Till Lindemann (b. April 1, 1963) is a German musician, most notable as being the lead singer of the rock band Rammstein.

Contents

1 Personal characteristics 2 Personal Background 3 Musical career 4 Interview 4.1 On growing up 4.2 On pronounciation 4.3 On child abuse, incest, and Rammstein's music 4.4 On his inspirations for lyrics/poems 5 Quotes 6 Footnote 7 References 8 External links

Personal characteristics

On stage, he is known to crouch like an in-fielder, pounding his fist (like he's swinging a hammer) to the beat of the riff. He speaks excellent English, and at concerts he usually thanks the crowd in their native language.

Lindemann is a qualified pyrotechnician. After an accident at the Treptow arena in Berlin on September 27, 1996, where a burning stage prop fell into the audience, Rammstein began employing a professional pyrotechnical crew and Lindemann has learned and trained with them. Each band member is specially instructed on the pieces of pyrotechnical equipment they use on stage.

According to Lindemann, he likes Chris Isaak, Marilyn Manson, Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and Mike Oldfield, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Type O Negative, Limp Bizkit, Placebo, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and jazz in the park on a Sunday afternoon. He says, "for me Kraftwerk was the first real German band."

Lindermann is approximately 1.90 m (6' 3") tall and weighs approx 100 kg (220 lb). At one time, he did have his left ear pierced, but has worn no earring in a long time. He has no known tattoos. As far as religious beliefs go, Lindemann has stated that he is an atheist.

As of October 2004 he has four children: two girls and at least one boy (the gender of the fourth is unknown).

Personal Background

Lindemann was born in Leipzig, but he grew up in the village of Wendisch-Rambow in Schwerin (East Germany). His father, Werner Lindemann, was a poet, and his mother, Brigitte (Gitta) Lindemann, is an artist and writer who has co-written at least one book with her husband. Lindemann has one sister, six years younger than himself. At age 11 he went to a sports school at the Rostock Sports Club, and from 1977-1980 attended a boarding school. His parents divorced in 1975, when he was age 12.

In the years 1976-1979, Lindemann was a good swimmer who became junior vice-European champion. He finally left sports school in 1979. It is possible that he was thrown out of sports school due to him sneaking out, unaccompanied, of a hotel in Italy on a swimming tour. But he also suffered an injury, a torn abdominal muscle - so either reason could be valid. According to Lindemann, "I never liked the sport school actually, it was very intense. But as a child you don't object."

His first job was at a peat cutting company, but he was fired after three days. He worked as an apprentice carpenter, a gallery technician, and was most well-known as a basket weaver.

In 1981, Lindemann apparently refused to do his 9 months compulsory military service and was almost imprisoned because of the refusal. Many young men used to do "Ersatzdienst" or "substitute or reserve service", so he may have done this.

In 1985, when Lindemann was 22, his first daughter, Nele, was born. Lindemann and Nele's mother married after she is born, but they separated and he has raised Nele. Lindemann says, "I used to play drums in a punk band and we had our studio in the house where I lived. Seven years I had been an upbringing father, but nowadays I'm sharing the upbringing with her mother, because I'm gone for six months of the year with the band."

The Berlin Wall came down November 9th, 1989, and Germany started its path to reunification. On this, Lindemann says, "After the wall had been opened, I drove to West Germany and bought gummy bears and yogurt for my salutation money. But there wasn't anything else."

His father died in November of 1992, after drinking himself to death. He was buried in the grounds of a church near Wendisch-Rambow.

Lindemann had a second daughter with Anja Köseling, his former partner/wife. Köseling claimed Lindemann abused her physically during their relationship and that he refused to pay child support for their daughter (b. ca. 1993). Lindemann has never commented on her claim.

In a radio interview in 2004, Lindemann stated that he wants to retire at 50 to spend more time with his children.

Musical career

In 1986, he started to play drums for First Arsch, also known as "First Art": a play on words perhaps meant to distract the authorities. It was a Schwerin-based punk band. They made one album titled Saddle Up.

Lindemann also played in a band called Feeling B. A song called Leid von der unruhevollen Jugend (Song of the Restless Youth) is credited on the album called Hea Hoa Hoa Hoa Hea Hoa Hea (1990).

Later in the 1990's, Richard begins working with Schneider and Olli, creating the Rammstein sound. Lindemann begins to write lyrics, possibly based on phrases and words from poems that he was beginning to write. He says he "used to drum in a punk band that consisted of bass and drums. We used to work with guest-guitarists, usually Paul and Richard. We did a short tour where I changed instruments with the bassist in the encore, that was such a success, that Richardard insisted on starting a project in which I would sing. Other people joined the band but only when I left Schwerin for Berlin did it take serious form."

In 1994, they entered and won a contest in Berlin that allowed them to professionally record a four track demo. Lindemann moved to Berlin. Paul Landers formally joined the band, followed by the last member to join, Christian "Flake" Lorenz.

It's well documented that all the band members had women problems about the time Herzeleid was written, and this appears to have provided Lindemann with excellent writing material. Herzeleid was finally released in September 1995. Two years later, in August 1997, the band's breakout alblum, Sehnsucht, was released.

On June 5, 1999 in Worcester, Massachusetts (USA) Lindemann and Flake Lorenz were arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior. A statement from Sgt. Thomas Radula of the Worcester Police Department stated that Lindemann was simulating sex with Flake onstage "using a phallic object that shot water over the crowd." They were held and released the following day on $25 bail. After months of legal debate, they were eventually fined $100.

In April 2001, the alblum "Mutter" was released and a European tour followed, ending on the 13th of July 2002. It has been reported that at this time the members of Rammstein were seriously discussing whether to continue or not in their present form. It was decided that they should all take some time off and then reconsider whether to continue.

Consequently, in November 2002 Lindemann's own project, the poetry book Messer, was published. It consists of 54 poems compiled by Gert Hof, who is author of the book Rammstein and has been the band's pyrodesigner for the last seven years [1]. This book is due to be re-printed in 2005 due to a campaign by a fansite [2]

In 2003 he started work on the fourth album, which was to prove a turning point in Rammstein's sound and maturity. September 2004 saw the fruits of this work in the release of Reise Reise. Tour was in November, followed by hugely successful sold out European tour of ten countries lasting four months.

After completing the Ahoi tour in February of 2005, Rammstein is due to play four dates in Berlin, returning to the Wuhlheide open air arena almost exactly seven years after their sell-out concerts of August 1998. They are scheduled to release a new album, containing new songs and songs remaining from the recording of Reise Reise, in late 2005 or early 2006.

Interview

These quotes are from original interviews with Lindemann between 1996-2002. For a man who dislikes being interviewed, he gives a lot of interviews, and they are quite interesting and give great insight into his thinking. Some minor editing for clarity has been done, but no content has been changed.

On growing up

Till: "When I was an adolescent, I was obsessed with having many commercial things, cars, clothes, stupid things. Now that I have all that, I include/understand that the superfluous things can turn to you into a very stupid idiot-type. In East Germany there were very few things, but there was also a feeling of solidarity that no longer exists. Now we are up to the neck in consumption, the ego, the individualism. Now before friendship, it is merchandise."

On pronounciation

The rolling "R" didn't arise deliberately. It originated from itself because in that deep pitch you automatically sing that way. I'm no musician in the actual meaning. I don't know anything about instruments. But I'm supporting our music with my voice and lyrics well. It's a question of illustration, timbre and phonetics. We don't want to - for heaven's sake - create a fascist-like style.

On child abuse, incest, and Rammstein's music

Interviewer: "...Rammstein's like Karl May - you don't have to murder, ravish and dishonor on your own to create lyrics about mangling, abusing children and inbreeding..."

That's exactly the point: you're talking about mangling, abusing children and inbreeding. I wish people would talk about such topics in a much more sensitive way.

My daughter's in an age [12/13 at this time] in which something like that could happen to her ... And that's why I dare to imagine how this would be like. Would my daughter be a victim, I'd cut one of the balls of the perpetrator off or shoot him or something like that. On the other hand, I can sit down in the dark somewhere in a corner of the room and think about what made him do that. And about what made me imagine and maybe understand his urge. These are the two sides: on the one side is the reason, the moral, my perfectly normal life - that's out of question for myself. But then I'm sitting down, I'm closing my eyes and I'm thinking about - for example - that moment the day before yesterday when I felt a particular desire for that adult woman - why shouldn't a person feel such a desire as well? Somebody who can't be blamed because he had been abused in his childhood as well. And he might not be able to judge on what it means to feel that kind of desire for a child. In which way are you going to valuate on that?

Our song "Tier" ("Beast" or "Animal") is about incest. Sex between father and daughter is something that only happens among animals. "Was macht ein mann; der zwischen mensch und tier nicht unterscheiden kann?" ("What makes a man? Between man and beast, who can tell the difference?") is something I ask at the beginning of the song. "Er wird zu seinen tochter gehen. Was willst du; was fühlst du. Du bist eigentlich ein Tier" ("He will go to his daughter. What do you want; what do you feel? You are simply an animal.") I have a daughter of twelve I try to raise. And I try very hard to understand how someone can answer to himself for the love he makes with his own child.

I simply cannot imagine that someone would lie on top of his child and be aroused. In the first part, I describe the situation with one conclusion; only animals can do this. There is no difference between animal behaviour and this. In the second part, I ask myself "was macht eine frau; die zwischen Tier und mann nicht unterscheiden kann?" ("What makes a woman; between beast and man, who can tell the diffeerence?") Here, the focus lies on the child who has grown up to be a woman, but has to go through life with the nightmare from her childhood. She writes a letter to herself about her youth. When her father slept with her. She basically became an animal.

The fact is she has been destroyed. It is a cycle: What happens to you in your childhood you have to carry for the rest of your life.

On his inspirations for lyrics/poems

I try to put myself in the mind of certain people: how do some f**ked up situations happen. I want to enter their brain: a space with brightly colored and black and white cobwebbed nooks and crannies, the ones you don't like to come close to because of the mess you will find. I only try to describe, without attacking. I understand that people can be shocked by that.

Only five minutes ago, I read in a newspaper that we incite people to violence. I have read that before, but the reaction that came closest to me was a letter from a girl that had been raped when she was nine or ten years old. She wrote that she could identify with the song "Weisses Fleisch" - that was also in the index for a short while. I spoke about rape while she couldn't. She had grown up with the idea that she had to keep that period from her youth a secret, and couldn't tell anyone. Through my song, she understood she could talk about it. She was so grateful I had written that song... I still don't understand what people get so excited about.

I have seen in Indonesia what happens to children and prostitutes. And if you would know what happens in this town at night behind the curtains, my lyrics are very innocent. Those little studios and basement steps of the Red Light district, those small S&M shops with cages and whips: how sick is humanity? And in comparison, how little the themes are that I use in my lyrics, or the things I do onstage?

Interviewer: And yet you are obsessed by the things that take place in those little studios and shops because that is what you write about...

That has more to do with the fact that all the other subjects are so dull. It has all been said already! What I hear in German music doesn't grab me by the balls. It is all about love tra la la...

Quotes

• Loneliness sometimes gives me a quantity of creativeness - you're drinking another glass of wine and you're feeling even worse. Art doesn't work without pain; art also exists for compensating pain.

Footnote

The date of his children's births have been worked out from interviews, i.e. in an interview in 1997 Till mentions his daughter, Nele, is 12. Therefore she must have been born about 1985. Marie-Luise was born the end of June 1994. In October 2004 Richardard was quoted as saying Till had four children. At least one is a son that Till himself mentioned in an interview in 2001. The gender of the last child is unknown.

References

• IMDB bio of Till Lindermann

External links

Material from various interview sources and radio interviews.

• [3]
• [4]
• ABC.net album review
• Verboten.rammimages.com pictures