Rammstein did indeed record a new album during lockdown, affirms keyboardist Christian “Flake” Lorenz in a new interview. The confirmation comes after the German industrial metal band had shared images from the studio last year.
Originally, Rammstein had intended to spend much of 2020 on the road, including their first-ever full-scale stadium tour of North America. Due to the pandemic, touring was put on hold, and the band found itself with a lot of time on its hands. Instead of sitting around waiting for concerts to resume, Rammstein hit the studio and recorded a very quick (especially by their standards) follow-up to their 2019 untitled album.
“The fact that we couldn’t perform live increased our creativity,” Flake told the German website Motor Music. “We had more time to think of new things and less distraction. As a result, we recorded a record that we hadn’t planned on.”
To put the timeline in perspective, it took roughly 10 years for Rammstein to release their 2019 album, which followed 2009’s Liebe ist für alle da. That said, there’s no release date set for the newly recorded album.
As far as the inspiration for the new effort, Flake divulged, “Our topics are generally from daily experience and world events, and something always happens there. Our topic is basically people’s madness and that is not much different in coronavirus times than in normal times. So Donald Trump was also very present last year, you could also see many traits and from people, in general, how they behaved in lockdown.”
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He added, “So the sources of inspiration are actually always there. Most of the things you deal with ultimately take place in your own head anyway. Only small bumps come from outside and enough comes through when the streets are only half as full.”
For now, Rammstein’s North American tour has been rescheduled to kick off in late August and run through early October. The concerts are set to be played in massive outdoor stadiums, so it remains to be seen if the shows will take place.
