German industrial metal heavyweights Rammstein are currently gearing up for a massive 2019, with the arrival of their seventh studio album reportedly on track for an April release just before the biggest European tour of their career, stopping off for one UK show at Milton Keynes’ Stadium MK in July. Even by their standards, it’s going to be one molten juggernaut of a year.

In the meantime, however, guitarist Richard Z. Kruspe has been keeping busy promoting A Million Degrees – the third full-length from his other band, Emigrate. As well as featuring Rammstein bandmate Till Lindemann, it also has Ghost’s Cardinal Copia, Billy Talent’s Ben Kowalewicz and Margaux Bossieux lending their voices to the electro-fuelled metallic heaviness. Here the Emigrate mastermind reveals the stories and meanings behind each of its 11 tracks…

1. War

“Normally I don’t really talk about my lyrics. I don’t like telling people what to think about certain songs, but with this one I have a lot to say. It goes back to when I was still living in New York and the idea came to me when America was invading Iraq. I watched a lot of TV over there and realised just how commercialised the news sources were when it came to things like war and invasion. I wanted to capture how I felt about that in music. This song felt like a real moment for me. When people ask me about what are the differences when writing for either of my bands… well, I think War is a strong example of something that could have been a good Rammstein song, actually.”

2. 1234 (feat. Ben Kowalewicz)

“There’s a rockabilly feel to 1234, it has that ’50s/’60s rock’n’roll vibe to it. All of the guitar solos you hear came out of the demos. Those first takes always sounded better, even if I would try spending more time on them. I didn’t really have Billy Talent in mind for this song, it was actually my manager who asked me how I felt about doing the collaboration. I wasn’t so sure about it, but when I heard Ben singing over it, there was this punky fire that the song actually needed. That fire is actually why we ended up recording it as a live performance.”

3. Million Degrees

“There are two songwriters in the world that I admire. One is called Martin Gore, whose band Depeche Mode influenced this track, and the other is Trent Reznor. Whenever Martin writes music, I feel really close to it, almost as if I could have written it myself. I definitely wish I could have written those songs because I really feel them. I’ve met him a couple of times, he’s such an adorable person. We’re now talking about doing a song together, which is something that has been on my list for quite a while. It’s going to be really interesting to hear him and me on the same track…”

4. Lead On You (feat. Margaux Bossieux)

“This one has a bit of a Beauty And The Beast theme to it. At the beginning, I was thinking of using The Sisters Of Mercy’s singer, but I don’t think he’s doing any projects on the side at the moment. Margaux is from New York and is the mother of my child. So you could say on this song we decided to keep it in the family, and actually the same goes for the video for the next track…”

5. You Are So Beautiful

“Margaux was the lead character in the video for this song which is dedicated to my daughter. I was writing the story for the video by myself and we filmed in LA with [director] Bill Yukich. I’m really proud of her, she had never been in front of the camera before and the video came out great. Musically, maybe I’ve been hiding my pop side for quite some time and finally it broke through. When I was growing up in East Germany, there were only so many albums you could buy. All we had was mixtapes and radio stations playing chart music. That’s how I ended up being attached to the pop world, though it was hard for me to admit because I was hanging out with metalheads and punks. Over the years, I came to a realisation that I could take the catchiness from the pop world into punk and metal tracks. What does it mean, pop? What does it mean to be commercial? If lots of people feel connected to your music, it’s a great thing… that’s what you do it for.”

