Tokio Hotel in Berlin - Big interview with Bill and Tom Kaulitz

For five years there was silence around Tokio Hotel. The frontmen Bill and Tom Kaulitz moved to Los Angeles, and found inspiration and freedom. In the interwiew with the dpa (Deutsche Presseagentur) the twins speak about the luxury of anonymity, squealing girls and their new Album "Kings of Suburbia".

You haven't released an album in Germany in five years. Why did it take you so Long?

Bill: Exactly. We could have a private life there again. In Germany we couldn't go outside, we were locked in, so we thought: Where should we get our inspiration from now? For the first time we could start to live again, And from life comes inspiration of course.

Will you go back to Germany also privately now?
Bill: No. We'll keep on living in the USA. We just came from LA last week, Tom and me.
Tom: And we'll also fly back there. But now that the album is released, you don't really live anywhere. You're always on tour and in between you don't drive home.

You felt really uncomfortable in Germany. Do you want to do that to yourselves again?
Bill: No, we only come to Germany to perform here. I love Germany, I really love being here. But I can't live here permanently. With the band we want to perform in Germany of course and play concerts. Then we come back and here we go again. But we leave our private life in LA.

How unobserved can you live in the USA?
Bill: Very unobserved. You can't compare that. LA is simply a huge city. A lot more anonymous. You just wear a baseball-cap and sunglasses and simply go out. You can disappear really well there.
Tom: In Germany everything's a bit more intimate and smaller. We love being anonymous, but for others it can be pretty hard.

What has changed in your music?
Bill: The album's pretty much inspired by the new freedom. In the USA we had the luck that we could just go out, party, go to clubs.
Tom: For us it was also simply a luxury to have time to make music, because we wanted it, not because we have to. This has extremely influenced the album musically. The new inspiration also changes the music.

Do you think that the album also appeals to adults?
Bill: That's a natural development of course. We don't intentionally make a special kind of music. It's just the music we were up for. I also think that back then many adults would have found that good music.

Your fans from back then are also in their mid-20's now and no squealing girls anymore.
Tom: They can also squeal when they're twenty. When they see me, definitely.

But do they still want to hear you?
Bill: We didn't go into the studio with the intention to do our music for a certain target group. We just want to do what we find good ourselves. Among our fans there are certainly some who are our age. All in their mid- or end-20's.
Tom: Our target group are people with a good taste in music.

The expectations for your new album are high, so that's also a big risk.
Bill: Back then when we said we won't do anything anymore, everyone said that's "Career Suicide". You just have to blind that out. We didn't want to do an album just to stay in people's minds. But because it feels good and right.

You've been together for 14 years now. There would have been also the risk that you don't want to work together anymore.
Bill: It always sounds so cheesy, but we've known each other since we were little boys. We are so used to one another, there are no surprises anymore.
Tom: We don't see each other for months, but then it's still like in old times. We've been together for 14 years and we will also be together for the next 14 years.

With the growing squealing you could have also stopped the live concerts. Was it ever an option for you?
Bill: Exactly because of that we made a break. I couldn't hear the Name Tokio Hotel anymore. We told all of our stories, always did the same, and always produced a new album after another. If that happens, there's no balance anymore. We had to take a break, to start freshly again.
Tom: Yeah, now we're up for it again. We already shooted three videos.

What will be different with your new album and the new tour?
Bill: We still come from other times. When we got famous, there was no Facevook, Twitter and Instagram. That was a bit old School back then, we still had autograph cards. That's not the case today anymore. Nowadays people give you a stupid look, if you want to sign them something.
Tom: They rather want a selfie. We already asked ourselves: Should we still print autograph cards?

Translation by Herzblut @ TokioHotel_Info

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