Rammstein

Rammstein is a German band formed in Berlin in January 1994. It has been formed since its foundation by Till Lindemann (vocals), Richard Z. Kruspe (guitar and backing vocals), Paul H. Landers (guitar and backing vocals), Oliver ” Ollie” Riedel (bass), Christoph “Doom” Schneider (drums and electronic percussion) and Christian “Flake” Lorenz (keyboards). By 2009, they had sold around 20 million albums worldwide.

Rammstein’s live performances are known for being theatrical and pyrotechnic, winning awards in the category in several countries. Rammstein’s entire catalog is published by Universal Music Group. The majority of its members come from East Germany, specifically East Berlin and Schwerin, and since its formation, the group has not undergone any changes to its original members.

History

The band’s name comes from the Ramstein disaster, a plane crash that occurred in the small German town of Ramstein in 1988 during an aerial acrobatics exhibition, in which three Italian planes collided and fell into the audience, causing the death of 70 people and injuries. The band then added an extra “M” to the name, causing a pun with Rammen, which means to hit, dig in, to clash, and “stein”, which means stone. “Rammstein” literally translates as battering ram. In a special article from 2019, Metal Hammer magazine reported that the band had been named after the song “Ramstein”, one of the first they created when they did not yet have a name. People soon began referring to them as “the Ramstein music band” and later as the “Ramstein band”.

Rammstein coexisted with the members’ previous projects for about a year and a half. The members invested the proceeds from their shows with Feeling B (one of these projects) into Rammstein. They recorded their first songs in a building occupied by the Feeling B singer Aljoscha Rompe.

Of the bands that sing in German, it is the one that achieved the greatest success outside of Germany, mainly with the second album “Sehnsucht” (1997, whose cover was considered one of the most controversial of all time, appearing in ninth place in the classification of the Gigwise website, then with “Mutter” (2001) and “Reise, Reise” (2004) In 2003 there was a performance of the song “Mein Herz brennt” by the Dresden Symphony Orchestra.

His fifth work initially announced as “Reise, Reise (Vol.2)”, ended up being called “Rosenrot” (2005). “Liebe ist für alle da was” then released and was edited in Stockholm and released on October 16, 2009, in Europe (October 20, 2009, in the rest of the world). The album contains eleven tracks in the standard edition and 16 songs in the special edition, including the controversial song “Pussy”, released on September 18, 2009, which caused controversy for featuring the members in explicit sex scenes (the band has already had performed nude once in the United States. In 2007, their albums were at risk of censorship and even being banned in 2007 by a youth support body called Kreisjugendpfleger, as they were considered unsuitable for minors.

Band Symbol

The band’s official website released the first dates of the tour “Made in Germany 1995 – 2011”. According to the news, Rammstein brought together the most significant songs from their 16-year career, and the tour began crossing Europe on November 6, 2011. International ticket sales began on June 24. The tour resulted in an album of the same name, with 20 songs by the band, including an unreleased track and a catalog of all videos from Rammstein’s career in CD/DVD format.

On March 22, 2012, everyone in the band except Till Lindemann participated in the song “The Beautiful People” by Marilyn Manson at the Echoverleihung 2012 festival.

In July 2013, guitarist Paul Landers revealed in an interview the possibility of the band releasing a documentary and a live DVD, the DVD referred to as “In Amerika”, released in 2015. He further indicated that the band could “start thinking” about a new album in 2014. In September 2014, guitarist Richard Z. Kruspe (who at the time was about to release the second album with his side project Emigrate, Silent So Long stated that the band was preparing some more live DVDs and taking a break from studio work. He later reiterated that the band was at a standstill, saying that the members decided to pause Rammstein for a year starting in autumn 2014 for the members to focus on side projects.

In 2015, however, musician Peter Tägtgren, who works with Till Lindemann in the Lindemann side project, reported that Till would reunite with his bandmates later this year to pre-produce the band’s new album, which normally takes two years to produce. Released

In March 2017, the band announced their new film “Paris”, directed by Jonas Åkerlund, known for directing several of the band’s other works and was recorded during the Made in Germany Tour in 2012, with an exclusive worldwide release in cinemas in several countries. The film’s premiere occurred on March 16th at the Volksbühne Theater in Berlin and March 23rd in the rest of the world. Recently in an interview, Richard Kruspe said that he already has 35 new songs ready, and Paul Landers stated that since 6 of these songs were good, the probability of a new album is enormous.

In April 2018, the band published some photos in the studio. The band has been preparing the new album since 2017, which is scheduled for the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019.

In September 2018, the band published photos of an orchestra and choir recording session for the new album on their official profiles. The recordings took place in Minsk, Belarus

In January 2019, the band got together to record music videos. The images were published on the band’s social profiles with the hashtag “Du Hast viel geweint”.
In March, the first teasers for the new music video were released, with the words “XXVIII.III.MMXIX”, referring to the music video’s release date, March 28, 2019. A day before the release, a trailer of just over 30 seconds appeared on the band’s official YouTube channel and was harshly criticized by the German press and the Jewish community for showing four of the six members with ropes tied around their necks and dressed in clothes similar to those of Jewish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, at the end of the video, the writing “Deutschland”, the name of the new song, appears followed by the release date of the music video and finally, the following day, the clip was released, and in less than 24 hours it had already been viewed by more than 8 million people. The song and video, which lasts more than 9 minutes, show all the bad times that Germany has gone through from the medieval period to the present day. The video was directed by Eric Rosenberg, better known as Specter Berlin.

Following the release of “Deutschland”, the band confirmed their self-titled seventh album, released on May 17, 2019. The album also appeared for pre-sale on the band’s official store. The band only released hints of the song list.

On April 16, the band began releasing short excerpts and the names of the songs on the official YouTube channel. However, the excerpts are only from some instruments, such as guitars and drums.

On April 24th, the band released the teaser for a new music video, “Radio”, to be released on April 26th, but on the 25th, the single was released on radio stations in several countries and its music video was projected on buildings in several German cities.
On May 28th, the band releases the music video for “Ausländer”, which premieres simultaneously on the internet and at the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen, a few minutes before the start of the band’s show that same day.

On March 8, 2022, the band released a teaser on social media of a new video titled “Zeit kommt” (lit. The time is coming), with a release date of March 10. On the same day, the covers of the new album “Zeit” and the single of the same name were leaked.

The video was projected at the Kesselhaus concert hall, where Rammstein played their first concert.

The second video and single from the eighth album was “Zick Zack”, released on April 7, 2022.

Among Rammstein’s main influences are bands like Ramones, Ministry, Depeche Mode, Laibach and Oomph!

The band’s songs are mostly in German and other languages such as English, Spanish, French and Russian. Educated in East German schools, the members all learned Russian as a foreign language, not English. In 2019, Flake commented: “I saw a lot of East German bands who sang in really bad English to people who didn’t understand English – it was totally stupid. But if you really want to express your emotions, you must speak in your mother tongue. .” The lyrics often contain sadomasochistic allegories, fantasies about matricide, incest, bloodshed and putrefaction, mixed with macabre romanticism – this led to their sixth album, Liebe ist für alle da, being banned from sale to minors.

Till Lindemann – Vocal
Richard Kruspe – Guitarra Solo , Vocal de Apoio
Paul Landers – Guitarra Base , Vocal de Apoio
Oliver Riedel – Baixo
Christoph Schneider – Bateria, Percussão
Christian Lorenz – Teclado, Sampler

1995 – Herzeleid
1997 – Sehnsucht
2001 – Mutter
2004 – Reise, Reise
2005 – Rosenrot
2009 – Liebe Ist Für Alle Da
2019 – Rammstein
2022 – Zeit