Till Lindemann

The future vocalist spent his childhood in a small village between Schwerin and Wismar. It is called Wendisch-Rambow. Till was not the only child in the family - he had a sister six years younger than him. His parents were creative people, and history gives us the right to assume that it was from them that his son partly inherited some literary talents.

School was not easy for him. Till tells us that he was a very unsociable child and had trouble finding a place in groups, although from the age of 14 he attended a boarding school, going home only for the vacations. As a child, Till was going to become a fisherman.

From the age of eleven, Till attended a youth sports school and swam professionally. Constant training, rising every day at five o'clock in the morning, swimming thirty kilometers a day - many of Till's friends saw his future in professional sports. Everything was going for it - at 16 years old Till was selected to participate in the 7x European Junior Swimming Championships, held in Florence. He was even considered a candidate to travel to Moscow for the Olympics in 1980, and at the competitions themselves Till took second place in the 400m freestyle. But he never made it to the Olympics. Soon afterwards Till got an injury while training, and from the eightieth year he had to quit swimming altogether.

Then he went to a technical college to study carpentry. In this way he managed to avoid serving in the army.

Five years later, Till was already working quite confidently in his profession, moonlighting at a basket-weaving workshop as well. But it was all rather boring work and he had no real interest in it. As you might expect, a new hobby was to come into his life - and it didn't take long. When Till was given an old drum kit, he immediately had the idea of playing in a band. So in 1986, a punk band called First Arsch was born in Schwerin. There Till took up the position of a drummer.

Till didn't disturb his parents and relatives any more, however, with his drum kit exercises (for lack of drumsticks they were sometimes made with the help of two broken legs of a chair), as he started living alone early enough. According to Rammstein keyboardist Flake, Till used to rent a half of small house from an old granny, who probably still reverently remembers the occasional booze party at his irrepressible neighbor's house. As any decent man of his age should, Till at this time kept the door of his home open to friends, acquaintances, and simply good people who wanted to party. This was one of the reasons why Till became friends with Paul Landers and Flake (the future rhythm-guitarist and keyboardist of Rammstein) quite early on. Here it should be said that the band Feeling B, of which Paul and Flacke were members at the time, was in Till's eyes, as well as in those of many in Schwerin, a great authority. He went to the Philings' concert at the Achteck Club in Schwerin, and after a couple of drinks together, the bright idea to invite Paul to the First Arsch was born. Then a small tour of a dozen cities was given, in which Paul took part as a session guitarist.

The vocalist's fabulous love for fire (which, in Till's own words, is really just a desire to keep your hands busy when you don't have to sing) was already evident, because old cars were burning on stage during their performances, and everything that could be exploded. With these tricks, as well as with their typical contrived recklessness, the band achieved considerable popularity and later performed in Berlin. Till, by the way, due to his dislike to big cities, moved to Berlin in 1994, promising that if he didn't do well there in six months, he'd come back. Since 94, he has achieved a great deal, but Till still considers his true home to be in the small village of Wendisch-Rambow, which overlooks a fishing lake and a grey heron reserve.