Rammstein/Characters
Here we're going to list tropes which are exclusive to the band members. For general tropes about the band, go to the Main page.
The band members in general
- The Big Guy: Ollie is the biggest at 6'7".
- Do Not Call Me Paul: Richard is the only member of the band who doesn't dislike his first name.
- Estrogen Brigade Bait
- Walking Shirtless Scene
Till Lindemann - vocals
"Music sometimes gives me a quantity of creativeness - you're drinking another glass of wine and you're feeling even worse. Art doesn't work without pain; art also exists for compensating pain."
The Face of the Band. He was born in East Germany in 1963. He participated in Germany's swim team for the Moscow olympics of 1980, but was sacked. His musical career started with First Arsch, a Punk Rock band where he met his later bandmates Richard Kruspe and Paul Landers before Rammstein. He's also a poet and is the father of four children.
- Abusive Parents: Apparently, he suffered from an abusive alcoholic dad, who would dish out serious beatings on him. This theme is revisited in many of their songs.
- Badass Baritone
- The Big Guy He's extremely muscular. A recent issue of Kerrang! magazine described him as having "the physique of a professional wrestler".
- Do Not Call Me Paul: His name is Dietrich.
- Dyeing for Your Art: If not played to the letter, the spirit's played straight. He got a hole pierced into his cheek to run a LED light through it for most of the "Ich tu dir weh" video. (The hole healed up during filming.) Of course, this is nothing new for him. How many times has he beaten himself up with a microphone, or set himself on fire, now?
- Evil Chef: He dresses up as one during "Mein Teil" in the Volkerball tour/DVD.
- Evil Laugh: In "Benzin".
- Evil Sounds Deep: Does it ever.
- Faking the Dead: In "Haifisch".
- Fan Nickname: "Tillies".
- Incendiary Exponent: He is a licensed pyrotechnician after all.
- Kill It with Fire: He's burned at the stake in the video for "Rosenrot".
- Large Ham: During live performances he's known to overact.
- Man On Fire: He used to wear a jacket that was on fire during live performances of the song "Rammstein". Now he just wears flamethrowers on his arms, but that still counts. He upgraded this to fire wings for performances of "Engel" in the newest tour.
- Millionaire Playboy: His character in "Pussy".
- Mr. Fanservice
- Overshadowed by Awesome: First Arsch, a band he was with Richard and Paul before Rammstein. It scarcely gets a footnote in The Other Wiki these days.
- Perpetual Frowner: In all the pictures of him floating out there in music magazines, sanctioned official pictures, and candid shots from fans, he's seen cracking a smile a handful of times.
- Porn Stache: In "Haifisch".
- Prophet Eyes: Towards the end of "Mein Land".
- Pungeon Master
- Slasher Smile: He is prone to unleashing smiles of this sort in some music videos and photoshoots.
- Take That: If you believe the interpretation that the other band members did try to murder him, the postcard he sends to them at the end of "Haifisch" is this, sort of a 'nyah, nyah, you didn't kill me'. Roughly translated, said postcard reads "Greetings from the arse of the world!". He sent that from Hawaii.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Promotional pictures for Haifisch included ones of Porn Stache!Till at Hawaii.
- Trrrilling Rrrs
- Twist Ending: In "Haifisch", he's alive.
Richard Z. Kruspe - guitars
"You simply know that there is a certain role for you to play in life. You receive certain signs and then take on that role. That's normal."
The band's main guitar player. Born as Richard Zven Kruspe in 1967. He was living with his future bandmates Oliver Riedel and Christoph Schneider, and left his first band, "Orgasm Death Gimmicks", when in the mid-nineties he co-founded Rammstein with both of them, Till Lindemann and Paul Landers.
- A Day in the Limelight: His side project Emigrate.
- Badass Longcoat: It's his signature clothing item. He wears a new Badass Longcoat in almost every tour. And two different ones in Emigrate videos "My World" and "New York City".
- Do Not Call Me Paul: His birth name is Sven Kruspe. The Z stands for "Zven".
- Dye Hard: A natural blonde who kept it that way in the band's early days, tends to keep his hair dyed black nowadays.
- Fan Nickname: He's referred to as "Reesh" a lot by some fans, with some also refering to him as "Fly Boy".
- Overshadowed by Awesome: First Arsch, a band he shared with Till and Paul before Rammstein. Emigrate, his side project, was fairly successful in its own right, but it has a fanbase pretty much limited to the already established
RammsteinRichard fanbase. - Yoko Oh No: Caron Bernstein, his ex-wife. Other significant others have gotten this treatment too, but not to the extent Caron had.
Paul Landers - guitars
- The Big Guy: Even him, the shortest member of the band, is around 5'9".
- Cowboy: His character in "Pussy".
- Do Not Call Me Paul: His full name is Heiko Paul Hiersche. He took his first wife's (now divorced) last name and now just goes by his middle name.
- Fan Nickname: "Paulchen", and, to a lesser extent "The Littlest Rammstein".
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Feeling B, the band he shared with Flake and Schneider before Rammstein. They were a moderately successful punk rock band in East Germany, but got nowhere near the international acclaim Rammstein did. And also First Arsch, where he played with Till and Richard.
Oliver "Ollie" Riedel - bass
- Badass Beard
- Bald of Awesome
- Do Not Call Me Paul: It's 'Ollie' Riedel, not 'Oliver'.
- Only Known As Ollie
- Playing to The Fetishes: The "Pussy" video has him playing a BDSM fetishist character.
- The Quiet One: He's often noted to come across as introverted and shy when meeting fans.
Christoph "Doom" Schneider - drums
- Attractive Bent Gender: Behold, Frau Schneider!
- Badass Long Hair: During the Liebe ist für alle da era.
- Creator Backlash: He's made no secret of the fact that he personally finds "Pussy" to be "completely stupid".
- Doomy Dooms of Doom
- Do Not Call Me Paul: He's mainly called Schneider or Doom, not Christoph.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: As Frau Schneider.
- Kill It with Fire: What he dreamed to do to Till in "Haifisch".
- Man On Fire: His character in the video for "Du Hast".
- Only Known As Doom
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Feeling B, the band he shared with Paul and Flake.
- Transvestite: In the "Mein Teil" video, and during the Made in Germany tour.
Christian "Flake" Lorenz - keyboards
- A Day in the Limelight: He's the one singing in the cover of "Pet Semetary", on the Ich Will single.
- Badass Long Hair: On occasion.
- Butt Monkey / The Chew Toy: He was blown up in "Ich Will", jumped off a building in "Benzin", played a hermaphrodite in "Pussy" (hardly the most flattering role) and was left standing and unable to return to his wheelchair at the end of "Keine Lust". And in live performances, he has been sodomised, cooked, faux-sodomised, and God knows what else. Ironically, this is exactly why Flake is a fan favorite. Not in the schadenfreudeic sense, of course.
- Cool Shades: Often wears them during live performances.
- Death by Gluttony: His intended method of murdering Till in "Haifisch". Almost definitely a shoutout to Se7en.
- Do Not Call Me Paul: He doesn't like his given name.
- Driven to Suicide: His character in the "Benzin" video.
- Dye Hard: He has dyed his hair various different colours over the years.
- Hermaphrodite: In the video for "Pussy".
- Interrupted Suicide: In the video for "Benzin", he plays a jumper and the other five, firemen, who get out a trampoline to try and save his life, but ultimately fail when the tarp tears just as he jumps.
- Its Pronounced Tropay: His (nick)name is actually pronounced "Flah-kuh", not "Flay-ke", as some believe.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Sometimes, he's been credited as Doktor Christian Lorenz. He has no known degree; the moniker came about because at one point he had wanted to be a surgeon, but was unable to enter school to become one because he was a conscientious objector, at a time when conscription into the East German army was mandatory.
- Only Known As Flake
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Feeling B, the band he shared with Paul and Schneider before Rammstein.
- Playing to The Fetishes: The live performance of "Bück Dich" involves him in bondage gear on all fours.
- Suicide Attack: His character has a bomb strapped to his chest in the video for "Ich Will".