The history of Rammstein is paved with anecdotes and band projects that are as funny as a book by their keyboardist Christian “Flake” Lorenz. The disaster began deep in the east, back then in the GDR, although the members of Rammstein never had anything to do with what is now summarized under the term “Ostrock”. Provocation has played an important role from the start. The dangers in the workers’ and peasants’ state were far greater than they are today.
Perhaps this is the origin of the mentality that has made it possible for Rammstein to get away with so many scandals and transgressions for a long time: Anyone who enjoys flouting the regulations within a dictatorship has all doors open to them in the free market economy. One could also say that Rammstein reversed the omens for musicians with a GDR past: While many didn’t see a stitch after the reunification, Rammstein knew pretty quickly which niche they wanted to serve. With brutal sound and martial aesthetics to global success! Of course, this required a few test fields. A small overview of the stations of the individual band members.
till Lindemann
Born in Leipzig in 1963 as the son of a children’s book author and a journalist, Lindemann grew up in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. At the age of nine he wrote down his first lyrical outpourings. Completely inartistic it goes on afterwards. A promising youth as competitive swimmers, sports schools, boarding school, socialist drill for competitiveness with “imperialist countries” follow. However, the promotion to the cadre of GDR professional sport came to an abrupt end when “class-hostile” stickers were found on Lindemann, which he had gotten during the 1978 European Youth Swimming Championships in Italy. At the end of the 1970s he did an apprenticeship as a carpenter. From then on he also worked as a basket maker, carpenter and technician. In 1988, Werner Lindemann published the book “Mike Oldfield in a Rocking Chair” about the difficult phase with his son.
Musically, Lindemann made a name for himself from 1986, first as a drummer, then from time to time as a bassist and singer in the punk band First Ass – a short version of Schwerin’s First Autonomous Rioters. At the end of the 1980s he lived as a single father with one daughter near Schwerin. In 1993 his friend Richard Kruspe brought him into the band Tempelprayers, which had just been founded and eventually became Rammstein in 1994. Lindemann is a trained pyrotechnician and godfather to Joey Kelly’s eldest son. Since 2015 he has been running the metal duo Lindemann with Swedish multi-instrumentalist and producer Peter Tägtgren; since Tägtgren’s departure in 2021, Lindemann has been doing it alone. In his song texts and volumes of poetry (including “In silent nights”, 2013) is now looking for evidence of the most recent allegations of abuse.
Richard Kruspe
Born in Wittenberge in 1967, Kruspe spent his childhood in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. Like Lindemann, a career as an athlete seems to have been mapped out for him in his youth. He celebrates success as a wrestler, but after school he trains as a cook and plays the guitar as much as possible in his free time. Without the player’s license that was customary in the GDR, he soon came into conflict with the regime as a guitarist in the band Das elegant Chaos. An attempt by the Stasi to blackmail Kruspe and recruit him as an unofficial employee was ineffective. In 1988 he moved to East Berlin, in 1989 he said he accidentally stumbled into a demonstration critical of the regime and was arrested, interrogated and beaten. He then fled with a friend to West Germany via Hungary and Austria in mid-October.
After the fall of the Wall, Kruspe is unemployed for five years. He seeks contact with his friend Till Lindemann and now lives in a shared flat with his future Rammstein colleagues Oliver Riedel and Christoph Schneider. He plays in the combos The Eye of God and The Company. And he records the first ass album “Saddle Up” (1992) with Lindemann, singer Steve Mielke and the then Feeling B guitarist Paul Landers. He also founded the crossover band Orgasm Death Gimmick in 1991. In the early 1990s, he also traveled to the Southwest of the USA with Lindemann and Riedel. After returning, Kruspe pursues his vision of a sound made up of machines and hard guitars, which finds its culmination in Rammstein. A side project followed in the mid-2000s with the metal band Emigrate, for which Kruspe was able to win guest singers such as Frank Dellé (Seeed), Lemmy Kilmister, Jonathan Davis (Korn), Peaches and Marilyn Manson.
Paul Landers
Born in 1964 as the son of a Slavist and a Russian teacher, Heiko Paul Hiersche grew up in East Berlin except for a trip to Moscow by his parents. At 13 he took piano lessons, but soon switched to guitar. He even passed the entrance exam at the renowned music school in Friedrichshain. At the age of 20, the trained radio and telecommunications technician met Nikki Landers from Leipzig on Hiddensee. He marries her a little later and takes her last name. But the marriage falls apart after two years. Landers then moves into a shared apartment with Christian “Flake” Lorenz, with whom he now plays in the punk band Feeling B. A few houses down, the band rehearses in singer Aljoscha Rompe’s apartment. In 1986 Landers also joined Die Firma as a guitarist. The Stasi also wants to recruit him as an IM, with similar success as with Kruspe. A concert by Die Firma together with Element Of Crime in East Berlin’s Zionskirche on October 17, 1987 is legendary. It was attacked by around 30 right-wing skinheads.
Landers finally came into the focus of the state security through the side project Magdalene Keibel Combo, which mixed up the socialist mishmash with their experimental Dada sound excursions. At Rammstein, Landers is seen as a link, as someone who holds the squad together. And he is the man who spills the gasoline at the first Rammstein concerts that Lindemann lights from the stage. According to Landers, the flamethrowers that have become a trademark go back to an idea from Feeling B days.
Oliver Riedel
Rammstein bassist Oliver Riedel was born in Schwerin in 1971. Relatively little is known about him compared to his bandmates. He lives a secluded life and rarely gives interviews. But so much seems certain: he gave up his job as a plasterer in the early 1990s to pursue a career as a musician. During his shared flat with Richard Kruspe and Christoph Schneider, he played with The Inchtabokatables, whose sound oscillated between folk, punk and medieval rock. His stage name back then: Orgies-Ollie. Despite good salaries, he left The Inchtabokatables in 1994 and founded Rammstein with Kruspe, Schneider and Lindemann. In addition to his loner status – Riedel moved into a tree house in Sonoma, California during the recording of the Rammstein album “Liebe ist für alle da” (2009) – there is also a certain fear of flying, which has repeatedly caused him to travel to concerts by bus and mobile home.
Christopher Schneider
Schneider, born in East Berlin in 1966, is the son of a music teacher and the opera director Martin Schneider. Accordingly, his musical education begins early, first on the piano, then on the trumpet. But the boy wants to get out of the boring music school circle, he wants to play the drums and builds a makeshift drum kit out of buckets and metal boxes. After a few school bands, an apprenticeship as a radio and telecommunications technician (where he met Landers for the first time) and his military service (Schneider is the only Rammstein member who did his NVA service), he drummed in combos with illustrious names such as No idea and cheek.
At the end of the 1980s he joined Die Firma, and from 1990 he was a regular guest drummer with Feeling B. Like the Lindemann-Riedel-Kruspe trio, he toured in 1993 with the Feeling B line-up of Landers, “Flake” Lorenz, Aljoscha Rompe and the later Rammstein sound engineer Andreas “Vadder” father to the USA to play a few concerts on the off chance – without any notable success. Feeling B disband a short time later. The band’s chaotic gigs leave Schneider with a bad aftertaste: As part of the Rammstein founding quartet, he is said to have been against recording Landers because he found it too exhausting. In his book Today is the World’s Birthday, Flake writes about Schneider: “He plays like a machine. Only better.” Fun fact: Schneider used to be a handball goalkeeper. He told the “Welt” sports editors: “The role of the goalkeeper corresponds to that of the drummer in the music. You’re at the back, you’re responsible for the defense and you keep the place together.”
Christian “Flake” Lorenz
The sixth wheel on the wagon: Lorenz is the last member to join Rammstein. In his books “The Key Fucker” and “Heute hat die Weltetta” he not only provides insights into the Rammstein cosmos, but also tells with the amazement of a sixth grader about everyday life in the GDR, the East Berlin punk scene and the rise to the premier league of rock bands . When skimming through the Lorenz files, one learns: Born in 1966 in East Berlin, father an engineer in a state-owned company for electrical equipment, mother at the Humboldt University. Piano lessons from the third grade. Moderate performance at school. stutters. Is teased and put in dumpsters by his classmates. Later, at Rammstein concerts, he has to drive across the sea of fans in a rubber dinghy (and is rarely carried back to the stage). Wanted to be a surgeon. But becomes an ABM force, failed car salesman, passionate walker, hypochondriac and musician. Plays in a rhythm and blues band called Helpless. Joined Feeling B at the age of 16. He hardly works in his job as a toolmaker. Feeling-B colleague Paul Landers, who also produces for other bands, gets him engagements as a guest musician.
Since 1994 Rammstein keyboardist. During the first rehearsals, Lorenz just sits around. What could his contribution consist of? One day he plays a few notes on his instrument that sound like a “dying dinosaur”. The dying dinosaur is a mixture of prog rock synthesizer and power plant – and stands for the Rammstein sound like Till Lindemann’s monstrous vocals. Lorenz is jailed twice for a short time: the first time for “attempting to flee the Republic” because he went hiking with a friend too close to the inner-German border. A second time for lewd behavior at a concert in Worcester, Massachusetts. For the live performance of the song “Bück dich” Rammstein had created an oversized dummy penis with which Lindemann made the keyboard player, who was on a dog leash, happy – too much for American moral and law enforcement officers. Lorenz is married to the artist Jenny Rosemeyer, loves old cars and has a podcast on “Radio Eins”.