Monday, May 10, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Article : No Privacy for Tokio Hotel - NewStraitsTimes
2010/05/06
SYIDA LIZTA AMIRUL IHSAN , BIBI NURSHUHADA RAMLI slizta@nstp.com.my, bibiramli@nst.com.my
It’s all about the band. Members of German group Tokio Hotel tell SYIDA LIZTA AMIRUL IHSAN it’s impossible to have a private life
“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.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Article : Tokio blitzkrieg - The Star
German band Tokio Hotel played to thousands of screaming fans last weekend.
TOKIO Hotel has really only had one big hit on Malaysian airwaves, yet the band has already garnered a cult following here – if their screaming and crying fans are anything to go by.
Over 3,500 of them gathered last Saturday at 1-Utama Shopping Centre in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, for the bands debut concert in the country.
For the band members, however, this sort of reaction is not unfamiliar.
Identical twin brothers Bill (vocals) and Tom (guitars) Kaulitz, Georg Listing (bassist) and Gustav Schafer (drummer) form the biggest act to come out of Germany in recent times. They hail from Magdeburg, a medieval German town.
What a scream: Tokio Hotel frontman Bill Kaulitz performing at the band’s concert in Selangor last weekend.
They started off their music career as a band called Devlish, but later changed their name to Tokio Hotel – Tokio being the German spelling of the Japanese city Tokyo, before releasing their first German-language record Schrei (Scream) in 2005.
“We have never been to Tokyo. We were searching for a new name, a completely new life for us as a band where we worked with professionals, producers and studios. It was a completely new era for us and that is why we picked something new to us, like Tokyo.
“It is like a symbol for us ... kind of like a goal for us to go there. We hope we can visit Tokyo this year. It would be cool,” said the frontman of the band, Bill.
The group has four number one singles and two chart-topping albums, selling nearly five million CDs and DVDs to date. They have gone 10 times platinum and clinched the award for Best Group from MTV Europe Music Awards last year and a Best New Artist from MTV Video Music Awards in 2008.
It is no wonder why the band received such a huge reception in Malaysia.
Also playing a part in their popularity is Bill, who with his long, spiky hair, heavy eye-makeup and skinny jeans, is the object of the fans’ adoration.
Throughout the concert, girls were screaming, “I love you, Bill.”
He was the consumate performer, knowing exactly how to react to the audience to get them wanting more, and had perfected all the major gestures of a rock star.
“I never had a role model. I think I just pick things from everything. I never look to other people and say I want to look like that or that. I just feel it. I think it is important to me that I never had rules in fashion,” Bill said at a press conference in Petaling Jaya a day before the concert.
Indeed, Bill’s fashion sense is a major point in conversations about the band, no less because of his androgynous and flamboyant look.
“I wear what I wanna wear. I wear what I feel comfortable in. It has always been that way. I went to school like that and it is the way my personality is,” said Bill, a fan of David Bowie and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler.
“For 10 years I’ve been colouring my hair and I am really quick in putting my make-up. And you know, you need a lot of hair spray (to get my hair to stand). I use nearly one bottle everyday,” he shared.
While Bill goes with the glam rock look, his identical twin prefers to go hip hop with his cornrows hair and baggy pants.
“I think until we were six, we looked the same. We had little sweatshirts with Bill and Tom on it so that the teachers can see who is who. After that, we grew up to be completely different. I don’t know why. We are like one person,’ Bill shared.
Tom added: “We just look different. We are more than soulmates. We are like one person but we have developed in different ways. ”
Of course, the band would rather be known for its music. While they may all be relatively young, they draw from their own experiences when penning their music.
“Of course we write about our lives and we write about our feelings,” Bill shared.
Tom chimed in, saying: “Music is always about emotions,” in response to a question about how emotional and angsty a lot of their music are.
Put these together with their different musical taste, and what you get is the interesting blend of music that Tokio Hotel has become known for.
“Gustav likes the more hardcore stuff like Metallica. Tom listens to hip-hop and he likes all the Jay-Z stuff, while I like Stereophonics and Aerosmith. So it is all very different,” said Bill.
The band’s first language is German, but the bold step it chose to take in making music in English has obviously paid off.
Their first English-language record, which was a translation of Schrei, was released in the US in 2008, followed by Humanoid, their second English-language album, last year.
Their first single from that album, Automatic, is getting a lot of airtime on Malaysian radio currently.
“It was really hard at first to switch from German to English. I think my English is really bad. We learnt English in school but that was it.
“For the first English record, it was really strange for me as I had always sung in German. I am a perfectionist and I wanted to sound natural like a native speaker and so that took some time.
“But now, I can’t decide what I prefer. I like the English record and I also like the German one. So I think in the future, we will always do it this way and we would have a translation for both languages,” Bill explained.
At the concert, Tokio Hotel performed 11 songs in both languages. The haunting ballad Monsoon, was sung in German.
And then, as they left, Bill said in perfect English: “Thank you. See you again!”
Word is that the band will be returning to Malaysia for another concert, so we might just be seeing Bill – with his gravity-defying mohawk – and his bandmates again real soon.
Article : Welcome to Tokio Hotel - Malaysian Today
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The pouring rain was no obstacle for die-hard fans of German alt-rock band, Tokio Hotel, as the thousands-strong audience waited - umbrellas up - for the show to begin. And when it did, after a two-hour wait, it was worth it after all.Sweaty bodies and wet hair may make for an odour to remember, but there was more to remember on the damp evening of May 1 as German alternative-rock-slash-emo-pop band, Tokio Hotel, played their first ever concert in Malaysia, courtesy of TM Streamyx.
If the line outside One Utama Shopping Centre was anything to go by, the quartet of Tom and Bill Kaulitz, Gustav Schafer and Georg Listing has proven that music transcends culture and language. Stretching from the Central Park Avenue until the entrances on the ground floor of the shopping centre, the line resembled nothing less than a mile-long snake of human bodies.
Even though these same bodies would later be drenched from the sudden downpour, nothing dampened their enthusiasm, because the band famous for their flamboyantly pretty, guy-linered frontman and catchy riffs was worth the two-hour wait.
Unfortunately, as the emcee from Hitz.fm warmed up the crowd, it was clear that there were delays in setting up the stage. Fans waited for more than half an hour between the opening acts of Pop Shuvit and Bunkface. Both bands put on a jolly good show - Pop Shuvit with their most recognisable hit, Mara Bahaya, and Bunkface with the ridiculously catchy Situasi, among other songs - but by the time the DJ came on stage for the third time to play yet another remix of Bad Romance, the crowd had begun to grumble.
Still, even though many feet were surely sore from standing still for so long, when lead singer Bill finally ran on stage dressed in black, with a metal-fringe necklace, throats became sore from the screaming. As the rest of the band took their places amidst a creepy, emo-electro riff and blue strobe lights, everyone was clearly awaiting a show to remember.
And Tokio Hotel did not disappoint.
The band went straight to their opening song, Noise, which is also the opening song from their latest English album (and the one that made Tokio Hotel a household name out of their home country),Humanoid.
Stopping between songs only to greet Malaysian fans and to thank them for coming out (no thanks necessary!) the band went on to play 13 more songs, mostly from Humanoid, which spawned their two biggest hits, Automatic and World Behind My Wall. When these two hits were played, the crowd went wild, cheering their hearts (and vocal chords) out and singing along with Bill.
Running off-stage every so often to change his accessories, frontman Bill gyrated, swayed, and tantalised the crowd, sounding and looking exactly how fans have come to love him in the bands' music videos.
Tokio Hotel also played songs from their earlier albums, such as the English version of Ready, Set, Go! and Monsoon, which they sang in their native tongue. The fans knew the lyrics too, and sang along, even if they were not sure what the words meant.
There was no fuss, no muss (though bassist Georg must have had a fan blowing in his face, because his long brown locks was flying out behind him, making him a photographer's delight), just good music that left fans wanting more.
But all too soon, it was over, after just an hour - but the band promised, irrevocably, that they will be back.
Hint: that they will be 'doing something with MTV' and will definitely be seeing Malaysian fans again!
Tokio Hotel Rocks Malaysia!! - Hot Magazine - #2
Just hours before the power-packed Tokio Hotel Live in Malaysia show, the band met with the Malaysian press to answer some questions. We caught the entire experience on video to share with you guys. It’s a six part press conference. Watch the videos and see the pictures here. Also included are close-ups of Bill Kaulitz’s fashion statements. Girls and guys...this is how to accessorise! The band talk about their challenges, inspiration behind Humanoid,living the dream, their image and more. Interview footage coming soon.
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Tokio Hotel Rocks Malaysia!! - Hot Magazine - #1
German quartet Tokio Hotel performed to thousands of soaking and screaming fans at Central Park Avenue, 1 Utama on Saturday night. It had drizzled relentlessly for a couple of hours before the show started and during the opening acts when Bunkface and Pop Shuvit came on.
As always, lead vocalist Bill Kaulitz was stylin’ in an all-black ensemble and chains. Bill’s hair was incredibly sculpted from the start of the show when they played ‘Noise’ till the encore when they sang ‘Durch Den Monsun’. Yes, the 20-year-old must be using some amazing hairspray for his mane to hold up in the thick humidity.
Check out our picture and video gallery. No words could better describe the energy and hype of the show than actually seeing the pics and watching the clips. Enjoy...we did!
