15.02.06 Stern TV (with translation)

Stern TV part 1

At first the guy explains that you’ll see a video about Tokio Hotel.
Crowd: We want Tokio Hotel! We want Tokio Hotel! etc.
R (Reporter): Wherever they are, is shouting: Tokio Hotel.
A crowd of fans before the Dome in Bremen; Tokio Hotel is in town and in five hours the concert will be here.
B (Bill): Now they see us!
R: Stern TV has accompanied the band on their tour for two days.
That the boys now already fill enormous halls is a small musical wonder, because their first single appeared a half year ago.
And also today; a sold out hall.
Gu (Gustav): How many people would fit here again?
T (Tom): we must make ourselves a bit comfortable with the hall and the stage and stuff…
Guy: And what do you think of it?
T: Well, it’s certainly big isn’t it? It’s going to be really great today. I certainly am looking forward to it.
R: Sound check. Tokio Hotel – That are Gustav the drummer, Georg the bassist, Tom the guitarist and Bill the singer –
Everywhere on the stage are lists with the show-program.
B: I think we play for…a good hour and a half.
Guy: And howmay songs do you play then?
B: Oh erm…how many are there together…?
Gu: I guess there are … seventeen…I think. Yes, seventeen.
T/B: Seventeen, with additions.
R: For the concert in Bremen, the most advanced stage-technique is used; an enormous crew takes care of a perfect show.
This is how it looked two years ago. Preparation for a little show in Magdeburg. Then Tokio Hotel was still Called Devilish.
Tom and his brother Bill are fourteen year old. The identical twins grow up in a small village near Magdeburg.
As a child Bill is already a Rocker and when they go o school the brothers are already little television stars.
In 1995 they play in the movie “Verrückt nach dir” (Mad about you)
Woman: And you must come to me! That’s an order!
T: My hearing is bad! (Not sure)
Woman: You two go to bed now!
T: My bed is wet!
R: But actually music is their life. They meet Gustav and Georg and ground the band Devilish.
Ge (georg): Gustav and I know each other from a music school and we saw them (Bill und Tom) performing and we asked if they didn’t
need a drummer and a bassist. Because Bill stood there with some sort of piano –
B: A keyboard, it was a keyboard!
Ge: Alright, with a keyboard and he did the drums and the bass on his own and that wasn’t any good so…
R: At first they perform in youth clubs and café’s.
In Hamburg they produce their first album, Devilish becomes Tokio Hotel. 2005: The video of the first single: Durch den Monsun.
The success comes enormously fast; the single falls to the first place out of nothing, the boys from Tokio Hotel are now Teeny-stars,
after the summer holyday nothing is the same anymore.
B: Of course going to school normal wasn’t possible anymore, because of the fans hanging around in front of the school.
And the school day itself was also very restless; there was a lot of press in the school. Tom and I wouldn’t really mind that,
but the school directors and of course the other students would. School isn’t the right place for such things.
R: In stead of at school the band is now on tour; We are back in Bremen. Every concert is also a day with a lot of press for the boys.
Now they have a photo shoot for Bravo. And in the dressing room the radio reporter is already waiting.
That also belongs to the boys’ everyday life.
Radio Reporter: Exactly how many interviews have you had today?
B: Erm…well, just like the love letters; there are so many we lost count.
R: Then finally there is something to eat. For Gustav cornflakes, but the others take burgers or waffles.
B: We actually eat very unhealthy but of course all these people that walk around here make us eat enough salad and fruit as well.
R: And then the moment is there; Tokio Hotel on their way to the stage, the last seconds before the performing

Stern TV part 2

After ninety minutes everything is over. What’s left over is a pile of flowers and cuddly toys and a lot of broken hearts.
The band has withdrawn themselves.
Gu: Then you come of that stage again and then you think how big that hall was…for twelve thousand people…
R: But the day is not over yet. In front of the hotel stand the next fans already, the security asks them to calm down.
Security man: You will all get autographs but please don’t cry. Don’t cry, be calm!
R: Being very close to Tokio Hotel for once; a dream of every fan. The end of a tiring touring-day.
The next day in Bremen: breakfast in the Park Hotel. The boys still are tired from lasts night concert and getting up early is totally
not their strongest point.
B: Normally, when no one wakes me I can sleep till four or five ‘o clock.
T: Six ‘o clock!
B: Yes…I’m normally a real long-sleeper, so when no one would pull me along I would probably sleep my whole life away…
T: Normally I am someone who can sleep everywhere, but yesterday evening I just couldn’t.
R: For being tired, however, is no time; on their way to the next concert. A coupe of fans even stayed the whole night in front of the hotel.
T: (Hugs the girl) I think you should reward them a little; they’re waiting so long in the cold…I think that’s pretty important.
R: 300 Km further in Düsseldorf it’s all the same.
Still nine hours to go til the next Tokio Hotel concert begins, and in spite of the cold there is a super good mood in front of the hall.
Guy: Who is the cutest of the boys? (Girls start to scream)
R: The most wanted bracelet (?) that one can wear…
Guy: And what does that mean?
Girls: Firs line!
Guy: Who should actually be at school now? (Girls all scream)
R: Meanwhile, also the band is making their way to Düsseldorf; time to think about the huge successes from the last few months.
T: It is difficult to process it. We just wait until something like all that happens. (I am really not sure about that piece)
I don’t think we really fear that. I mean, we trey just to enjoy everything and we understand that we can’t always be on the top of
the chards, but so what? We can still make music.
R: Arrival at the hall; the greeting is everywhere the same. In front of the door the line is getting longer and longer.
Meanwhile the boys are trying to distract their thoughts.
At the entrance begins now the fight for the best places. After a few minutes the hall is full; today it are 9000 people.
Tokio Hotel live in Düsseldorf. The boys from Magdeburg have made it; in pop-heaven out of nothing and heroes of a teeny-generation.
B: (On stage) Thank you! Have a good journey home! Thank you for being here, thank you very much!
[I call the guy from the beginning Reporter 2]
R2: I admit…I admit it is time for a bit of excitement in this show; we just try it now, here are Gustav, Georg, Bill and Tom!
Here is Tokio Hotel! Hello, hello. A bit of excitement here… (Tries to calm the public down) Children! Children, silence! Hello…? Please?
(It is silent) Right, the whole situation is getting a bit calmer now…
B: We always get a bit moved (I think) and a bit nervous from all the screaming.
R: (He doesn’t say this exactly, bit something like it) Don’t you ever get annoyed or afraid of all the screaming?
T: But they are good screams, aren’t they?
R: (Don’t understand it really good. Something about the bra’s thrown on the stage during the concerts.)
What a lot of adults don’t know is that you are between sixteen and eighteen year old and that you’ve been making music since a very
long time. Some of you I believe since ten years. Do you believe this to be a reason for your success?
Ge (Georg): I think it is certainly important that we exist so long already, that we are a real band and used to play in small clubs.
B: I think that it’s certainly the base because were playing for six years together now and we know each other very well and I think
that that’s really important, that we did everything together.
R: There are bands that come together via a casting show. Do you see them as bad?
T: Yes, well…I don’t think you could say that, but I think that when you find each other on your own you just fit more together and can
go through more together and work harder, I think that’s really important. We are very lucky we did

Stern TV part 3

R: You also have young groups who were really well known in a short period of time and people don’t know them anymore now.
They separated; everything got blown up with a huge bang. Robbie Williams continued on his own and now makes jokes of his time in a band.
Can you imagine yourselves going solo and saying: “Ah well, we were so young then”.
Ge: I don’t think so actually…
Gu: I don’t think so either, because all our singing qualities are really bad, except for Bill.
B: Well, no one can no of course what we’ll do in the future. It could be that Gustav plas in a different band in twenty years or something,
but we’re certainly not planning on it, we want to stay together as long as possible and I believe that it’s holding good, so…
R: About your lyrics: topics like losing orientation fear for the future divorce of the parents. That are all pretty deep topics.
Did you experience all this yourselves and must such lyrics have anything to do with you?
B: Well, we, or better to say, I write the texts with the producers and we think it is important that we experienced those things,
but of course you can’t experience everything, that would we pretty bad. And that’s why we also let ourselves be inspired, for example
by fans that write us about things they experienced or felt. We think it’s important that our texts really mean something.

You have also texts, especially in America, that really just are pretty meaningless. We really try to find subjects that are close to us
and close to our fans and I think that’s why they can identify themselves so good with us, because they maybe did the same things or feel
it exactly the same.
R: And what do you do when you write a new song? Do you go to the studio and just concentrate with the four of you or do you try something
while you’re playing?
Ge: It mostly develops in tryouts. We don’t go and sit in the studio and say “Okay, now we must write a new song”. It just comes with the
time.
T: I think that when we just sit down and decide to write a new song, it doesn’t really work. It’s now pretty easy for us, because we
experience a lot right now. And when something just falls in to you (I don’t know how to say that -_-) it’s better then when you sit down
and say “I must make a new song now”.
R: I must ask you a couple of fan questions now. (Reads) We worry about Bill, doesn’t his voice sound much deeper after his voice broke?
Fans: Better!
B: It does, of course, in deed. When we recorded the album I was thirteen or fourteen. I’m now sixteen and in September I become seventeen,
so of course my voice has become deeper. When we play live we play the songs lower, a third (I don’t know if that’s correct) lower so that changed a lot.
But the songs are still the same they’re only lower.
R: How old should a girlfriend of yours be? (Fans start to shout things) Please! Wait a moment, the question is – can you read? –
Is there a maximum age?
Ge/Gu: No, I guess not…
B/T: Maximum age?
B: Depends on where you want the love to go…
R: Then another very professional question: Bill, did you make your hair longer?
Fan girl: Not at all!
R: Hey, he should answer the question, not you!
B: Funny that that’s still a question… for me it’s just erm… well I just wanted a different haircut, I’d had the old one for five years
and just felt like something new.
Another fan girl: You haven’t answered the question yet!
[Laughing]
R: Then another question: who was who in the movie from eleven years ago?
T: I was the one with the yellow dog. That woman had –
B: We had to do that movie, so we went there, but when we saw that woman we didn’t want to play in it anymore because we thought she was
so ugly, and Tom locked her in the toilets and put the key away and there was a huge situation…
R: I know from you that, is it really true that you play drum above a funeral centre and that you can only play after five ‘o clock.
Gu: Yes, that’s the one exception I have to make. Only after five ‘o clock.

Stern TV part 4

R: And that’s because otherwise people would spontaneously stand up out of their coffins?
Gu: No, no on ever stood up out of their coffin, but would be pretty bad when I start playing in the middle of a funeral.
R: I thought that the most fascinating part of the movie was that schoolyard-situation, where in the background a mob of fans
was walking a bit pied piper-like. It looked like more then 300 fans! So you said you couln’t go to a normal school anymore.
Do you really believe in this “We just pause and then we start learning Latin-words again”?
B: We didn’t actually quit school, but we just said “Okay, we only do that now” but we’re actually always working further so –
Fangirls: Bill I love you!
B: we keep up with the schoolwork
Fangirls: Bill I love you!
T: We can’t just quit can we?
B: Exactly. We also have a private teacher that we go and see now and then, so we keep up.
R: I think we have today the longest love letter in the world in the studio. There we have Hanna and Lisa and Lisa, and they
can’t hold any longer… Get it out then, if it is so long. How long is this thing? 420 meter?! So, you have a bit of reading for the night…
And you’re still on tour, but it’s meaningless looking for tickets now isn’t it?
B: I think there are still some tickets at the entrance in some cities, but further its complete sold out.
R: And the new single comes in a month or so?
B: Indeed, in March.
R: All right then, very much thanks that you’ve been here, Tokio Hotel thank you very much!