Post by alix. on Jan 17, 2008 18:30:34 GMT -5
Interview with Bill and Tom in Black Velvet magazine issue 54.
An Exciting Journey
Tokio Hotel are huge superstars in their homecountry of Germany and across most of Europe. Now armed with their debut album ‘Scream’, it’s time to conquer the rest of the world. There’s no doubt that Tokio Hotel are the full package. Aesthetically they ooze style and charisma, but they’re also capabel of writing intensely energetic and classic rock songs. More impressive still is the fact that the band members are all under the age of 21. Twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz are eager to grasp every new experience that the band can have. They’re ready to speak to Black Velvet about how cool it is to be a twin, singing songs in two languages, and perhaps the only cover version that Tokio Hotel will ever do.
Though Tokio Hotel are already making a name for themselves in the UK, they plan to take everything in their stride and to enjoy being in a new place. “To be honest we’re not feeling under such big pressure, we feel really relaxed,” Bill explains. “For sure we really want to be successfull her and we hope that fans will love our music and ger our feeling. But for us at the moment, as a German band, it’s just so cool to come over here, knowing our music is getting released in the UK. So it’s really exciting time for us and we’re really looking forward to everything happening and seeing how people are reacting to it,” he concludes.
For anyone who’s heard Tokio Hotel’s music, it’s a distinct and unique sound which the band are particulary proud of. “We’ve been together for seven years now and we always try to stick to the special kind of Tokio Hotel sound and feel that we’ve been playing right from the beginning,” Tom states. “If you listen to one of our songs from the beginning you can directly tell that it’s a Tokio Hotel song. Our sound is pretty hard to describe to someone who hasn’t heard it yet but in general I would say it’s German rock music translated into English. We translate our lyrics in a one to one translation. So it’s rock music, it’s very driven, but it does have a special Tokio hotel thing about it which you really have to listen to before you can know what I mean.”
Most bands only have to worry about singing in one language but the translation of their German material to English was very important for Tokio Hotel, illustration just how passionated and seriouos they are about their future. “Going for the English album was our own decision,” Bill explains. “We’d been travelling so much around Europe and other different countries that we kind of came to the point where we wanted to do an English version of our album for our fans just to translate what we are singing because we can’t expect everybody to sit down and translate from German into their own language. So we thought it would be good for the kind of people who are lazy in learning languages – like we are obviousle, we speak German best and find other languages difficult. For these people we go with an English version. For me it was very exciting and a big experience. I’d been used to singing all these songs for all these years in German, my mother tounge. I took the whole thing really seriously because I wanted it to sound good. I wanted it to sound amazing. I didn’t want it to sound like I’de just tried. It took me some time and I gave my best and I’m really proud of the result.”
“Talking about one to one translation of the lyrics,” Tom continues, “this was a new challenge as well. We wanted it to be as near to possible as an exact translation of the German meaning but it has to sound good in English as well, so doing it was a challenge. But in general now when we look at the English album we can say we’re really proud and happy with it,” he finishes.
As soon as the translation of the album was done the boys were keen to sing the English versions of the songs live. ‘Scream’ was released in Europe in the first week of June 2007 and the band played their first UK gig on the 19th June. “We played our showcase in Islington and that was the first time for us where we performed the English album, “ Bill states. “ In the beginning it felt a little bit wierd but it was also very exciting and really cool for us. For sure we want to come back and play live more – that’s what we’re all about, we like to play live as much as possible. When we play the UK we’ll always perform the English material.”
Bill and Tom mer the band’s other two members Georg Listing and Gustav Schäfer in 2001, but have been performing themselves from the astonishing age of nine. Getting accustomed to performing in front of a crowd so young has allowed them to find their own identity as live performers very quickly. “The thing is we started really really early to play live and to perform,” Tom explains. “I mean we were nine when we were standing on stage which was kind of strange but at the same time it was the opportunity to try our own thing very early and give us the confidence to do our own thing. The more you play and the more you are on the road together with each other the better you get and the more experienced you get.”
“I think it’s really very important that you gain your own experience and that you try your own thing,” Bill reiterates. “You meet a lot of people telling you how things have to go and advice about all of your opportunities. At the end of the day you listen to a lot of stuff but in real life things always happen differently as we found out. And yeah, I think everybody should go out there and do their own thing. You get everything out of having your own experiences”, he finishes.
It’s their own experiences which have been fuel for the lyrics to the band’s very successful songs. “A lot of our ideas out of our lives, sure,” Bill says. “A lot of our experiences and things that we have lived through, especially our last German album was about a lot of things we experienced in the last three years. This just gives us so much more material in our hands. We meet new people every day and have new experiences all the time. We’re very thankful for that because we probably see things other people don’t see within 40 years so we’re very thankful for that influence on our daily lives.”
“For sure as a human being and as a person, every one of us is carrying stuff inside us that we think about emotionally,” Tom adds. “We’ve always done it this way – we write things down and that is how we cope with things.”
It was one of the band’s particulary empowering songs, ‘Ready Set Go!’ that became the first UK single. “The song is all about freedom and going through borders – not caring about any borders,” Bill states. “It’s about being brave enough to start a new life. You often find yourself in your own borders that you’ve set yourself in your life and all of a sudden you think ‘oh my gosh, I’m living a life I never wanted, I want to start over’ and that’s what the song is for – to encourage you to do that. It’s about encouragement, new experience and breaking down all borders and walls,” he concludes.
The band undeniably have a very striking image. In the past Bill has designed clothing for the band’s line of merchandise and hopes to design more clothing in the future. The style of Tokio Hotel is for them, just as important as the music. “Our music is us and our style is us,” Tom declares. “That is something that we’ve never let anyone talk us into. It’s something that develpoed by nature. We’re not this kind of band who think ‘this is my stage personality’.”
“I never wanted to think of our image like that,” Bill adds passionately.
“It’s never been my aim to wear a mask all the time,” Tom continues. “What you see is what you get all of the time with us – on stage, next to the stage, our private lives, our style and our music and our personalities are all one together.”
Having a privat life has become increasingly difficult for the members of Tokio Hotel, who certainly miss their home country of Germany when they’re away. “What we miss the most when we are away is obviously family and friends who we don’t see very often these days,”Tom affirms. “Sometimes it’s just a simple as missing being able to sleep in your own bed – it’s your own home and your own four walls that you miss. We are lucky enough to live in nice hotels and to travel through nice cities but there is a point when you get tired of it and when you just want to see your home and be home. I miss being a private person. Really you have to cut being private down when you’re on the road. We just get up in the morning and go to bed for the band, that’s all our life. This is all we’re working for and wall we want actually but sometimes you just miss being private for one day,” he finishes.
Due to lack of time the twins have celebrated landmarks such as their 18th birthday whilst working. However it still doesn’t change the fact that they’re excited about their coming of age. “It’s a freedom thing,” Tom explains. “You can do out and party and probably have a little bit of alcohol and nobody will mind.”
The bond between the twins are extremely tight and very special. In fact neither Bill or Tom deny that they might just have that psychic twin connection. “That’s often what you hear about twins, especially about identical twins which we are,” Bill explains. “We’ve never been apart from each other and we’ve always done everything together, we have the same interests and we are very, veyr much alike. And we honestly do everything together.”
“It’s something that’s really hard for me to explain because it’s like we are soulmates,” Tom adds. “I think ‘what would life be like if I didn’t have a twin?’ and actually I wouldn’t have this kind of connection with anybody else because I know and I can feel what Bill is thinking and that also works the other way around. So if I didn’t have Bill, I wouldn’t have this connection to any other person,” he concludes.
Undoubtedly though, the twins, Georg and Gustav have a lot of compassion for other human beings. They recently joined a variety of high profile artists on the ‘Make Some Noise’ charity album for Amnesty International. It was a very unique occasion as it was the first and perhaps the only time that Tokio Hotel have ever covered another artist’s material. “It was Amnesty International who came up and asked us if we would like to be a part of ‘Make Some Noise’,” Bill states. “It’s a cause to look after human rights and to not look away is you see people being oppressed. The whole concept of ‘Make Some Noise for Amnesty International’ is made by John Lennon covers which were given out for free by Yoko Ono for the very first time. So it was a very big honour for us at this point and even though we’d never covered a song ever before and we actually don’t plan to cover anymore songs in the future, this Amnesty International thing was so important for us because human rights are something that everybody should have and you do have a right on human rights.”
“We’ve always used our human rights to stand up and speak for ourselves and to show who we are,” Tom chips in.
“So that was something that was very important for us in our own lives when we said ‘yes we want to stand up for this’ because everybody should be able to use their human rights,” Bill adds. “We listened to ‘Instant Karma’ and the song was really, really great – we liked the John Lennon version and it was nice to give our Tokio Hotel thing to it. We did the cover just for the charity thing and we loved the result, it was really great,” he finishes.
It’s impossible to condense the list of all Tokio Hotel’s achievements so far. The band are regulary chart toppers tight across Europe and have won a plethora of music awards during their short career. The internet is crammed with fan sites and forums buzzing with news about the boys in multiple languages. Now as their schedule is about to include shows in more and more countries worldwide, the popularity of Tokio Hotel is set to soar on a huge, global scale. That doesn’t mean that Bill and Tom have forgotten how it all started ,though. “We’ve all learnt so much since the beginning and that really hits you in the face if you see our history – as musicians, as live players, for me as a singer and in every aspect you can mention,” Bill explains.
“You have to remember that we met the other two guys, Georg and Gustav when we were 10 years old, which is kind of hilarious and funny when you look back at it,” Tom continues. “We weren’t that good but we had this vision. When you see what’s happened now you can’t believe that it’s us looking back. It’s unbelieveable. Sure we’ve changed as people, our personalities have developed, our private lives have changed, it’s a very exciting journey and it’s a journey that’s very much active.”
For those interested in finding out the specifics of that journey, the twins have a little bit more information. “We used to be called ‘Devilish’ when we first started and if you go on the internet and search for that and you’ll probably see a little bit about it,” Tom explains. “That’s the best thing to compare to how we are now.”
Bill soon chips in with a plea. “Oh no, don’t do that!”
“Actually you’d better not,” Tom laughs. “But that’s how you’d get the best impression of just how much has happened to us,” he finishes.
By: Anne Green
An Exciting Journey
Tokio Hotel are huge superstars in their homecountry of Germany and across most of Europe. Now armed with their debut album ‘Scream’, it’s time to conquer the rest of the world. There’s no doubt that Tokio Hotel are the full package. Aesthetically they ooze style and charisma, but they’re also capabel of writing intensely energetic and classic rock songs. More impressive still is the fact that the band members are all under the age of 21. Twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz are eager to grasp every new experience that the band can have. They’re ready to speak to Black Velvet about how cool it is to be a twin, singing songs in two languages, and perhaps the only cover version that Tokio Hotel will ever do.
Though Tokio Hotel are already making a name for themselves in the UK, they plan to take everything in their stride and to enjoy being in a new place. “To be honest we’re not feeling under such big pressure, we feel really relaxed,” Bill explains. “For sure we really want to be successfull her and we hope that fans will love our music and ger our feeling. But for us at the moment, as a German band, it’s just so cool to come over here, knowing our music is getting released in the UK. So it’s really exciting time for us and we’re really looking forward to everything happening and seeing how people are reacting to it,” he concludes.
For anyone who’s heard Tokio Hotel’s music, it’s a distinct and unique sound which the band are particulary proud of. “We’ve been together for seven years now and we always try to stick to the special kind of Tokio Hotel sound and feel that we’ve been playing right from the beginning,” Tom states. “If you listen to one of our songs from the beginning you can directly tell that it’s a Tokio Hotel song. Our sound is pretty hard to describe to someone who hasn’t heard it yet but in general I would say it’s German rock music translated into English. We translate our lyrics in a one to one translation. So it’s rock music, it’s very driven, but it does have a special Tokio hotel thing about it which you really have to listen to before you can know what I mean.”
Most bands only have to worry about singing in one language but the translation of their German material to English was very important for Tokio Hotel, illustration just how passionated and seriouos they are about their future. “Going for the English album was our own decision,” Bill explains. “We’d been travelling so much around Europe and other different countries that we kind of came to the point where we wanted to do an English version of our album for our fans just to translate what we are singing because we can’t expect everybody to sit down and translate from German into their own language. So we thought it would be good for the kind of people who are lazy in learning languages – like we are obviousle, we speak German best and find other languages difficult. For these people we go with an English version. For me it was very exciting and a big experience. I’d been used to singing all these songs for all these years in German, my mother tounge. I took the whole thing really seriously because I wanted it to sound good. I wanted it to sound amazing. I didn’t want it to sound like I’de just tried. It took me some time and I gave my best and I’m really proud of the result.”
“Talking about one to one translation of the lyrics,” Tom continues, “this was a new challenge as well. We wanted it to be as near to possible as an exact translation of the German meaning but it has to sound good in English as well, so doing it was a challenge. But in general now when we look at the English album we can say we’re really proud and happy with it,” he finishes.
As soon as the translation of the album was done the boys were keen to sing the English versions of the songs live. ‘Scream’ was released in Europe in the first week of June 2007 and the band played their first UK gig on the 19th June. “We played our showcase in Islington and that was the first time for us where we performed the English album, “ Bill states. “ In the beginning it felt a little bit wierd but it was also very exciting and really cool for us. For sure we want to come back and play live more – that’s what we’re all about, we like to play live as much as possible. When we play the UK we’ll always perform the English material.”
Bill and Tom mer the band’s other two members Georg Listing and Gustav Schäfer in 2001, but have been performing themselves from the astonishing age of nine. Getting accustomed to performing in front of a crowd so young has allowed them to find their own identity as live performers very quickly. “The thing is we started really really early to play live and to perform,” Tom explains. “I mean we were nine when we were standing on stage which was kind of strange but at the same time it was the opportunity to try our own thing very early and give us the confidence to do our own thing. The more you play and the more you are on the road together with each other the better you get and the more experienced you get.”
“I think it’s really very important that you gain your own experience and that you try your own thing,” Bill reiterates. “You meet a lot of people telling you how things have to go and advice about all of your opportunities. At the end of the day you listen to a lot of stuff but in real life things always happen differently as we found out. And yeah, I think everybody should go out there and do their own thing. You get everything out of having your own experiences”, he finishes.
It’s their own experiences which have been fuel for the lyrics to the band’s very successful songs. “A lot of our ideas out of our lives, sure,” Bill says. “A lot of our experiences and things that we have lived through, especially our last German album was about a lot of things we experienced in the last three years. This just gives us so much more material in our hands. We meet new people every day and have new experiences all the time. We’re very thankful for that because we probably see things other people don’t see within 40 years so we’re very thankful for that influence on our daily lives.”
“For sure as a human being and as a person, every one of us is carrying stuff inside us that we think about emotionally,” Tom adds. “We’ve always done it this way – we write things down and that is how we cope with things.”
It was one of the band’s particulary empowering songs, ‘Ready Set Go!’ that became the first UK single. “The song is all about freedom and going through borders – not caring about any borders,” Bill states. “It’s about being brave enough to start a new life. You often find yourself in your own borders that you’ve set yourself in your life and all of a sudden you think ‘oh my gosh, I’m living a life I never wanted, I want to start over’ and that’s what the song is for – to encourage you to do that. It’s about encouragement, new experience and breaking down all borders and walls,” he concludes.
The band undeniably have a very striking image. In the past Bill has designed clothing for the band’s line of merchandise and hopes to design more clothing in the future. The style of Tokio Hotel is for them, just as important as the music. “Our music is us and our style is us,” Tom declares. “That is something that we’ve never let anyone talk us into. It’s something that develpoed by nature. We’re not this kind of band who think ‘this is my stage personality’.”
“I never wanted to think of our image like that,” Bill adds passionately.
“It’s never been my aim to wear a mask all the time,” Tom continues. “What you see is what you get all of the time with us – on stage, next to the stage, our private lives, our style and our music and our personalities are all one together.”
Having a privat life has become increasingly difficult for the members of Tokio Hotel, who certainly miss their home country of Germany when they’re away. “What we miss the most when we are away is obviously family and friends who we don’t see very often these days,”Tom affirms. “Sometimes it’s just a simple as missing being able to sleep in your own bed – it’s your own home and your own four walls that you miss. We are lucky enough to live in nice hotels and to travel through nice cities but there is a point when you get tired of it and when you just want to see your home and be home. I miss being a private person. Really you have to cut being private down when you’re on the road. We just get up in the morning and go to bed for the band, that’s all our life. This is all we’re working for and wall we want actually but sometimes you just miss being private for one day,” he finishes.
Due to lack of time the twins have celebrated landmarks such as their 18th birthday whilst working. However it still doesn’t change the fact that they’re excited about their coming of age. “It’s a freedom thing,” Tom explains. “You can do out and party and probably have a little bit of alcohol and nobody will mind.”
The bond between the twins are extremely tight and very special. In fact neither Bill or Tom deny that they might just have that psychic twin connection. “That’s often what you hear about twins, especially about identical twins which we are,” Bill explains. “We’ve never been apart from each other and we’ve always done everything together, we have the same interests and we are very, veyr much alike. And we honestly do everything together.”
“It’s something that’s really hard for me to explain because it’s like we are soulmates,” Tom adds. “I think ‘what would life be like if I didn’t have a twin?’ and actually I wouldn’t have this kind of connection with anybody else because I know and I can feel what Bill is thinking and that also works the other way around. So if I didn’t have Bill, I wouldn’t have this connection to any other person,” he concludes.
Undoubtedly though, the twins, Georg and Gustav have a lot of compassion for other human beings. They recently joined a variety of high profile artists on the ‘Make Some Noise’ charity album for Amnesty International. It was a very unique occasion as it was the first and perhaps the only time that Tokio Hotel have ever covered another artist’s material. “It was Amnesty International who came up and asked us if we would like to be a part of ‘Make Some Noise’,” Bill states. “It’s a cause to look after human rights and to not look away is you see people being oppressed. The whole concept of ‘Make Some Noise for Amnesty International’ is made by John Lennon covers which were given out for free by Yoko Ono for the very first time. So it was a very big honour for us at this point and even though we’d never covered a song ever before and we actually don’t plan to cover anymore songs in the future, this Amnesty International thing was so important for us because human rights are something that everybody should have and you do have a right on human rights.”
“We’ve always used our human rights to stand up and speak for ourselves and to show who we are,” Tom chips in.
“So that was something that was very important for us in our own lives when we said ‘yes we want to stand up for this’ because everybody should be able to use their human rights,” Bill adds. “We listened to ‘Instant Karma’ and the song was really, really great – we liked the John Lennon version and it was nice to give our Tokio Hotel thing to it. We did the cover just for the charity thing and we loved the result, it was really great,” he finishes.
It’s impossible to condense the list of all Tokio Hotel’s achievements so far. The band are regulary chart toppers tight across Europe and have won a plethora of music awards during their short career. The internet is crammed with fan sites and forums buzzing with news about the boys in multiple languages. Now as their schedule is about to include shows in more and more countries worldwide, the popularity of Tokio Hotel is set to soar on a huge, global scale. That doesn’t mean that Bill and Tom have forgotten how it all started ,though. “We’ve all learnt so much since the beginning and that really hits you in the face if you see our history – as musicians, as live players, for me as a singer and in every aspect you can mention,” Bill explains.
“You have to remember that we met the other two guys, Georg and Gustav when we were 10 years old, which is kind of hilarious and funny when you look back at it,” Tom continues. “We weren’t that good but we had this vision. When you see what’s happened now you can’t believe that it’s us looking back. It’s unbelieveable. Sure we’ve changed as people, our personalities have developed, our private lives have changed, it’s a very exciting journey and it’s a journey that’s very much active.”
For those interested in finding out the specifics of that journey, the twins have a little bit more information. “We used to be called ‘Devilish’ when we first started and if you go on the internet and search for that and you’ll probably see a little bit about it,” Tom explains. “That’s the best thing to compare to how we are now.”
Bill soon chips in with a plea. “Oh no, don’t do that!”
“Actually you’d better not,” Tom laughs. “But that’s how you’d get the best impression of just how much has happened to us,” he finishes.
By: Anne Green
i wish i had a twin(sings in die nacht<3),its pretty hard to find your 'soulmate' in this world, and to have someone who has the same interests as you would be great.. i really hope they do well in the US .. im suppose to have a lot more things to say while i was reading,but this was all i could remember(too lazy to read again) .. one more thing,bill and tom answers questions very well