How Rammstein Conquered America While Singing in German
An agent said it would never work and the police in Worcester agreed, yet a band singing in German still sold out Madison Square Garden in half an hour.
The Short stitches together clips from Rammstein in Amerika, the 2015 documentary about the band's long, strange romance with the United States. American guests take turns trying to explain it, and one of them nails the paradox: a German band singing in German should never win over an American crowd, and yet their success proves otherwise. Rammstein heard the same doubts at home. Before their first trip, everybody in Germany told them nobody could pull that off.
Before we came here everybody back in Germany told us: ‘You won’t make it, because that’s a thing that nobody can do.’
Richard Kruspe
"This Would Never, Ever Work"
Their first US tour began in December 1997, opening for fellow Germans KMFDM. They had a small head start: David Lynch's Lost Highway, with a soundtrack put together by Trent Reznor, had already used two Rammstein songs.
1997
First US tour, opening for KMFDM
The business side was less sure. New York booking agent Michael Arfin admits in the documentary that his first instinct was that this would never, ever work in America. His old college friend Wayne Pighini of London Records kept pushing until Arfin went to see the show. Halfway through, as Pighini later told Metal Hammer, Arfin turned to him and said, "Dude, I'm in."
Family Values and a Night in Jail
In the fall of 1998 Korn brought them on the Family Values Tour with Limp Bizkit, Ice Cube and Orgy. Picture a nu metal crowd meeting six Germans with flamethrowers. Sehnsucht went platinum in the US, unheard of for an album sung entirely in German, and "Du hast" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance.
I don’t think the audience knew what hit them over the head.
Munky (Korn)
America also showed its strict side. On June 5, 1999, after a show at the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts, police arrested Till Lindemann and keyboardist Flake Lorenz for lewd and lascivious behavior. The offense was the stunt in "Bück dich," a mock sex act with a fake phallus that squirted liquid over the crowd. Both spent the night in jail. Years later Lindemann told Rolling Stone he still has to explain that arrest every time he enters the US. "It never goes away," he said.
The Coronation at the Garden
After the 2001 tour and the September 11 attacks, Rammstein stayed away from the US for almost a decade. That usually kills a band's American career. Instead, YouTube arrived, and a new generation of fans grew up watching clips of a show they could not see.
30min
to sell out Madison Square Garden in 2010
So in 2010 the band booked exactly one US date: Madison Square Garden on December 11. Tickets went on sale on October 8 and were gone in about half an hour. That show became the centerpiece of Rammstein in Amerika, where Iggy Pop, Steven Tyler, Chad Smith and Scott Ian line up to pay tribute.
The Garden opened the door to full North American arena tours in 2011 and 2012. The 2012 run even stopped in Worcester. Lindemann thanked the crowd and said he hoped they would not get arrested like last time. Nobody did.
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// Quick quiz
In which city were Till Lindemann and Flake Lorenz arrested in 1999?
Police arrested them after a June 1999 show at the Palladium in Worcester over the Bück dich stunt, and they spent the night in jail.
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