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marimayscarlett · 21 days ago

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Richard with Rockland.fm 🎤💬

Shortly after the release of his third Emigrate album "A Milliong Degrees", Richard was interviewed in 2018 by the radio station Rockland.fm and this interview video was released.

The interview is very interesting, but the radio station has published additional parts of the interview that are not included in the video. On this page, you can click through the various topics and questions, and audio clips of Richard will play accordingly. It's a very innovative way to discover an interview, with nice details, because Richard is once again very relaxed and at ease here. Since I adore the interview a lot, I thought I'd translate it into English, as it's only available in German.

Incidentally, I had the opportunity to pay attention to Richard's manner of speaking and expression again - he speaks quite quickly, doesn't use complicated vocabulary, is very direct and sometimes even flippant. Filler words are simply part of his speech, so he uses a lot of "ja" (in the sense of "right" or "you know"), "irgendwie" ("somehow") "im Grunde genommen" ("basically") and "komischerweise" ("strangely enough"). I am not a professional translator, yet I have tried to reproduce his narrative tone in English while smoothing out what he says a little.

It is quite long and maybe not very interesting for most people, but maybe someone will enjoy it 🤍

Was there a moment, where you wanted to abandon music altogether?

I’ve reached a point, around the time I turned 50, when I thought „Man, is this everything in my life? Is doing music, is doing what I do somehow…isn’t there something else, another challenge I feel like doing?“ That’s something where I think: I’m not sure what exactly, but I feel like I’d like to do something completely different with my life. I do believe that music would still be a part of fit, I would still do that, since it’s a form of communication with myself.

Do you have the desire to change something // to quit music?

Well, doing it on your own is a tricky thing. I believe, it doesn’t work well, working on your own, since of course you do have the need to present it [the music] to someone else. It’s like you’d have a kid and wouldn’t let it outside. It really should go somewhere, I think. But [the desire to] change things, this occurred quite frequently. I mean, I wanted to quit Rammstein numerous times, right, because I simply didn't feel like it anymore, but additionally since I wanted to work with new people, I wanted to learn so much more. I’m not that monogamous in this regard.

NO Schlager (german type of cheesy pop songs mostly enjoyed by older people)

There are a few things…I just can’t cope with Schlager, I can’t find my way to it, right. That’s a bit due to the manner they [the Schlager artists] they do music, how they write their lyrics and what they express, this ever-present grinning… it’s completely alien to me. There are people in our band who really like this kind of music. Well, one wouldn’t think that, right, but it’s not form me.

Is your choice of music depending on your mood?

Well, of course. When I have sex I listen to different music that when I go in the gym in the mornings.

How do you start your day?

I basically start my mornings like this: I wake up and basically listen to the radio. Then I go running or to the gym, and that’s where I listen to certain things, yet logically I don’t listen to music like an ordinary person anymore. I analyze what I hear immediately. It starts in my head: How did the artist compose this song, why is it a certain length, what kind of sounds did they use. A complete analysis, somehow pretty scientific how I approach this.

How do you unwind when your mind is full?

Movies. That’s the only thing where I can really unwind. I tried everything else, but with movies I’m completely immersed and „gone“. And sometimes my daughter manages to do that too. Just having fun with her, those are the two things.

Why the arm band?

I can tell you where the arm band comes from: It actually originated from Michael Jackson’s arm band, I copied that from him. He wore it and I thought it was stylish.

Should artist express themselves politically on stage?

There are people who apparently have to do that… There are people like Bono, he just kind of stands there during the show and talks [about political matters] for 45 minutes and you somehow feel more shitty (he uses the word „beschissen“ which is very strong in the German language) than before. That’s not my style. I’m someone who thinks politically, I do have my opinions on things I witness, but as I said, the idea of going on stage and saying, “You have to do it this way,” has never appealed to me.

Your opinion on award shows?

Strangely, it doesn’t interest me much. Sometimes I just attend the party afterwards – I haven’t been to the actual award celebration in a while. And when I’m at the after party, I think „Oh God, what am I doing here. I don't have anything to do here anymore.“ So I always have the feeling of ‚I don’t belong here‘.

How did Lemmy Kilmister's death affect you?

He once played at the Max Schmeling Halle, and I visited him shortly before to concert to thank him. And that’s when I had the feeling that he was no longer ‚here‘. Woah…that was strange. No idea if he really wanted that [I presume Richard talks about Lemmy doing the concert] or if he was pressured by someone else, somehow, I did have the feeling that he was not on this world anymore. I kind of noticed some kind of omen. And strangely enough, as I started my new album in 2015 I asked three artists for an collaboration. And all three people I asked have died – Bowie, Chester [Bennington] and Chris Cornell. That’s when I thought „Eh, I really should stop with these inquiries.“.

Musically open-minded

I can’t cope with German Hiphop. I try it time and time again and it’s just my way to live. Ok, I understand, you’re rebelling right now with this, but are you really believing what you’re singing? Somehow, it's kind of macho language that's being used there. And that’s when I oftentimes get the feeling with German Hiphop, that there isn't really any musicality behind it, right.

Why is rock music dead?

Back in the day, rock music served the purpose of rebellion. Just because of the guitar, just because of the frequency of the sound, your parents said, “Ugh, that's too loud, turn it down.” And now we’re the parents. So I’m the one who doesn’t say „Turn it down“, since I know this sound. Today, rebellion emerges in language, in hip hop. Secondly, no real rock stars exist anymore. No one else is coming up behind them. And thirdly: in terms of streaming, who benefits the most from it? Hip hop, the people who stream the most, who have the most time, kids nowadays, and so on and so forth, and the fact is that at the moment, most of the money goes to hip hop productions, which don't actually need that much, because rock music is the most expensive to produce. They’re the ones who could use the money. And there are several topics where I have the feeling that rock music is somehow dead.

Do you sort your CDs at the record store so they show up first?

Nope, I don’t do that. No, I’m not at this point yet (he means this in a joking way). Well, I believe that there aren’t many record stores anymore where you could do that. My guess is that the physical realm of music has completely changed. Second, is rock music dead? Yes, unfortunately, it is. You just have to accept reality.

Do you check the charts when albums are released?

Well, I naturally come across these information. On the one hand it does interest me in a professional sense and on the other hand I don’t really want to know it. I’m afraid that somehow these information, why certain things work (he means in a musical sense, why they’re liked by the audience), would have the potential to have an influence on other work. A certain kind of vacuum, a kind of naivety, is super important, because then you start to really want to please someone. And that's the danger.

How does it feel when a new album is released?

Well, basically you have to let go at some point. Your work is basically done, yet an album develops a life of its own and then you have to let it go and then it goes in certain kind of directions and you can only observe it from afar.

Leaving the GDR

I thought about it a lot, then went abroad, and first had to figure out how I felt about my country in general. That was an important experience for me. I found the answer to it all only abroad, since you don’t have the nagging feeling of ‚you’re guilty‘. That’s also an important topic, we were brought up with feeling of guilt in the East. I tried to get rid of this, right. And I managed to do just that in the US and returned to Germany with a different set of feelings.

Childhood in the GDR // escape // first time in West-Berlin

I loved growing up in the East up until the age of 11 or 12, since I was brought up with a certain kind of illusion which was spread. Today, I witness how my children grow up, what kind of problems they have to deal with – I didn’t have these kind of problems, right. Certain things just didn’t exist in the East. It did turn challenging when you noticed „Hm, something isn’t right here“. And when you started to ask questions, it did somehow get very strange. And I do not want to experience this time again, right. That’s when the problems began. And if I could make a wish, yes, I would have liked the wall to have been open from around the age of 12 or 13. I had a feeling of ‚there has to be more, I have to get out of here‘. I escaped in 1989 due to a situation I did not actually intend. I stumbled into a demonstration, where I was arrested and interrogated for three days, standing against the wall and so on and so forth. And when I was released, I couldn’t breath anymore, I needed to leave. I remember, my first thoughts when I entered West-Berlin were „Oh, it’s so dark here“. The energy of West-Berlin was extremely gloomy in my opinion. It did scare me a bit. I didn’t feel very comfortable there, right. So I had to adapt there somehow. It really was a lonely time back then.

Touring with Emigrate?

I have to admit, that the balance [between Rammstein and Emigrate] is very important to me, and that I’m a bit worried, that if I commit to Emigrate [as in touring], I’d maybe find more joy in it and that the balance would be off. And I don’t think that’s good for the other project [Rammstein]. As soon as I’d say I’d go on tour [with Emigrate], others would have to wait for me, so that wouldn’t be good either of the projects. Who knows what comes next – currently, there are no plans for something like this.

What is „We are together“ about?

This song was written for the guys (he uses the word „Jungs“ (boys) here), for Rammstein. It’s about Rammstein, the basic principle of it, right. Rammstein exists as long as we stay, we’re together as long as we stay (he said this sentence in English). That’s kind of the feeling I have with Rammstein.

Million Degrees – why the title and the cover?

During that time I was feeling so burned out, the title Million Degrees seemed to be fitting for the album. I did focus, since I wanted to visualize this title on the album cover, mainly on temperature, hot, cold, right. And I tried to visualize it for a whole year and didn’t manage to do it, until I noticed that it’s actually not about hot and cold, but about corners, edges and so on. And then I somehow got the idea of the head made out of mirrors, right.

Million Degrees – ruined on the first round…

Strangely enough, I get relatively calm in situations like this [he means the extensive water damage in his house], since I always have the feeling that if something happens, it does have a good reason to be happening – because in the end you see why things happen the way they do. So I became completely calm and took it as a challenge. Suddenly I notice that the flame [his passion for the album] was reignited. In retrospect I’m very, very (in German he says „ganz doll“, which sounds kind of cute and reinforces his statement) glad about it, because when I now listen to it, I notice how much of my contentment and pride is part of this album, which is a feeling I didn’t have before. In that regard it just got better.

This album has a long story…

This album actually was done and ready beforehand, in 2015. And then I noticed how burned out I was for the first time in my life, and not able to give anymore what I usually give [energywise] in an album. I did finish it in Los Angeles, yet as I returned, I set the project aside. And then the insane water damage happened, which flooded half the studio and the recordings for the album were destroyed (he uses „am Arsch“ which is a very crude way to say it 😅). So I had to rewrite the songs based on memory. A great challenge for me.

How do you listen to music?

It depends, but basically I listen to music by listening to the music together with the lyrics, naturally. If it touches me in any way, I start to listen more intently to the lyrics, which are incidental to me in the beginning.

Which comes first: music or lyrics?

90% of the time, the music exists first, and then I try to match my singing to the music, at some point a text line emerges which stays with me and which makes me think „Oh, it’s about that“. So I’m trying to really work intuitively, I don’t really work in my head, so to speak. I take my iPhone and record it and after a month or so, I check the recordings and sometimes there are pieces which make me think „Pfff, bullshit“. Yet some things stay. But 90% of the time, the music exists in the first place.

Good songs only come from suffering

I believe that the basic concept of many artists seems to be that they always feel their way into a certain dark world in order to extract a certain creativity from it. I always said that if I’m content, I wouldn’t make music anymore. Of course it’s unhealthy that you unconsciously put yourself in situations where you suffer. But that's because when someone doesn't write and then, so to speak, can no longer write, they lose their value, which is a real problem. (He very clearly speaks about his personal mindset here).

How do you write songs? How does that work in the studio?

Strangely enough, my attitude towards this is very pragmatic. I copied a working method of a New York painter, who entered his studio in the morning and had 10 paintings laying around. He started working on one and as soon as he noticed that he longer received any association, he moved on to the next. That’s the way I do it, too. I enter my studio around 12pm, that’s when I start. I can’t work earlier than that, only listen to music. And then I start opening songs for which I have ideas in mind and am rather quickly aware if there’s a connection to the song today. And if this connection exists, then I write, and when it ceases, I move on to the next song. I do that repeatedly, until I pick up my daughter at half past five (she most likely visits a full-time day school by the sound of it). And I do this almost everyday when I’m at the studio.

Distance between artists and fans

There are some things I don't do on principle. I love a certain distance. I think that a certain kind of myth is important for both parties involved, for the artists and the fans as well somehow, since it offers the possibility to inspire the imagination. And that's often the case, the closer you get, the more disappointed you are in the end. In this regard I find a certain distance very important. Nowadays it happens a lot that people are getting way closer. I then contemplated, where is this leading? So will it eventually be the case that your fans determine what you write? And that’s a certain point, that would cross a line for me, right.

Everything moves very quickly these days

Due to streaming, Spotify and whatever, nowadays everything moves very quickly. We sadly live in a very ‚quantity‘ times. I as a person prefer quality over quantity. But I noticed, especially with releases, that it’s the people’s attention what’s important. They want more and more content. And it's not really about quality anymore. It's simply about more is more.

About ‚Let’s go‘ – with Till Lindemann

This song is incredibly old. I actually wrote it for the first Emigrate album. And I thought back then that it wouldn’t be the appropriate place, if I’d put it on the first album – I didn’t like the name-dropping, that would’ve been too quick for me. So I disregarded the song, forgot about it and later dug it up again. I rewrote it completely. It’s actually about our friendship, even before the whole Rammstein thing. How you change over the years, so it was like a journey into the past with us, in a way. It’s a friendship-song.

How do you find duet partners?

So basically I write the songs and sometimes consider which artist could improve the song. Most of the time I have specific artists in mind, and I ask them. With the song 1234, it was the first time that my management asked „Well, could you see yourself collaborating with Billy Talent?“ When I heard Billy Talent, I always thought about the guitarist, who has a super unique sound I think. But the singer wasn't really a household name for me at the time. So I said, ok, we could try it. And the song came back and I must admit, Ben somehow added so much fire and cheekiness to the song. He brought the song even more to life. I thought this was great.

Is it strange to use your voice for Emigrate and not just play the guitar?

Back in the day when we started Rammstein, I actually intended to sing. I didn’t to it, thank God I didn’t. Otherwise we wouldn’t have this wonderful Till and his poetic outpourings in our lives. But I think if you write and evolve as a song writer, you automatically use your own voice as a tool to write stuff. First you do it as a demo, a sketch, and you think in the end someone comes along who will sing it properly. As I started, which is quite a long time ago, back then my musical patron and friend from France Arnaud Giroux told me „Forget it. The way you do it is unique.“ And of course, with singing you have some problems to listen to yourself in the beginning. It’s a totally different deal than playing an instrument. And then it's just a matter of habit, that people get used to it, or I myself get used to my own voice. In that regard there certainly was a development in my own voice.

Emigrate as a balance to Rammstein?

It’s kind of an opponent. It’s somehow like these two topics form a balance for me, so that I can act out the things here which I can’t act out in Rammstein, so to speak. And it works quite well by now. It’s a good balance for me. It goes both ways.

Several different genres on the new album

Maybe I somehow personally, especially when it comes to music, don’t like to settle. And really use every possible genre of music to run wild. I like that there’s no censorship. In my mind, it [Emigrate] is thought to be a place where I can act out what I can’t act out otherwise. In that regard it’s very important to me to do it that way.

What’s so special about this project?

The whole Emigrate project is an opportunity for me to be open to everything. Not everybody likest hat. Lots of people say „You’re doing too much, that’s too much for me.“ But that’s exactly the idea to basically escape the very controlled cosmos of the Rammstein-republic, so to speak, and to open myself up musically. And not to get dictated where I should go musically.

#oh boy. oh boy this got long #no idea why i did that. but it was fun to analyze him for a bit #“rock ist tot” ja is gut opa #geh bisschen filme gucken #SPASS. lieb den kerl #richard kruspe #rammstein #interviews & quotes #rockland.fm #no idea if my english is good enough whelp

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