Christoph Schneider
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Doom Schneider (formerly Christoph Schneider) is a German mucisian, most noted for being the drummer of the German rock band Rammstein.
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Biography
Schneider was born on May 11th 1966 in Berlin. His parents were professional musicians. Schneider is the second oldest of six siblings: he has one older brother, Stephan, and five sisters. One sister, Constance, designed their stage costumes at one time.
In 1980, when he was 14, his brother made him a drum kit out of trash cans.
He left school in 1982 at the age of 16 and became apprenticed in communications engineering (installing telephones).
He says, "At last I owned a drum set of my own which I had bought at the end of High school from my savings. The set wasn't the newest one could buy, compared to the instruments one can buy today it was in a pretty bad shape, but it didn't matter. There wasn't anything else that was offered and I could play with that. It didn't even have the quality of a Takton-set, the thing fell apart several times and it was really good to know a welder because the hardware was a real problem."
In 1984, at the age of 18, he did his nine months compulsory Military service.
Around 1985-86, he left his apprenticeship to apply to a music university, but was rejected twice. His father would not support him going through school to learn to play drums. His parents wanted him to learn a classical instrument and disapproved of the drums. At this time, he contemplated learning the trumpet.
He started playing in local bands at around this time. By 1990, at the age of 24, he was playing regularly in Die Firma and in other bands.
In 1993, he took his first trip to the United States with Till Lindemann, Oliver Riedel and Richard Z. Kruspe-Bernstein.
They entered and won the Berlin Senate Metro beat contest that allowed them to professionally record a four track demo. In 1994, Paul Landers formally joined the band, followed by Christian "Flake" Lorenz.
It's well documented they all had women problems about the time Herzeleid was written. Over the next several years, other albums followed, including Sehnsucht, Live aus Berlin, and, in 2001, Mutter. Schneider has since said that during the Mutter tour he felt like an "outsider" and was having lots of problems during this period. These problems have since been happily resolved.
Reise Reise was released in September 2004. He is quoted as saying that the album gave him the chance "to play more freely than before and was more fun." The release is followed by hugely successful sold out European tour of 10 countries, lasting four months.
After completing the Ahoi tour in February 2005, Rammstein are 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 recording Reise Reise in late 2005/early 2006.
Personal characteristics
He prefers the name Schneider, or Doom. He learned English at school.
When statring to play music, he had a few private lessons, but mostly taught himself to play the drums. Former bands he has played in include Keine Ahnung, Frechheit, Die Firma, Feeling B (1990-93). As for the music he likes, he says he likes heavy metal bands.
Quotes from Christoph Schneider
On musical influences
[Schneider is influenced by] Phil Rudd of AC/DC; he does a real cool kind of drumming. He's already been my role model when I started drumming. Later I was influenced by all that "Neue Deutsche Welle" and "New Wave" stuff, for example by bands like Ministry. Somehow I've been influenced very much by this Heavy- and dark stuff and Techno music had some kind of influence as well. Ten years ago I was a big Pantera fan, the album "Vulgar Display of Power" was welded into my car's cassette player! (laughs) Vinnie Paul plays really great on that album. Chad Smith of "Red Hot Chili Peppers" is a very good and all-round drummer. Nowadays, I like John Otto of Limp Bizkit very much, we played some gigs together in 1998 in the US.
On dealing with the press
"I WOULD prefer not to do interviews," he says. "I think it's more exciting when you don't know so much about a band. I think than in America though it's different. You have to present yourself in public every so often or they forget about you."
On the Rammstein sound
Interviewer: How would you describe Rammstein’s music?
Schneider: Heavy and EVIL (laughs).
On touring with Kiss
Interviewer: A couple of years ago you toured with Kiss. I know you've been compared to Kiss constantly, so how was that?
Schneider: Another highlight in our career, of course. They took us on their last South American tour. We played some shows in Brazil and Argentina and Mexico. It was great to be so close to real rock stars. They are real rock stars in my eyes. They are tall and masked. We did a photo together. We could do all of our pyro stuff. We were able to do all of this and they didn't care. They were really cool.
External links
Material from various interview sources, including radio interviews:
- [1] (http://ca.geocities.com/sally_axon/)
- [2] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bonaria.blackie/)
- ABC album review (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/review/album/s1225288.htm)
- Photographs (http://verboten.rammimages.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5)da:Christoph Schneider
de:Christoph Schneider es:Christopher "Doom" Schneider pl:Christoph Schneider sv:Christoph Schneider