Exclusive Itunes Interview with Tokio Hotel

Subject: Exclusive Itunes Interview with Tokio Hotel Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:26 pm

Guy: Which qualities does a song need to have, to be the opening song on the album?
Bill: I think the first song needs to have a lot of energy. When you've recorded everything, and know what's on the album, you know relatively fast which song, can be the first one on the album. Komm has the perfect energy & the perfect meaning. It was clear that it's a song with which you'd like to kick off an album!

Guy: It's a good example of how you developed as a band, without losing the 'old' Tokio Hotel. Do you think about if the songs will still please your fans when you're in the studio?
Bill: I've to admit, when you're writing the songs, you don't really think about that. You just do your thing, and concentrate on the music and the writing. You have to not think about that to be good at it.
You write and are excited to perform those songs on stage. When we play these songs I always think about the livesongs, and I'm really excited to be on stage with the song & the whole album.

Guy: We could read in the media that you couldn't agree on the songs that should be on the album, but with the single, you all agreed. Why's that?
Bill: Automatisch was one of the last songs that we wrote for the album. When we had the idea, we noticed how many times you use the word ''automatic'' every day. Automatic is normally a good thing, except for love. It's the only thing where it's not a good thing. That was the idea for the song, the song is musically the thing that we were still missing on the album. It was one of the songs that we recorded really fast, once we were in the studio. We had the final version of the song really quick and shortly after we all agreed that it should be the first single.

Guy: On the last album there were a lot of heavy songs and also some ballads, on Humanoid are the ballads like ''Lass uns laufen'' still motivating, big, and light-hearted. Were you done with the heavier songs, after the somewhat heavier album Zimmer 483?
Tom: Done with it... no, every album has a different sound. Humanoid is full with energy, -I don't get this XD-. Lass uns laufen is a really intimate song that describes our life really well.

Guy: Humanoid is not only the name of the album, but also of 1 of the songs, what was there first, the name of the album or the song?
Bill: With this album it was a bit different, weh ad the albumname first, but it didn't take long before the song "humandoid'' was there. Humanoid is like a feeling about life that we have. The song is a bit like history (?), it takes you to a whole different universe. It's not a typical song, we let go of all the typical songstructures, and there are a lot of different feelings and melodies in it, it became a whole different song, and that's what Humanoid is to us.

Guy: Für immer jetzt is a very hypnotizing song, what did you use to perfrom it like this? There aren't any drugs with you in the studio, right...?
Tom: Yeah.. *laughs* In the studio we can do everything, we have a lot of fun together, are being lazy, fight..
Bill: We just do a lot together.
Tom: A lot together, fight, laugh, love, hate. It also happens that Bill, after a really exhausting night, still stands in front of his mic, trying to sing *laughs*. But yeah that's how songs come to exist, in the studio, where you do everything together.

Guy: On the first album, keyboards were just for the effects, on the second you couldn't hear any, but with Humanoid, you've reached a whole new level with the keyboard. Who was responsible for this, and which of you 4 is the best keyboardplayer?
Bill: We didn't want any typical stuff on the album, and after such a long in time in which we didn't write any songs, we had to look inside ourselves, to see what kind of music we wanted to make, and how we developed during the time we were on tour. We decided we didn't only want guitar, bass and drums, and thought ''we're gonna use everything that we can''. We had the coolest technique, the best studios, and we just tried stuff. Not everything was planned. Kraft der Liebe, for example, was one of the first songs, and there are so many different versions of it.

Guy: Very simple, you give some people the finger (? XD). You can write a song and send people a message, is that something you conciously do?
Bill: I've to admit, actually we aren't. When we hear it, it's pretty cool when you think about it. I think it's good to tell some truths about us without always having to give an interview and we did that. In the last year a lot of subjects touched & influenced us, and you can find that again on the album!

Guy: Tom, imagine that you fall in love, would you write a lovesong and send that around the world?
Tom: Euh... when you presume that I'll ever fall in love, which i don't believe will ever happen, but if it'll happen I'll write the music and Bill the lyrics, I'm not good with those XD, but yeah I think it's a really romantic thing to do. But I don't think it'll ever happen *laughs*.

Guy: When I see the title ''Menschen suchen Menschen'' I wonder how important being together and love in life. Bill, at your house, everything between your parents wasn't always 'ok'..
Bill: Yeah euhm, love and being together is just what life's about, it's what you get out of bed for every day, and what you search for every day, everyone wants to find their big love and soulmate. That's what the song's about. If you have no one to love, you actually have nothing.. and you lost. It's what's on our minds every day.. 'Menschen suchen Menschen'. Exactly!

Guy: This was the song you could hear a small piece from on the DVD, when did you write this song?
Tom: Yeah it's the song you could hear a small piece from on the DVD, but I've to say that it didn't have a lot to do with the song that is now on the album (?). I think this song is the song that we made the most versions of. I think it's a good song to dance on (?), Georg can show some of his moves in clubs, and that was also important, that we had a song on which Georg could dance. *laughs*

Guy: How difficult is it really to translate songs directly? Like Geisterfahrer & Phantomrider, there had to be problems with translating that right? Are you satisfied with the result?
Bill: That was actually a really good thing about this whole production, we made all the songs in both languages from the start. We noticed really fast that we wouldn't translate word-by-word, because every version is different. If we compare an english and a german song, the theme is ofcourse the same but 1 version goes more into that direction, and the other in a different direction. It are 2 different songs.
Tom: Differently composed.
Bill: Exactly, we didn't want to make any compromises with the lyrics, and like this, both songs have a cool message, and both songs sound good!

Guy: Tom, I've seen a video where you were in the studio in L.A., where you play Zoom on the piano. Are we going to see a grand piano on stage during the next tour?
Tom: I know it'll be awesome if I do that, but I'm not too sure yet while I'm not the best piano player -part i don't understand- but yeah maybe we'll do that but I'll have to practise a bit more XD

Thank You . x

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