Part 1:
Hi everyone and welcome to Exposé. In the next 30 minutes, you will learn more about the phenomenon of the German band, Tokio Hotel.
I went all the way to Paris for their concert, presented in front of 50 thousand people at Le Parc des Princes and I used this trip to meet a few people who helped the band’s career in France and in Québec.
The security is tight!
It’s outside of the Hyatt Paris that the Tokio Hotel fans are waiting with hope to maybe meet the members of the band, who are staying there while they are in Paris.
How long have you been waiting outside the hotel this morning?
-9am
-Yesterday
-2pm
-I just want to say that we aren’t groupies, it’s just that we don’t have any more voice. We had to tell you, that’s it.
How long have you been here?
-Saturday
So, what are you doing? You stay here?
-Yeah, we sleep.
How long have you been waiting outside?
-Half an hour
-No, it’s been two hours.
Mom makes a correction!
-Two hours!
-10:30 this morning.
Did you see them?
-No. They left by the back doors.
And they know it!
How did you know the band was staying at this hotel?
-Well, on the internet.
-On a discussion forum about Le Parc des Princes.
Why are you Tokio Hotel fans? What’s the story behind it?
-The rock, firstly. Then, German-rock. The lyrics, what they are saying, everything. It’s everything, in fact.
-The lyrics, well, it’s just like us, we think the same.
-The music is awesome, and they are nice…
You think they are cute?
-Yes, yeah.
-Who is your favorite band member?
-Bill… Bill
-All of them, all of them.
-Tom, Bill.
-Like, Tom. Like, like, like, Tom….
Do you prefer if they sing in German or in English tonight?
-GERMAN
Wow, that’s general. Why, though? Are you insulted when they sing in English?
-No, it’s just more commercial in English
-German is what make them authentic, original.
-They are German, they should sing in German.
It’s crazy to have them not even an inch away from you, it’s…
-I feel overwhelmed, having them so near, it’s too good.
Stay with us, after the break we’re still with Tokio Hotel, in Paris.
Part 2:
Still wanting to find more about Tokio Hotel, I met Pierre Veillet, editor of four French magazines, including Rock One, which has been the first French magazine to put Tokio Hotel on the cover.
-We were the first to discover Tokio Hotel in France, I have to say, it’s our readers, girl readers because most of the time it was girls who told us about the phenomenon, who informed us about a German band, Germany is a frontier country of France, which didn’t have until then the habit to bring us lots of bands. We were surprised, we were receiving lots of mail, and it the letters, we noticed that there was an idol, a singer that had a particular style, who liked, who was influenced by J-rock or the image we have of it, mangas and whatnot. A character a little bit unreal, Bill. A band that was made of two brothers, Bill and Tom, and two other musicians, our readers mentioned them as well, we shouldn’t forget them, Gustav and Georg.
I stopped by Universal Music France to meet the international marketing director, who started Tokio Hotel’s career in France.
-I think that Tokio Hotel, it works and it’s this big right now because everything is good. In fact, I think that it’s not only the songs, it’s not only the looks, everything is awesome. And the band came out at a good moment, what I mean is that there isn’t a lot of young artists who make rock nowadays. The kids nowadays, let’s say between 16 and 25 years old, continued to identify themselves to people like The Cure, Marilyn Manson, Placebo, Indochine, but that’s our generation, they are artists who are 30, 35, even 40 years old. Now they can identify to an artist who is similar to them, Tokio Hotel talk about problems that their fans know, teenagers problems, teenagers questions, things that teenagers live. The music is good because it’s credible, the band is good because they can play live, sing live, credible too. The image is just completely genial, they all have a particular look, Bill, he’s just fabulous, out of nowhere. And they had things to day that were appropriate, with a real message, not just “the weather’s awesome, blah blah, I love you, me neither, you don’t love me” and, yeah. Something consistent. And I think that’s what triggered all this hysteria.
How are they to photography, are they easy, are they comfortable in front of the camera, how are they?
-Well in front of a camera, is it a television camera or a photography camera, they are photogenic, they know exactly what they want to give. Though, they are a little hard to lead, when we want to have something different, when we want to have a new image of them, they aren’t against some things, but they control their image, that’s kind of normal though.
In addition to having a big success in France, Tokio Hotel crossed the Atlantic all the way to Québec, and who’s better to talk about it than Jonathan Bergeron, director of Universal Music, in Montréal.
First time you met them, firstly, what did you think they’d be like, and were they just like what you thought?
-Well, I thought that they would be really cold, you know, Germans sometimes… it’s not mean, it’s just… and they were big, when I first met them they had already sold 3 or 4 million albums in Europe, I thought they’d be pretentious, not nice. But no, really, really nice, really warm and like, “thank you for what you do for us here, it’s very impressing, we’re arriving here in Canada and we think there’ll be only two people at our show but there’s thousands and they slept outside to see us”. So yeah, the impression was really positive.
-They are really sexy, they make really good music and yeah, I love it.
-Fan number one of Tokio Hotel
-I took German lessons and…
Don’t leave, after the break, we’re back for Exposé Tokio Hotel, in Paris.
Part 3:
We are back for Exposé Tokio Hotel, our interview with the band continues, still in Paris.Here ends Exposé Tokio Hotel, directly from Les Champs Élysées, in Paris, see you next time.
Courtesy: www.tokiohotelnetwork.com
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