Outside of their sex toy merch and NSFW music videos, Rammstein are revered for their fiery live performances, and the band's pyrotechnician has now revealed just how much fuel it takes to bring their flaming stage show to life.
Speaking with Ultimate Guitar, Nikolai Sabottka shares that he became Lord of the Flame for the German band after first becoming their tour and production manager in 1996.
Of course, an interest in fire came at a younger age ("My parents weren't particularly happy about my various experiments in the basement and around the little village I am from"), leading him to work in a coal mine before that interest was reignited upon meeting Rammstein.
Before Sabottka held the role of chief pyrotechnician, that part of the band's stage show was handled by frontman Till Lindemann, who is also professionally certified. However, the former admits that Rammstein "had some fairly unorthodox ways of performing live with explosives" in their early years.
"While it increased their popularity pretty quickly, it also had left some venues and fire authorities not so happy," Sabottka continued. "A good part of my work for several years was to reverse this while the show had to look even more spectacular and we were and are continuously pushing the envelope."
Sabottka speaks about how the members of Rammstein and himself are continuously in search of new technologies that can take their fiery stage show to new heights, while also touting the work of their "in-house research and development department."
He explains, "In the prep of a tour we sit and exchange all the different ideas before we go and actually test what has been prototyped and built beforehand….after the initial test there are endless changes to be implemented…and sometimes it simply does not work the way we imagined it and effects get pushed back to research & development while others get approved and are produced on a larger scale."
When it comes to Rammstein's current stadium setup, which they will bring to Montreal in 2022, Sabottka shares that it uses "uses roughly 1000 litres [about 265 Gallons]." You can read his complete interview here.
Sabottka's company, ffp Spezialeffekte, also turns up the heat on stage shows from the likes of Slipknot, Green Day, the Weeknd and more. Towards the end of last year, the company lit up $1 million dollars worth of pyro with KISS for a New Year's Eve performance in Dubai.
Speaking with Ultimate Guitar, Nikolai Sabottka shares that he became Lord of the Flame for the German band after first becoming their tour and production manager in 1996.
Of course, an interest in fire came at a younger age ("My parents weren't particularly happy about my various experiments in the basement and around the little village I am from"), leading him to work in a coal mine before that interest was reignited upon meeting Rammstein.
Before Sabottka held the role of chief pyrotechnician, that part of the band's stage show was handled by frontman Till Lindemann, who is also professionally certified. However, the former admits that Rammstein "had some fairly unorthodox ways of performing live with explosives" in their early years.
"While it increased their popularity pretty quickly, it also had left some venues and fire authorities not so happy," Sabottka continued. "A good part of my work for several years was to reverse this while the show had to look even more spectacular and we were and are continuously pushing the envelope."
Sabottka speaks about how the members of Rammstein and himself are continuously in search of new technologies that can take their fiery stage show to new heights, while also touting the work of their "in-house research and development department."
He explains, "In the prep of a tour we sit and exchange all the different ideas before we go and actually test what has been prototyped and built beforehand….after the initial test there are endless changes to be implemented…and sometimes it simply does not work the way we imagined it and effects get pushed back to research & development while others get approved and are produced on a larger scale."
When it comes to Rammstein's current stadium setup, which they will bring to Montreal in 2022, Sabottka shares that it uses "uses roughly 1000 litres [about 265 Gallons]." You can read his complete interview here.
Sabottka's company, ffp Spezialeffekte, also turns up the heat on stage shows from the likes of Slipknot, Green Day, the Weeknd and more. Towards the end of last year, the company lit up $1 million dollars worth of pyro with KISS for a New Year's Eve performance in Dubai.