Till Lindemann
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Till Lindemann (b. 4 January 1963) is a German musician who is most notable as being the lead-vocalist for the German Tanz-Metall ("Dance metal") band Rammstein.
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[edit] Personal characteristics
Lindemann has a powerful onstage presence and a resonant bass voice. One of his signature moves is to partially squat and pound his fist onto his thigh to the beat of the riff, in the manner of a deranged blacksmith. One of the most distinguishing characteristics is a tendency to roll his 'R's, and growl his achs´.
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 from and also 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, Placebo, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, KMFDM and jazz music. He says, "for me Kraftwerk was the first real German band."
At one time, he had his left ear pierced twice, but has not worn earrings for a long time. You can see the two holes in his ear in most videos and pictures. He has no known tattoos, but is rumoured to have one on his buttocks that says "Punk Rock".
Lindemann has stated that he is an atheist.
As of October 2004 he has four children: two girls and two boys.
Lindemann is also able to play the drums, guitar and bass. In the live performances of Rammstein's song 'Los', Till is seen playing a mouthharmonica, but he isn't actually playing it. It's just keyboardist Christian Lorenz playing it on his keyboard.
[edit] 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 Sport Club, and from 1977-1980 attended a boarding school. His parents divorced in 1975, when he was age 12.
In the years 1976-1979, Lindemann was a good swimmer who became junior vice-European champion and was considered to be a swimmer in the Olympics 1980. But he left the sports school in 1979. It is possible that he was thrown out of sports school due to his 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 18 months' compulsory military service and was almost imprisoned because of the refusal.
In 1985, when Lindemann was 22, his first daughter, Nele, was born. Lindemann and Nele's mother married after she was born, but they separated and he has raised Nele alone. 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 a father raising his daughter, 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 9, 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, of the effects of alcohol. 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, Marie-Louise (b. ca. 1993). Lindemann has never commented on her claim. In an interview with Richard Kruspe, He stated that Rammstein will keep playing until one of them dies. Paul stated in a 2005 interview that Till has a girlfriend who speaks Spanish and helped him write "Te quiero puta!" (I want you whore!).
And in a 2005 interview with the German playboy, Lindemann stated that he had finally found "a woman he could spend the rest of his life with."
[edit] Musical career
For general information about Rammstein, see the article on Rammstein.
In 1988, he started to play drums for First Arsch, often confused as "First Art" but in literal translation means "First Arse": a play on words perhaps meant to distract the authorities. It was a Schwerin-based punk band. They made one album titled Saddle Up.
Till Lindemann also played one song with a german punkband called Feeling B. A song called Lied von der unruhevollen Jugend (Song of the restless youth) is credited on the album called Hea Hoa Hoa Hea Hea Hoa (1990) saying Till, Paul H. Landers and Christian "Flake" Lorenz all played on the song Lied von der unruhevollen Jugend. Feeling B was the former band of Paul H. Landers and Christian "Flake" Lorenz
Later in the 1990s, 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 Richard 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 record a four track demo professionally. Lindemann moved to Berlin. Paul H. Landers formally joined the band, followed by the last member to join, Christian "Flake" Lorenz.
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 custard over the crowd." They were held and released the following day on $25 bail. After months of legal debate, they were eventually fined $100.
Subsequently, 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]. This book was due to be re-printed in 2005 due to a campaign by a fansite. [2]
[edit] Trivia
[edit] Movie appearances
- In 2003, Till made an appearance as a villain, in a made for television movie for children titled Amundsen, der Pinguin. His character tries to steal a penguin who knows the location of treasure.
- Till plays an animal rights activist in a movie called Vinzent.
- Till made brief appearances in the movies xXx as himself along with the rest of Rammstein (2002) and Pola X (1999).
He has appeared on many soundtracks such as: xXx, Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Lost Highway, The Matrix, and many others.
[edit] 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's 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 t-like style.
- Love is like a flower, even the most beautiful kind dies.
- Love is Chris Isaak and milk.
- You've got a kind of inner store. When things aren't going well, you just go inside and get a glass of travel preserves for your soul, open it and fill up on it.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Material from various interview sources and radio interviews.
| Rammstein |
| Till Lindemann | Christian "Flake" Lorenz | Christoph "Doom" Schneider | Richard Z. Kruspe | Oliver Riedel | Paul H. Landers |
| Discography |
|---|
| Albums: Demos - 1994 | Herzeleid | Sehnsucht | Mutter | Reise, Reise | Rosenrot |
| Singles: Du riechst so gut | Seemann | Engel | Du hast | Das Modell | Du riechst so gut '98 | Stripped | Single Collection | Asche zu Asche | Sonne | Links 2 3 4 | Ich will | Mutter | Feuer frei! | Schtiel | Mein Teil | Amerika | Ohne dich | Keine Lust | Benzin | Rosenrot | Mann gegen Mann |
| VHS and DVDs: Live aus Berlin | Lichtspielhaus | Völkerball |
