Sindy: You obviously have a pretty strong fan base, especially young girls. Does that surprise you at all?
Tom (laughing): People always ask us to explain our success and to tell you the truth: We don't know. We are still surprised and everything that has happened to us is more than we ever dreamed of. We were on our third European tourand we got the chance to go to Canada and the States. I mean, we are a German band and that's all very unusual.
Georg (laughing): I really have times where I have to tell myself: Oh yes, this is actually really happening.
Tom: Yes, and it's all because of our fans. We have the best fans in the world. They are sooo energetic. We love that so much.
Sindy: Your songs seem to have pretty strong messages teens can relate to. Is that important to all of you?
All: Absolutely!
Tom: Our lyrics are very important to us. We want people to understand what we are thinking and what we are about. That was the reason why we decided to do the English album even though our German albums were very successful all over Europe. But you can't expect people to sit down and translate your lyrics into their language, but a lot of our European fans started to join German classes. So we decided to do a translation of our favorite songs from our first and second German albums Scream and Room 483. It was quite a task cause we didn't want to lose any of the meaning and we also wanted it to sound great. (Laughing) It's obvious that our English is way too bad to do it ourselves so we got some help. We are really happy with the result and proud that we did the English album Scream.
Sindy: Was it difficult to go from performing in German to English? How does affect your creative process?
Tom (laughing): Well for Georg, Gustav and me it doesn't make a difference. But for Bill it was quiet a challenge when he went into the studio to record the English album. He wanted to sound as natural as possible so it took him a while. Now he has to keep two versions for every song in his mind - the German and the English. (laughing) Let me tell you, we are running bets on when he will get mixed up for the very first time - so far he did fine.
Gustav: But it doesn't affect our creative process.
Tom: No, because Bill writes all his lyrics in German - that's his natural language and the language he can express himself and feelings the best. So our songs will be in German first and then translated.
Sindy: You all seem to have very individual style. Where did that come from?
Tom: It just developed. If you look at old pictures of us you can really see how it all started. Bill for example went to a Halloween party as vampire and he really liked it so much that everything developed from there on. We just always wanted to be ourselves - all of us. That was always the most important thing to us. We didn't want to change at all. So what you see is what we are.
Sindy: What about musical influences? Are you all fans of the same stuff? If not, how does that affect the music you make?
Tom: We always wanted to create our own style and our own sound. We never had an influence that affected us. And that's because we have a totally different taste in music. I listen mostly to German hip hop. Bill listens to a lot of different stuff. He loves Nena and he likes Coldplay, Keen, Green Day and Placebo - depending on his mood.
Gustav: I love the Foo Fighters and Metallica.
Georg: I listen a lot to the latest album of Jimmy Eat World and I'm still a big Oasis fan.
Tom: You see, having such a different taste we could never agree on ONE artist or ONE band. Our music was actually the music we all agreed on. And it came naturally once we started playing in our rehearsal room.
Sindy: Was there a particular show, performance or moment when you guys realized you made it?
Georg (laughing): It was not a moment where we thought: we made it. It was more a moment where we were blown away and thought: this could be the beginning of something!
Tom (smiling): Yeah, I know what you are talking about. We were booked for a little festival in 2005 - month before our first single Monsoon was released in Germany. When the festival took place the single was still not on the market but the video was on rotation. So we drove there and once we got there we found thousands of people that showed up to see us. It was absolutely crazy, nobody expected so many people to show up there - it was total chaos. And we thought: Wow, this could be it!
Sindy: What's the best advice you could give to young musicians out there?
Tom (Laughing): We hate people that need to tell you how to do things and how the business is running. We actually think that everybody needs to do their own thing, to find his own way and make his own experiences. That's what we always did. We had our own ideas, we wanted to do our thing our way. (smiling) So if we had to give an advice it would be: Do your own thing and play as much as you can.
Sindy: Thanks guys! Good luck with everything. We can’t wait to hear more from Tokio Hotel.
All: Thanks a lot.
Click here to find out how the band started!
