“We’re all like little children,” explains lead guitarist Richard Z Kruspe. “We never really want to grow up and we want to play with a lot of toys.”
Their favourite toy is fire. Lots of bands employ pyros, but nobody does fire like Rammstein. Frontman Till Lindemann is actually a qualified pyrotechnic and if there’s something they can burn while on stage then they’ll torch. Band members breathe fire, fireballs slam into the gantry, guitars throw flames, fireworks are shot from crossbows, and the band, their instruments, the stage and even fans are set alight. At one point keyboardist and regular whipping boy Flake Lorenz is chucked into a giant cooking pot and flame-fried with fireworks. He emerges galvanised and spends the rest of the set playing keyboards while jogging on a treadmill. The apocalypse has never looked so fun.
Rammstein’s outrageous stage show started in part because, in between prowling around stage emitting guttural chants and pounding his thigh like a demented primate, lead singer Till didn’t have a lot to do.
“A factor that came into our world was our singer when we started the band,” explains Richard. “He was not like a real singer that goes [sings] ‘Oh Yeah’ and stuff like that. He was really bored all the time so we used some fire trickery and out of that came the whole thing. It just became bigger and bigger.”
In terms of showmanship, Kiss are a big inspiration for Richard and the rest of Rammstein, but when it comes to an incendiary spectacle, these days Kiss would have trouble emulating the German pyromaniacs rather than the other way round. As Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez says: “I’ve never seen anything like a Rammstein show in my life. I’ve seen Kiss in their heyday, but I’ve never seen more pyrotechnics on one stage in my life. It is over the top.”
Not that this doesn’t create a pressure of its own.
“Sometimes I wish I could play with bands like Pearl Jam, which have nothing,” says Richard wistfully. “It’s kind of a curse with Rammstein because it’s hard to do less because people are expecting a lot visually. At the end of the day, you are a musician, you want to play music, but you’re carrying the weight of fire and light and stuff and it’s just sometimes really heavy.”
And dangerous. Burned more times than it’s worth cataloguing, by now the band understand the risks, particularly when playing festivals, and can’t deviate too far from the set script they devise at the start of a tour.
“One of the sad things is that we’re pretty much doing the same thing. With all the fire on the stage everything has to be really organised because it is dangerous, especially if you’re playing outside,” says Richard. “First of all fire is uncontrollable and then you have the wind, which can blow in every direction so you have to be careful about where you’re going and where you’re moving.”
The stage show may be regimented, but the consistent controversy the band court ensures Rammstein maintain an air of the chaotic.
Arrests in the US for simulating sodomy on stage, accusations of far-right flirtations, lyrics that address sadomasochism, paedophilia, cannabilism, violent sex and necrophilia, and, of course, the odd explosive accident all contribute to the continuation of the Rammstein myth. In Germany, their latest album was originally only allowed to be sold ‘under the counter’ due to its artwork and subject matter. A recent court victory rectified this, though it’s unclear whether that extends to the limited-edition box set, which comes in a flight case featuring six prosthetic sex aids based on the band members’…well, members.
Amid the shock and the stagecraft it’s sometimes forgotten that the dildo enthusiasts can actually play. Even on the metal circuit it’s difficult to find a tighter band.
“You don’t have to be a super-hero guitar player to play in Rammstein,” says Richard modestly. “I try to make everything as simple as possible. That’s my religion about guitar riffs and guitar playing. It’s more about the tightness in Rammstein. You need to be really tight to play in the band.”
In the end you can write as much as you want about the rib-pounding riffs, the stage-wrecking set and the seamless showmanship, but you won’t be able to properly depict the gig. The only proper way to understand a Rammstein show is to go and feel the fire on your face and experience it live.
Rammstein make their only UK festival appearance of the year at Knebworth on Saturday 31st July. To be part of the live spectacle of the summer
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