Post by Amiee♥TH on Oct 1, 2014 22:18:57 GMT 1
The current issue of German magazine “Der Spiegel” features a very interesting article about Tokio Hotel. It talks about the their new video for their first single “Love who loves you back” which will be released this Friday. However, another very interesting part of the article is about the twins’ move to LA and what led to it. It’s can be a bit heart-breaking to read how bad the situation had gotten for them but the main thing is that they had the opportunity to find peace for a while to enjoy life, re-charge their batteries and are back!
FULL TRANSLATION
Kiss me
(German original text by Sonja Hartwig, photos by Robert Gallagher/Der Spiegel)
Bill in LWLYB video scene picture: Tokio Hotel singer Bill Kaulitz at a shooting in Los Angeles: “Slightly tongue-violated”
Bill and Tom individual pictures: Musicians Bill, Tom Kaulitz: “We do what we want.”
Pop [music] – They were teen stars from a village near Magdeburg. As mega stars they fled to Los Angeles. And nowadays?
Bill kisses. Subject, predicate. Simple sentence, however, the act itself is complicated. “I’ve never kissed anyone on camera before”, says Bill, “I’m utterly shy.”
Shooting the first scene for the video of Tokio Hotel’s new single in Los Angeles: Bill Kaulitz sits in the middle of the sofa, to his right the brunette, to his left the blonde, behind him the redhead and all around [him] young, pretty, half-naked people, all tightly entangled, all kissing.
Second scene: Bill walks down the hallway, squeezes in between two women who are making out, takes one for himself; all around young, pretty, half-naked people, all tightly entangled, all kissing.
Third scene: pretty much the same.
Prior to the fourth scene Bill is sitting in a director’s chair and recounts how weird that was initially and he refers to this shock: that he immediately ended up with a woman who used lots and lots of tongue and who “tongue-violated [him] a bit”. However, now he would’ve gotten used to it: “All inhibitions are forgotten”.
Bill wears tight trousers, suspenders, his upper body is naked. He stands in front of an old hotel pool, without any water, the stone is crumbling, paint is chipping, Olympic competitions took place here once, [in] 1932. Now, for the fourth scene, the pretty, half-naked women have gathered at the bottom of the pool, are lying down entangled in each other, Bill observes this and says: “A little bit more skin would be good, after all one also ought to see some breasts.”
“Love who loves you back” is the song called for which the video is being shot, and “Love who loves you back” is the video with which Tokio Hotel says they’re still around: next week their new album will be released, “Kings of Suburbia”.
Being in their mid-twenties they are something like veterans now. In their press release the record label stylised them to be brave heroes who know exactly that in this line of business one can’t just disappear for five months, let alone five years. Different rules apply for Tokio Hotel. They had taken the world by storm once before already. Now they’re having another go. With music that was 100% Tokio Hotel, most of it even produced by them.
Something that stands out right away: Tokio Hotel doesn’t sound like Tokio Hotel. Tokio Hotel used to be German pop-rock, now it’s mostly only pop, only in English, a ballad in-between, Tom on piano and Bill with unusually high vocals.
Other than that it’s rather electronic, perfectly styled, danceable, international club culture.
During a break from shooting “Love who loves you back” Bill says this song would be one that didn’t take love too seriously: “Sometimes one should take what they need, it doesn’t always have to be true love. Nobody likes to be alone: every once in a while just take the one who loves you back. Nevertheless, I believe in true love!”
Tokio Hotel are Germany’s mega stars. They’ve sold seven million records worldwide, have been awarded platinum in 68 countries, 500,000 people attended their concert at the Eiffel Tower in 2007 (nb: A common misconception, as it wasn’t “their” concert but an event where several artists performed). It’s not like Tokio Hotel were only hated in Germany, but it did seem a little bit like they would’ve been hated as much as loved. Four years ago Bill and his twin brother Tom moved to Los Angeles. “[We] ran away”, as Bill calls it, “we just up and left.” Back then they lived in a villa in Hamburg, a “beautiful prison”. 24-hour-security, a fence shielding the view, outside there were constantly people by the door. When they went [on a night] out they mostly sat behind barrier tape, “like at the zoo”, all around there were people who gawked [at them] and snapped pictures. They celebrated their 21st birthday, got home: the underwear had been rifled through, photos had been left out. “I felt like I had been violated”, Bill says. “I even ashed on the floor, that’s how alien the house felt to me”, says Tom. They didn’t sleep another night at the villa after the break-in. They stayed at the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm for four weeks, flew to Los Angeles in a private jet.
They wanted a break, peace from the media. Away from journalists who wrote sentences about Bill like: “The cheeks sunken, the gold jewellery rattles in front of the scrawny chicken chest. The tattooed twig-like arms stick out of the leather jacket, he pulled the cap deep down over his pierced face.” And: “At least Tom grins happily in his baggy clothes – and also has got considerably more muscles to his body.”
It has always been about appearance, no article about Tokio Hotel can do without it. “Aliens”, “Outsiders”, “androgynous creatures”, “Mangas”. Also, again and again: Is Bill gay now? Anorexic? Often only appearance is what makes a star a super star. In childhood pictures Lady Gaga and Madonna have neat partings or wear an Alice band, sweet, innocent look [on their faces]. They became art characters later on. Tokio Hotel didn’t have to become something to begin with. They already looked like stars back when they were still living at the [river] Ohre, in Loitsche, population of 700, near Magdeburg.
Aged nine Bill dyed his hair and put on black eye make-up, Tom had dreadlocks, fellow pupils turned their heads, teachers scolded them: one doesn’t come to school like this. A few years ago Bill said in a documentary that it had been worse when people didn’t talk about him than when they did say something.
In primary school the brothers wrote their first songs, performed at city festivals/village fairs, called themselves Black Question Mark, then Gustav, the drummer, joined, and Georg, the bassist, they called themselves Devilish because a local newspaper praised their devilishly good guitar sound. Bill tried his luck with the casting show “Star Search”, was booted out quickly. However, a producer went and saw the band when they performed at the Gröninger Bad. Two years later they signed the record deal at Universal, Bravo hyped them up big, the New York Times reported [about them]. Their first single was called “Durch den Monsun”, first it became a success in Europe, then North America where a journalist compared them to Nena, the Beatles. They won award after award and when they drank to it one time they said “Auf mich – on me” (nb: Not the best English translation in the German article as it’s an expression said when clinking glasses: “[Here’s] to you/us/me!” and not about who is buying drinks^^) which to this day can still be seen on their YouTube channel.
It can also be seen in a video that by the time he was 18 years old, Bill no longer knew what it was like to go to the supermarket. So during a trip in the USA he went to one together with his team and was filmed as he walked through the aisles, looked for a toilet rim block and toilet paper, bought sweets and didn’t know how to work the self-checkout when he was supposed to scan the grocery items himself: “Ey, guys, I think this is revolutionary! No cashiers annoying the hell out of you? How awesome is that?!”
When they were teens they became stars but they never were typical teen stars. They were no marionettes. Not like Britney Spears who got her hair shaved off to demonstrate: Hello, I’m in charge of myself! They’ve had their own sound. Their image, their lyrics: always rebellious – we’re breaking away. Definite profile (outsiders), definite fanbase (kids already like pop [music]), definite message (be yourself, live every second, live your dream) – [it made for a] success worth billions.
And now, how did they get on far away from Germany? [Have they] grown up? Two days after the video shoot they give an interview with the four of them for the first time in a long while. Meeting place: SoHo House, an exclusive club on Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood. Bill and Tom are members of all SoHo houses, worldwide, [which] costs $1,400 per year. For over 27-year-olds [it costs] $2,800.
“I really like membership clubs, one can just be undisturbed here”, says Tom. “I like that one isn’t allowed to take photos here: one drives into the underground car park, goes directly upstairs and doesn’t have to step out on the street. It’s a good way of hiding”, says Bill.
It all starting again with Tokio Hotel would be awesome, says Gustav. It would feel like they had done it the day before yesterday for the last time, says Georg. They’re drinking iced tea.
The appearance, after all there’s no way around it: the ranking of the most eye-catching [appearance] remains as ever. Georg (black trousers, white shirt), Gustav (jeans trousers to his knees), Tom (baggy jeans, white sweatshirt riddled with holes), Bill (completely [dressed] in beige, Buffalo platform shoes, pleated trousers with flares, see-through, skin-tight shirt, suspenders).
Especially Bill and Tom talk without giving their words a second thought, in-between Tom makes his Tom-comments, mostly a bit immature, the others laugh: “If , I could imagine [doing] something else creative: like, [being] a porn star, where one can ‘paint’ a little, just with a different kind of ‘paint brush’.”
When they fled to Los Angeles, Bill says, he was sick of hearing the name ‘Tokio Hotel’. “We had lost the passion [for it], we were so drained, we had nothing left to tell. I knew that if we didn’t take that step, the next album would be shit.”
Would that have been the end of the band?
“I think we would’ve done a poor job, it would’ve been a case of ambling along. I didn’t want an album that was just ok. [It’s] better to have a break and then [do] something awesome. Most people advised against it, they thought it would be career suicide. We didn’t care.”
They just wanted to live for once: fitted out the house, bought pans and pots, filled the fridge by themselves, drove to the beach, went for walks with the dog (nb: Should have said “dogs”.
), got a coffee from Starbucks, went to the cinema. In Germany the thing with the cinema would’ve been like this, tells Bill: “I called the assistant, he then [called] Security, and everybody planned it. If we wanted to see a film, we had to rent a cinema. The smallest things turned into the biggest fuss.”
For their 20th birthday they had rented the Heide Park [amusement park] in Soltau, Germany and drove by car from one rollercoaster to another. Now for their 25th birthday at the beginning of September, they went to Palm Springs with friends for one and half days: Bill found the hotel on the internet, five stars, [with a] spa and booked it in his name.
However, this “new life” was also weird. There was a long queue at the agency when Bill needed a Social Security Number: “Do I have to wait with everyone else now? Can’t my assistant just do that?”
First of all he’d get connected, says Tom. Now he’s got acquaintances with whom he’d meet up at evenings, [he’d] have drinks with. That wasn’t there back in the day. However, Tom says, he’d be a bit weird on an interpersonal level. He and Bill both just could not do small talk; they would’ve never learned to do that since they’ve been shielded away. When they meet new people, they mostly stand around, say nothing. “And what is it that you’re doing?” – “Music.” Getting anything else out of them would be like pulling teeth, says Bill. “Everybody thinks we’re super weird”.
Eventually they found new music in this “new life”. It is no longer the music of a German band that moved to Los Angeles. It’s the music of musicians who are living in Los Angeles. The inspiration, Bill says, was the “nightlife, life itself, being free, what is important to someone and has got meaning, what doesn’t, this feeling of ‘we’re doing what we want’.”
They partied a lot, maybe so much because they could really do it for the first time. “Not a soul recognised me”, says Bill. “I could submerge [into the crowd] at clubs, even get shit-faced every once in a while, step outside wasted, without having to worry that someone will take a picture of me.” Their studio sessions were half a party: a house in the Hollywood Hills, that’s where they celebrated and made music along the way, often “overtired, sometimes drunk, until the sun came up”.
He would have never felt as free as in Los Angeles, Bill says: “This is the maximum. [Being] freer is currently hardly possible, except if I was to go to India.” Tom: “Yes, we’re also going to do that.” Bill: “With a backpack only.” Tom: “Beforehand I would sell everything I’ve got.” Bill: “That would be a true adventure.” Tom: “That would be something completely different, something I’ve never experienced before. I also don’t want to have too much money on me, otherwise, knowing myself, I’d just end up booking a hotel and missing out on the real experience.”
However, there isn’t a tangible plan for this. They’ll be returning to Germany once again for an appearance on “Wetten, dass…?” in the beginning of October. The question is what they still want from there [Germany].
FULL TRANSLATION
Kiss me
(German original text by Sonja Hartwig, photos by Robert Gallagher/Der Spiegel)
Bill in LWLYB video scene picture: Tokio Hotel singer Bill Kaulitz at a shooting in Los Angeles: “Slightly tongue-violated”
Bill and Tom individual pictures: Musicians Bill, Tom Kaulitz: “We do what we want.”
Pop [music] – They were teen stars from a village near Magdeburg. As mega stars they fled to Los Angeles. And nowadays?
Bill kisses. Subject, predicate. Simple sentence, however, the act itself is complicated. “I’ve never kissed anyone on camera before”, says Bill, “I’m utterly shy.”
Shooting the first scene for the video of Tokio Hotel’s new single in Los Angeles: Bill Kaulitz sits in the middle of the sofa, to his right the brunette, to his left the blonde, behind him the redhead and all around [him] young, pretty, half-naked people, all tightly entangled, all kissing.
Second scene: Bill walks down the hallway, squeezes in between two women who are making out, takes one for himself; all around young, pretty, half-naked people, all tightly entangled, all kissing.
Third scene: pretty much the same.
Prior to the fourth scene Bill is sitting in a director’s chair and recounts how weird that was initially and he refers to this shock: that he immediately ended up with a woman who used lots and lots of tongue and who “tongue-violated [him] a bit”. However, now he would’ve gotten used to it: “All inhibitions are forgotten”.
Bill wears tight trousers, suspenders, his upper body is naked. He stands in front of an old hotel pool, without any water, the stone is crumbling, paint is chipping, Olympic competitions took place here once, [in] 1932. Now, for the fourth scene, the pretty, half-naked women have gathered at the bottom of the pool, are lying down entangled in each other, Bill observes this and says: “A little bit more skin would be good, after all one also ought to see some breasts.”
“Love who loves you back” is the song called for which the video is being shot, and “Love who loves you back” is the video with which Tokio Hotel says they’re still around: next week their new album will be released, “Kings of Suburbia”.
Being in their mid-twenties they are something like veterans now. In their press release the record label stylised them to be brave heroes who know exactly that in this line of business one can’t just disappear for five months, let alone five years. Different rules apply for Tokio Hotel. They had taken the world by storm once before already. Now they’re having another go. With music that was 100% Tokio Hotel, most of it even produced by them.
Something that stands out right away: Tokio Hotel doesn’t sound like Tokio Hotel. Tokio Hotel used to be German pop-rock, now it’s mostly only pop, only in English, a ballad in-between, Tom on piano and Bill with unusually high vocals.
Other than that it’s rather electronic, perfectly styled, danceable, international club culture.
During a break from shooting “Love who loves you back” Bill says this song would be one that didn’t take love too seriously: “Sometimes one should take what they need, it doesn’t always have to be true love. Nobody likes to be alone: every once in a while just take the one who loves you back. Nevertheless, I believe in true love!”
Tokio Hotel are Germany’s mega stars. They’ve sold seven million records worldwide, have been awarded platinum in 68 countries, 500,000 people attended their concert at the Eiffel Tower in 2007 (nb: A common misconception, as it wasn’t “their” concert but an event where several artists performed). It’s not like Tokio Hotel were only hated in Germany, but it did seem a little bit like they would’ve been hated as much as loved. Four years ago Bill and his twin brother Tom moved to Los Angeles. “[We] ran away”, as Bill calls it, “we just up and left.” Back then they lived in a villa in Hamburg, a “beautiful prison”. 24-hour-security, a fence shielding the view, outside there were constantly people by the door. When they went [on a night] out they mostly sat behind barrier tape, “like at the zoo”, all around there were people who gawked [at them] and snapped pictures. They celebrated their 21st birthday, got home: the underwear had been rifled through, photos had been left out. “I felt like I had been violated”, Bill says. “I even ashed on the floor, that’s how alien the house felt to me”, says Tom. They didn’t sleep another night at the villa after the break-in. They stayed at the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm for four weeks, flew to Los Angeles in a private jet.
They wanted a break, peace from the media. Away from journalists who wrote sentences about Bill like: “The cheeks sunken, the gold jewellery rattles in front of the scrawny chicken chest. The tattooed twig-like arms stick out of the leather jacket, he pulled the cap deep down over his pierced face.” And: “At least Tom grins happily in his baggy clothes – and also has got considerably more muscles to his body.”
It has always been about appearance, no article about Tokio Hotel can do without it. “Aliens”, “Outsiders”, “androgynous creatures”, “Mangas”. Also, again and again: Is Bill gay now? Anorexic? Often only appearance is what makes a star a super star. In childhood pictures Lady Gaga and Madonna have neat partings or wear an Alice band, sweet, innocent look [on their faces]. They became art characters later on. Tokio Hotel didn’t have to become something to begin with. They already looked like stars back when they were still living at the [river] Ohre, in Loitsche, population of 700, near Magdeburg.
Aged nine Bill dyed his hair and put on black eye make-up, Tom had dreadlocks, fellow pupils turned their heads, teachers scolded them: one doesn’t come to school like this. A few years ago Bill said in a documentary that it had been worse when people didn’t talk about him than when they did say something.
In primary school the brothers wrote their first songs, performed at city festivals/village fairs, called themselves Black Question Mark, then Gustav, the drummer, joined, and Georg, the bassist, they called themselves Devilish because a local newspaper praised their devilishly good guitar sound. Bill tried his luck with the casting show “Star Search”, was booted out quickly. However, a producer went and saw the band when they performed at the Gröninger Bad. Two years later they signed the record deal at Universal, Bravo hyped them up big, the New York Times reported [about them]. Their first single was called “Durch den Monsun”, first it became a success in Europe, then North America where a journalist compared them to Nena, the Beatles. They won award after award and when they drank to it one time they said “Auf mich – on me” (nb: Not the best English translation in the German article as it’s an expression said when clinking glasses: “[Here’s] to you/us/me!” and not about who is buying drinks^^) which to this day can still be seen on their YouTube channel.
It can also be seen in a video that by the time he was 18 years old, Bill no longer knew what it was like to go to the supermarket. So during a trip in the USA he went to one together with his team and was filmed as he walked through the aisles, looked for a toilet rim block and toilet paper, bought sweets and didn’t know how to work the self-checkout when he was supposed to scan the grocery items himself: “Ey, guys, I think this is revolutionary! No cashiers annoying the hell out of you? How awesome is that?!”
When they were teens they became stars but they never were typical teen stars. They were no marionettes. Not like Britney Spears who got her hair shaved off to demonstrate: Hello, I’m in charge of myself! They’ve had their own sound. Their image, their lyrics: always rebellious – we’re breaking away. Definite profile (outsiders), definite fanbase (kids already like pop [music]), definite message (be yourself, live every second, live your dream) – [it made for a] success worth billions.
And now, how did they get on far away from Germany? [Have they] grown up? Two days after the video shoot they give an interview with the four of them for the first time in a long while. Meeting place: SoHo House, an exclusive club on Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood. Bill and Tom are members of all SoHo houses, worldwide, [which] costs $1,400 per year. For over 27-year-olds [it costs] $2,800.
“I really like membership clubs, one can just be undisturbed here”, says Tom. “I like that one isn’t allowed to take photos here: one drives into the underground car park, goes directly upstairs and doesn’t have to step out on the street. It’s a good way of hiding”, says Bill.
It all starting again with Tokio Hotel would be awesome, says Gustav. It would feel like they had done it the day before yesterday for the last time, says Georg. They’re drinking iced tea.
The appearance, after all there’s no way around it: the ranking of the most eye-catching [appearance] remains as ever. Georg (black trousers, white shirt), Gustav (jeans trousers to his knees), Tom (baggy jeans, white sweatshirt riddled with holes), Bill (completely [dressed] in beige, Buffalo platform shoes, pleated trousers with flares, see-through, skin-tight shirt, suspenders).
Especially Bill and Tom talk without giving their words a second thought, in-between Tom makes his Tom-comments, mostly a bit immature, the others laugh: “If , I could imagine [doing] something else creative: like, [being] a porn star, where one can ‘paint’ a little, just with a different kind of ‘paint brush’.”
When they fled to Los Angeles, Bill says, he was sick of hearing the name ‘Tokio Hotel’. “We had lost the passion [for it], we were so drained, we had nothing left to tell. I knew that if we didn’t take that step, the next album would be shit.”
Would that have been the end of the band?
“I think we would’ve done a poor job, it would’ve been a case of ambling along. I didn’t want an album that was just ok. [It’s] better to have a break and then [do] something awesome. Most people advised against it, they thought it would be career suicide. We didn’t care.”
They just wanted to live for once: fitted out the house, bought pans and pots, filled the fridge by themselves, drove to the beach, went for walks with the dog (nb: Should have said “dogs”.
), got a coffee from Starbucks, went to the cinema. In Germany the thing with the cinema would’ve been like this, tells Bill: “I called the assistant, he then [called] Security, and everybody planned it. If we wanted to see a film, we had to rent a cinema. The smallest things turned into the biggest fuss.”For their 20th birthday they had rented the Heide Park [amusement park] in Soltau, Germany and drove by car from one rollercoaster to another. Now for their 25th birthday at the beginning of September, they went to Palm Springs with friends for one and half days: Bill found the hotel on the internet, five stars, [with a] spa and booked it in his name.
However, this “new life” was also weird. There was a long queue at the agency when Bill needed a Social Security Number: “Do I have to wait with everyone else now? Can’t my assistant just do that?”
First of all he’d get connected, says Tom. Now he’s got acquaintances with whom he’d meet up at evenings, [he’d] have drinks with. That wasn’t there back in the day. However, Tom says, he’d be a bit weird on an interpersonal level. He and Bill both just could not do small talk; they would’ve never learned to do that since they’ve been shielded away. When they meet new people, they mostly stand around, say nothing. “And what is it that you’re doing?” – “Music.” Getting anything else out of them would be like pulling teeth, says Bill. “Everybody thinks we’re super weird”.
Eventually they found new music in this “new life”. It is no longer the music of a German band that moved to Los Angeles. It’s the music of musicians who are living in Los Angeles. The inspiration, Bill says, was the “nightlife, life itself, being free, what is important to someone and has got meaning, what doesn’t, this feeling of ‘we’re doing what we want’.”
They partied a lot, maybe so much because they could really do it for the first time. “Not a soul recognised me”, says Bill. “I could submerge [into the crowd] at clubs, even get shit-faced every once in a while, step outside wasted, without having to worry that someone will take a picture of me.” Their studio sessions were half a party: a house in the Hollywood Hills, that’s where they celebrated and made music along the way, often “overtired, sometimes drunk, until the sun came up”.
He would have never felt as free as in Los Angeles, Bill says: “This is the maximum. [Being] freer is currently hardly possible, except if I was to go to India.” Tom: “Yes, we’re also going to do that.” Bill: “With a backpack only.” Tom: “Beforehand I would sell everything I’ve got.” Bill: “That would be a true adventure.” Tom: “That would be something completely different, something I’ve never experienced before. I also don’t want to have too much money on me, otherwise, knowing myself, I’d just end up booking a hotel and missing out on the real experience.”
However, there isn’t a tangible plan for this. They’ll be returning to Germany once again for an appearance on “Wetten, dass…?” in the beginning of October. The question is what they still want from there [Germany].
