Rammstein
From Eastern punk to mega money machine
At that time still largely scandal-free: export hit Rammstein in 2001.
© imago/ZUMA Wire
How a bunch of cheerful Eastern punks became the world’s most famous German music export.
The current allegations about Rammstein singer Till Lindemann (60) give rise to speculation that they could soon bring about the end of the internationally known band. Should this actually happen, one of the biggest money machines in the German music scene would also come to a standstill. Concrete numbers about the wealth that has been brought in since its founding in 1994 are not available, but they are Estimates of the “image”The fact that Rammstein has earned around 500 million euros through album sales, tours and extensive merchandising does not seem unrealistic.
Origins in the chaotic punk underground of the GDR
Before their meteoric rise, the members of the band could never have imagined that their music would ever achieve such world fame and bank accounts worth millions.
Because the origins of Rammstein can be found in the musical underground of the GDR in the 1980s, which was blessed with improvised wildness, but certainly not with opportunities for commercial self-realization.
Rammstein germ cell Feeling B
The Berlin band Feeling B, a fun punk combo around the singer Aljoscha Rompe (1947-2000), who often got drunk after just a few songs on stage, occupied a central position in this fairly clear scene at the time fell asleep while the band just kept playing. The band members at that time included two later Rammstein musicians: guitarist Paul Landers (58) and keyboardist Christian Lorenz (56), already known back then under the name “Flake”. After the fall of the wall, the later Rammstein drummer Christoph Schneider (57) joined the band, which finally broke up in 1994.
From the temple prayers to Rammstein
After a few detours, a new formation with much greater commercial potential was soon to emerge from the ruins of Feeling B in the confusing post-reunification period. While Feeling B was already on its last legs, a certain Till Lindemann from Schwerin (previously a drummer with the band First Ass) founded Feeling-B together with his buddies Richard Kruspe (55, guitar) and Oliver Riedel (52, bass). -Drummer Christoph Schneider formed a new band called Tempelprayers in 1993, which focused on hard metal instead of chaotic punk. After the Feeling B veterans Christian “Flake” Lorenz and Paul Landers joined in 1994, the Rammstein band line-up that has existed to this day was complete.
Keyboarder Flake: “I really didn’t want to have anything to do with the guys”
As the faint-hearted keyboarder Flake later reported in the music format “MTV Masters”, he was initially anything but enthusiastic about the project’s implied “New German Hardship”. There he said: “I came in last, I didn’t really want to have anything to do with the boys. Paul took me with him once (…). Then I went down to the basement and there were five guys there who were blunt played a riff for an hour – like the stupid ones, at such a volume that it hurt all over me.”
Recipe for success “New German hardness”
But soon the brutal musical style of the band, especially in combination with Lindemann’s martial singing and his abysmal lyrics, turned out to be an absolute recipe for success. In order to give the desired commercial success a solid foundation right from the start, the metal band, soon renamed Rammstein, founded (At least that’s what “Bild” reports) already in 1994 the “Rammstein GBR”.
Permanent guests at the top of the charts
After a short start-up phase, Rammstein soon went up steeply. In 1995, the record label Motor Music signed the newcomers, and in the same year the debut album “Herzeleid” was released, which initially only entered the German charts at number 99, but after the big breakthrough with the second album “Sehnsucht” also became one developed great commercial success.
With the exception of the debut album, all Rammstein albums have since climbed to the top of the German and Austrian charts. With their (untitled) album released in 2019, the band even stormed straight to the top of the charts in fourteen countries. The band is now regarded as Germany’s biggest cultural export hit and fills stadiums on all continents without any problems.