Paul Landers

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Paul Landers

Landers in a Brazilian hotel, 1999

Paul H. Landers (born December 9, 1964) is the rhythm-guitarist for Rammstein.

Biography

Early life

Landers was born in Berlin, Germany. His birth name was Heiko Paul Hiersche, which he hated. He lived in Moscow for a short time as a young child. Landers speaks fluent Russian but he can't read or write it. He moved out of his parents' house at the age of 20, when he married. He switched his first names, but soon left out Heiko, making his name Paul Hiersche.

Music career

In 1983, Landers formed the East German punk band, Feeling B, together with Flake Lorenz and Aljoscha Rompe, in which Christoph Schneider would later also play. In the late 80ies, Landers sometimes played guitar at the Band First Arsch with Till Lindemann and Richard Kruspe. He also played in a number of other bands including Die Firma and Die Magdalene Keibel Combo.

Lindemann, Kruspe, Schneider and bassist Oliver "Ollie" Riedel entered and won the Berlin Senate Metro Beat Contest in 1994 that enabled them to have a four-track demo professionally recorded. Landers and Flake soon followed suit to join the band which became known as Rammstein.

Personal life

When he married Nikki Landers in 1984 (at the age of 20), he took his wife's surname, thus making his name Paul Landers.

Landers and Nikki divorced soon. Later he had a son, Emil, born 1990, together with his new girlfriend Yvonne. Since the late 90ies, he lives in a relationship with a hair and make-up artist named Arielle. With her, he has a child, too - a daughter, whose name is Lilly.

After his divorce with Nikki Landers, he lived with his Feeling B band mate Christian "Flake" Lorenz for a number of years. Paul has since had a daughter. An interview with "The Gauntlet" conducted on the 31st October, 2007 confirms that Paul is married with Arielle Tross - make up artist. He is also the shortest member of the band, standing at 5'7".

Equipment

Landers is a self-taught guitarist. He can also play the piano and violin, which he learned as a child.

Paul plays two Music Man Van Halen guitars and according to the Live Aus Berlin DVD Trivia Game; in his guitar-rack there is a Tech 21 PSA-1 preamp, of which he only uses one preset; he goes from the preamp to the mixer and into a Mesa/Boogie Strategy 500 power amp and two Marshall 4x12" cabinets. When playing in C tuning, Paul uses a Custom Les Paul Studio. During the Völkerball performance of the song "Rammstein", Paul is seen using another Custom Les Paul Studio which was drop D tuned for the song. He also uses EMG 60 and EMG 81 pickups.