Interviewer: Susanne Offermann

 

Tobias: Welcome to the fanterview, today with Susanne Offermann. She won the biceps competition. You uploaded the nicest biceps photo.

Susanne: I already thought I was ???

 

(Intro)

 

Susanne: We've often heard that you've been playing the drums since you were little. But how did it come to that actually?

Tobias: It happened because I drummed on everything at home, already when I was two. On boxes, on pots, with spoons and other stuff, on the high chair children are sat into for meals, I kept wiggling around. So my mother got the idea to buy me a drum set. Cause there was music in the house anyway. My father is a guitarist. He was disappointed that I became a drummer, that is "not a musician". And um, that's how things took their course. I got a Mickey Mouse drum set, you know a real child set, which broke quite fast cause I played that often, and sat at it a lot. Of course not yet so organized that I played any great rhythms. But I sat at it. I had fun hitting around on something. Yeah and then rather soon I got a children's drum set...

(people walk past with carts)

Tobias: ...people are working hard here. Um..

 

[1:35]

(Chris moves the camera around weirdly, including filming himself etc.)

Tobias: Is it running?

Chris: Yeah.

Tobias: Shall I restart from somewhere?

Chris: No.

Tobias: Is it good just like that?

Chris: Yeah.

Tobias: Cool. Um..I got a children's drum set, that is a drum set in a small size. I played that a few years, and then I got a real drum set and got lessons. So during my whole life it was quite intrinsic, the motivation to play the drums. It's not like I was forced, or that someone asked me "Do you want to learn an instrument?" It kind of emerged at the same time as talking, that I played drums. [2:15] I think I can express myself with drums better than with language. But almost no one understands that, so I have to speak.

 

[2:23]

Susanne: So aside from the drums, you also play the guitar. How long already?

Tobias: I learned Chords when I was twelve. No, not true. I already learned Chords in primary school. Cause there was no one in our class who could accompany "In der Weihnachtsbäckerei" ("In the christmas bakery". Children's song) for the winter concert, third class or something. They all just learned single strings but couldn't play any chords. So I just raised my hands and said "I'll do it", came home and told my dad: "You have to teach me that. Till tomorrow." He showed me the grips. Then I drove to my grandmother, she had to keep singing "In der Weihnachtsbäckerei", and I learned the chords to go with it, D, G and A. And then I just kept playing those chords. And when I was twelve I started with the E-guitar.

(More people pushing waggons around)

 

[3:14]

Tobias: That's my food that's being delivered there. Five cows. So, I just kept playing chords by myself, cause there were guitars hanging around everywhere at home cause of my dad. And at the age of 17 I started really playing a lot of guitar, a real impact, and then I started practicing quite a lot.

 

[3:36]

Susanne: Aside from that you give drumming and also guitar lessons. How is it for the people who are not from Hamburg? How do they have the opportunity to get lessons?

Tobias: Theoretically the possibility exists via Skype, or Facetime or whatever. But I think that's difficult with drums. For that you'd need someone --and I didn't have that case so far-- a student who has questions, to whom you can explain something, as a concept, lesson concepts. Or concerning styles that you talk about things, maybe practice a little at drum pads. But me having a drum set on my side and him having one on his side will just cause static over the microphone, and communication would be difficult. Guitar does work. It's nice and quiet after all, and you can still explain things. And there are also people who come here to Hamburg from a different city. Someone just signed up from Hannover. So he just takes a few lessons at once, every couple of months. But that's also something rather for advanced students, who can really take so much with them in these few hours that they can process the information. You can't tell a beginner something for two hours. He'll be full already after half an hour.

 

[4:45]

Tobias: Scream it out really loud!

Susanne: What else would you like to try out in the musical field? Maybe learn a new instrument, or compose? Maybe singing?

Tobias: Hmm...yeah...Well I'm a great singer. I'm just the only one who holds that opinion. (laugh) No, I don't want to try any new instruments. I play the base a little, but only to record base, not really to play it with virtuosity. Just to be able to play two instruments properly is already extremely difficult upto impossible cause you have to practice daily, and that's just not possible due to the length of the day. So the instrument number will stay the same, I write songs, and I've been dabbling in that since already, don't know, two or three years or something. And it even works, that songs are received positively by other people, who say "We'll take that". So that's something I'm pursuing further musically. But actually at the moment all my paths are set, and I just have to follow those further. I have to practice more drums, more guitar, write more songs, tour more with the band, pursue my sound technician jobs further and expand them. And it's already so much, I don't need to add anything more. Better quality in the individual things, and maybe neglect something else for some time, and just do one thing for one time. That I only tour with the band for a time, and during another time I do something completely different. So you sort of build it up project-specific. But nothing new. That's already..

Chris: Just a moment...

 

[6:40] 

Susanne: So it's going really well for you with Lord of the Lost. You're not just musician colleagues but also friends. What do you wish for the shared future?

Tobias: That we (nose twitches) don't have allergies anymore. Cause we have quite a few allergics in the band. Hay fever at the moment is shit. Sorry for the sniffing. Or the snuffing. I wish for us that the next album, which will be coming out in late summer, has a total impact, overwhelms everyone, and that we tour a lot and gain ever more fans, and that we continue working together with total motivation and fancy and stay together like that. Of course we wish for success, always more. That it keeps getting better and always more. Everything else is not desirable. Standing still is going backwards. We always want to go forward, always further forward. And pursue it like we do so far. Just better of course. Always better. Everything that was so far, needs to be three times better.

 

[8:00]

Susanne: Aside from music, sport is also your great passion. How long habe you been active in sports?

Tobias: I've been active in sports since I was five...yeah..it was at the age of five, when I started playing soccer, and then I played soccer till 2010. Quite high-class also at times, so we trained 3-5 times a week. I was always quite excessive about it. But then 2010 when I did my diploma, and the age for playing in the young team was over and you afterwards had to go to the men's team, I said: "Now it's either music or soccer." I didn't want to combine it anymore. I had combined it for years, it was extremely exhausting. Always going to training beside school, and then also practicing. I had little free time in that sense. I enjoyed it all, but I didn't want to keep doing that in the long run, I wanted to focus. Cause as I just said, even music gives me so many possibilities, like drums, guitar, band, and so on. So I at least wanted to leave the focus on music which already has so many strands. [9:01] And I started doing athletic sports. And as I said in 2010 I stopped with soccer, and now I completely lost my trail of thought. Um, I'll just restart the sentence. In 2010 I started doing athletic sports, and that I could just decide myself when I wanted to train. And, um, yeah. That's what I've been doing since then. I try to train as often as possible. The good thing about it is I can also go train at night or in the early morning. I'm not dependent on any playing times like with soccer, for example on the team. Instead I can do what I want. That's how it is.

 

[9:47]

Susanne: Could you imagine making the sport your job?

Tobias: Yeah, I could imagine that very well. But for most types of sports that train has already left. I won't become a footballer now. To start another sport...like body building or something, I think that's totally dumb, cause you have to dope yourself to be able to keep up. And I just like making music way too much. But it is a nice thought that I could do that, of course. There's also quite a lot of money to be had there, that needs to be said. If you're a soccer player and you're successful you're a millionaire. So yeah I could imagine it, but it definitely wouldn't work. I also wouldn't wanna give up music for it. 

 

[10:40]

Susanne: Sportsmen pay close attention to their diet. Do you live by a diet plan, or do you have a concept of nutrition?

Tobias: Nnnn...nah. I don't have time to look into that, to cook for hours each day, --people who do that excessively have to cook a lot, and keep preparing themselves, think of new recipes etc. And apart from that I lose too much quality of living like that. Cause if I just keep paying attention to what I eat all the time and I'm not allowed to drink alcohol --never--, then it gets totally uncool at some point for me. Cause music already requires so many sacrifices. I already have to sacrifice so much time --gladly of course-- but if you then also say I want to concern myself with sport and nutrition so excessively that...Nah. I just don't feel like that, nah. But if I notice I'm too fat I just run more. And I don't wanna have a sixpack at the moment. So fuck it. I eat a lot, that's my plan.

 

[11:33]

Susanne: So what's your favourite food?

Tobias: Pizza, meat, schnitzel, roulades, goulash. My girlfriend cooks great. So everything she makes tastes awesome. And of course I want to eat something with a lot of protein, sure. That builds you up. 

 

[12:16]

Susanne: Okay, those were my questions already.

Tobias: Super

Susanne: Yeah. Thanks a lot for taking the time to do the fanterview with me.

Tobias: Yeah thanks for preparing so well. It was very good.

Susanne: I prepared my best.

Tobias: Get well. She had a bit of a cold, that's why she talks so quietly. 

Susanne: Yeah..

Tobias: A bit of a cold, or a lot of a cold, and she still comes to the concert. (Claps) Crazy shit. Boom!

 

 

Translation: Manuela Lütolf