No bust-up with DSquared

THE NEW PAPER, FRIDAY 16TH JULY 2010, Page 22.
by  JEANMARIE TAN

TOKIO HOTEL REFUTES RUMOURS ABOUT PREVIOUS TRIP HERE

It was German pop-rock band Tokio Hotel's first trip to Asia, after being invited here as guest performers for the Audi Fashion Festival in April.

Naturally, the four young men who had grown up in the small village near Magdeburg experienced their fair share of culture shock.


The quartet - compromising singer Bill Kaulitz, 20, his twin borther/guitarist Tom, bassist Georg Listing, 23, and drummer Gustav Schafer, 21 - even left our part of the world with "funny stories" to tell their native media.

It was reported that Tom suffered from pounding headaches and blurred vision for two days after taking an overdose of Viagra which was sold to him in Taiwan, one of the stopovers on Tokio Hotel's recent Asian promotional tour.

On his bad experience with the little blue pill, the dreadlocked resident joker of the group told The New Paper over the phone from Germany: "Yeah I'll be more careful (when I'm in Asia again) but it was a funny experience and I think people need that."

"I think this time maybe Georg will try it. You see, his girlfriend is not so pretty, so maybe it's good to take some Viagra over to Europe."

Tokio Hotel will return to Singapore next month to perform a full concert at the annual SingFest outdoor music festival.

This year's lineup also includes Katy Perry, Kanye West, Smashing Pumpkins, 30 Seconds To Mars and Wonder Girls.

Prior to SingFest, the guys will be in Kuala Lumpur for the global concert series MTV World Stage.

Being the reputed party-loving playboy, Tom was also taken aback by how strict a country Singapore is due to its death penalty for drug trafficking.

He said: "I told the German press about the laws. At the airport, we had to sign like a paper, that if we take drugs with us, we will be killed!"

Okay, so Tokio Hotel was clean of any illegal substances.

But Bill remembered committing an offence when he was in town - spitting chewing gum on the streets.

He said: "I forgot you can't do it, because in Germany you do it all the time, it's not forbidden.

"I think it was in a cab somewhere. It was funny, but I don't want to destroy the beautiful city so I think I'll never do it again."

But perhaps the Kaulitz siblings' most dramatic highlight of their Singapore trip involved another set of twin brothers.

We understand from a reliable industry source that Bill and Tom had a falling out with Dean and Dan Caten, the designers behind high-end fashion label DSquared, right before the Audi Fashion Festival which would open with the latter's latest collection.

A miscommunication had stemmed from both sides' minders over whether or not Tokio Hotel was to perform an acoustic set during the DSquared fashion show.

Eventually, Bill and Tom ended up watching the presentation from the front row and performed only after it.

There's even talk that things got so heated, the Kaulitz twins allegedly threw DSquared clothes that were supposed to be part of the show along the corridor of St Regis Hotel, where they were staying.

But when asked for a clarification, Bill sounded stumped and promptly shot down the rumours.

He said: "No, no, no, we like them very much. We met them at the show, they're really nice, funny guys and I really like their clothes.

"We see each other very often because they designed our outfits for our Welcome To Humanoid City European tour last year and I did the catwalk at Milan Fashion Week.

"We're not unhappy with them, it's all cool.

"We work together here and there, but it's not like we do everything with DSquared."


World Cup

Meanwhile, back home in Germany, the Teutonic heart-throbs have been spending the last month watching every match of the world cup – though they are “not really into football”.

Bill, ever the diplomatic front man, said: “the German team did a good job, we’re really proud of them. Third place is not too bad.”

So was he also proud of the current hometown hero-turned-international celebrity Pail the oracle octopus, which had correctly predicted the outcome of all of Germany’s matches and the finals in this world cup?

Bill cried: “I heard about that! It was quite interesting that he was right so many times. IN the beginning, when I saw him on TV, I was like, okay, maybe it’s something that happens only sometimes. “

“In the end, I was totally surprised that he was right about every game. It’s kind of a wonder!”

“But I don’t know what’s happened to Paul now.”

He was referring to Germany’s eight-legged psychic being inundated with death threats.

Bill continued with a hint of empathy: “That would be really really bad, so I hope, so I hope Paul is still alive.”