There is nothing that Rammstein won’t try. The German industrial metal titans have compared themselves to David Copperfield, and they truly live within that world of fiery magic and dangerous exploration. For a band that has built their image on spitting in the face of polite society, it was only a matter of time before they made a full-on porno.
In late 2009, the band unveiled the first single to their new Liebe ist für alle da album, aptly titled “Pussy.” In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, director Jonas Akerlund (of Lords Of Chaos fame) talked about the boundary-pushing process of making the hardcore nsfw video.
“Rammstein approached me, which is something they never really do, and asked if I had any ideas for a music video. Well, around that same time, there was a guy that had bought the Swedish erotic archives, all these old 70s porn movies,” says Akerlund. “So I pitched to the band to use these old porn movies, actually put them in these old clips and they loved it.”
“We could buy the footage, but it was a mess trying to deal with the rights,” Akerlund says. “I was about to give up when I had another idea – we could just shoot some footage.”
If you thought for a second that Rammstein would leave it strictly to professional porn actors in order to secure the footage they wanted, you’d be dead wrong. The band very much wanted to be involved with the filming process, from location scouting to performing.
“As a director, you sometimes picture a dream scenario in your head like, ‘I wish there was a brothel with like, a stripper pole and themed rooms’. In Berlin, they go like, ‘yeah, we got several of those’.” Jonas says gleefully. “The shoot was pretty cool, actually. We were very keen on casting proper professionals alongside the band. Everybody was tested and everybody knew each other before we got on-set. We did the proper way.”
According to Akerlund, “We actually shot each of those porn scenes. There was one classic ‘porn scene moment’ for each band member and then we topped it off with a performance from the band, which is how it all came together.”
As transgressive it may be for a world famous band like Rammstein to make hardcore pornography, for Jonas Akerlund (having directed videos such as The Prodigy’s notoriously banned Smack My Bitch Up) it is all in the pursuit of a greater purpose and higher art.
“It’s always fun to shock people, but that’s never been the purpose. It’s still about the narrative. As a music video director I always have to think about what I’m doing for the band. If the story around the video is too big, you don’t hear the music and the same applies the other way around. You have to find balance. Smack My Bitch Up was the perfect video for The Prodigy, and the perfect video for that song. That video is perfect for “Pussy”, and perfect for Rammstein. Can you imagine making that video with U2? As a director, you have to adapt to different worlds and Ramstein is the type of band that could do stuff like that.”
You can watch the video for “Pussy” below, provided you are not at work and there are no kids around.
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