Berita Harian (Singapore)

Hoping to capture the world
It is not easy for European bands to break through the international market but these four gentlemen from Germany have proven that they can compete on the same platform.
Bill and his twin, Tom Kaulitz, 21 years old, and their other band members, Georg Listing, 23 years old and Gustav Schafer, 22 years old, met and made music together ever since 2001 and had called themselves Devilish.
Now they have changed their name to Tokio Hotel and they are planning to conquer the world.
Recently, Bill has taken a break from all the hustle for their European Tour that will take place next February till April, to share their experiences with Ekstra.

Ekstra: What is Tokio Hotel’s uniqueness?
Bill: We can sing in both German and English. We translate our songs from German to English because we want to break through the international market.
Our new album Humanoid was released simultaneously and in both languages.
To do so, we were constantly making sure that the ‘feel’ of the English album and the lyrics are similar to the German version.

Ekstra: The influence of different genres of music is visible in this album. Does this reflect each member of Tokio Hotel?
Bill: We actually are fans of different types of music. I am a fan of Aerosmith’s songs while Tom likes hip-hop like Jay Z and Gustav is a fan of Metallica. But that is not a problem because we have agreed that the songs we play are rock songs with a pop influence.

Ekstra: What is the most memorable experience that you are unable to forget when you toured at other countries?
Tom: The most memorable experience that I cannot forget about is that when we were in France and we were doing a concert in front of 500 000 fans who memorized our songs and sang along with us.
This is a big achievement that I really like because we actually started out from a very small gig.

Ekstra: Do you have any private rituals that you do before any performances?
Tom: (Laughing) Georg has to go to the toilet to do big business and then after that, we gather together and get nervous.

Ekstra: Besides performing together, what are other activities that you do together at your free time?
Bill: We spend time together with our families and friends. We eat, watch DVD and so on and so forth together.