Drumheads – Gustav Interview

How cool! An interview with Gustav in Drumheads! What a nice way to celebrate the day after Christmas. And a nice interivew about the actual music. And I know you Gustav fans are all doing the happy dance! Translation by Artax, please credit him when you use it. Thanks.

At the very top – interview with Gustav Schäfer

Because the musicians were still so young, many so-called experts derided Tokio Hotel’s breakthrough. Four years later the band tours world-wide and breaks one record after another. Instead of talking about gossip, Gustav gives us straight talk about drumming with Germany’s supergroup no 1.

Drumheads!!: You’ve been thrown into the cold water of big stages already at a young age. Do you feel yourself whether you’ve become more secure in your drumming by now?
Gustav Schäfer: I think I’ll never become really secure. I’m nervous before a show and sometimes there just is a mistake when performing. But even the big ones like Chad Smith or Danny Carey mess up sometimes, that’s how it is. Who stands in front of 13,000 people, isn’t excited and plays every show perfectly – is in my opinion no real drummer!

D: What’s for you so alluring about drumming and being the musician who always sits at the back?
Gu: I think it’s awesome that I act from the background and that most people don’t even know what weight lays upon a drummer. Of course it’s like that also with the other musicians on the stage, but when the drums give out, then the song is messed up. Someone once told me that the drummer is the band’s clockwork. He alone makes the beat and all have to listen to his “1″.

D: What’s important at a Tokio Hotel concert from a drummer’s view? What do you have to bring to the show?
Gu: First of all, I should of course master the songs, and that I do! Sometimes, I play them differently live than on the record and especially with our new record it’ll be a big change, since we also have many programmed rhythms. Apart from that, it’s like with any other band: The drummer sits in the back and enjoys.

D: What song do like most for the stage?
Gu: That changes constantly for me. I’m a fan of the heavy beats. Right now, I very much like to play “Komm” resp. the english version “Noise” and “Für immer jetzt” oder “Forever now”. These songs are very enjoyable to play, and they have good power in front of the stage.

D: What things at the drums would you still like to get better at, and how do you approach that?
Gu: Regrettably, with all our travelling, there’s not much time for exercises that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time already. One of my shortcomings are fast Fills. I always hammer them and don’t do double-beats. But it sounds better! Oh well, I think I’ll always play them like that. After all, so far, nobody has complained.

D: How much do you practice, when you get the time in between all the interviews and autograph sessions?
Gu: When I get to the studio to practice, then always 4-5 hours with short breaks in between. But then, I’m pretty done for.

D: What has changed for you, recording the new record compared to earlier studio time?
Gu: On Humanoid, I also plays parts with an E-drumset. These things are incredible. It was a completely new experience for me to bring that in. Live I’ll also play a few things on E-pads.

D: What difficulties did you have to overcome at the recording sessions?
Gu: Sometimes one could really go crazy: I always want to put everything in one song. That it’s too much, I then see in the faces of our producers and my band. And then I also realize it when I listen to the take and I sit down at the set with the sentence: “Sometimes less is more, you dork.”

D: Could you imagine to never again touch a drumstick if Tokio Hotel should dissolve one day?
Gu: No! I started to play drums with four, five years. In elementary school then there were other things that interested me, but I never pursued them like drumming. My dad also always had an eye on that, and when we watched a concert of Genesis, and I saw the masses, he said: “Gustav: practice, practice, practice, if you want to get there.” I guess it must have stuck.

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