered this lovely ancient Angelfire site from 99-00 on a whim clicking things and was pleasantly surprised. It's primitive of the time, but very well made and visually archived as intended to be viewed. (Which is rare. Most stuff is broken somehow.) The webmaster is Kristy and she was 16 at the time of creation. (She mentions receiving 5MB of extra server space from Angelfire... I'm in shambles at the reference of 5 megabytes.) Her cute photos and little about me page is very charming. I hope she's out there enjoying some career related to the ocean and marine biology nowadays. I want the best for her. Her music and movie taste is amazing. She even mentions being a fan club member who has got to speak to Paul. That she's developed a real spot for him and I'm like, yeah yeah I feel that. It's so true. He mentioned that he often listened to fan feedback and had this special phone number just for fans which comes from an overlapped time range when Kristy would have been an active fan here. She's likely telling it true. He really was known for being very personable to fans.

Bayern des Samma Mia

The official website linked a YouTube video. Yeah. Of this 10 million view parody. Please the explosion at 1:04 still does me in. This is what we were capable of with Windows Movie Maker.

Which later became LIFAD reality. Art imitates life. Life imitates art.

Seriously. If you wondered why in this tour of all random moments they did it. It's likely because of this video.

1998: English is complicated

Oh my god? Oh my god.

NYROCK: You almost seem to have a cult following...

RICHARD: I wouldn't call it a cult following and I don't see Rammstein as a cult. We're a band with six musicians and nobody is a leader or a cult figure. Of course, Till is the singer so he gets more of the spotlight, but that's normal. Every singer is in the spotlight. ⟫ Source

He doesn't KNOW what cult following means, oh my god??? I love English for being a stupid language. No sir, Rammstein absolutely are a band carried by a cult following in the US and Canada. Even in 1998, people predicted it'd go that route. They haven't received chart success here since like 2004, but they sell out stadiums and arenas anyway. This is the ideal of a band with a cult following. It did happen.

1999: self-awareness

They were aware they were basically the boyband of metal. But too old to pull it off right. And perhaps not organized enough to do it well the first time. So when you see memes like this on Twitter, it's so true.

Flake in late 1999:

Q: Can you live with the notion you appear like a boyband to the harder scene?

Flake: Yeah gladly so. We're a little old for a boygroup but otherwise right. We wanted to do a real dance routine for a video but couldn't pull it off. I suppose we're too clumsy. (laughs) Die Arzte already did something like that in a video but they did it for a joke and we want to be serious. So we asked a choreographer for Du hast, but it didn't pan out. ⟫ Source

They wanted to do choreography, oh my lord. We have a choreographed man still on stage. It's this one.

He also goes on to praise silly exaggerated Bravo articles, the fake ages, and enjoyed them for what it was. Because at least it wasn't political tripe thrown at them. In a now lost media interview, Paul also said they were trying very hard to make a boyband music video. But somehow this didn't pan out. He's gotta be thinking of what Flake meant by the Du hast choreography omg. The female audience baiting state of DRSG 98 is not a coincidence to me.

By the way, they really do know this even in 1998 too.

PG: "Metal 'boy group' band?

RK: By that I mean, it's not a normal band where you have a singer and the band behind them. With Rammstein you have six people onstage and each one of them is part of the visual aspect of the show, as you would have with a boy group band. You can watch anyone on stage and be satisfied by them.

PG: A heavy-metal answer to the Backstreet Boys?

RK: Yes. (laughing) That's a common term here in Europe, "boy group." Also, Rammstein are very unique in a visual way. That makes our show unique. ⟫ Source

Paul was asked about this again around Mutter and basically confirmed the ambition in the early years, but not anymore. Which aligns with Flake and Richard at the time and the new direction taken in Mutter era.

Q: The general reaction from most Radio Goethe female listeners and you're a sort of German boy band. Like Rammstein is the German answer to the Backstreet Boys. What do you think about that?

Paul, turning to an American woman: Are we the Backstreet boys? Yes?
The woman, looking bored: Those women are stupid.
Paul: Yeah, correct. I don't think so. We may have had such ambitions at the start but we're not dumb enough to be a boy band. We're handsome enough, though. ⟫ Source

2009: Pussy and Ich tu wir weh MV premieres

You had to use this German porn site lmao. That was the old page for ITDW. This was the Pussy layout. ITDW probably wasn't supposed to be released that way but the issue with the album and song being "indexed" caused this to seemingly happen.

Me in 2009: I confirm that I am of legal age in my country.
Me also in 2009: I am not 18 in my country.

I was aware of Internet garbage by like 2000. It's fine!! The director has a streaming copy of Pussy on his site last time I checked some years ago lol.

Dalai Lama deserves better

The band said Dalai Lama bored the crowd so they removed it. But in Mannheim one person had a totally different impression. I really wonder if they took one bad response as excuse to remove it. Because I haven't seen anyone in these reviews complain harshly about it. The main issue seems to be the third verse and it being a longer song. (Nearly six minutes omg.) This song has a very unusual structure that is more suited to rap or poetry. Because the song is... essentially poetry. It doesn't have a normal form of any song. It's essentially scary story time with Uncle Till. Amour is a song that received even worse a response apparently. And Stein um Stein wasn't as hot either at first. Dalai Lama at least needed a couple more shows. Damn. Cold.

The only criticism I have? Till really cannot range control to do the soft chorus (komm her blieb hier, wir sind gut zu dir). Let Reesh and Paul take it only. (Even though I suspect Olli was in there, no way he'd want to do it live.) His vocals are struggling that chorus that reminds me of how he executes Klavier. Which is not the correct way or vibe. It loses the tempo of the song to do it wrongly. This song strongly alternates between soft and louder in both music and vocals. You should have seen my mini dissertation of Dalai Lama's lyrics a few months ago that I have sitting here.

If you asked me to tell you my favorite R+ song of all time, I would screech at you for trying to hurt all my 50 children and pit them against one another. And then I would BEGRUDGINGLY and angrily slam my fist down and tell you it's Dalai Lama. Then spend 90 minutes telling you why these other songs are also the best because you dared to make me turn my children against themselves. Suffer.

This is the most Paul song of all time. You can't change my mind. Did I ever love him for superficial imagery, or did I get here in utter rapt fascination with his work on Dalai Lama? We may never know.

rammstein.ro's Rosenrot filming coverage

Sigh. Oh boy here goes Emu and his overbearing Internet team of email people pestering fansites. Here we go again. This time? Trying to cover up Rosenrot's filming. Oh yeah it's gonna work out I'm sure. Control the Internet.

rammstein.ro the Romanian fansite had a nice young lady there during filming who chatted with the band and took photos with permission. She was sent emails disallowing it. The site complied but stood their ground on principle. Management backed off and the images were put back up.

Rammstein.ro has been asked by The Universal Records management to take off the pictures that had been taken yesterday, during the break at the shooting in Romania, pictures that have been published on this site. The cause is that it is believed that the pictures were taken DURING the video shooting and this fact will cause to the image of the band.

We want to mention one more time that:
- the pictures HAD NOT BEEN TAKEN DURING the shooting and NOT on the filming area
- the pictures had been taken in the presence of the band management
- we were also allowed by the group management to talk to the band members
- the pictures are the property of rammstein.ro
- in this way, no copyright law has been break
- the only purpose of the images publishing was the information for the Romania's fans, on no account for commercial or other benefits purposes. ⟫ Source

Absurdity!

As usual, Paul is amazing with female fans:

I caught Paul in a hurry to the filming location...

C: Paul! I have to have an autograph from you!
Paul (very cheerful, with that sweet smile): Sure!

I also explain to him who I am. He is also pleasantly surprised to learn about us.

C: Do you know that you have many fans here in Romania?
Paul: Of course, I know!

C (smiling happily too): Do you really know?
Paul (laughing): Yes, I really know!

C: So, will you come to us in concert?
Paul: Possibly. Now we don't know for sure. Let's see...

Humming something cheerful, he signs on the cover of my DVD, and draws me a smiling face, very funny. As thanks, I throw myself at his neck, kiss him on the cheeks and hold each other tightly. I'm happy...

C: Thank you, Paul. For EVERYTHING. You're...
Paul, approve, help me through gestures and mimicry: "I know... and I will... everything is ok. Only good."

Him interacting with female fans has to be the most 10/10 reviews and texts ever. I swear if this man had Tripadvisor visit ratings he'd have a perfect 5 stars. He knows how to respond and assure ladies in ways the average musician seems to lack. I'm obsessed with everyone's interactions with him. This whole fandom will remember him comforting the young girl during Reise, Reise signings forever. He just interacts with young women in ways that has so much patience and compassion. I don't know how or why he can do it. In Europe, you really can just hug and kiss these men with permission due to cultural norms. Have you not seen the famous 2004 fan signing news clip where cute girls ask Richard for a cheek kiss? You can just do this. European fandoms have the right idea.

How else do you think we get these gems?

By the way, they finally made it to Romania in 2010.

Functioning 2005 Paris signing images

This is not a drill!!!!! Obscure images from 2005 are working. If you like man in band, please check here to find your special one you save images of.

Miscellaneous

Bullet point small things I found along the way:

1. This functional link with obscure 98 Till and Flake images. I have never seen them before. (Which is not saying much.) I found this to be most interesting in terms of age yet the pics loaded, web design era, and how people would throw their own R+ pics onto the net like this. Very interesting.

2. My favorite thing ever is encountering that era of Geocities and Angelfire fansite archives where they were writing about the upcoming FVT leg and purchasing tickets. And linking to primitive online ticketing sites of some 1998 version of Ticketmaster. Insane.

3. Nothing loads at all and I'm quite mad about it, but wtf I found a R+ fansite in 1998 ran by... Alex Becker. I can't take this. When I saw his name listed as the webmaster on someone's links page, I did a double take. The site having a .de TLD is indeed legit something Becker would have had back then. It's definitely him and not some random with the same name. (If you don't know who he is, he's a massively well known R+ fanboy since the early years. He's still around and the band are aware of him by name.)

4. This obscure Lithuanian publication "Vakaro žinios" details the Mutter tour's food and drink requirements for the band and crew. It's fascinating.

>4 litres of fresh full cream milk
It's so true when you have milk cartons in photos.

This is probably from the US with that red colored carton. Which means this is "whole milk" in American standards. The problem? It'll never be full cream. It's very hard to find non-homogenized milk in the US without going to a specialty grocery. It's all homogenized which permanently breaks up the fatty element to the milk that makes it creamy. These poor men would have been dealt major culture shock at homogenized American milk on their tours lmfao. Whole milk is the closest comparison but it's still runny no cream. I buy non-homogenized milk from the brand called "Kalona Supernatural." Our bread and milk is shit here. Good luck finding a nice rye here. These men learned this quickly, I'm sure. I love how when Paul goes to the US in 2015, he still sought out Ukrainian food. I am not surprised.

5. MTV's site used to have 98 live show clips embedded to download. A whopping 640k and 1.1MB. Can your device even handle these big file sizes?

6. Yeah you can thank the official website for these "quality" R+ 2005 concert images. My god. You have actual stage access and this is what you post? Sigh.