Tokio Hotel: Starting over

Tokio Hotel are back, and not only Bill and Tom Kaulitz are – outwardly – barely recognizable, also their music style radically changed.
Düsseldorf. Tokio Hotel from Madgeburg broke all the records as a teen-band in the 00s. But soon the success overwhelmed the young musicians, Bill and Tom Kaulitz, which is why they decided to flee into anonymity in 2009. In Los Angeles the, by now, 25-year old twins didn’t just find their luck, but also the muse for a new album. They talked with us about “Kings Of Suburbia”, their adoptive home and the sins of their youth.
Tom and Bill, you’re not teenagers anymore – you now have to break into the “adult pop-music” market. Were you aware of that fact when you recorded the album?
Tom Kaulitz: No. In the beginning we didn’t think of anything. We were already taking a risk with taking so much time off. If you don’t release a song every week in the music business of today, there’s already a new artist on the horizon and you’re history. We didn’t care about that, we still went through with it. I think it’s strange when musicians release new songs and work on new albums non-stop. It just doesn’t work like that when you’re really creative. Writing songs takes some time.
Bill Kaulitz: I don’t believe that you can sit down and cater to a specific target market. With this album, we just made the music that we would listen to in private as well. That’s the only way success can happen: When you yourself think that it’s the best thing out there.

Was it your goal to reinvent yourself musically?
Bill: We took a break for five years, because I had the feeling that I had already told all the stories with our songs that I could have. I also couldn’t stand to hear the name Tokio Hotel anymore.
Tom: At some point we just went back to the studio and were turning over a new leaf. Each song on our new album is extremely different. We only have 2 pure ballads on there, where we didn’t use a synthesizer – but also songs with a lot of bass- and hooklines.
Love or hate – no other german band polarized a crowd in the past as much as Tokio Hotel did. Do you want to stick it to those people who always said that no one should take you seriously now?
Bill: Sometimes I’m a little afraid that people don’t even hate us that much anymore. There is nothing better that could happen to you in your career than to polarize. But we never expected such strong reactions. Everyone just though that we have this huge marketing team backing us.
If people had known who was really backing us, they would have probably laughed. It just happened, there was no secret plan from an awesome marketing team who thought “Hm, let’s create a band”. Today I’m really glad that people have such different/crass opinions. I hope that there will always be people who think that we’re crap. The worst thing would be if people simply didn’t care at all.
Are Tokio Hotel polarizing in the US as much as in Germany?
Tom: In the US barely anything polarizes. They have a different mentality. Not even those so-called celebrities, famous people who don’t really know how to do anything. There is nothing like that in Germany. Here celebrtities are walking the red carpet next to real rockstars.
How much do you work?
Bill: Since we finished the album we have longer working days. Tom and I are really involved in every step. There is no e-mail that doesn’t go through us first. We helped pick the artwork and I’m also sitting in on the merchandise meetings, because we can’t handle when other people choose everything for us. I don’t want to have a superior.
With the new album it’s even a little more extreme. Sometimes I would really like to do less, but we just can’t handle that because we’re controlfreaks in that sense. Sometimes I would really love to only be the singer who leans back and lets all the others do the work.
Is something that you did in the past embarassing to you now?
Tom: For me, everything that we did so far, at that time, was always really awesome. That’s exactly what I always wanted to do. As long as I can think back to how it felt at the time where it happened, nothing I did makes me feel embarassed. I still think back to our last European tour, watch the DVD and think: “I hope we can do this/create this feeling with our next tour as well”. You want to push yourself.[...]

Translation by Icey @ loveth-music.com

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