Interview with Tanzwut

«We've never made it our goal to make popular music»

Tanzwut, a band known to many people, is still playing and releasing albums in the styles of industrial metal and medieval metal. The musicians take quite an active part in the life of the German rock crowd. The band members cooperated with Rammstein, S-Bahn!, made two joint shows with Megaherz, and in their third album, they included a cover version of Die ?rzte's song "Bitte, bitte". With Umbra et Imago, they recorded the song "Weinst Du" and did a joint tour in Europe, which was a huge success. The band plans to release 13 full-length LPs this year. Der Zwilling, a member of the band, kindly found time to answer our questions.

How do you feel about the fact that some people still call you "Rammstein with bagpipes"?

People do? Actually, we didn‘t recognize that. Just listen to some of our songs, and it will explain itself.

The world is getting crazier and crazier. Is what's going on around you still reflected in your music and art? A lot of people think your music is just fun music for alcoholic parties.

Well, if people think this, they are definitely welcome. There are worse things than parties. But I have no idea why people think this. If we have a song that could be understood as a pure drinking or party-song it always has a deeper meaning. Maybe about relations, hope, fears, or the influence of the devil.

If someone follows your social media, it can feel like you're constantly on tour. Are you attempting to compensate for the time you lost during quarantine? How often do you wish you were home sooner?

Quarantine was not really a problem for us. We‘re always busy and use the time to work on new projects, finish old ones, and so on. Actually, you wish to be home soon in every traffic jam on the way back home. But we‘re more impatient about getting on the road to the next show again.

I've seen a couple of hater comments here that your music is unfashionable and will never make it to the top chat positions. How important are all these fashion trends and success in sales to you?

It is and never was our intention to make music that as many people as possible like. We always wrote songs we liked, and fortunately, some others did, too. We also don‘t care about any tiktok parts or similar things in our songs. Maybe that‘s wrong from a commercial point of view, but that won‘t simply be authentic. And who cares about hate comments at all. Who needs or wants all that negativity? Better train this not to touch you.

You are about to release your 13th studio album. Have you had any thoughts that this will be a lucky number for you and a creative breakthrough? How superstitious are you?

Totally superstitious. We take long detours if a cat crosses the road, for example. That‘s why always someone is late to rehersals. At least that‘s often the excuse.

Most of your songs are so fun and catchy. Should we expect some romantic ballads? And are there any songs about love and romance in your band's repertoire?

Concerning „Achtung Mensch“ which will be released on August 9th, it could be the most varied album we did. We have already released three singles and clips. „Achtung Mensch“, „Noch eine Flasche Wein“ and „Loch in der Mauer“ are totally different, but all are Tanzwut. About love and romance, yes, there are plenty in our repertoire. Like „Stille Wasser“ or „Im tiefen Gras“. Sometimes the lyrics are not as obvious as they could be. Just translate and think about it. We have many foreign fans who do this and tell us how they interpret the lyrics.

Are there any surprising facts about the band members that we don't know about? I once met punk rockers who had degrees in medicine and political science and a couple of shock rockers who loved to sew stage costumes at home on their sewing machines...

Teufel is touring with an elaborated puppet theater, all built by himself. Robin is the vice European champion in playing guitar by a bottleneck. Zwilling started playing bagpipes because he lost a bet. Shumon collects Randy-Rhoads-V guitars and has nearly 100 of them.

Jojo has the same birthday as Teufel.

Alex breeds lizards.

Pyro is very interested in interiors and houseplants.

What have you happily said goodbye to in your musical art?

Sleeping on or under stages, on kitchen floors, or in other people's bathtubs.

Did the media or press write anything that made you laugh?

Not so long ago, a paper released a photo of a fan and wrote that he‘s our guitar player. Actually, they even looked a bit similar. Except for some details. That made everyone really laugh. Except for our guitar player.

How do you feel about people who pretend to be fans but are actually selling autographs?

Everyone should just ignore that. We love to give autographs, and we usually do it after every show while we talk to our fans. We‘re glad if we can give away some souvenirs, like an autographed drumhead and so on. Don‘t buy, and simply ignore that. Come to our shows and get your own.

Can you write a song in 10 minutes?

No. Maybe you can write down a melody theme or some lyric ideas in 10 minutes. But a whole song needs more time. Sometimes years. There are lyrics written in 10 minutes. But not music.

Is the German musical tradition and culture still there, or has everything become very cosmopolitan and blended together? Is there something that makes the German sound stand out?

I have no idea, as I don‘t compare bands by their nationality. And there are too many genres to answer this question. Is it important? For me, it‘s much more interesting that a band develops its own unique sound, independent of their passports.

How different are today's concerts from your shows from 10 years ago?

I think our visitors would not really recognize. We are as excited as before and full of fire and energy during our shows, like 10 years ago. Behind the scenes, we invested a lot in our technical equipment to avoid disturbances and technical problems we had to deal with years ago. It‘s great not to struggle during a show with awful stage sound, and we can enjoy it too.

What songs of yours are you sick of playing?

We’re glad to own a repertoire that allows us to change the set before that happens.

What would you like to pass on to the next generation of musicians?

Better do something useful and more healthy. No, just kidding. Making music is great. Choose your own way; don’t take yourself too seriously and have fun.

Jenet Bonishi