Richard Z. Kruspe savesRammstein with Emigrate sideproject.

Thu 31st Jan, 2008 in Features

Richard Z. Kruspe, the guitarist from Rammstein and the force behind recently formed side project Emigrate talks to FasterLouder about his new life as a frontman…

It’s 8:30pm in New York, and Kruspe chats to me from inside his converted firehouse home… Although Emigrate is a relatively new band, Kruspe, a long time member of Rammstein remembers he started kicking around the idea of a sideproject as early as six years ago.

“It started back in 2001 when I made a decision to move to New York, There were certain reasons why I chose to go to New York, one of the reasons was I felt a lot of tension in Rammstein at this time and I needed to distance myself from the band for a while, mentally and physically. I think I was giving too much, I gave like 250% and I think this caused a problem in the band. I moved into this weird fire house where there was a lot of weird energy around it, so I was starting to write music and all of a sudden realized, this is a totally different direction, this is something I wanted a long time ago because I always thought about singing on a project or to take the lead on a project. I think I decided a few years later, that’s it, this should be the new project.”

Whilst Kruspe credits his move to New York for his new found creative energy he remains wary of the city that never sleeps. “It’s not really great; it is actually totally miserable. The other day I was talking to a friend of mine and I said “I’ve never seen a place where so many people are popping pills”. It creates this anxiety in the city and if you don’t be careful it will fucking come beat you up! You’ve got to be careful, It creates this insecurity and anxiety, and for me I use it for my music, you know, I use the drama in the music. ”

Given that Kruspe has spent so much time in Berlin, does he feel the Emigrate album would have turned out differently if he’d taken up his pen and picked up his instrument whilst in Berlin instead of NYC?

“No I don’t think so; I think New York City played a big part of the record, especially in the writing. I went back to Berlin to record certain things, but all the writing process was all here in New York. I think your environment is really important to how you sound as a band, and people ask me all the time why I sing in English, and that’s because it has to be authentic, if I were to sing in German it would be really awkward, and that’s why I think Emigrate has a big part of New York City.”

On the subject of authenticity I bring up Rammstein and tell him I think that Rammstein sounds very German. We talk about their success here in Australia. I tell him that even though they sing in German it hasn’t affected their popularity because it’s all about the music to most Rammstein fans.

Richard laughs and thanks me for bringing closure on an issue he has always had with Rammstein, he explains: “I have always had this problem with Rammstein that people would come for the show and nobody listened to the music. That’s a great compliment, Thank you very much!”

So does the bilingual Kruspe notice many differences when writing songs in English or German?

“Learning a language is great, It gives you the pleasure to create this new thing inside you also the differences in language make me think that Rammstein is more male orientated and Emigrate is more female orientated.

“The difference between Emigrate and Rammstein is that when I write for Rammstein it’s almost like I’m writing for a soundtrack. The way that we write is so different, for example the rhythm of the language, German language is based on rhythm; in fact every language is based on rhythm. Especially the German language which is based on the “one”, just take the word “Photographer”. In English its pho-TAAW-rapher, you emphasise on the two, In German its PHO-ta-graf. So all the rhythm between languages is totally different. That’s where the Rammstein sound is coming from; it’s basically Metal-March music.”

Talking about musical influences, does Emigrate have any specific musical influence?Surprisingly Krupse cites an Aussie rock act.

” I guess the album comes back to my childhood influences when I was listening to bands like AC/DC, With a lot of Australian bands I’m just like “wow”, I don’t know, for some reason when I listen to Australian music I feel like they are so unique, for example bands like Jet or Wolfmother, there is always something really unique about those bands. I think that emigrate has taken a lot of AC/DC influence.”

Given that a sideproject can often mean the death knell is about to ring for the original band, were there many objections from the Rammstein crew when Krupse decided to form Emigrate? Fortunately for Rammstein fans the answer is ‘no’, as Krupse felt so strongly about Emigrate he says he would have had to leave the band if they’d objected…

“At that point it, for me it was really important that I distanced myself from the band, because I wouldn’t have been able to survive it, I was sick, I was just really not well at that time and for me creating Emigrate balanced my life out and actually it helped me to go back to Rammstein and be what I should be, Just the guitar player of Rammstein. It’s a balance thing and that band is really important to my life. I’ve always believed in duality anyway, and never monogamy. So for me it’s perfect.”

When asked if he was trying to send any specific message with the Emigrate release, Krupse declares that an album’s interpretation should be up to the the individual listener…

He explains; “One day I was at school and in art class we had this great teacher and he would always show us these great paintings and what we would do is try to come up with stories on why the artist painted that painting. It was always such a great pleasure for me, and at the end of the class the teacher would explain what the painting meant, and the whole class, especially me got so disappointed by the reason. For me it is very important everyone gets their own story out of the music. Take Rammstein for example, when TIll writes some lyrics, there could be 6 different ideas on what they mean, and I really like that, it makes you a part of the music. It’s such a important thing to me, that’s why I never talk about my lyrics because they are there for people to relate to them and come up with their own stories.”

So far the reviews for Emigrate’s album have been resoundingly positive.
” I was quite surprised,” remarks Richard. “I don’t think I’ve ever got so many good reviews. But the reviews are not the most important thing in my life, the most important thing is, when I was writing the record I asked myself ‘Does the world need another record’. The answer was quite simple; I needed it so much for my own sake. But more importantly for the sake of Rammstein and all Rammsteins fans.”

So was recording the Emigrate album very different to recording a Rammstein album?
“Oh yeah! It was totally the opposite. Half the time with Rammstein is spent talking and arguing, when recording with Emigrate I missed a little drama, everything just went so smooth and natural in a way, I was thinking “something has to come up”. I was waiting for someone to drop the bomb. But it never happened. It was all based on music, there was no arguing, there was a different chemistry between us because I had taken the lead, don’t get me wrong though, I love to play in a team and there was a lot of ideas that came from the other guys that I took with pleasure but at the end of the day I had to call the shots.
“With Rammstein we are all in the studio and there is always someone else to blame but with emigrate I realised that if we fuck up then I have to take the blame. It was a very different experience.”

On the subject of amps and guitars I mention to Richard that in the video for My World, you can see him playing an Emigrate decorated ESP, so I ask him what it’s all about? He reveals that he is working on another signature guitar called the RZK-2.

“Actually right now I am in the middle of creating my RZK-2, which will come out hopefully this year. I have been looking around trying to make this special guitar for the RZK-2, I so described to ESP what I want but they said they didn’t have anything close to that. The only one that was close was Hetfields guitar so I asked if they could take it and screw it up really badly, and they said “we can’t really do that, we need to talk to Hetfield about it” so they talked to him and he said “O.K” and was really cool about it.”

Finally I pop the question that all Australian Rammstein fans want an answer to. When Rammstein finishes their new album, will they come and play in Australia?

He responds with what we all want to hear. “Oh Yeah! We will!”

Emigrates self titled album is out February 2 through themusicconnection/Inertia

Make sure you check out the two videos from the albums singles, My world and New York City, available at http://www.emigrate.eu/Video