"Nothing much changed for me during our year off." "When we first got together again after that, we had exactly the same chemistry we always have." "I never had that much time off before in my whole life." "I had no idea what to do with myself." "It was during that year off that it first dawned on me that I had spent my whole life working — despite the fact that I've never really held down a real job." "I was always restless and busy with something." "It was really hard for me to stop the whole machine — to switch gears." "It took me six months to realize I was on a break." "I had so many private things to tend to." "At night I was just as exhausted as I was before we took a year off." "The only difference was that we weren't rehearsing." "I generally don't have any spare time." "Regardless of where I am and where I go or wander or walk or swim," "I'm always thinking about something that I later introduce to the others and work on." "It might be photo material that I think we could use for an album cover or it could be a line of text I overheard somewhere." "I'm always on call." "I didn't exactly have the year off, because I finally had time to finish my solo project." "That means there wasn't much time for downtime." "I actually didn't even know Rammstein." "I had only heard about them." "A friend of mine was on tour with Van Halen and they all played at the same festival." "He told me he saw this German band there and when they played all the other bands would always watch them from backstage nodding their heads to the beat." "They looked at them and enjoyed them." "That was the only impression I had of them." "Otherwise, I just knew the stuff that everyone knows — all the hatred, the hatred about Rammstein." "But nothing about who they really are." "As a band, we try to develop and improve our sound from album to album." "That means we try to discover new influences that could inject new life into our music." "We don't want to repeat ourselves or constantly reinvent ourselves." "But I think it's good for a band to integrate new influences." "Unlike past albums, this time the basic idea was to shoot once more for a slightly harder sound again — more like we had in the beginning." "For Rammstein, it usually works like this:" "Only certain riffs and structures are appropriate for Rammstein songs." "But for this new album, pretty much anything was a go, without anyone getting nasty looks from the others." "If anything negative crossed their mind, they kept it to themselves." "For Rammstein I'd officially record all the pre—production work, the rehearsals and the song—writing process." "Because a lot of the things they came up with during pre—production — that made it that far — are really good." "These things need to be preserved, because they often have a certain vibe and feeling that are hard to reconstruct again later." "When we started production, we went through a beginner's death metal phase." "It was a lot of fun, but wasn't the right thing for us." "Rammstein really doesn't do death metal or shouldn't do any, but we enjoyed it." "That sidetracked us for awhile, but then we bounced back and returned to our normal selves." "But we grabbed and took a lot of the stuff with us that we had worked on while we were sidetracked." "You might spot some of it." "There's some really good stuff there." "We integrated some cool phrases from death metal into our music, into our typical German, German—sounding Rammstein music." "It has a bit of everything:" "Norway, Sweden and a little bit of Finland." "Hey Till, I have to do some editing first — thanks so much!" "Everything is coming together now." "I've already given some thought to" "In Rammstein, I'm responsible for the words, for everything having to do with the word, and also of course for the voice." "I'll put it this way:" "I may have a voice, but I wouldn't call myself a singer." "Entertainer:" "I think that term hits the nail on the head." "It depends on the work environment we're in and on the extent to which the various band members are free of stress." "It's actually better for our band to go away for periods of time, to spend 3-4 weeks in a quiet place, where we can work undistracted — removed from everyday life." "In my opinion, those are the times we come up with our best material." "If I look out the window early in the morning," "I usually see a deer family sneak into the garden and nibble on the bushes." "The deer pop in and out of the fog — this fog that always rolls in up here." "I also see the fog below us a lot," "I mean the clouds in the valley, and we're higher up where it's sunny." "What I dig about America is that this country has such an incredible energy:" "Americans act first." "Germans usually tend to think first and act later." "By going to the States, we had hoped that we would also be able to act first and ruminate later." "When we looked at the studio on the Internet, it said they had a tree house." "For me, that was the only reason to come here, because living in a tree, waking up and going to sleep in nature — that's something really special." "If you have the opportunity, you should take advantage of it." "I like living away from people — not so close to society." "That was good. I'll create a new track for another take, okay?" "It's always been fun for me when a particular idea or feeling suddenly turns into a song." "For me the whole process — watching the song grow and mature — is something really beautiful." "The most important thing for a song is that it has the right balance." "I think that in music too there's a type of "golden ratio."" "When it's there and the song gives you the feeling that no parts are too long and that there aren't any strange transitions, then I think it's a good song." "I came up with a little trick." "Every song has a specific tempo." "For example, this song here has 120 bpm." "My pulse is usually about 90." "I always try to get my pulse to match the tempo of the song I'm playing, so I'm in exactly the right groove." "That feels pretty good when you match your rhythm to the song's." "So if my pulse is doing 90 right now," "I just do a few push—ups and my heart rate goes up to 120." "Now I'm almost at 118, 119 —" "Scottie, alright, rock'n roll." "When we first got started on the new album, I was pretty much in favor of trying out some new people." "But during production, when we got so tangled up in the details that we no longer knew if a song was good or bad, that's when we realized that it was good to work with a fixed number of people." "We know that with these people we'll get a certain quality." "I don't like leaving and letting go of things." "I love old ways that are tried and true." "I don't even like parting with things that are crap, because I'm such a creature of habit, but..." "I also have moments when I've had it up to here." "Then it's time to quit, to stop what you're doing." "But as long as something works, there's no reason to part with it." "Classical music, classical music for lunch." "I like the song "Rammlied."" "I also like "Wo sind die Kinder"" "and "Waid mann."" "I like the song "Wiener Blut," which might be called "Seid bereit."" "We haven 't decided yet." "I also like "Mein Land."" "I like "Ich tu dir weh."" "I like "Liebe ist für alle da" followed by "Donaukinder."" "At the moment, I really like "Oh no," but that could change any minute." "I also like the song "Rammlied" a lot." "I've been working on guitar sounds for years." "A lot of factors influence the way a guitar sounds." "One thing is:" "If you move the microphone over, let's say, half a centimeter, then you get a completely different sound." "The amp is either upstairs on the floor or down in the basement which is where it is in my New York studio, so you always have to run downstairs if you want to turn the mike away a bit." "That means you're always doing a lot of running around." "The problem is that when you leave the studio, your pitch changes." "I mean you hear sounds differently." "At one point, I asked myself if there might somehow be away to control the mike from my control room — sol can move it left and right, up and down, and adjust the angle." "We sat down and came up with something." "Since then, I've used an automatic microphone stand." "I can even store the mike's position from my studio." "That makes my life a lot easier." "When all six members of Rammstein get together, a type of animal is created, a creature that descends upon us like a bell." "If one of us isn't there, then this animal isn't there." "I can't explain where it comes from or how it comes into being." "It's Rammstein's energy which has undoubtedly spawned much good, but which can also really put a weight on our souls." "There's this stupid analogy to the old married couple, but it has something to it." "You know each other really well." "You know how to drive each other nuts." "But you also know how to avoid confrontation." "I think we're really good at dealing with one another." "It's always nice to see a band that's still together after 10 or 15 years, that's still making music." "Because it's often harder for bands to do that after they've attained a certain status and many just can't continue." "I think it's great when you see six guys who have been together for 20 years, who can still stand one another's guts." "Oh Paul, this is really annoying, just turn it off..."