(01.03.2017)
Tokio Hotel: One-time teen idols in Batschkapp
Frankfurt – What hysteria in girls’ hearts: When Tokio Hotel’s “Through the monsoon”, hit the charts in 2005. Millions of wins and criticism pattered on them. On Friday their fifth studio album “Dream Machine” will be released. By Enrico Sauda
On 16 March, the boys come to Frankfurt’s Batschkapp. We were talking. Bill and Tom Kaulitz about their new uncompromisingness.
They know a lot of cities from their tours. What do you like about Frankfurt?
Bill: The airport. The has a great smoking area.
Tom: When I am in Germany, Frankfurt is always the first city I reach. Of course I do not see anything. But we have friends in Frankfurt who always come to our concerts.
Festhalle, Gibson, now Batschkapp – how is that from big halls to smaller?
Tom: That’s something quite different. Another kind of show. We’ve been doing electronic music for quite a while, and the new album is also tied to it. We want to dive the venues into a club and party atmosphere. This worked very well on the last tour – especially in venues of this size.
How long have you been with the predecessor album of “Dream Machine”?
Bill: By November. This was one of the best tours we’ve ever played. We wanted to go on as fast as possible and have already sold tickets for the new tour before the new material was available.
The best tour you’ve ever played. What was especially good?
Bill: Everything. Above all, we as a band. The longer you play together, the better you feel. This development does not end even after 15 years. We have tried a lot of new stuff and feel like we’ve arrived with the kind of music we’re making and with our live shows.
Tom: We’ve never enjoyed a tour so much and consciously perceived. This comes with the time, as a musician, you become more conscious of what you are doing. We have never felt so comfortable as a band.
On the stage and around?
Tom: Right. That has all changed. For ourselves. At that time, twelve years ago with “Through the monsoon”, that was a crazy trip. But the development, which also has something to do with the aging. We as a band do not have the feeling to have to prove something or to be under pressure, but try to relax completely.
Bill: “Dream Machine”, the new album, is under the sign of only doing what we’re into. Without compromises. We are no longer playing this whole business and music policy. We are concerned about the fact that we have fun. Everything else comes only afterwards. This is something you have to learn as a band only with the years.
Do these changes have anything to do with your life in California?
Tom: It certainly plays a role. We have a very different life here. At the time when we were cut off from Germany, that was at the border. At that time we could only live in the house, had no existence outside the band. We asked ourselves whether we could and would continue to do so at all. Six years ago we moved to Los Angeles, and here we started a whole new life. We meet people we find musically good.
Is there someone who has particularly impressed you?
Bill: It’s not so artist-related, but we mean that in general. It is above all the freedom we have here. There was no longer anything for us in Germany and Europe, for we were at a point where we could not write and compose at all. We could not live a real life. And here we can do what we want. This makes it possible at all times that we write music and are open to encounters with others.
You probably will not be there.
Bill and Tom: Exactly.
Tom: This is the best thing about L.A., You can really hide there.
Bill: L.A. Overall is different than many cities. A melting pot of many religions and cultures. No one is surprised about the other. Nothing matters. No one looks at you as you leave the house.
You play a lot in Russia. Why?
Tom: We played 20 dates there in 2015. And it was so good that we realized that we would definitely want to play there again. And that is only the beginning, because it is for us a super market and the fans are incredibly loyal. In South America it is so. These are countries where there is not a concert every day.
“Dream Machine” is the first album after its separation from the label Universal. They said that this album is your soul. Does this mean, in the reverse, that the “Tokio Hotel” was missing in album predecessors?
Tom: This album has our soul for the first time, because we had no compromises – no creative. With Universal we were very long together and were obliged to work with certain people. This time we could decide everything by ourselves. We were quite free. That felt incredibly good.