Richard Z. Kruspe

He was born Sven Kruspe on June 24, 1967, in Wittenberge. He changed his first name to Richard on a simple argument: anyone should be able to change their name if they want to. He studied jazz guitar for four years at the conservatory in Schwerin and moved to East Berlin in the late eighties.

On October 10, 1989, he was caught in a political demonstration, beaten by police and arrested; he spent six days in jail, where he was interrogated and beaten. After his release he escaped East Germany by travelling through Hungary into West Germany. He returned to Schwerin when the Wall came down.

Before Rammstein he passed through Das Elegante Chaos (1987–1989), Orgasm Death Gimmick (1991–1993) and First Arsch. In 1993 he started a project called Tempelprayers with Oliver Riedel and Christoph Schneider; in 1994, with Till Lindemann now singing, the four of them won the Berlin Senate’s amateur band contest (Metrobeat), whose prize was a week of professional studio time. Paul Landers joined after that and Christian Lorenz last, and the group settled on the name Rammstein. That six-piece line-up hasn’t changed since.

In Rammstein he plays lead guitar and is one of the band’s two main writers. In 2001 he moved to New York to work on Emigrate, his own band, where he sings and writes in English — the place for everything that doesn’t fit in Rammstein.