LOS ANGELES (AP) Move over Jonas Brothers, the Kaulitz twins are moving in.
The 18-year-old Kaulitz brothers comprise half of Tokio Hotel, a German glam-pop quartet that is creating Beatles-like hysteria among the teen set in their native land. They’ve sold close to 3 million CDs and DVDs in their native country, and are hoping to replicate that rabid fan base in the United States.
“They’re the stepping stone between the tween stuff and My Chemical Romance,” says Andrew Gyger, senior product manager for Virgin Entertainment Group, a few days after the foursome appeared at Virgin’s Times Square store in New York in May to promote its English-language album, “Scream.”
“The in-store was massive in terms of sales and the amount of girls that showed up,” Gyger says, relaying stories of at least one girl fainting and screaming teens lining up around the block for the event. “The band seems to have come out of nowhere.”
Actually, Tokio Hotel came out of the Internet. A YouTube search shows 123,000 video listings compared to 88,100 for the Jonas Bros. or 21,000 for a grizzled veteran like Bruce Springsteen. To further sate their young fans’ appetite, for the last six months the band has produced weekly episodes of Tokio Hotel TV for its U.S. Web site.
For Tokio Hotel, the visual is as vital as the vocals and is propelled by lead singer Bill Kaulitz’s anime look: straightened, teased black hair; heavy eye makeup that accentuates his delicate, androgynous, doll-like features; chain necklaces and vintage rock and roll T-shirts. He’s so thin he appears almost one dimensional on stage, adding to the cartoon-like appeal. But to hear him tell it, his look comes by way of Transylvania, not Japan.
When he was 10, Bill Kaulitz dressed as a vampire for Halloween and adopted the styling year-round.
“After that, I started to color my hair and polish my nails. I started to wear makeup and stuff. I’d never heard of (anime),” Bill Kaulitz said in an interview at the Avalon Hollywood before to the group’s sold-out show in Los Angeles. He, his brother, bassist Georg Listing, 20, and drummer Gustav Schafer, 19, are squashed together in a leather booth in the lounge one floor above the Avalon stage. Both he and Tom speak very good, albeit heavily accented, English, although an interpreter stands by in case any translation is needed.
Tom Kaulitz, the older brother by 10 minutes (”A lot of people think Bill is the boss, but I am the boss,” he laughs), developed his hip-hop/dreads look when he was seven or eight, in part as a way to differentiate himself from his identical twin. “When we were six, we looked the same,” Tom Kaulitz said. “We had sweat shirts with (the names) Bill and Tom so that teachers had a chance to know who’s who.”
The Kaulitz brothers began playing guitar when they were seven — the instruments were gifts from their musician stepfather. By the time they were in their mid-teens, they were playing in clubs, often to less than five people, and Listing and Schafer had joined the band.
Their mother’s backing was not only desired, but vital: “We needed the support of our parents because we had no car, no money,” Bill Kaulitz says.
Mom has long since stopped driving the band to gigs; they have people who do that for them now as they have accumulated a team during their meteoric rise. The group’s first single, “Through the Monsoon,” went to No. 1 in Germany in 2005, a pair of No. 1 albums and sold-out European tours followed.
The fan frenzy in Germany has reached epic proportions, such as when a group of teen girls delivered a fan letter that was more than seven miles long. After seeing a young fan repeatedly at shows in different cities, the band later learned that she was a runaway who had left home to follow the group. “It’s still crazy to us,” Bill Kaulitz says of the distaff attention.
After witnessing the spectacle at the band’s February appearance at New York’s Gramercy Theatre, Amy Doyle, MTV’s senior VP of music and talent, became a convert. “I could not believe the line outside of screaming teen girls,” she said. “It reminded me of the audience of the late ’90s and 2000 for Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync.”
Following that performance, MTV added the video for “Ready, Set, Go” into heavy rotation, as well as highlighted the band online, on mtv2 and on “TRL.” Tokio Hotel writes a tour diary for MTV.com, which, Doyle says, had elicited more reader comments than any previous tour diary.
But the band has a long way to go before they reach Backstreet or ‘N Sync like sales — since the group’s CD was released in April, it has sold just over 23,000 copies. Tokio Hotel’s U.S. label, Cherrytree/Interscope, has yet to take the first single, “Monsoon,” to radio, but Doyle says the whole package is the band’s selling point.
“Radio always helps, but there’s a connection that clearly is made when the audience sees them that you can’t connect with just a song; fans are making an emotional connection.”
Indeed, at the Avalon show that evening, teenage girls packed up against the stage so tightly that security guards started a regular procession of lifting them over the railing as several teen become overcome by the nearness of their heroes and the pressure of those pushing behind them.
“It’s so cool that we have fans already here. But we are at the beginning,” Bill Kaulitz. “We really want to be successful in America, we really want to try it. There are not so many German bands who get the chance to come to America to play.”
las respuestas de Gustav
nosotras preguntamos - Gustav contesta
de todas las preguntas seleccionamos 15 y se las dimos a Gustav para que contestara.
que echas de menos hacer, algo que no es posible con TH?
desde que tenemos tantas cosas por hacer, no tengo mucho tiempo para montar en bici. antes pasaba todo mi tiempo libre sobre ruebas. pero cuando estoy en casa, siempre monto en bici.
Gustav, ahora contesta con honestidad. ¿a quien ves el mas guapo de los otros 3 Tokios?
realmente no puedo contestar eso. preguntarle a un tio que le parecen otros tios - no saldria bien. dejo que esa pregunta la respondan las mujeres. pero para ser honestos, no todos son guapos, o no?
recibes 1000 de cartas, e-mails... que ha hecho una fan que realmente te haya afectado?
no podria elegir solo una cosa. siempre me soreprendo cuando recibo un dibujo mio y luego pienso: "wOOw... que megatalento tiene la que lo ha pintado". pero me impresiona mucho todo el esfuerzo que dan las fans. da igual que sea Navidad, pascual o cumpleaños, ellas siempre estan ahi. increiblemente!
eres supersticioso? crees en cosas del horoscopo? crees en la vida despues de la muerte? crees en dios?
soy protestante y me han bautizado. siempre voy en navidad con mi familia a la iglesia. esos fueron y siguen siendo buenos momentos.
decisiones: rubio o castaño; pavo o cerdo; piernas o culo; girasol o rosa!
no puedo decir nada en particular, pero una chica tiene que ser simplemente simpatica, no hace falta tener ningun color.
piernas y culo tiene que ser compatibles
pavo o cerdo? eligo pavo
si, sobre flores.... girasoles. encuentro que las rosas siempre se ponen en tumbas y eso no refleja momentos de felicidad.
estas hoy en dia enamorado o tienes novia?
No
que es lo peor que alguien ha hecho/olvidado/llevado de ti?
si alguien lo hace a mi familia, entonces seria probablemente lo peor. la familia es sagrada y sin su apoyo todo esto no seria posible
y con las cosas materiales me quedaria desamparado si alguien se llevara mi movil o mi MAC.
alguna vez has llorado por algo, mientras estabas en TH? si es que si, porque?
si, cuando estaba viendo "Gladiator" en mi habitacion del hotel. el final realmente me llegó.
crees que las fans se olvidaras de Tokio Hotel cuando deje de existir? o crees que sera historia musical, como "Los Beatles"?
dificil de decir. no pienso sobre eso. pero creo que alguien nos recordará y le dira a sus hijos "cuando yo tenia tu edad fui a un concierto de Tokio Hotel". eso seria maravilloso!
navegas a menudo por internet?
No, uso internet para leer mis e-mails, o para encargar algunos CD's de vez en cuando, y comprobar como nos va todo.
como de a menudo entrar en tu fanclub? que piensas de el?
lo intento a menudo. el fanclub, y creo que todos diriamos lo mismo, es muy importante para nosotros. lo encuentro admirable, como las fans se mantienen unidas y tienen todo controlado.
que es la primera cosa que haces cuando por ejemplo, vuelves de una gira o de una entrevista, con tus padres en casa?
me siento en mi habitacion, disfruto de la paz y hago un repaso de todo lo que he hecho antes de eso. de vez en cuando tenemos muchas entrevistas y tenemos que volar de A a B, y a veces incluso no se donde estoy.
al principio de la primera gira de Schrei, cuando Bill todavia estaba cambiando la voz y sonaba diferente en cada concierto, tu cantaste sobre todo con el los coros como refuerzo. nos preguntamos porque? eres el mejor cantante que los otros dos, o simplemente os lo jugasteis a los palitos?
no saque el palito mas largo, si no el corto. simplemente soy el mejor cantante despues de Bill ;)
cual es el mayor tabu del mundo para ti?
hacer algo que dañara a mi familia.
.... y nunca correria desnudo por Broadway!
que harias si fueras mujer por un dia?
Oh, entonces tendria que pintarme las uñas y cotillear sobre chicos?
NO GRACIAS! si llevara minifalda tendria que aprender como sentarme correctamente. sentarme espatarrado en el sofa no seria una buena idea... pero seria divertido!!
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