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Tokio Hotel
Rock group

To American MTV audiences, Tokio Hotel came seemingly out of nowhere. And when they did reach the United States in 2008, they came with a strong, exotic, but totally relatable sound. Fronted by the German 18-year-old lead singer Bill Kaulitz—whose androgynous fashion sense and style was new to American teens—American audiences liked what they heard almost immediately, but few of them knew that Tokio Hotel were already worldwide rock stars, with over five million records sold. In April of 2008, Tokio Hotel released their first album in the United States, titled Scream. The band's musical style was reminiscent of emo and pop-punk, but Tokio Hotel's foreign accents and outrageous style made it hard for critics to describe the band. "It's official," wrote Rolling Stone. "These guys are the greatest German bubblegum-neo-glamgoth-emo boy band. Ever." In Austria and Switzerland, Tokio Hotel's albums had already reached four times platinum before the group entered the U.S. market in 2008. And all with lead singer Kaulitz not much older than his fans.

Twin brothers Bill and Tom Kaulitz started a band together in Magdeburg, Germany, in around 2001. Bill's style led him to be a good front man, while brother Tom played guitar, and the brothers then added bassist Georg Listing and drummer Gustav Schafer. When the teenage quartet first started playing together, they did so under the name Devlish. They signed a deal in 2003 with Universal Records in Germany. They dropped the moniker Devlish and went with Tokio Hotel, which held some connection to the band members. "When we started to get deals with record companies, we thought it was time to find a name that fits and [was] one we all liked," Bill told CosmoGIRL!. "We love New York and L.A. because they're really big cities, and we chose Tokio [the German spelling of Tokyo] because it's a wicked place. We came up with Hotel because we're living out of hotels these days. Our lives are packed in our suitcases and we always carry them behind us."

Lead singer Bill, the youngest member of the band, was just into his teenage years when Tokio Hotel released their first album, Schrei (sung in German), in 2005. The album had three number one hit songs overseas and was one of Germany's most popular new bands, with thousands of screaming girls cooing over them. Two years later, the band released Zimmer 483, which went to number one on the charts in Germany, just as their debut had done. In June of 2007, the band released their first album sung in English. With its energetic and emotional melodies, it was appropriately titled Scream. The band was on their way to getting to an English-speaking audience. "It's always been a dream of ours to make it in the States," Bill stated on the band's Web site. "We grew up listening to American bands like Metallica, Green Day and The Red Hot Chili Peppers." Tokio Hotel's genre-hopping music actually takes elements from all those bands and adds a contemporary youthful spin. For Scream, the band wrote all their songs in German and then had them translated in order to re-sing them in English. The album was yet another hit in Germany.

At the end of April 2008, Tokio Hotel released Scream in the United States on Interscope/Universal records. While some critics might not have taken Tokio Hotel very seriously, one thing couldn't be denied; their look made them unforgettable, along with their thick German accents. While Tokio Hotel's excessive style may have been a gimmick, it worked well for them. W magazine summed up Tokio Hotel's style by referring to them as "gender-bending emo-pop rockers." Brother Bill's glam-rock hair and androgynous clothes has caused him to be mistaken for a girl on more than one occasion, while Tom wears a hip-hop style, with baggy pants and a baseball pop-punk look.

Tokio Hotel admitted to having some assistance with the lyrics of Scream. "We had some help with [this album] because our English is not so good," Bill told MTV.com's James Montgomery. "For me, it was pretty hard to go into the studio and sing English for the first time.…We've been making music for seven years and it's always been in German. So that took some time, and hopefully the fans will like it. It's really important to us that everyone can understand our lyrics." The U.S. version of Scream is a collection of songs from the previous albums Schrei and Zimmer 483, re-recorded in English.

It was really MTV that introduced Tokio Hotel to American fans, and their style as a band was something totally new to MTV's primarily teenage audience. "Kaulitz … has the charisma of a natural front man, delivering both yowling rocks ("Scream") and sentimental ballads … with an audible twinkle in his eye that suggests he's not entirely serious," wrote Rolling Stone. The album received minimum airplay on radio in the United States, but MTV displayed its affection for Tokio Hotel early on; the band won a Best New Artist award at the MTV's 2008 Video Music Awards. They also took home an award for Best Headliner at the MTV Europe Music Awards.

By the time Tokio Hotel had become popular with U.S. fans, they were more than eager to begin work on a new album. "We really wanted to try something new," Bill told Montgomery, referring to their next album. "So I think there are a lot of different and new sounds." Tokio Hotel are a group of young men who may become idols for fans as well as for aspiring younger musicians. When CosmoGirl! asked the band if they had advice for "anyone who wanted to get a start in music," Bill answered: "We hate to be in the position of telling people what to do because when we started, people who were older and had been in the business a awhile would tell us how we should act and what we should do, and we didn't like that. Everyone has to make their own decisions and go through their own experience—find out for yourself. Everyone has to find their way."

Selected discography
Schrei, Universal Germany, 2005.
Zimmer 483, Universal Germany, 2007.
Scream, Universal Germany, 2007; reissued, Interscope Universal, 2008.
Scream (U.S. English-language release), Interscope Universal, 2008.

Sources
Periodicals
W, September 2008.

Online
"Tokio Hotel," CosmoGIRL!, http://www.cosmogirl.com/entertainment/celeb-qa/tokio-hotel (November 27, 2008).
"Tokio Hotel," Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/tokiohotel/albums/album/20635358/review/20533382/scream (November 27, 2008).
"Tokio Hotel Deny They're Collaborating with Miley Cyrus, Keep Tattoos Hidden," http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598895/20081107/tokio_hotel.jhtml (November 27, 2008).
"Tokio Hotel Hope to Expand Already-Rabid Fanbase To Make It Big In the U.S.," MTV.com, http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1587049/20080507/tokio_hotel.jhtml (November 27, 2008).
Tokio Hotel Official Web site, http://www.tokiohotel-us.com (November 27, 2008).

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