Till Lindemann
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Till Lindemann (b. January 4, 1963) is a German musician, most notable as being the lead singer of the rock band Rammstein.
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Personal characteristics
Standing 1.90 m (6' 3") tall and weighing in at 100 kg (220 lb), Lindemann has a powerful onstage presence. One of his signature moves is to squat down and pound his fist onto his leg to the beat of the riff. He speaks excellent English, and at concerts he usually thanks the crowd in their native language.
Lindemann is a qualified pyrotechnician. After an accident at the Treptow arena in Berlin on September 27, 1996, where a burning stage prop fell into the audience, Rammstein began employing a professional pyrotechnical crew and Lindemann has learned and trained with them. Each band member is specially instructed on the pieces of pyrotechnical equipment they use on stage.
According to Lindemann, he likes Chris Isaak, Marilyn Manson, Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Type O Negative, Limp Bizkit, Placebo, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and jazz in the park on a Sunday afternoon. He says, "for me Kraftwerk was the first real German band."
At one time, he did have his left ear pierced, but has worn no earring in a long time. He has no known tattoos. As far as religious beliefs go, Lindemann has stated that he is an atheist.
As of October 2004 he has four children: two girls and at least one boy (the gender of the fourth is unknown).
Personal Background
Lindemann was born in Leipzig, but he grew up in the village of Wendisch-Rambow in Schwerin (East Germany). His father, Werner Lindemann, was a poet, and his mother, Brigitte (Gitta) Lindemann, is an artist and writer who has co-written at least one book with her husband. Lindemann has one sister, six years younger than himself. At age 11 he went to a sports school at the Rostock Sports Club, and from 1977-1980 attended a boarding school. His parents divorced in 1975, when he was age 12.
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In the years 1976-1979, Lindemann was a good swimmer who became junior vice-European champion. He finally left sports school in 1979. It is possible that he was thrown out of sports school due to him sneaking out, unaccompanied, of a hotel in Italy on a swimming tour. But he also suffered an injury, a torn abdominal muscle - so either reason could be valid. According to Lindemann, "I never liked the sport school actually, it was very intense. But as a child you don't object."
His first job was at a peat cutting company, but he was fired after three days. He worked as an apprentice carpenter, a gallery technician, and was most well-known as a basket weaver.
In 1981, Lindemann apparently refused to do his 9 months compulsory military service and was almost imprisoned because of the refusal. Many young men used to do "Ersatzdienst" or "substitute or reserve service", so he may have done this.
In 1985, when Lindemann was 22, his first daughter, Nele, was born. Lindemann and Nele's mother married after she is born, but they separated and he has raised Nele. Lindemann says, "I used to play drums in a punk band and we had our studio in the house where I lived. Seven years I had been an upbringing father, but nowadays I'm sharing the upbringing with her mother, because I'm gone for six months of the year with the band."
The Berlin Wall came down November 9th, 1989, and Germany started its path to reunification. On this, Lindemann says, "After the wall had been opened, I drove to West Germany and bought gummy bears and yogurt for my salutation money. But there wasn't anything else."
His father died in November of 1992, after drinking himself to death. He was buried in the grounds of a church near Wendisch-Rambow.
Lindemann had a second daughter with Anja Köseling, his former partner/wife. Köseling claimed Lindemann abused her physically during their relationship and that he refused to pay child support for their daughter (b. ca. 1993). Lindemann has never commented on her claim.
In a radio interview in 2004, Lindemann stated that he wants to retire at 50 to spend more time with his children.
Musical career
In 1986, he started to play drums for First Arsch, also known as "First Art": a play on words perhaps meant to distract the authorities. It was a Schwerin-based punk band. They made one album titled Saddle Up.
Lindemann also played in a band called Feeling B. A song called Leid von der unruhevollen Jugend (Song of the Restless Youth) is credited on the album called Hea Hoa Hoa Hoa Hea Hoa Hea (1990).
Later in the 1990's, Lindemann began to write lyrics, possibly based on phrases and words from poems that he was beginning to write. He says he "used to drum in a punk band that consisted of bass and drums. We used to work with guest-guitarists, usually Paul and Richard. We did a short tour where I changed instruments with the bassist in the encore, that was such a success, that Richardard insisted on starting a project in which I would sing. Other people joined the band but only when I left Schwerin for Berlin did it take serious form."
In 1994, they entered and won a contest in Berlin that allowed them to professionally record a four track demo. Lindemann moved to Berlin. Paul Landers formally joined the band, followed by the last member to join, Christian "Flake" Lorenz.
It's well documented that all the band members had women problems about the time Herzeleid was written, and this appears to have provided Lindemann with excellent writing material. Herzeleid was finally released in September 1995. Two years later, in August 1997, the band's breakout alblum, Sehnsucht, was released.
On June 5, 1999 in Worcester, Massachusetts (USA) Lindemann and Flake Lorenz were arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior. A statement from Sgt. Thomas Radula of the Worcester Police Department stated that Lindemann was simulating sex with Flake onstage "using a phallic object that shot water over the crowd." They were held and released the following day on $25 bail. After months of legal debate, they were eventually fined $100.
Consequently, in November 2002 Lindemann's own project, the poetry book Messer, was published. It consists of 54 poems compiled by Gert Hof, who is author of the book Rammstein and has been the band's pyrodesigner for the last seven years [1] (http://www.eichborn-verlag.de/s2/default.asp?id=25&autornr=8802). This book is due to be re-printed in 2005 due to a campaign by a fansite [2] (http://www.rammstein-austria.com)
In 2003 he started work on the fourth album, which was to prove a turning point in Rammstein's sound and maturity. September 2004 saw the fruits of this work in the release of Reise Reise. As of 2005, Lindemann continues to work with Rammstein.
Quotes
- Loneliness sometimes gives me a quantity of creativeness - you're drinking another glass of wine and you're feeling even worse. Art doesn't work without pain; art also exists for compensating pain.
- When I was an adolescent, I was obsessed with having many commercial things, cars, clothes, stupid things. Now that I have all that, I include/understand that the superfluous things can turn to you into a very stupid idiot-type. In East Germany there were very few things, but there was also a feeling of solidarity that no longer exists. Now we are up to the neck in consumption, the ego, the individualism. Now before friendship, it is merchandise.
- The rolling "R" didn't arise deliberately. It originated from itself because in that deep pitch you automatically sing that way. I'm no musician in the actual meaning. I don't know anything about instruments. But I'm supporting our music with my voice and lyrics well. It's a question of illustration, timbre and phonetics. We don't want to - for heaven's sake - create a fascist-like style.
References
- IMDB bio of Till Lindermann (http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0511570/bio)
External links
Material from various interview sources and radio interviews.
- [3] (http://ca.geocities.com/sally_axon/)
- [4] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bonaria.blackie/)
- ABC.net album review (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/review/album/s1225288.htm)
- Verboten.rammimages.com pictures (http://verboten.rammimages.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5)bg:Тил Линдеман
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