No Privecy for Tokio Hotel

SYIDA LIZTA AMIRUL IHSAN , BIBI NURSHUHADA RAMLI
slizta@nstp.com.my, bibiramli@nst.com.my


“SO what’s your favourite hotel in Tokyo?” The current hottest German band Tokio Hotel was asked this at a roundtable interview.

“Actually, we haven’t been to Tokyo,” says its lead singer Bill Kaulitz. “But we hope to go there this year.” The band, made up of Bill, his identical twin Tom (guitar), bassist Georg Listing and drummer Gustav Schafer, would surely fit right in with the stylish young crowd in the Japanese capital.

Here’s why. Tall and skinny, Bill wears his signature spiky hair (“I use a can of hair spray a day”) with skinny jeans and silver jewellery. Tom’s hip-hop look is complemented with dreadlocks and Georg’s mane looks like he just came out of the hair salon after a re-bonding session.

And don’t forget Bill’s liberal use of dark eyeliner and eye shadow that makes Adam Lambert look as conventional as Kris Allen.

“We are on tour 340 days a year and we don’t have much time for anything else,” says Tom. “In fact we’ve given up everything. Now, it’s all about the band.” Tokio Hotel has gone 10 times platinum, scored four No. 1 singles and sold out arenas and stadiums across Europe recently. With the massive popularity the band is enjoying, the members say it’s impossible to keep their lives private.

“We tried to do that but as we became more popular, it became harder,” says Bill. “Thank God we don’t have private lives,” his brother interjects.

Tokio Hotel was in town for a showcase at Park Avenue in 1Utama, Petaling Jaya, its first visit to the country. Its latest album, Humanoid, with hits such as Automatic and World Behind My Wall, was recorded in German and English.

“Humanoid is like the soundtrack of our lives. There are more instruments like keyboards to add to the original Tokio Hotel sound. The stories in the songs may or may not be ours but we sing of real happenings,” says Bill. The song Automatic, for example, talks about automated life — doors opening and closing, shifting gears in a car, a camera lens — but the mechanical qualities should not be part of human emotions like love, which has to be spontaneous and genuine.

“We’ve always felt like humanoids, like aliens on the fourth planet,” reveals Bill, saying that as kids, he and Tom were different from their classmates. They wanted to break out and did it with music, fooling around with guitars at age seven.

Eight years later, their first single was released and their 2008 album, Scream, which had some of their favourite tunes from their two German albums recorded in English, introduced the band to a legion of English-speaking fans.


“The most challenging process was recording in two languages. Our English wasn’t that good to start with and I wanted to sound like a native speaker, not like a German trying very hard to speak English. But it became much easier with Humanoid,” says Bill.

So do the brothers fight? “Yes, we do. All the time!” came the spontaneous answer. And suddenly one cannot help but think of Noel and Liam Gallagher of British outfit Oasis, who were so at loggerheads that it broke the band.

“No, that will never happen with us. We are identical twins and we have had our biggest fights and survived.” Spectacular showcase TOKIO Hotel fans, mostly in their teens, thronged 1Utama’s Central Park Avenue, Petaling Jaya. The rain did not put a damper on the concert. There were a few fans from Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand at the free-stand concert. Before the group came on, a boy had fainted from the pushing and shoving in the crowd, which was packed like sardines. Several could not stand too long and asked for seats.

Hitz.fm deejay Jin warmed up the crowd before introducing the first opening act, rock indie group Pop Shuvit, who performed the songs Oh! Shizuka, Jump and Mara Bahaya. Then there was award-winning band Bunkface with Situasi, Extravaganza, Revolusi, Prom Queen and lastly, the Telekom Malaysia theme song Melalui Tingkapku (Through My Window). After Bunkface came a long wait before Tokio Hotel came on. While the production crew set up the musical instruments, the audience was entertained by a deejay who played several hit songs to which the crowd sang along to. But after one song too many, everyone’s patience was wearing thin. A loud “boo” was heard, followed by two more songs.

The wait for Tokio Hotel was totally worth it because the band gave a spectacular performance with Noise, Human Connect To Human, Pain Of Love and a crowd favourite, World Behind My Wall.

Many rock band vocalists insert a certain raw strain in their voices to emphasise the rock sound. Bill Kaulitz’s tone, however, was devoid of that, even for the high notes, and that always wins the fans’ hearts. The band continued to rock non-stop. The crowd sang along while jumping in the spot.

Tokio Hotel also performed Hey You, Ready Set Go, Dogs Unleashed, Screamin’ and another crowd favourite, Automatic. After the “last” song for the night, Forever Now, the band performed its German song Durch Den Monsun (Through The Monsoon) for an encore. The audience was more familiar with the English version of the song and could only cheer along.

Tokio Hotel promised to come back and hopefully, it would be at a bigger and more comfortable venue.