Tokio Hotel

Tokio Hotel
Bill Kaulitz, vocalist of Tokio Hotel
Background information
Origin	Magdeburg, Germany
Genres	Pop rock[1][2] Teen pop[3]
Years active	2001–present
Labels	Universal Music Germany Cherrytree, Interscope (US)
Website	www.tokiohotel.com
Members
Bill Kaulitz Tom Kaulitz Georg Listing Gustav Schäfer

Tokio Hotel is a pop rock band from Germany. Founded in 2001 by singer Bill Kaulitz, guitarist Tom Kaulitz, drummer Gustav Schäfer and bassist Georg Listing.^[4] The quartet have scored four number one singles and have released three number one albums in their native country, selling nearly 5 million CDs and DVDs there.^[5] After recording an unreleased demo-CD under the name "Devilish" and having their contract with Sony BMG Germany terminated, the band released their first German-language album, Schrei, as Tokio Hotel on Universal Music Germany in 2005. Schrei sold more than half a million copies worldwide^[6] and spawned four top five singles in both Germany and Austria. In 2007, the band released their second German album Zimmer 483 and their first English album Scream which have combined album sales of over one million copies worldwide and helped win the band their first MTV Europe Music Award for Best InterAct. The former, Zimmer 483, spawned three top five singles in Germany while the latter, Scream, spawned two singles that reached the top twenty in new territories such as France, Portugal, Spain and Italy. In September 2008, they won in the US their first MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. In October 2008, they won four awards including Best International Artist and Song of the year at Los Premios MTV Latinoamérica held in Mexico. Tokio Hotel became the first German band ever to win an award at the MTV VMAs and also at the MTV Latin America Awards. They also picked up the Headliner award at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008 held in Liverpool on 6 November 2008 and the Award for Best Group on 5 November 2009 at the MTV Europe Music Award held in Berlin.

History

Founding

Tokio Hotel was founded by vocalist Bill Kaulitz and guitarist Tom Kaulitz, who are identical twin brothers, drummer Gustav Schäfer and bass-guitarist Georg Listing. The four met in 2001 after a live show in a Magdeburg club, where Listing and Schäfer, who knew each other from music school, watched from the audience while Bill and Tom Kaulitz played on the stage.^[7][8] Under the name Devilish, the band soon began playing in talent shows and small concerts.^[9] After Bill Kaulitz's participation in a children's Star Search in 2003 at age thirteen (which he lost in the quarter-final), he was discovered by music producer Peter Hoffmann. Devilish changed their name to Tokio Hotel: "Tokio", the German spelling of the Japanese city Tokyo, due to a love of the city, and "Hotel" due to their constant touring and living in hotels.^[7] Soon after Sony BMG took them under contract, Hoffmann hired David Jost and Pat Benzner into the team of creators and authors, and had them give the teens instruction on songwriting and instrument playing; most of the songs of the first album were written by Hoffmann, Jost and Benzer (including the singles "Scream" and "Rescue me" which were completely written by them), only the single "Unendlichkeit" was written completely by Tokio Hotel themselves. However, shortly before release of their first album, Sony terminated their contract. In 2005, Universal Music Group took Tokio Hotel under contract and developed a marketing plan. The band has now become one of the biggest acts from Germany.

Schrei

Bill Kaulitz performing in Hessisch-Lichtenau, Germany in 2006.

Their first single, "Durch den Monsun" ("Through the Monsoon"), quickly rose in the charts, appearing on the German official Media Control single chart at #15 on 20 August 2005 and eventually reaching #1 on 26 August 2005; it also reached #1 on the Austrian singles chart. Their second single, "Schrei" ("Scream"), climbed to the #5 position in the German charts. These two songs were written by singer Bill Kaulitz together with their group of producers Peter Hoffmann, David Jost, Pat Benzer and Dave Roth. Their debut album, Schrei, was released on 19 September 2005, which the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry – Germany later awarded a platinum certification for selling over 200,000 copies.^[10][11] In 2006, a third and fourth single, "Rette mich" ("Rescue Me") and "Der letzte Tag" ("The Final Day"), were released; both reached #1 as well. "Der letzte Tag" contained a B-side called "Wir schließen uns ein", which was also accompanied by a music video.

Zimmer 483

The first single off their second album Zimmer 483 (Room 483), called "Übers Ende der Welt" (later re-released in English under the name "Ready, Set, Go!"), was released on 26 January 2007 and quickly reached #1 in Germany and Austria, and #2 in France. Zimmer 483 was released in Germany on 23 February 2007, along with a deluxe edition of the album containing a DVD. The album's second single, "Spring nicht" ("Don't Jump") was released on 7 April. The tour accompanying the release of the album, The Zimmer 483 Tour, was scheduled to start in March 2007, but was delayed by two weeks because the band members wished to have a different stage design. A third single, "An deiner Seite (Ich bin da)" ("By Your Side"), was released on the 16 November. The single contains the B-side "1000 Meere" ("1000 Oceans"), for which a music video was also produced. On 28 April 2008 Tokio Hotel released their single "Heilig" but no music video for the single was released, because of the tight schedule they had.

Scream

Tokio Hotel's first English language album, Scream, was released on 4 June 2007 throughout Europe. In Germany, the album was released as Room 483 in order to emphasize the continuity with their last German album Zimmer 483. Scream contains English versions of a selection of songs from their German-language albums Schrei and Zimmer 483. "Monsoon", the English-language version of "Durch den Monsun", was the first single from the album. "Ready, Set, Go!" (the translation of "Übers Ende der Welt") was released as the album's second single and "Don't Jump" (the translation of "Spring nicht") as the third single. A video for "Scream", the English-language version of their 2005 hit "Schrei", was also recorded, and was released to the iTunes Store in early March 2008.

Tokio Hotel gave their first concert in the United Kingdom on 19 June 2007. "Ready, Set, Go!" was released in the UK as the band's first single on 27 August 2007. The song reached #77 in the UK Singles Chart.

Tokio Hotel won an MTV Europe Music Award for Best InterAct on 1 November 2007 and were also nominated for Best Band. They performed "Monsoon" at the event.

Tokio Hotel released their first US single, simply called "Tokio Hotel", in late 2007. The single contains the tracks "Scream" and "Ready, Set, Go!", and was available exclusively at Hot Topic stores. Their second US single, "Scream America", was released on 11 December 2007. The single contains the track "Scream" and a remix of "Ready, Set, Go!" by AFI's Jade Puget. In February 2008, the band toured North America for five dates starting in Canada and finishing up in New York.^[12] After appearing and performing live on MuchMusic, while touring in Canada, "Ready, Set, Go!" entered the MuchOnDemand Daily 10, a countdown of videos chosen by viewers. It remained there for over a week, then returned to the top of the MOD Daily 10 chart on April 8. "Scream" was released in Canada on 25 March and in the US on 6 May.

1000 Hotels Tour

The "1000 Hotels" European Tour began on 3 March 2008 in Brussels and continued to locations including The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Scandinavia, and was scheduled to finish on 9 April; however, during the concert in Marseille, France on 14 March, Bill started to experience vocal problems.^[13] He let the audience sing more frequently than normal and instead of the original 21 songs that were on the set list, they only played 16 songs. Bill apologized, in German, for his bad singing and explained that he was sick. Two days later, the band canceled Lisbon, Portugal concert minutes before it was supposed to commence. The rest of the "1000 Hotels" Tour and a scheduled North American Tour were cancelled following an announcement in Bild by the band's manager that Bill Kaulitz had to undergo surgery to remove a cyst on his vocal cords.^[14][15]

Bill Kaulitz had been putting strain on his voice after playing 43 concerts in the 1000 Hotels tour without vacation.^[16] He had to undergo Larynx surgery on March 30 to remove a cyst that had formed on his vocal cords.^[17] The cyst was the result of a throat infection that went untreated.^[18] Following his surgery, Bill was unable to speak for twelve days, and had four weeks of vocal rehabilitation.^[19] If Bill had continued singing the rest of the tour, his voice would have eventually been permanently damaged.^[13][20] Tokio Hotel started performing again in May 2008^[21] and after that they embarked on a 2nd part of their 1000 Hotels European Tour adding many Open Air concerts and wrapping up the tour on July 13 in Werchter, Belgium.

North American Tours and Humanoid

Tokio Hotel embarked on a second tour of North America in August 2008. The band's music video for "Ready Set Go!" was nominated for Best Pop Video at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards,^[22] where they also won the award for Best New Artist.^[23] They returned to North America again in October 2008 for a month long tour of concerts and record store signings. In December 2008, a behind-the scenes DVD called Tokio Hotel TV – Caught on Camera was released. It contains footage from Tokio Hotel TV and backstage feature stories of the previous year on disc one entitled "History – The very best of Tokio Hotel TV!". A deluxe edition contains a second disc entitled "Future – The road to the new Album!" which features footage of the band on promotion tours and preparing for their third studio album.^[24]

In between the North American tours, the band returned to their record studio in Hamburg to record their third studio album, Humanoid, which, according to their producer David Jost, is currently set for release on October 2 in Germany & October 6, 2009 in the U.S.^[25][26][27] This is despite earlier statements predicting a March/April 2009 release or a May/June 2009 release.^[28][29][30] The album was recorded in both German and English with both versions were released simultaneously worldwide.^[29][30]

On August 10, it was announced on MTV news that the first German single would be "Automatisch" and its English counterpart, "Automatic", would also be released as a first single in the United States. On August 20, MTV Buzzworthy released a video which previewed "Automatic" and Cherrytree Records announced that the English version of the song would be released in the US on September 22.^[31][32] Nevertheless, the video for the single was released on September 3.

On November 2, it was announced on Tom's Blog that the second English single would be "World Behind My Wall" and its German counterpart, "Lass uns laufen", would be the second German single.^[33] The music videos for both versions were released on December 14 and December 15.

On June 24, the live music video for their single, "Dark Side of the Sun" was released on the band website.

On July 20, 2010 they released their second live album Humanoid City Live from Milan, Italy

Band members

Leipzig

Halle

Magdeburg

Tokio Hotel Origins

Bill Kaulitz

Tom Kaulitz

Tom Kaulitz was born on September 1, 1989 in Leipzig ten minutes before his identical twin brother, Bill. Since September 2007, Tom uses Gibson guitars and Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Heads with Mesa Boogie Rectifier 4x12 cabinets.^[34] He has stated his musical influences to be Aerosmith^[35] and German hip-hop such as Samy Deluxe.^[7]

Georg Listing

Georg Listing was born on 31 March 1987. His hometown is Halle. He began playing bass when he was thirteen-years-old,^[7] and, as of September 2007, uses a Sandberg bass.^[34] He has said that his playing style was heavily influenced by Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers,^[36] and other musical influences include Die Ärzte and Oasis.^[7]

Gustav Schäfer

Gustav Schäfer was born on 8 September 1988 in his hometown of Magdeburg. He currently lives in Magdeburg and in the temporary home in Hamburg where the studio is. Gustav has been playing the drums since he was five. His musical influences include Metallica, Joe Crocker, and Rod Stewart.

Discography

Studio Albums

• 2005: Schrei - Universal Music/Island
• 2006: Schrei - so laut du kannst - Universal Music/Island – Re-recording of Schrei
• 2007: Zimmer 483 - Universal Music/Island
• 2007: Scream - Universal Music/Island
• 2009: Humanoid... German - CherryTree Records, Interscope Records
• 2009: Humanoid... English - CherryTree Records, Interscope Records

Live Albums

• 2006: Schrei – Live - Universal Music/Island^[37]
• 2007: Zimmer 483 – Live In Europe - Universal Music/Island
• 2010: Humanoid City Live ^[38]

Awards

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

References

External links

• Official Site
• Official Twitter
• Official Facebook Page
• Official Youtube Channel
• Interscope Records Profile
• Tokio Hotel on MTV