Tokio Hotel


Tokio Hotel is a German pop and rock band formed in 2001 by singer Bill Kaulitz, guitarist Tom Kaulitz, bassist Georg Listing, and drummer Gustav Schäfer. Starting from the foundation, the band's music genres were pop rock and alternative rock; since 2014, the band began to perform electropop and synth-pop.
After recording a demo album under the name "Devilish" and having their contract with Sony BMG Germany terminated, the band released their first German-language album, Schrei, as Tokio Hotel on Universal Music Germany in 2005. Schrei sold more than half-a-million copies worldwide and spawned four top-five singles in both Germany and Austria. In 2007, the band released their second German-language album, Zimmer 483, and their first English-language album, Scream, which have combined album sales of over 2.5 million copies worldwide and helped win the band their first MTV Europe Music Award for Best InterAct. The former, Zimmer 483, spawned three top-five singles in Germany while the latter, Scream, spawned two singles that reached the top-twenty in new territories such as France, Portugal, Spain and Italy.
In September 2008, they won their first MTV Video Music Award, for Best New Artist. Tokio Hotel became the first German band ever to win an award at the MTV VMAs and to also win awards at the MTV Video Music Awards Latin America. They also picked up the Headliner award at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008 and the award for Best Group at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2009. They won for Best World Stage Performance on 7 November 2010 at the MTV Europe Music Awards. In July 2011, they became the first German band to win an award at the MTV Video Music Awards Japan. The band has sold more than 10 million records worldwide.
Their most recent work is the 2022 album 2001.

History

Formation, early years, and debut album (2001–2006)

At the age of 10, identical twin brothers Bill and Tom Kaulitz began performing live in Magdeburg near their hometown of Loitsche. They played small shows and while their audiences enjoyed them, they were largely unknown. The band lacked a drummer and bass player and the twins relied on a keyboard to fill in other instrumental sounds.
The year the brothers turned 12, they met Georg Listing and Gustav Schäfer in the audience of one of their shows. Listing and Schäfer were friends and, after the show, having liked what they heard and saw, made an offer to join. The band was promptly renamed "Devilish" in 2001 due to an article published at the time that referred to their "devilishly great" sound.
The group continued to perform in talent shows and small concerts, but aside from being featured on a small-time German news program somewhere between late 2002 and early 2003, Devilish were not going anywhere until Bill auditioned on the reality TV talent show "Star Search." After Bill Kaulitz participated in a children's version of Star Search in 2003 at age thirteen, he was discovered by music producer Peter Hoffmann. Devilish changed their name to Tokio Hotel: "Tokio", the German spelling of the Japanese city Tokyo, due to a love of the city, and "Hotel" due to their constant touring and living in hotels. Soon after Sony BMG took them under contract, Hoffmann hired David Jost and Pat Benzner into the team of creators and authors, and had them give the teens instruction on songwriting and instrument playing; most of the songs of the first album were written by Hoffmann, Jost and Benzer ; only the single "Unendlichkeit" was written completely by Tokio Hotel themselves. Shortly before the release of their first album, Sony terminated their contract.
In 2005 Universal Music Group took Tokio Hotel under contract and developed a marketing plan. Their first single, "Durch den Monsun", quickly rose in the charts, appearing on the German official Media Control single chart at No. 15 on 20 August 2005 and eventually reaching No. 1 on 26 August 2005; it also reached No. 1 on the Austrian singles chart. Their second single, "Schrei", climbed to the No. 5 position in the German charts. These two songs were written by singer Bill Kaulitz and their group of producers Peter Hoffmann, David Jost, Pat Benzer, and Dave Roth. Their debut album, Schrei, was released on 19 September 2005, and was certified triple gold by the BVMI in 2006 for selling over 300,000 copies in Germany. In 2006, a third and fourth single, "Rette mich" and "Der letzte Tag", were released; both reached No. 1 as well. "Der letzte Tag" contained a B-side called "Wir schließen uns ein", which was also accompanied by a music video.

''Zimmer 483'' and ''Scream'' (2006–2008)

The first single of their second album Zimmer 483, called "Übers Ende der Welt", was released on 26 January 2007 and quickly reached No. 1 in Germany and Austria, and No. 2 in France. Zimmer 483 was released in Germany on 23 February 2007, along with a deluxe edition of the album containing a DVD. The album's second single, "Spring nicht" was released on 7 April. The tour accompanying the release of the album, The Zimmer 483 Tour, scheduled to start in March 2007, was delayed by two weeks because the band members wished to have a different stage design. A third single, "An deiner Seite ", was released on 16 November. The single contains the B-side "1000 Meere", for which a music video was also produced.
On 28 April 2008 Tokio Hotel released their single "Heilig" but no music video for the single was released, because of the tight schedule they had.
Tokio Hotel's first English-language album, Scream, was released on 4 June 2007 throughout Europe. In Germany, the album was released as Room 483 in order to emphasize the continuity with their last German album Zimmer 483. Scream contains English versions of a selection of songs from Tokio Hotel's German-language albums Schrei and Zimmer 483. "Monsoon", the English-language version of "Durch den Monsun", was the first single from the album. "Ready, Set, Go!" was released as the album's second single and "Don't Jump" as the third single. A video for "Scream", the English-language version of their 2005 hit "Schrei", was also recorded, and was released to the iTunes Store in early March 2008.
Tokio Hotel gave their first concert in the United Kingdom on 19 June 2007. "Ready, Set, Go!" was released in the UK as the band's first single on 27 August 2007. The song reached No. 77 in the UK Singles Chart.
Tokio Hotel won an MTV Europe Music Award for Best InterAct on 1 November 2007 and were also nominated for Best Band. They performed "Monsoon" at the event.
Tokio Hotel released their first US single, simply called "Tokio Hotel", in late 2007. The single contains the tracks "Scream" and "Ready, Set, Go!", and was available exclusively at Hot Topic stores. Their second US single, "Scream America", was released on 11 December 2007. The single contains the track "Scream" and a remix of "Ready, Set, Go!" by AFI's Jade Puget. In February 2008, the band toured North America for five dates, starting in Canada and finishing up in New York. After Tokio Hotel had appeared and performed live on MuchMusic while touring in Canada, "Ready, Set, Go!" entered the MuchOnDemand Daily 10, a countdown of videos chosen by viewers. It remained there for over a week, then returned to the top of the MOD Daily 10 chart on 8 April. "Scream" was released in Canada on 25 March and in the US on 6 May.
The "1000 Hotels" European Tour began on 3 March 2008 in Brussels and continued through locations including the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Serbia and Scandinavia. It was scheduled to finish on 9 April; during the concert in Marseille, France, on 14 March, Bill started to experience vocal problems. He let the audience sing more frequently than normal, and instead of the original 21 songs on the set list, the band played only 16 songs. Bill apologized, in German, for his bad singing and explained that he was sick. Two days later, the band cancelled the Lisbon, Portugal concert minutes before it was supposed to commence. The rest of the "1000 Hotels" Tour and a scheduled North American Tour were cancelled after the band's manager announced in Bild that Bill Kaulitz had to undergo surgery to remove a cyst on his vocal cords.
Bill Kaulitz had been putting strain on his voice after playing 43 concerts in the 1000 Hotels tour without a break. He had to undergo larynx surgery on 30 March to remove a cyst that had formed on his vocal cords. The cyst resulted from a throat infection that had gone untreated. Following his surgery Bill could not speak for ten days and had four weeks of vocal rehabilitation. If Bill had continued singing the rest of the tour, his voice would have eventually been permanently damaged. Tokio Hotel started performing again in May 2008
and after that they embarked on a second part of their 1000 Hotels European Tour, adding many open-air concerts and wrapping up the tour on 13 July in Werchter in Belgium.

''Humanoid'', ''Humanoid City Live'', ''Best Of'' (2008–2012)

In August 2008 Tokio Hotel embarked on a second tour of North America, including a performance at the Bamboozle festival in New Jersey. The band's music video for "Ready Set Go!" was nominated for Best Pop Video at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, where they won the award for Best New Artist. They returned to North America in October 2008 for a month-long tour of concerts and record-store signings. In December 2008 a behind-the-scenes DVD called Tokio Hotel TV – Caught on Camera was released. It contains footage from Tokio Hotel TV and backstage feature-stories of the previous year on disc one entitled "History – The very best of Tokio Hotel TV!". A deluxe edition contains a second disc entitled "Future – The road to the new Album!" which features footage of the band on promotion tours and preparing for their third studio album.
In between the North American tours, the band returned to their record studio in Hamburg to record their third studio album, Humanoid, which was released on 2 October in Germany and 6 October 2009 in the U.S., despite earlier statements predicting a March/April 2009 release or a May/June 2009 release. The album was recorded in both German and English, with both versions released simultaneously worldwide.
On 10 August, it was announced on MTV News that the first German single would be "Automatisch" and that its English counterpart, "Automatic", would be released as a first single in the United States. On 20 August, MTV Buzzworthy released a video which previewed "Automatic" and Cherrytree Records announced that the English version of the song would be released in the US on 22 September. Nevertheless, the video for the single was released on 3 September.
On 2 November 2009 Tom's blog announced that the second English single would be "World Behind My Wall" and that its German counterpart, "Lass uns laufen", would be the second German single.
The music videos for both versions were released on 14 and 15 December.
The group toured thirty-two cities in Europe from 22 February to 14 April 2010. On 24 June 2010, the live music-video for their single, "Dark Side of the Sun", was released on the band website.
On 20 July 2010, they released their second live album, Humanoid City Live, from Milan, Italy. On 22 November 2010, their new song "Hurricanes and Suns" premiered on the Greek radio-station Mad Radio. It was included in the bonus track on all versions of Tokio Hotel: Best Of, a compilation album of their most successful songs.
On 13 December 2010 their Best of was released in Germany. It was released internationally the next day. 2 December was the World Premiere of the video for "Hurricanes and Suns" on the official Tokio Hotel website.
Tokio Hotel performed their first concert in Asia at the Audi Showcase in Singapore, followed shortly by the TM Connects With Tokio Hotel event in Malaysia, promoting the sales of their album Humanoid. They concluded the series of mini-concerts with Taiwan. They returned to Malaysia a couple of months later to perform at MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia 2010. They performed in Tokyo on 15 December 2010, after their South American tour concluded in Distrito Federal, Mexico on 2 December 2010. In February 2011 Tokio Hotel travelled to Japan to complete a second promo tour. A number of television appearances and media interviews took place between 8 and 11 February.
On 28 April 2011 they received the "Fan Army FTW" award at the , the network's first online award-show. A clip of Bill and Tom thanking their fans played after the winner was announced.
On 24 June 2011 Tokio Hotel performed in Japan at "The Next Premium Night Tokio Hotel in Tokyo". Audi A1 presented the event, and 150 fans were chosen to win tickets to attend the show. The event was the band's first acoustic performance in Japan. On 25 June 2011 the band performed live at the MTV Video Music Aid Japan in Tokyo. The show, formerly called the "Video Music Awards Japan", was used as a music benefit to raise money for the Japanese Red Cross in order to help those affected by the 2011 earthquake.
Not long after finishing the "Welcome to Humanoid City Tour", Bill and Tom, with their manager David Jost, moved to Los Angeles and continue to live there.
On 18 May 2012 Far East Movement released an album named "Dirty Bass", featuring the song "If I Die Tomorrow", which includes vocals by Bill.