Sunday, July 6, 2008

An Interview



"For many it’s all a hysteria with no reason, but for the fans of Tokio Hotel that spent hours without sleeping and many hours under the burning sun, everything is worthwhile! The German band is returning to our country and there is no need to have eyes wide open to see that they will be receive with open arms!

Reporter: Some of the people that are outside are here from maybe two week or a week, let’s say. It’s there any band that you would do the same to see them and how do you look at this kind of crazy you know stuff that surround you?

Tom: We’re very happy with that, of course. But I have to say that there isn’t a band for which I would do that, but there’s a women Jessica Alba.
Georg: Had to be.
Tom: People speak so much about her. But we’re very happy, specially after our last concert got cancelled and to have outside people that are already here waiting over a week it’s very good.
Bill: We can say that as a band we have the best fans that we could wish for. The scenes from today repeat themselves and we are very happy.

Reporter: You came from Spain and you should know that today germany plays against Spain, do you tease them over there about the game of today?

Bill: To tell you the true we don’t understand anything about football, we are very bad in football. And to be honest I’m not a big football fan. Obviously we wish good luck to Germany, but there’s no problem if Spain wins. Both are beautiful countries, so it’s not very important.
Georg: But I’m sure Germany will win!

Reporter: This place give you the creeps for the last time you were here, do you think like oh I’m going to a place where something bad happened to me?

Bill: The others have just talked about that. We were already on backstage and remembered the show that had to be canceled. To me what happen, happened and it’s gone and I’m very happy to be fit again, to be able to go on stage again and I try not to think about it. I can’t forget it completely, because it was the worst thing that happened to me and I felt sorry for the fans. And it makes me glad that they have returned again, that they have stayed faithful, that they are all here and I’m very happy for the concert that we’ll perform tonight.

Reporter: Are you tired of playing these songs, you want to write new stuff or everyday is different and different that you kind of like to notice the songs developing?

Tom: Well, tired we still aren’t, for sure. Georg gets out of tune in all songs till today, so it’s ok. But we realized that it’s time to edit a new album and we’re on studio composing new songs, experimenting new things, we are working and things are developing. But it still it’s too much for Georg.

Bill: Well, with the new album we’re trying to free ourselves from everything, clear our ideas, empty our heads, go for walks, so that we can continue being creative. Definitively we are going to keep our sound. Without doubt we will continue to be Tokio Hotel, but we will try some new things. We have many ideas and we are in a creative process with things revolving in our heads and equating what direction to take. Anyway the new album will bring surprises, surprise songs and so.

Reporter: What’s shuttling on your hi-pod’s nowadays?

Bill: uhm.. it’s hard to say...The new Coldplay’s album, no doubt. I think it’s pretty good, and besides a little of everything. I at least don’t fix on a band, I like to hear good songs and it’s a big mixture. But, at the moment, it’s definitively the Coldplay album."

Interview mit Gusti!


When we ask whether he can indulge in his passions, he says that he is quite busy with the band, but when he can, when he returns to his parents, he goes off on long bike-rides! He loves that!

Now Gustav, answer us sincerely, who do you find the cutest in the band?

Gustav: It’s hard to answer that, asking a boy how he finds other boys wouldn’t be too good! I leave it to a girl to answer such questions! But honestly, none of them are really, no?

You get thousands of letters and emails, what must a fan do in order to touch you?

Gustav: I couldn’t chose one in particular, but I must say I was very impressed when someone gave me a drawing a fan had did of me. I thought: “Wow! What talent you have to have in order to paint like that!” What impresses me the most, is the fans’ efforts. Whether it’s Christmas, Easter, or our birthdays, they’re always there! Incredible!

Are you superstitious, do you believe what your horoscope says? Do you believe there is life after death? Do you believe in God?

Gustav: I’m a baptized Protestant. At Christmas, I attend mass with my family. Those are good moments.

Gustav, would you rather:
A blonde or brunette?

Gustav: None in particular, the girl has to be friendly/sweet, no matter her hair color.

Turkey or pork?

Gustav: I chose the turkey.

Legs or butt?

Gustav: The legs and butt must together form a harmonious whole.

Sunflowers or roses?

Gustav: I would say sunflowers! I think roses have a solemn significance.

Are you in love right now? Do you have a girlfriend?

Gustav: No.

What is the worst thing someone could do to you?

Gustav: Touch my family would be the worst thing. My family is sacred! Without them, none of this would be possible!
(In short: Also, touching his personal things, his celly or his laptop, shouldn’t be done.)

Have you ever cried for something recently?

Gustav: When I watched “Gladiator,” the end touched me!

Do you think the fans will remember you forever, even when the group no longer exists? Do you think it will be like the Beatles?

Gustav: Hard to say, I haven’t ever thought of that. But I think people will remember and tell their kids: “You know, when I was your age, I went to a Tokio Hotel concert.” That would be super!

Do you often go on the Internet?

Gustav: No, I check my mail, and I buy several CDs from time to time and check quickly what has been said about us.

Do you often look at the fanclub? What do you think about it?

Gustav: I try to go as often as possible, for us (and I’m speaking for all of us) it’s very important. We find what the fans do for us, remarkable!

What is the first thing you do when you return to your parents after the tours for example, or interviews?

Gustav: I sit in my room, appreciate the calmness and I review everything I did. From time to time, we have so many interviews, and we travel so much, we don’t know where we are anymore.

At the beginning of the Schrei Tour, Bill’s voice was constantly changing (his voice was breaking) at concerts, you sung some choruses with him. I was wondering why? Are you the one who sings best?

Gustav: I’m the one who sings best after Bill.

What would be the most shameful thing for you?

Gustav: Something which hurts my family, and I would never want to run naked on Broadway!

What would you do if you were a girl for 24 hours?

Gustav: Oh my, I’d paint my nails and talk about boys! No thank you! If I had to wear a miniskirt, I wouldn’t know how to sit properly. Sitting with legs spread apart on the couch would certainly not be a good idea, but it would be funny!

(source: official German fanclub)

Tokio Hotel interview in Spain

20minutos.es: The motive of Rock in Rio was “for a better World,” on your part, what do you do to make the World better?

Bill: That is a rather difficult issue, because there are many things that can be done in order to change the world. A festival like this is already a big step.

What do you think about your Spanish fans?

Bill: They have delighted us! The concert in Barcelona on Friday was super, and we found out that there were already fans waiting for us in Madrid since a few hours already…it was hallucinating, this is such a great return.

When you take a look at the speed at which everything is turning out for you, doesn’t it make you a little dizzy?

Bill: There have been some marking moments in our career in which we have had lots of luck. But it’s true that we need some time to “digest” everything that has happened…for example, performing here is already something very special for us.

Do you dress like this every day?

Tom: No, we would like to, but we can’t…we went to high school like this, but today it would be too stressing to go out in the road, we prefer to go unnoticed.

How do you feel since your operation?

Bill: Now everything is how it was before and I’m very happy. That was the purpose of the operation. It was a very hard time for our career, and on a personal level, I was very affected. We were so sorry for the fans because we had to cancel concerts. For a singer, a vocal chord operation is very frightening.

How is life, having to travel constantly?

Bill: You can define it as an obligation we owe to our work, we have been doing that for 3 years, nonstop. We take holidays once a year, for 15 days, but this is what we wanted, and it makes us happy.

Tom: We set aside our own dates and places, and what we’ll do. There are moments when you feel like you can’t go on anymore, and you don’t even know which city you’re in, but that’s what makes us what we are.

You have success, money, girls…what are you missing?

Bill: *laughs* In all that you just mentioned, we are missing some…People overestimate us, they think we’re multi-millionaires, and yet we are all single. But we continue to live our dream. Once you’ve tasted success, it becomes like a drug, you always want more, and we’re all very self-demanding.

Are you aware that all this may one day disappear?

Bill: Sure, yes. When we first started, we were nobodies. There were only like 5 people in the room listening to us, and in consequence, we appreciate everything and we’re very aware of it all. We hope it will last, because everything can change, but that also is very motivating for us.

An idea of the results of the Final for the European football cup?

Gustav: 3 to 2 for Germany… (Aw! I wish…)

Bill: We aren’t really into football, but we’re for Germany, and even if we won’t be able to watch the match, we will be performing in Lisbon…all those who don’t like football will come and see us.

Chicago Tribute: Tokio Hotel


Glam-pop German quartet a big teen hit
By the Chicago Tribune
LOS ANGELES—Move over Jonas Brothers, the Kaulitz twins are moving in.
The 18-year-old Kaulitz brothers make up half of Tokio Hotel, a German glam-pop quartet that is creating Beatles-like hysteria among the teen set in their native land.
They’ve sold close to 3 million CDs and DVDs in their country, and are hoping to replicate that rabid fan base in the United States.
“They’re the steppingstone between the tween stuff and My Chemical Romance,” says Andrew Gyger, senior product manager for Virgin Entertainment Group, a few days after the foursome appeared at Virgin’s Times Square store in New York in May to promote its English-language album, “Scream.”
“The in-store was massive in terms of sales and the amount of girls that showed up,” Gyger says, relaying stories of at least one girl fainting and screaming teens lining up around the block for the event. “The band seems to have come out of nowhere.”
Actually, Tokio Hotel came out of the Internet. A YouTube search shows 123,000 video listings compared with 88,100 for the Jonas Bros. or 21,000 for grizzled veteran Bruce Springsteen. To further sate their young fans’ appetite, for the last six months the band has produced weekly episodes of Tokio Hotel TV for its U.S. Web site.
The look
For Tokio Hotel, the visual is as vital as the vocals and is propelled by lead singer Bill Kaulitz’s anime look: straightened, teased black hair; heavy eye makeup that accentuates his delicate, androgynous, doll-like features; chain necklaces and vintage rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts. He’s so thin he appears almost one dimensional onstage, adding to the cartoonlike appeal. But to hear him tell it, his look comes by way of Transylvania, not Japan.
When he was 10, Bill Kaulitz dressed as a vampire for Halloween and adopted the styling year-round.
“After that, I started to color my hair and polish my nails. I started to wear makeup and stuff. I’d never heard of [anime],” Bill Kaulitz said in an interview at the Avalon Hollywood before the group’s sold-out show in Los Angeles.
He, his brother, bassist Georg Listing, 20, and drummer Gustav Schafer, 19, are squashed together in a leather booth in the lounge one floor above the Avalon stage. Both he and Tom speak very good, albeit heavily accented, English, although an interpreter stands by in case any translation is needed.
Tom Kaulitz, the older brother by 10 minutes (”A lot of people think Bill is the boss, but I am the boss,” he laughs), developed his hip-hop/dreads look when he was 7 or 8, in part as a way to differentiate himself from his identical twin. “When we were 6, we looked the same,” Tom Kaulitz said. “We had sweat shirts with [the names] Bill and Tom so that teachers had a chance to know who’s who.”
The Kaulitz brothers began playing guitar when they were 7—the instruments were gifts from their musician stepfather. By the time they were in their midteens, they were playing in clubs, often to less than five people, and Listing and Schafer had joined the band.
Their mother’s backing was not only desired, but vital: “We needed the support of our parents because we had no car, no money,” Bill Kaulitz says.
Mom has long since stopped driving the band to gigs; they have people who do that for them now as they have accumulated a team during their meteoric rise. The group’s first single, “Through the Monsoon,” went to No. 1 in Germany in 2005, two No. 1 albums and sold-out European tours followed.
Fan on the run
The fan frenzy in Germany has reached epic proportions, such as when a group of teen girls delivered a fan letter that was more than 7 miles long. After seeing a young fan repeatedly at shows in different cities, the band later learned that she was a runaway who had left home to follow the group. “It’s still crazy to us,” Bill Kaulitz says of the distaff attention.
After witnessing the spectacle at the band’s February appearance at New York’s Gramercy Theatre, Amy Doyle, MTV’s senior VP of music and talent, became a convert. “I could not believe the line outside of screaming teen girls,” she said. “It reminded me of the audience of the late ’90s and 2000 for Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync.”
Following that performance, MTV added the video for “Ready, Set, Go” into heavy rotation, as well as highlighted the band online, on MTV2 and on “TRL.” Tokio Hotel writes a tour diary for MTV.com, which, Doyle says, had elicited more reader comments than any previous tour diary.
But the band has a long way to go before they reach Backstreet or ‘N Sync like sales—since the group’s CD was released in May, it has sold just over 23,000 copies. Tokio Hotel’s U.S. label, Cherrytree/Interscope, has yet to take the first single, “Monsoon,” to radio, but Doyle says the whole package is the band’s selling point.
“Radio always helps, but there’s a connection that clearly is made when the audience sees them that you can’t connect with just a song; fans are making an emotional connection.”

Stuff







Everything is ready for their concert in Rome
The moment which so many Italians fans have been awaiting, has finally arrived…after the cancellation of the concerts in March, due to Bill’s health conditions, after their triumphal debut in Milan 8 months ago, Tokio Hotel is coming back to Italy.
On Sunday (today) they will perform in Rome at the Hippodrome de Capannelle for the Romarock Festival. The tickets have already been sold since several months, and the stars are awaited.
Just a few more hours, and the German band’s comeback in Italy will become reality…

VOTE FOR TOKIO HOTEL ON VIVA HERE!
(Scroll down and find "Tokio Hotel - Monsun" on the list, select it and then click "LOS" at the very bottom.)

Setlist for Monaco concert:
01.- Ich Brech Aus
02.- Der Letzte Tag
03.- 1000 Meere
04.- Leb' Die Sekunde
05.- Totgeliebt
06.- Wir Sterben Niemals Aus
07.- Schrei
08.- Stick Ins Glück
09.- Schwarz
10.- Übers Ende Der Welt
11.- Reden
12.- Geh
13.- Spring Nicht
14.- Wo Sind Eure Hände
15.- Durch Den Monsun
16.- In Die Nacht
17.- Rette Mich
18.- An Deiner Seite (Ich Bin Da)

Concert in Monaco: 05/07/08




Scoop on Tom!

(Translation from the Danish magazine "Olivia", article about Tom)

“I think people should stay themselves.”
“Bill is my soulmate.”

Tom is the most mischievous of the two twins, but if there’s one thing that he’s serious about, it concerns the fraternal link he has with Bill and the love he has for him.

Find out now how to be the girl of his dreams and why he had dreadlocks.

About Tom Kaulitz:
Age: 18
Birthplace: Leipzig, Germany
Job: Guitarist in Tokio Hotel
Eye color: brown
Favorite dish: Pasta
Passions: evening outings, skating (???) and tagging
Other: he always buys his clothes in XXL

At the moment: Their group is touring, the “1000 Hotels European Open Air Tour.” Tom adds that he is ready to go back to the studio to record new songs, and that the fans will have something to listen to for Christmas.

So keep your fingers crossed!

Tom was first noticed at the age of 5, in a German sitcom called “Verruckt Nach Dir” (crazy over you) in which he appeared with Bill. But establishing a career in cinema wasn’t Tom’s primary purpose, because at that age, his dream was to be a cow-boy.

But everything changed when his stepfather put a guitar in his hands at the age of 9, since then, music has become his reason for living, and almost immediately, he started writing his own songs.

Look:
His style is directly influenced by rap, he loves caps and baggy clothes.
His favorite star: the German rapper, Samy Deluxe of course!
In fact, that was the first concert he had attended.

Small personal touch: his dreads! He has them ever since he was 12.

“I found it nice, when I was a kid, I had short hair, and I was tired of having to make my hair in the morning. I wanted something easy to wear, and practical in the morning. That’s why I let my hair grow and now I have dreads!”

Tom thinks that Bill dresses oddly with tight pants, but he also believes that it’s important for everyone to feel comfortable in their own clothes.

“I don’t want to change anything, I think people should stay themselves and no one should try to change us.”

Brother and soulmate!
Though Bill is rather a shy boy, when Tom is being interviewed he always has to bring out his jokes in order for all eyes to be focused on him. But when we talk about his brother, no one can be more serious!

“I cannot live without Bill, we do everything together, we tell each other everything, we’re inseparable.”

Like all twins, Tom thinks there’s a special bond that unites him and his brother. He knows what Bill is feeling, even without talking to him.

We don’t really look like twins, but we are soulmates. When I look at Bill, I know exactly what he’s thinking. I can feel if he’s not feeling well, and that, even if I’m not with him.”

Serious with love:

Tom is known to be a “lover” and even if Bill makes all the girls melt, he isn’t far behind!

Like all the boys in the band, there are lots of rumors about his conquests, but he denies them all. He adds that he couldn’t confide in a girl as much as he confides in Bill. So even if he takes love (or his conquests, should we say) lightly, for him love is something important, something you can’t play with.

“I’ve already been in love, but I don’t think I’ve really liked someone. Love is rare and beautiful. But it’s stressful when the other does love you (as you love that person).”

Tom’s opinion:
Money:
“Money is good to have, but it’s not everything in life.”
Friendships:
“It’s great to have friends. Friends are vital, even if it’s difficult to find true ones.”
The girl of his dreams:
“She must be funny and spontaneous (natural). I must be able to have fun with her; it would also be great if she had a good look. It’s important that she’s in the same delusion as me, and of course she must please me.”

Tom and numbers:
He has over 350 caps!
4 words to describe him *he chose these*: resting(always laying down on a sofa), spontaneous (natural), disheveled (dressed like a sack, low jeans, overlaying shits…etc), and smart.
He wears baggy jeans ever since he was 9.
He is 1.84 m.
He has a lip piercing.

Tokio Hotel's American Assault


Tokio Hotel preps another assault on American cities

By Tjames Madison / LiveDaily Contributor

Glam-rockers Tokio Hotel [ tickets ] have announced dates for a summer headlining run through North America behind the band's English-language debut, "Scream."

The German quartet--lead singer Bill Kaulitz, guitarist Tom Kaulitz, drummer Gustav Schafer and bassist Georg Listing--is making another attempt on American markets this year after canceling its spring tour following an injury to Kaulitz's vocal chords (and subsequent surgery to remove a cyst).

The group will kick off the upcoming run Aug. 7 in Sayreville, NJ, and plans to visit 11 cities on the trek, which runs through late August. Details are below.

"Scream," released May 6 in the United States, contains English versions of songs from the band's previous German-language albums, 2005's "Schrei" and last year's "Zimmer 483." Although the new album--which is sold as "Room 483" in German-speaking territories, the English translation of "Zimmer 483"--has performed well in Europe, selling more than 600,000 copies to date, the band has struggled to gain popular success in the US, although the group has attracted a ground swelling of support due to its theatrical live act.

Formed in Magdeburg, Germany in 2001, Tokio Hotel [ tickets ] has scored four No. 1 singles and two No. 1 albums in its native Germany, and has sold more than 3 million CDs and DVDs combined, according to a press release.

Note: The following tour dates have been provided by artist and/or tour sources, who verify its accuracy as of the publication time of this story. Changes may occur before tickets go on sale. Check with official artist websites, ticketing sources and venues for late updates.]
tour dates and tickets

August 2008
7 - Sayreville, NJ - Starland Ballroom
9 - Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec - International Hot Air Balloon Festival
11 - Cleveland, OH - House of Blues
12 - Detroit, MI - The Fillmore
15 - Chicago, IL - House of Blues
16 - St. Paul, MN - Myth
19 - San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
20 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
25 - Denver, CO - Gothic Theatre
27 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues
28 - Houston, TX - Verizon Wireless Theater

(source: livedaily.com)