Till Lindemann (born January 4, 1963) is a German musician and
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
who is the frontman and lead vocalist for the German
rockRock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country music and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music....
band
RammsteinRammstein is a German rock band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
.
Lindemann was born in
LeipzigLeipzig is, with a population of 515,459, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.-Origins:Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the lime trees stand"....
, East Germany, but he grew up in the village of
Wendisch-RambowWendisch-Rambow is a village of Schwerin in northern Germany. It is in the state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The population as of 1996 is 201 .-Naming and foundation:...
near
SchwerinSchwerin is a city in northern Germany and the capital of the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern . The population, as of end of 2007, was 95,855.-History:...
(in then-East Germany). His father, Werner Wolff, , and his mother, Brigitte "Gitta" Hildegard Lindemann, was an artist and writer until she retired.
Till Lindemann (born January 4, 1963) is a German musician and
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
who is the frontman and lead vocalist for the German
rockRock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country music and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music....
band
RammsteinRammstein is a German rock band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
.
Biography
Lindemann was born in
LeipzigLeipzig is, with a population of 515,459, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.-Origins:Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the lime trees stand"....
, East Germany, but he grew up in the village of
Wendisch-RambowWendisch-Rambow is a village of Schwerin in northern Germany. It is in the state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The population as of 1996 is 201 .-Naming and foundation:...
near
SchwerinSchwerin is a city in northern Germany and the capital of the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern . The population, as of end of 2007, was 95,855.-History:...
(in then-East Germany). His father, Werner Wolff, , and his mother, Brigitte "Gitta" Hildegard Lindemann, was an artist and writer until she retired. Lindemann has one sister; she is six years younger than he. As a child, he occasionally suffered
abuseChild abuse is the physical and/or psychological/emotional mistreatment of children. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts or commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential...
at the hands of his alcoholic stepfather. At age 11 he went to a sports school at the
RostockRostock is the largest city in the north German state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Rostock is located on the Warnow river; the quarter of Warnemünde 12 km north of the city centre lies directly on the coast of the Baltic Sea.-Geography:Rostock is located nearly centrally on...
Sport Club, and from 1977 to 1980 attended a boarding school. His parents divorced in 1975.
In 1978 Lindemann was a participant in the European Junior Swimming Championships in
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
, but discontinued the sport soon after. According to Lindemann, "I never liked the sport school actually, it was very intense. But as a child you don't object". Lindemann later worked as an apprentice carpenter, a gallery technician, a peat cutter, and a basket weaver. In 1981, he apparently refused to do his nine months of compulsory military service and was almost imprisoned as a result.
In 1985, Lindemann's first daughter Nele, was born. Lindemann and Nele's mother married after she was born, but they separated and he has raised Nele alone. Lindemann says, "I used to play drums in a
punkPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band and we had our studio in the house where I lived. Seven years I had been a father raising his daughter, but nowadays I'm sharing the upbringing with her mother, because I'm gone for six months of the year with the band". Lindemann has a second daughter, Marie Louise, with Anja Köseling. An interview with Richard Kruspe revealed that Till has a total of four children.
Career
Lindemann started to play drums for
First ArschFirst Arsch was a Schwerin-based Punk rock band formed in 1986 by Till Lindemann, lead-vocalist for the German band Rammstein. He played the drums. The other members were Jörg E. Mielke, Paul H. Landers and Richard Zven Kruspe; the latter two now also members of Rammstein.First Arsch was also...
, who released an album titled
Saddle Up, and played one song ("Lied von der unruhevollen Jugend") with a punk band called
Feeling BFeeling B was one of the first punk bands in the former German Democratic Republic .The band was founded in Berlin in 1983 and started out firmly grounded in the underground punk scene...
(which was the former band of Rammstein members
Paul H. LandersPaul H. Landers is a German musician, notable as the rhythm-guitarist for the Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein.-Early life:...
and
Christian "Flake" LorenzChristian "Flake" Lorenz , sometimes called "Doktor Lorenz") is a German musician, notable as the keyboardist for the Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein. He is also known for his role in the band Feeling B.-Early years:...
). In the 1990s, Lindemann began to write lyrics. In 1994, the trio entered and won a contest in Berlin that allowed them to record a four track demo professionally. Lindemann moved to Berlin.
In November 2002 Lindemann's poetry book
Messer was published. It consists of 54 poems compiled by Gert Hof, who is author of the book
Rammstein and has been the band's pyrodesigner for the last seven years. In a radio interview in 2004, Lindemann stated that he wants to retire at 50 to spend more time with his children.
Stage persona
Lindemann has a powerful on-stage presence and a resonant bass voice. One of his signature mannerisms is to partially squat and pound his fist onto his thigh to the beat of the riff. His vocals are easily recognizable due to his tendency to roll his
Rs, and growl his
achs.
Another attribute seen is his originality in his performances, such as setting himself on fire in the video for "Rammstein" and his questionably obscene antics in the '98 Family Values Tour when he performed "Bück Dich". Lindemann is also a qualified
pyrotechnicianPyrotechnics is the science of materials capable of undergoing self-contained and self-sustained exothermic chemical reactions for the production of heat, light, gas, smoke and/or sound...
; after an accident at the Treptow arena in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
on September 27, 1996, where a burning stage prop fell into the audience, Rammstein began employing a professional pyrotechnical crew and Lindemann has learned from and also trained with them. Of Lindemann, band mate Christoph Schneider says, “Till gets burned all the time, but he likes the pain.”
He has also engaged in other masochistic acts on stage, such as whipping himself and bludgeoning his head with a microphone until it bleeds, both of which can be seen on the
Live aus BerlinLive aus Berlin , is a recording of a concert by the German NDH-metal band Rammstein in 1998...
DVD.
As guest artist
- Lindemann provides vocals for the track Helden (a cover of Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Active in five decades of popular music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
's Heroes) on the ApocalypticaApocalyptica is a Finnish rock band from Helsinki, Finland, formed in 1993. The band is composed of classically trained cellists and, since 2003, a drummer. Three of the cellists are graduates of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland...
album Worlds Collide.
- Lindemann also sings on "Wut Will Nicht Sterben" by Die Puhdys.
- Till Lindemann & Richard Kruspe covered the Aria song Shtil and released it as Schtiel
““Shtil' ” ” is a song recorded in the year 2001 recorded by Arthur Berkut and performed by the Russian band Aria, the Russian song was on the album Shtil who was released in 2002.- History :...
.
Movie appearances
- In 2003, Till made an appearance as a villain, in a made for television movie for children titled Amundsen, der Pinguin. His character tries to steal a penguin who knows the location of treasure.
- Till plays an animal rights activist in a movie called Vinzent.
- Till made brief appearances in the movies xXx
XXX may refer to:* XXX, an identifier for pornography, especially X-rated movies* 30 , XXX in Roman numerals* XXX, 666 in Pythagorean Numerology* Super Bowl XXX, held on January 1996* xXx, a 2002 action film starring Vin Diesel...
(2002) as himself (along with the rest of RammsteinRammstein is a German rock band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
) and Pola XPola X is a French film starring Guillaume Depardieu, Yekaterina Golubeva and Catherine Deneuve, released in 1999. The film is loosely based on the Herman Melville novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities...
(1999).
Quotes
* Loneliness sometimes gives me a quantity of creativeness - you're drinking another glass of wine and you're feeling even worse. Art doesn't work without pain; art also exists for compensating pain.
* When I was an adolescent, I was obsessed with having many commercial things, cars, clothes, stupid things. Now that I have all that, I include/understand that the superfluous things can turn to you into a very stupid idiot-type. In East Germany there were very few things, but there was also a feeling of solidarity that no longer exists. Now we are up to the neck in consumption, the ego, the individualism. Now before friendship, it is merchandise.
* The rolling "R" didn't arise deliberately. It originated from itself because in that deep pitch you automatically sing that way. I'm no musician in the actual meaning. I don't know anything about instruments. But I'm supporting our music with my voice and lyrics well. It's a question of illustration, timbre and phonetics. We don't want to - for heaven's sake - create a fascist-like style.
* Love is like a flower, even the most beautiful kind dies.
External links