Skills In Pills

1. Skills In Pills
2. Ladyboy
3. Fat
4. Fish On
5. Children Of The Sun
6. Home Sweet Home
7. Cowboy
8. Golden Shower
9. Yukon
10. Praise Abort

LINDEMANN, the project of Rammstein singer Till Lindemann and Peter Tägtgren (Pain, Hypocrisy) will release its long-awaited debut album “Skills In Pills” on June 19, globally on Warner Music.

As a forerunner of the album, the single “Praise Abort” will see the light of day on May 29th, 3 weeks prior to album release.

The album will be available in the following versions: 

Standard (Digipack), Special (Blu-Ray-packaging, high-quality booklet, bonustrack), Vinyl (gatefold cover, 28-page booklet, bonustrack, album-download-code), Digital Super Deluxe (Coffee-table-style book with 80 pages, high-quality package, CD with bonustrack).

Rammstein have sold approx. 17 Mio. records to date around the globe and are one of the most successful and respected rockbands of our time. 

Peter Tägtgren is not only the mastermind of Hypocrisy and Pain, but also a well known and highly-acclaimed Metal-producer (Amon Amarth, Dimmu Borgir, Sabaton, Children of Bodom, Cradle of Filth etc.)

Like all the best stories of death and destruction, the tale of Lindemann – the new band featuring Till Lindemann and Peter Tägtgren – begins with a night of total debauchery.  

“In 2000 I was in Sweden, where we were mixing the Mutter album,” says Lindemann, familiar to millions worldwide as frontman with Germany’s biggest rock band, Rammstein. “One evening, our keyboard player and I went out to a biker bar with some girls, but one of the bikers there was the ex-boyfriend of one of those girls and wanted to kick my ass. He had a lot of friends with him, so we thought we were doomed – but then who should walk into the bar but Peter Tägtgren? He told them that we were cool guys, and not to beat the shit out of us...”

Tägtgren and Lindemann soon became friends – and the next time the Rammstein frontman returned to Sweden, the two stepped up their game when it came to partying. Lindemann recalls: “Next time I met Peter, we had a Chinese meal together. We had a really nice dinner and afterwards we were really full. Then I said, ‘Let’s drink some Jägermeister’...”

“Till fucked me up!” Tägtgren remembers. “He kept saying to me, ‘Just one more shot...’
until I vomited over the bar into the ice machine. Then they threw me out, still puking everywhere.” “After that, we had a candle competition,” says Lindemann with an evil smile. “We had a bet about how long we dared to hold our arms over the flame of a candle. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to beat you, pussy!’, lit a cigarette and smoked while my arm burned. I could smell it. I had a scar for the next two months...”  

And so Lindemann, the band, was born. With a genesis as vivid as this, it’s little wonder
that the debut album Skills In Pills is one of the most gripping releases of the year – and the darkest. Thanks to the Rammstein singer’s often hilarious, sometimes utterly filthy lyrics, plus Tägtgren’s super-modern studio skills and instrumentation, it’s a set of 10 songs like no other.  

Right from the start, there’s no holding back. The song ‘Skills In Pills’ is a reflection of our glorious world, in which Lindemann hails with immense sarcasm the range of modern medication on which society depends. “This song was inspired by Breaking Bad!” he laughs. “That show is all about crystal meth, and I thought it deserved a soundtrack, ha ha! Nowadays you see people taking pills all the time for every fucking thing you can think of. They hate so-called illegal drugs, of course, but they take pills every day. Then they complain about people smoking pot, but they drink every night. Where is the balance? It’s so ridiculous...”  

‘Ladyboy’ takes the opposite approach, praising the ease with which a gay man can indulge in sex with no complications. It’s humour with a point, says Lindemann: “If you’re into this stuff, you’re probably a happy guy. Just dicks and holes, with no drama! Homosexuals are laid-back about sex: there’s none of this living-together shit and being responsible about the family.”   

‘Fat’ is another celebration of the flesh – and the more flesh the better. Here Lindemann declares his admiration for the curvaceous female in plain terms, explaining: “Fat is erotic! The problem is that fat women don’t know they are sexy: someone has to tell them that they are attractive. If people don’t agree, then – as the song says – ‘Let’s fuck them on your French fries!’  

‘Fish On’ continues the theme of sex, with Lindemann likening the act of fishing to scoring with a girl. Listen for the mention of ‘Moby’s dick...’ “What can I say?” he grins. “Sex is a huge subject, so to me these words come easily. People think about fucking all the time – and so do I...”  

But Skills In Pills is more than Lindemann’s thoughts on the act of intercourse. Inspired by the inexorable passage of time, he also includes a song called ‘Children Of The Sun’, in which he ponders the ephemeral nature of our lives. “Imagine you’re fucked-up drunk, having a great time, but then you remember that the moment will soon be gone. Life is a beautiful, sad thing.”  

Lindemann’s thoughts on the fleeting nature of human existence continue with ‘Home Sweet Home’, the heartbreaking evocation of a loved one’s death from cancer. “You could interpret this in different ways,” he says. “Sadly, Peter was reading the lyrics and he told me that he’d had a similar experience of this situation.” Physical frailty is also explored on ‘Cowboy’, where a Wild West pioneer ends up weak and old after a lifetime of faking it. “The big tough guy becomes not the big tough guy,” chuckles Lindemann. “You see men like this every day.”  

Hold your breath for ‘Golden Shower’, which is about exactly what you think it’s about. “I’m so proud of this song,” says Lindemann. “We used the word ‘pretty’ before the word ‘cunt’, so we’re
using language with opposite meanings. Sure, they might not like it in America – we’ll bleep it out!”  

The mood softens for ‘Yukon’, inspired by Lindemann’s trip in August 2014 to the North American river of the same name. “I spent three days canoeing with a friend of mine,” he recalls. “It was so good to be in the very heart of nature.” But ultimately Skills In Pills is designed to shock (“We want to provoke!” states the singer), and the album does exactly that with its final flourish, ‘Praise Abort[ion]’, in which a father of many children laments the large family which costs him so much money to keep. “It’s funny and shocking at the same time,” says Lindemann. “A friend of mine has seven kids, and he heard this and said, ‘This is my song! Play it again!’”   

Albums like this don’t come along often: violent, visceral and courageous, Skills In Pills is a listening experience like no other. The final revelation is that this album was never meant to happen: it was only ever supposed to be a throwaway collaboration between two friends. As Tägtgren explains: “This is the result of a year of fucking around with sounds! We had no idea that we’d go as far as releasing an entire album, but this thing has just got bigger and bigger.”  

The twisted product of two uniquely creative minds, Skills In Pills is your new medicine. Take it now.