I donât know where you go
hard for you to share your home
cause you donât want it all
âs what we have disposable ?
I want more
something beautiful
someone that I can count on and knows
when it rains
it pours
feels like iâm on my own
please donât try to ignore that oh
baby
baby
I donât wanna do this alone
baby
baby
I donât wanna do this alone
I am just a simple man
but Iâve got blood on my hands
wash em off, all my sins
help me to remember that
I want more
something beautiful
someone that I can count on and knows
when it rains
it pours
feels like iâm on my own
please donât try to ignore that oh
âLove has no gender or religion, no bordersâ â Tokio Hotel told KALTBLUT as we chatted about their new album âKings of Suburbiaâ [Island Records] and their upcoming world tourââFeel It All: The Club Experienceââdue to kick off in London next week. Inspired by the wanton debauchery of their newfound home in downtown L.A, Germanyâs favourite lost boys Bill & Tom are finally all grown upâas are their teenage cult followingâbut do they still feel like aliens?
If the latest visual offering for âLove Who Loves You Backâ is anything to go by, theyâre now 25-years-young, frequently dark corners in Berghain-esque nightclubs where the rules to which they could never succumb do not matter, in fact do not exist at all. As they encourage fans worldwide to revel in this delicious boundary-free sphere, will they finally plug the void which MySpace friends once used to fill?
Bill: So Georg and Gustav were still living in our home town, they still live in Germany now. Me and Tom moved to L.A. so we werenât working together all the time, but we got to meet in the studio together for band recordings and live recordings. They came to L.A. once in a while, other times we would go to meet them in Germany.
Tom: Weâve been in Germany too. We recorded in a lot of different studios. This record took us four years of work I think, and constantly being in the studio producing, songwriting. So at the end of the day it was a collection of four years of songwriting â we ended up recording in a lot of different places.
KALTBLUT: Four years is a really long time!
Bill: Yeah I know, but we were constantly working on it. We wrote a lot of songs. There were so many songs that didnât end up on the record, and weâd rather put less songs on there so we could form the perfect album. We decided to put eleven tracks on in order to do that. We also wrote a lot of songs that we wrote for ourselves that we will save to offer to other artists as well. Thatâs something we wanted to do anyway, produce for other people too.
KALTBLUT: What kind of other artists are you thinking of?
Tom: Oh I donât know, itâs like in general we enjoy good music, so at the end of the day Iâm not thinking in any specific genre or anything like that. For me itâs like I can enjoy that itâs good production, no matter what type of music it is â I can enjoy a good pop song, a good rock song, I like every kind of music as long as itâs well made. Iâm 100% open to new ideas.
KALTBLUT: It must be important to find a new direction after being together for so many years?
Bill: Oh yeah, definitely. Especially after the last album we needed a break and a change to get new inspiration because we didnât know what we wanted to do music-wise. Weâve said it all, weâve done it all, we were kind of like tired and didnât know what to do. We didnât just want to make another album that sounds the same. So we just thought we need to live our lives a little bit to get inspired.
KALTBLUT: Is that why you you decided to move over to L.A.?
Tom: Uh huh, yeah. At the time for me it was super hard to live here in Germany because of privacy reasons. We always had fans and people following us, we werenât able to go out without having security. So each time we came off from a tour or wanted to get a break we were heavily guarded, it was like a prison. We couldnât go out and get inspired! We really needed that change. We realised we have to have a life too. I guess when youâre young you donât really realise. I remember we were coming home after three years of constant touring and I didnât really know what to do because I had no life. When youâre constantly on the road you donât realise it, but when you come home it hits you and then you can fall into a black hole. So the reason we went to L.A. was for personal reasons, and then we started to feel like we wanted to work on the record and take our time, be creative, not feel pressure from the label. We just wanted to write and work as producers.
KALTBLUT: Do you think that moving to L.A. and your experiences there shaped the new album?
Bill: For sure, we started a whole new life.
Tom: It totally worked out for us.
Bill: It was the best decision we could have made. I mean, weâre still psychos! But I think on a personal level, I donât know what would have happened if we had stayed in Europe. It was one of the best decisions we ever made.
Tokio Hotel during our interview â Berlin 23.02.15 Photo by Lauren Raaijmakers 4 KALTBLUTÂ www.laurenraaijmakers.nl
KALTBLUT: We were really surprised when we watched the video for âLove Who Loves You Backâ â it almost feels like a typical Friday night out in Berlin! Were your new videos purposely intended to be provocative?
Bill: People asked us, because we released all three videos before the album came out and we got confronted with âAh everything is so sexual!â and we didnât even realise! Every time we make decisions itâs super spontaneous and out of pure instinct, so when we wrote those songs I already have a concept for the video in my mind. I always have a pretty keen idea of what I want to do and for âLove Who Loves You Backâ I wanted to make that video for a long time, even when we were making the last album, but it just wasnât the right director and it wasnât the right song. I always had that idea, so when I wrote that song I just knew that the video was meant for that. The idea inspired by a movie called âPerfumeâ directed by Tom Tykwer. I wanted to take the idea into the video, but instead of perfume, we used music â because I feel thatâs the message of the song. Itâs like love has no gender or religion, no borders â and I just wanted to bring that across, also in a fun way. I feel like so many people are watching our videos so I wanted to do something like that.
Bill: We have until the 5th and then we go to London. We are really excited, itâs going to be a great show. Itâs a little nerve wracking because when youâve worked on something for so long, you just want it to sound as good as it can be. Plus weâre a nervous band! We get like super nervous before each show, even after years!
Tom: Yeah I think itâs getting worse!
Bill: I donât think weâre ever going to lose that. I think thatâs maybe part of it, but especially if you have a new album and everything, youâre super nervous.
Tom: I wish it would be a little less.
Bill: Yeah but Iâm good at working under pressure, most of the time Iâm better.
KALTBLUT: So we mentioned on our Twitter page that we would interview you guys, and have some questions from your fans!
Question #1 from Sandrine Tan: Which language is the most beautiful for you guys?
Tokio Hotel: Italian!
Bill: I love Italian people, I think theyâre all beautiful inside and outside. Theyâre so pretty! Itâs a super nice country, I love the whole culture, I love the food, the architecture. The language especially!
Tokio Hotel during our interview â Berlin 23.02.15 Photo by Lauren Raaijmakers 4 KALTBLUTÂ www.laurenraaijmakers.nl
Question #2 from Devyn: What music are you listening to lately?
Bill: Right now I love the song by Lenny called âBecause I Love Youâ. Itâs a cool song.
Tom: Thereâs another great song called âShadow of the Sunâ by Taped Rai. Like somebody will come across a cool song and then everybody goes and buys it!
Bill: We have to admit that we donât really listen to that much music when we are so into our own stuff. When you are making music the whole time, like right now we are running a set or two sets every day which means we play almost 42 songs. By the end of a session like that you are so tired of listening to music because you are concentrating on your own for so long. I also think the new Ellie Goulding song is very good.
Question #3 from Elizabeth Joseph: How long did Georg and Gustav know each other before meeting the twins?
Georg: It was not too long, it was like a year or something. We just clicked.
Tom: And it clicked especially when they saw us together in the club, like they wanted to join our band so bad! [Laughs]
Question #4 from Whitney: Which of your new songs are you most excited to perform live?
Bill: I think now that we are into rehearsals, the opening of the show is going to be great. I donât want to give away which song that is! [Laughs] I really think âStormy Weatherâ will be great live.
Gustav: I think âMasqueradeâ will be really good to play live.
Bill: âThe Heart Get No Sleepâ is going to be cool too.
Question #5 from @TokioHotelFans: What can the fans expect from the new live show and tour?
Bill: Now that we are in the process we are excited to finally share the record with people. Itâs like performing it in front of people, you can see them and see how much they enjoy it.
Tom: They can expect a lot! We tried to fit a great production into small venues and we are going to bring a lot of new stuff to the tour. Itâs going to be a really special show. We wanted to create something thatâs not been done before.
Bill: So we tried a lot of things, we tried using a lot of different instruments that we are not used to playing; keys and piano. There is so much programming and processing and new technique that goes into the show that we have never done before. I donât think anyone has done before! We have great lighting and video production, just a completely new concept that weâre really excited to share with our fans.
Tom: Itâs a real project, itâs a project for us as well you know. Especially putting the music together and transporting that onto stage and using the different sounds in a fresh way. There are a lot of technical aspects in there and we have to rely on it as well, so we will have to see how it goes!
Question #6 from Shabnam Zareen: I am an âAlienâ from Bangladesh, would you ever come to my country?
Tom: I want to go there for sure!
Bill: I would love to! This year we are going to travel the whole world, we want to play everywhere so maybe we will go to Bangladesh!
Andrew Brawl designed the single cover for ‘Feel It All’ by Tokio Hotel. It is inspired by ‘kids’, a film by Larry Clark. The single will be released on April 3rd. It will feature 5 tracks: 1. FIA – Main version – 2. FIA – Live New Years Version – 3. FIA – Pioneer Remix – 4. LWLYB – Pioneer Remix – 5. LWLYB – Cazzette Remix. You can preorder it here on Amazon.de.
Ps: Tokio Hotel will be going on tour again this summer, with the world’s largest and most successful artist agency: William Morris Agency (WME)
Aperçu du EP « Feel It All » : -« Feel It All » – Version principale -« Feel It All » – Version live du Nouvel An -« Feel It All » – Remix Pioneer -« Love Who Loves You Back » – Remix Pioneer -« Love Who Loves You Back » – Remix Cazzette
Concerts : Feel It All â Part I â The Club Experience
-06.03., Assembly Hall, Londres, GB
-08.03., Bikini, Barcelone, Espagne
-09.03., Le Moulin, Marseille, France
-11.03., Le Trianon, Paris, France
-12.03., Cirque Royal, Bruxelles, Belgique
-14.03., Gibson, Francfort, Allemagne
-15.03., Volkshaus, Zurich, Suisse
-17.03., Fabrique, Milan, Italie
-18.03., Kesselhaus, Munich, Allemagne
-20.03., Halle, Tor 2, Cologne, Allemagne
-21.03., Tivoli Vreedenburg, Utrecht, Pays-Bas
-23.03., Heimathafen, Berlin, Allemagne
-24.03., Kulturkirche, Hambourg, Allemagne
-26.03., Arena, Vienne, Autriche
-27.03., Club Stodola, Varsovie, Pologne
Bill : « Feel it all â Don’t look back â Just let it go â Oh oh oh â A new day is coming â Oh oh oh â The time is now â Oh oh oh â A new day is coming â Oh oh oh â The time is now â You and I â … »
Bill : « It’s coming up, coming up everywhere â It is a stormy weather â It is a stormy weather â It is a stormy weather â It is a stormy weather â It is a stormy weather â Weather â Weather â Stormy weather â It is a stormy weather â Weather â Weather â Weather â Stormy weather… »
It will be the sixth song on Kelly’s new album ‘Piece by Piece’, which will be released on March 3rd, 2015. Obivously, Bill and Tom are in the credits, along with Joacim Persson, Ry Cuming, David Jost and Johan AlkenĂ€s.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! As you probably know, the two remixes of LWLYB are released today. You can buy CAZZETTE’s one right HERE & PIONEAR’s one right THERE! I hope you will enjoy both and that you will have an amazing day with your beloved ones.