

Maniacs recently caught up with Till Lindemann for a track by track blow of new release **‘Skills In Pills’. **As expected it ain’t no flowers and butterflies with this guy. It’s as the title of the album suggests, skills in pills.



**Q: **Today I wanted to go through the actual r e cord and just talk about each of the tracks so just basically we want to get you to describe for your fans the meaning behind some of the tracks and perhaps the inspiration and if there was any particular way you wrote any of them or any interesting bits of trivia you can tell us about these tracks and perhaps also what your thoughts are on some of them?

**Till: **Okay we can start I can give a little sketch of each song. Skills and pills was based on my experience in eastern Germany we couldn’t get any drugs at all so we started grinding up pills, different types and mixes and yeh mix them up with vodka and so we had like a really fucked up cocktail and yeh but you had to be skilled in what you are doing otherwise you fell asleep immediately or you can even die or I don’t know go really crazy. You couldn’t get any drugs there at all so it was like a little substitute.

**Q: **That’s pretty heavy man! If you have a little bit to say about each track like that then I think people will be interested to hear that.

Till: There are so many opinions about what people are thinking about these songs. They compare to the record company or to how our like world is going down. Everything can be supplied with pills, you don’t even have to eat you can find a substitute with pills.There is a pill for everything which in the end is right, but the basic idea was to make a party song and in memories to the old days because in these days you can get anything you want. Everything’s handled with a pill, it was like a little more progressive of everything.

**Q: **O_kay cool so what about track 2, “Lady Boy” what can you tell us about that one?_

**Till: **I went on vacation in Thailand and there was like this little street in Bangkok that really strikes me because I saw like these people running around and like it was kind of disgusting these Americans, big fat people came over and took the lady boys it was kind of really… you know. To write about it was actually a different thing but who am I to judge people you know. I turned the whole thing into like a party song and something that I can actually admire.

You have surf and turf, fish and meat if you can’t decide go for both… The whole song became fun and a party song and like to raise your hand and say something about tit. I’m not the guy who wants to judge people for what they are doing.

**Q: **Okay and what about track 3 “fat” what can you tell us about that?

Till: It’s about skinny husbands feeding their wives.

**Q: **You know i haven’t seen it but I’ve heard about it!

Till: check out on the internet then there is nothing more to see, so many pictures like feeders its such an insane fetish. It’s just. Watch it and you can think whatever you want. Everything follows its really, really strange.

Q:_ What exactly inspired you to write about that particular subject?_

Till: It’s like this strangeness and fetish, how far can love go. This is all about love. These guys love their girls and they feed them, the treat them, the wash them, brushing them they do everything for the ladies and they just lying in the bed and get fatter and fatter and really, really weird.

Q: Yep Okay. So what about track 4”Fish On”?

Till: I like to fish and I always like catching fish there was so many. It’s a story about a guy who’s going out at nighttime and fishing for ladies. It’s a funny song too, something around the bush you know.

Q: Yeh! You just mentioned you enjoy fishing I mean do you have any secret fishing spots you can tell us about

Till: If I tell you it’s not a secret anymore (laughs)

Q: (laughs) Alright. Okay so what about “Children of the Sun”

Till: It’s like everybody knows these feelings when you sit down on the beach watching a sunset its over very fast, its over in a couple of minutes and you want to enjoy it but you can’t stop it. It would be great if you can freeze this moment but it’s not possible. The sun goes down anyway and you have to live with it and because of this you can’t enjoy the moment because you are so stressed out that you know the sun is going down you know? You can’t enjoy it cos you know it’s going to happen and you can’t freeze the moment and there’s a little bit of this, beauty moments in life you can’t hold them you can’t freeze them so you have to live with it and sometimes you cannot enjoy…

Q: I guess what you’re saying are the only good things they only last so long then its gone.

**Till: **Exactly!

Q: Okay how about “Home Sweet Home”?

Till: Home sweet Home is reason is…it’s a song about cancer so…it happens in almost every relationship. Everybody knows somebody or is related to or lost people. Everybody is in touch with cancer more or less in these days.

Q: Okay. So that’s a pretty serious subject, what inspired you to write about that?

Till: My father died of cancer so…it was a thing to tell about.

Q: Okay, alright. So what about “Cowboy”?

Till: Peter came with the instrumental he sent me it was just the drum kit “(drum noise)” and it reminds me to shot, somehow I came up, I don’t know how I just go this idea of the horses and there was the rhythm of the song. The rhythm of the song was like riding a horse and it was in my head, it strikes me like this. Then out of the blue I came up with the cowboy situation. I don’t remember anymore. It’s just a thing, really if you talk about cowboys you can compare it to bikers, everybody’s wants to be the tough guy or the hot shot. In the end we are all going to get old…

Q::_ Did you ever get into cowboys movie at all_

Till: no. When I grew up in East Germany, we got this kind of political thing. We were pro Indians. The Indians are the local people from America and they got like exploited they had to get in reservations and so the Cowboys are the bad people. We got these really silly East German movies, old shutter and stuff; they ere always pro Indians because these were the poor guys and the cowboys were the bad guys, that’s how I grew up.

Q: That’s really interesting, when I was growing up it was the opposite it was always about the cowboys.

Till: Yeh yeh of course, the Indians are always the bad people, they come over to the camp and shoot everyone and the skull the people they are really brutal, they are really really bad and we’ve grown up the opposite the Indians were very good but in the end it’s the truth the cowboys came over and beat up the Indians you know?

Q:_ The next track, I think it’s fairly self-explanatory but is there anything special you can tell us about “golden shower”?_

Till: Can we skip that (laughs)?

Q:_ (laughs) Yep, if you want! _

Till: Just watch the internet and stuff, there’s lot stuff on that…next!

Q: What about “UConn”?

Till: I was with a close friend, I was on a canoeing trip in southern Canada and we passing the border to Alaska and we canoeing down the Uconn last summer, it was an amazing experience. In the middle of nowhere, if something was happen there is no help their passing you, you’re going to die in seconds, it was kind of dangerous but kind of really, really exciting for me so I had to write about it. It was neat.

Q: That’s awesome do you do much canoeing or outdoor activities frequently?

Till: Once in a while, we have a lot of, where I grew up we have a lot of lakes and rivers and stuff so of course I go canoeing in the summer time but I’m not a frequent canoe guy, not at all.

Q: Okay cool. Last one is praise abort what can you tell us about that?

Till: We have a very close friend around our family, he’s got 7 kids and he makes good money but he’s always broke because all the kids like take everything from him. If you write songs you always need a hook line or a chorus. You are digging for words and for phases and for hooks. It’s very close to praise the lord. Praise the lord, praise the lord, praise the lord, praise abort, praise abort. We got stuck on that.

Q: I see. I guess you have basically gone through all the tracks now is there anything else that you can tell us about how you went about writing the record or any inspiration behind it?

**Till: **You forgot the bonus track. Now you did the whole record we can explain the bonus track!

Q: Yeh definitely let’s go ahead with the bonus track

Till: This is the first love song with the piano and stuff like that and like a frozen voice which is comparison to ice cold woman, who won’t let love in her heart. It’s pretty simple. She’s an ice-cold bitch and she won’t let anybody in and this guy is sitting in front and begging for love…blah blah blah. It’s very like you know… like and old fashioned love song.

Q: Okay and was there any inspiration behind that?

Till: No…(laughs)

Q: Okay so I guess I have heard the album and I think it’s great. How did you go about writing this one differently to how you might have written a Rammstein track aside from the fact that it’s in English. You were obviously working with Peter as well, is there anything in particular you can tell us?

**

Till:** After doing 6 records and everything in German it was really refreshing to go with a different language. Totally new phrases, new hook lines, chorus lines it’s like a little boy in a candy shop, grabbing everything, take as much as he can. I had a couple of problems like with my grammar and expression and stuff like this but in the end it was really refreshing to do it in a different language. I wasn’t sure about it in the beginning so peter encouraged me a lot to continue because he is more experienced for almost 30 years doing music in English and so I start slowly but within the time I am cool with everything my writing and expression. It was kind of hard. I grow up in the east part of Germany we had no English in school we had to learn Russian and to learn my English with touring with Rammstein in America and England and stuff like that…so it comes years later.

Q: Okay so you mention when writing the album you had to focus on things like grammar. Did you find that writing the album actually did help improve your English?

Till: Yeh of course. Sitting down, I have so many dictionaries and like English rhyme read. I spent a lot of time it was worth it. In the end I can hold up a record in English for a guy who comes from east party of Germany it’s really good.

Q: I think that that’s very impressive. Do you think you will write any more English material in the future?

Till: I would love to of course. In September I go back to my Rammstein colleagues we’re starting pre-production for the next record and I don’t know when to find the time in-between but maybe of course I do the Rammstein things in German but in between the working process I can go sneaking out, do some more English stuff and do something with Peter in between. I don’t have time pressure, that’s the good thing I can do whatever I want. I can like get a job maybe doing both.

Q:_ It’s always good you can do things at your own pace it means you can slow down and take a look and do it how you would like to._

Till: Yeh exactly!

Q: I think that’s pretty much everything covered from me is there anything you would like to say to your Australian fans?

Till: We would love to play this record live and maybe in January iSound wave or whatever but we still don’t know. I really have to look for my plans with Rammstein because to sell out a live show is like making a record …the second part of it all. I have no ideas how to do it!!

Q: Awesome. Thank you very much for this I can tell you now that was really good man and I think that the fans are going to be really interested in some of those things you had to stay.

Till: Thank you my friend!

**Skills In Pills **is out now for your listening pleasure!