Late February, RockUrLife was one of the few French medias to discover exclusively the common project of Till Lindemann (Rammstein) and Peter Tägtgren (Pain/Hypocrisy). Before meeting both of them, we listened to “Skills In Pills” under strict control.
Hi Peter, how are you?
Peter Tägtgren: Getting better, both Till and me has the flu now. I’m getting better, he’s getting worse, so I got it before him. But it will pass. I mean, I guess the whole Europe pass the flu I heard. But it will pass. So let’s just take it easy, have a lot of vitamines, and a lot of rest. So that’s our problems.
You’re here for a new common project called Lindemann. The first album will be released on June 17th. How do you feel a few months before its release?
P: We’re really happy with it you know. From the beginning we were only supposed to do like a couple of songs. You know, his brain and my brain meets together because we’ve been friends for a long time, and he was always supposed to sing on a Pain album, but we never had time and shit like that. It’s was just the time. Here’s the man with the plan.
(Till enters the room)
Till Lindemann: Sorry I’m a bit sick so I took my skills and pills.
We just ask him how do you feel a few months before the release.
T: I’m excited, totally excited because we don’t know what it’s gonna be, maybe people will hate it, and send us back to our roots, from where we come from. Maybe they’ll take it as a new collaboration between metal gothic, something like that. It’s a kind of new thing on the market, it’s my opinion.
So how went the writing and the recording process? When did you manage to have some times? Were other people involved in it?
P: It was just me and him. From the beginning it was when they went on a big break for Rammstein, on vacation, then he said: “now I’m ready, let’s do it”. So we started with one song and didn’t think about doing an album, or anything like that. Not even picture or whatever. Let’s see what we can do when we collaborate together. So the first song that came out was “Ladyboy” and then it was a snowball effect. Next song, and next song, and next song… And everything grew so fast, it was easy. Not that we had to settle out and pull out hairs and get pissed or anything. It was just big smile all the way through.
T: And concerning the people, we just had help from a dutch guy, Clemens.
P: Yeah.
T: He’s playing in Carach Angren. It’s an holland…
P: Black metal.
T: Black metal band with a lot of orchestra parts and it’s amazing stuff. He’s crazy.
P: Yeah he really pimped up my orchestra stuff we had on this. Because he also work with movies and stuff like that with music, so he has the right tools and he has the right knowledge as well.
T: You can hear it in a couple of songs, there’re like huge parts of strings, trumpets, flutes and stuff like that.
That was the next question. There’s a lot of classical elements.
P: Yeah.
Is it to keep the statement even more formal?
P: There was no thoughts behind anything, there was just like.. *his belly is hungry with a big noise* Oh my mum!
(laughs)
Peter imitating the sound: I want go home!
(laughs)
T: Don’t fart you know!
(laughs)
P: No, I just like to mix classical melodies and also strings with guitars and stuff like that, because they cut through so easily and nice. It gives you a different atmosphere when you listen to it. So I guess on some songs I went a little bit more crazy with it and he also always encourages me : “now we need some tatatatata” and I’m like “yeah cool!”. I start making that. The songs were okay, but I knew it wasn’t, we needed a real orchestra, so it was just a coincidence that I was mixing his band, and I heard his orchestra stuff and I was like : “wow, this is what we need”. So I asked him, “no it’s all me, I do this for a living” I’m like “wow, ok you do this?” I send him one song and my orchestra stuff and he send back this massive stuff that he built around what I send him. We both said : “Oh, this is what we need”.
So it also feels like that we’re always in a nightclub mood but with horror or gothic sounding.
P: I don’t know. What you hear on this album is influenced by me or influenced by him. He’s really a gothic guy, Sisters Of Mercy and stuff like that. And I’m maybe little bit more a metal guy. But when you listen to the album, I think you have it all. And also of course, we like these cool stuff and stuff like that.
T: There’s couple of songs really forward, like the first one, the amount of (Till singing a melody) there’s something like this going on, really.
P: The beat is always important for me. You can really feel it. It’s a club situation kind of feeling. Together with the metal and gothic and everything.
We notice something, there’s no guitar solos.
P: No.
T: I hate guitar solos so.
P: Not only that he hates it but it’s also that my thumb is in the middle of my hand. No, I’m not a good guitar soloist. For me, I don’t care. I admire all these big guitar players like Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Satriani and they’re really guitar heroes, I admire them all. But it’s not my cup of tea to sit for eight hours a day for ten years and… It’s not important to me. I mean, there’s no ego there, because I always see the music from a producer side. I wanna see the whole thing, not only one instrument here and there sticking out.
T: Is it the time over with guitar solos? Who is doing guitar solos in these days?
P: Well, those who can play guitar solos I think.
T: Yeah.
So what about the artwork? Will it only be the picture of you dressed as a weird couple?
P: No, it’s gonna be like a book. Now we have so many crazy photos. Most of them are related to every song.
And about the picture we saw on Facebook, why do you have a goat body?
P: Who knows? (laughs) Because we can! There’s no answers to anything. It’s just a fucked up picture. And it fits pretty good, it’s more a marriage between… not two guys, but two different kind of inspirations getting into one.
T: And the new couple is on the market.
P: Yeah.
T: It shows something and it gives people space to think whatever they come up with.
P: Are they gay or?
T: If we tell you the story now, that’s may be too easy for everybody, lead it open, I know everybody can come up with some ideas about it. And we heard a lot especially with the lyrics we had so much. It’s fun to see how people react, what they think about what’s going on. The songs, and then the pictures. This artwork book will be really really schön. Every photo is related to one song, so in the end of course there’s the CD so it’s like a full piece of art and music and you can sit and listen it’s for “Fat”.
(Peter showing the picture)
T: So it’s like a fairytale book, next song you can follow the lyrics, and you can watch the artwork.
P: This is for “Fish On”.
P: So you know what you can expect.
A few months ago, we met Mr Krupse for his own project too and he told us that he had more freedom and not being “too closed”, do you both feel the same way with Lindemann? Comparing to your bands.
P: We don’t even think like that. We just write. It’s a hobby. Some people are making model playings others put shit and bottles and stuff like that. We just write music. There’s nothing thoughts behind it, we kept it as secret because we didn’t want everyone to start pushing us and say either you should do this or that or you need to be down soon or whatever. We just want to do our own thing.
T: For Richard, it was really important. He is a workalcoolic, he has so much output and I cannot stand if you sit and work all the time and of course all the things that Rammstein is limited. Because there’re six people bring ideas and stuff, and he needs a relieve for the other things, for his work and I think he’s working on the third (Emigrate) album already.
P: Really?
T: Yeah yeah. He is so in, he’s doing it 24/7 he’s really ambitious and really focus with the music and he’s doing movie music, that’s is the only thing, but it never collides with Rammstein which is good for us. He came in a week with ten ideas, and to take it you have to focus at least for one song and go for it, but one refers to another sequence and you can’t handle it, that is too much, so normally we would say we don’t do solo projects in Rammstein because maybe something gets wrong. But it’s good for him and it’s totally different from what we are doing. And from what we are doing is totally different from what Rammstein is doing. For me it was of course, crystal clear from the beginning. I sing in English to stay away from the similarities in the vocals, and at least I want Peter to know what’s all about in the lyrics.
P: It’s like getting inspired.
T: Especially on “Yukon”. You want to set on a description for huge landscapes, open horizon, routes and mountains, and this running river, and he came up with this like straight, impacting chorales in the beginning. It’s necessary for him to know what I’m about to sing about.
P: Just by reading the lyrics, I was going “oh, I already know what it gonna sound like”.
If you had to choose three tracks to define the best “Skills In Pills”, which ones and why?
P: Wow! I think “Praise Abort” is totally different from the other songs in the way how the structure is.
T: And because that was the very last one.
P: Yeah it was the last one we did and we went totally bananas with everything. I mean, everytime we were writing a song, we did it in a different way. But this last one we were really brave I think, how we did it and it worked out fine!
T: I always compel him to go to different ways I come up with a sequence “what do you want from? What sequence?” Just start the song with a sequence and never happen, and then he surprises me. I always forget that I got a file from Peter and I opened and I song some lines already just with the click trick, and he edit shit together and it turns out as a very good start into the last song. It turns out the “Praise Abort” song.
P: So that one was unique in a way.
T: And he never wrote a ballad before in his life and “c’mon we need a ballad on this album” “what?” “I don’t do this, no.” “c’mon please, get an acoustic guitar and jam around, at least try it!” We came out with a beautiful ballad, he is like a fishbox you know, full of pieces of papers… ballads.
P: He’s not as easy but it can happen sometimes. So I mean for us, sky is the limit when we write stuff. We don’t think. Cause it’s so fresh everything, and we don’t have anyone to please. We only need to please ourselves. We just don’t think what we are writing, we just think if it’s good it’s great. And we don’t think we did a unique album or we reinvented music style or anything like that. We’re just writing ten cool songs that we like. And if it sounds a little bit like this or that, ok, fine, no problems, we like the songs.
And if you have to describe this record in three words?
P: Grotesque. Funny.
T: Of course funny.
P: And serious.
T: or brave, something like that.
P: Yeah yeah!
T: Because we were sitting, when the lyrics written on paper are different from when it recorded and you all of the sudden hear like “cunt” in the chorales, and holy shit!
P: (laughs)
Till (singing “I praise abort)”: And ok we go two hours for this. At least we ok, then we have to eat shit we leave it. OK we leave it.
P: Yeah.
T: And that maybe serious and brave.
P: Yeah, yeah.
Do you consider this album perfect listening to it, while having sex?
P: I couldn’t have sex and listen to his voice. I’m sure other people could do that! (laughs) So why not!
T: Oh yeah. I’m looking forward to Berlin to these huge gay parades they have all the time and maybe they play big loud “Ladyboy” on top so they would please me.
P: Yeah! The pride festival or whatever it’s called in Sweden.
How do you both consider this project? Is it a side project or will it be a full time band in a near future?
P: Right now it’s a side project. And we take it as when there’s time for it when we’re not busy with the other two things, then we could do more this. Now we have free time for it, so we go as long as we can and I mean, in september/octobre, he is gonna go back with Rammstein, then they gonna start planning for the next step, and I’m gonna think about what I’m gonna do as well with my stuff. Bit we probably gonna have this as a relieve thing. When we have some crazy ideas that we can’t do in our other bands.
Any live performances planned? Any chance to see you in Europe and maybe France?
P: Just small visions in the head right now. We’ll see what the people will think about it. Maybe they’ll tell us to go back to our normal jobs.
T: We wait for the release and then see how it comes out. There, there is no big responsibilities, there’s no reason to go on tour. Then it’s gonna be like a selfish, egoist I wanna play things.
P: Yeah.
T: Let’s see.
But did you have a live approach? For the example, all these elements to have on stage are different than the studio.
T: If we gonna do this live, this is more static and more like punk rock lights and stuff. No pyros, we wanna go far from any Rammstein appearances, definitely.
What about the status of your respective bands? Will there be some news regarding Rammstein on one side and Pain/Hypocrisy on the other some time soon?
P: Yeah yeah. Like I said, in September he goes back to his family and I will start also thinking about what I’m gonna do, of I’m gonna do a Pain album or if I wanna do a Hypocrisy album, I’m not sure yet. Anything can change for me in those two things very quickly.
Any message to all who are waiting to listen to your record?
P: Well, I hope they’ll enjoy and can read between the lines, and see the humor in the whole thing. And yeah that’s a party album. And I hope everybody gets into a good mood when they listen to it.
T: Yeah we know it’s grotesque in a way. But in the other hand, there’s a lot of ironic lines and I think it’s easy to read but maybe some people will get pissed about that.
P: Yeah.
The title is “Skills In Pills”, does it only refers to the first track or defines the other tracks too?
T: What do you think? For me it’s obviously. The whole thing is crazy so every song has maybe a different pill. For something for sadness, one for excitement and a sexual significance so you can compare with the blue pill. So it’s a big box of pills, and I think it really features the variety of songs in this album.
P: You can’t be normal and write this kind of lyrics!
T: It’s something against Pain!
(laughs)
A few days ago, Iron Maiden posted that Bruce Dickinson had chimo and stuff, any message to him?
P: Yeah, hope he really fight it out and I hope it’s not a bad one. A friend of mine died ten days ago from cancer, so I know how hard it is.
To conclude, our traditional question: as our website is called “RockUrLife”, what rock your lives guys?
P: My son rocks my life, definitely.
T: Sebastian huh?
P: Yeah.
T: In this album I’m into the classic, I wanna stay away from any rock in my life. I keep it easy.
P: The good wine rocks your world!
T: Yeah maybe. Yeah we’re in France!
P: He goes bananas when he gets some!
But there’s no so few references to France in the lyrics.
T: Yeah I just told the other guy that we’re have our first DVD here, a live in Nimes and we come out with another one from Bercy. So we played two times. This audience is kind of unique in France. I never expected freaking out that much. It’s insane. They’re very with the music and yeah it’s kind of a special situation in France, definitely.
This is it. Thank you very much!
P: Thank you!
T: You’re very welcome.
Website: skillsinpills.com
