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| Christian 'Flake' Lorenz | |
|---|---|
 © Bryan Adams | |
| Keyboardist | |
| CAE / IPI: | 00252553085 (Lorenz (DE 2), Christian) 00252553183 (Lorenz, Christian Flake) 00253654463 (Lorenz, Doktor Christian) 00436447252 (Lorenz, Doktor Christian) |
| Birth: | 16 November 1966 East Berlin, German Democratic Republic  |
| Member of: | Rammstein |
| Former member of: | Herbst in Flake Happy Straps Magdalene Keibel Combo Feeling B |
 | |
Christian Lorenz (born 16 November 1966, East Berlin) is the keyboardist for the band Rammstein.
Nickname
Flake
His nickname Flake comes from the TV show "Vicky the Viking". Vicky is living with his parents in the Viking village Flake.
During his reading tour, Flake said, that his nickname comes from his youth when he was stuttering. Because he couldn't say some words without stuttering badly, he chose to say other words he could say fluently. A bully at his school called him "Flake", meant as an insult. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean but thought it was a cool name.
Doctor
Flake did not want to join Rammstein at first. He actually wanted to become a doctor, but after feeling that this wouldn't work, he joined the band. He carries the title anyway, so now he is mostly called Doctor Lorenz.
Life
Early years
Lorenz was brought up and still lives in the former Prenzlauer Berg area of Berlin (now a part of the borough of Pankow), where he still passes his old school building on the way to band rehearsals.
Lorenz is known to be an educated pianist. Flake says he chose to play the piano because a childhood friend of his played from the age of three. His parents sent him to a music school. Flake "began by painting the keys on a window ledge" and "practiced one-half-year on the window ledge". His parents bought him a piano for one hundred East German marks for his 15th birthday.
Flake became "addicted" to rock and roll as a boy. He stopped his lessons in order to play with his father's jazz records. "When I joined my first band", Flake has said, "I noticed that I couldn't play modern music. I still can't!" At the age of sixteen, he apprenticed as a toolmaker, an apparently short-lived career.
He has a brother who is four years older.
Feeling B
In 1983, at age sixteen, he began to play in the band Feeling B with Paul Landers and Aljoscha Rompe, a Swiss living in East Berlin. He stayed with the band for about ten years.
Flake squatted/lived in an apartment with Paul during their early years. When they were not playing gigs, Landers and Flake would sell jackets made from cut-up bed sheets and dusters on the black market. Two jackets a month meant as much money as an average salaried worker.
Rammstein
In 1994, Till Lindemann, Richard Kruspe, Oliver Riedel and Christoph Schneider entered and won the Berlin Senate Metro beat contest that allowed them to professionally record a four-track demo. Paul Landers formally joined the band, then finally Flake. He was initially reluctant to join his five bandmates and had to be pestered into becoming a member of Rammstein, as he thought they would be too boring. Eventually, he agreed to join, and the group began work on their first album, Herzeleid.
In the band's performances and videos, Flake is often cast as the outsider of the group, possibly due to his relatively unusual presence as a keyboard player in a heavy metal group. This varies from playing the part of a scientific genius, aloof from the rest of the group, to playing a gimp role, to being left alone at the end of the Keine Lust video, and being bullied by the rest of the band, particularly Lindemann. These distinctive roles in the band's theatrical presentation have led to him becoming a very popular member of the group among fans.
Flake is probably best known for his part in the controversial live performance of the song Bück dich, where he and vocalist Till Lindemann engaged in simulated sodomy with a liquor-squirting dildo. On 5 June 1999 in Worcester, Massachusetts (USA) Lindemann and Flake Lorenz were arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior. A statement from Sergeant Thomas Radula of the Worcester Police Department stated that Lindemann was simulating sex with Flake onstage "using a phallic object that shot water over the crowd". They were held and released the following day on US$25 bail. After months of legal debate, they were eventually fined US$100.
His role in Bück dich is not the only live act he is known for. Up until 2002, Flake would "surf" the audience in an inflatable rubber dinghy during performances of Seemann and Stripped. Ollie took his place in 2002. According to Flake, the change occurred because he was injured too often. Also, during a 2001 concert in Saint Petersburg, Flake was tipped out of the boat by the crowd and almost completely undressed. Despite this, Flake has returned to "surfing" the dinghy for Rammstein's 2009 tour during the performance of Haifisch. When performing Mein Teil, Flake is "cooked" with a flamethrower of varying size by Till in a giant cauldron. Flake does a dance, dubbed the "Flake-dance", during Weißes Fleisch. In the video for Keine Lust, Flake is seen in an electric wheelchair. He is seen about to jump off the top of a burning building (trying and failing to land safely on a trampoline) in the video for Benzin. In the video for Ich will, Flake is tied to a bomb that explodes at the end of the video. In Rammstein's 2009 video for the song Pussy, Flake portrays an intersex person named Heeshie. Flake also provided lead vocals for Rammstein's cover version of Pet Sematary, originally by the Ramones.
During a concert in Gothenburg, Sweden on 30 July 2005 Till Lindemann suffered a knee injury when Flake accidentally ran into him with the Segway he rides during the performance of Amerika. This caused concerts scheduled in Asia to be cancelled.
In 2005, Flake suffered from the mumps, causing concerts in South America to be cancelled.
In January 2012 Flake, along with Lindemann, was interviewed by heavy metal anthropologist Sam Dunn for the VH1 Classic series "Metal Evolution", on the topic of shock rock. This is surprising, due to the lack of interviews he, and the band, does in North America.
Radio show
Since May 2017 Flake is the host of the show "Die Sendung" ("The Show") on the German radio station radioeins. Every month he will talk about a different topic and play some of his favorite songs, as well as his own.
Works
Music
Previous bands
- 1983 - 1994: Feeling B (keyboard)
- 1988 - 1990: Frigitte Hodenhorst Mundschenk (keyboard)
- 198? - 19??: Gesichter
- 19?? - 19??: Allerleirauh
- 19?? - 19??: Die Anderen (keyboard)
- 19?? - 19??: Flake & Piet
- 19?? - 19??: Herbst in Flake (drum computer, conductor, vocals)
- 19?? - 19??: Kashmir
- 19?? - 19??: Magdalene Keibel Combo
- 19?? - 19??: Parts for Millions
- 19?? - 19??: ScHappy
- 19?? - 19??: Stoffwechsel
- 19?? - 19??: Tschaka lebt (bass, keyboard)
Solo
Guesting
- 1985: Happy Straps - What A Pleasure (keyboard)
- 1985: Happy Straps - Last Pleasure (keyboard)
- 1993: Bolschewistische Kurkapelle schwarz-rot - Hymne der SU (keyboard)
- 1993: Bolschewistische Kurkapelle schwarz-rot - Kasakka (keyboard)
- 2003: Hanzel und Gretyl - Intermission (vocals)
- 2010: Flussaufwärts (music mix)
- 2015: Fassbinder (score)
Literature
Books
- 2015: Der Tastenficker: An was ich mich so erinnern kann
- 2016: Zeit der großen Freiheit
- 2017: Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag
- 2017: Graustufen
- 2020: Östlich der Elbe
- 2022: Human Condition
Radio
- 2017 - 2023: Die Sendung
Television
Movies
- 1999: The Debtors
- 2002: xXx
- 2022: Wir können nicht anders
- 2023: Olaf Jagger
Soundtrack
- 2015: Fassbinder
- 2024: Union – Die besten aller Tage
Documentaries
- 1992: Die Wahrheit über die Stasi
- 2002: Busen, Broiler und Bananen
- 2003: Mittendrin
- 2011: Mein Leben - Flake
- 2012: Metal Evolution
- 2015: Soundtrack Deutschland
- 2017: AMIGA - Der Sound der DDR
- 2019: Lugau City Lights
- 2022: Der große City-Abend - Das Konzert
Live performances
| Date | Location | City | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Sep 2006 | Volksbühne | Berlin | Germany | 
|
As guest
| Band | Date | Location | City | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icke und Er | 11 Nov 2016 | Columbiahalle | Berlin | Germany |
|
Reading Tour
Full article: Flake Tour
Equipment[1][2]
Keyboards
| Years used | Name | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983-198?, 2019 | Weltmeister TO 200/5 | Organ | Used in Feeling B, side projects and Radio music video |
| 198?-198? | Fricke MFB[3] | Drum Machine | Used in Feeling B |
| 198?-1990 | Roland TB-303 | Synthesizer | Used in Magdalene Keibel Combo and side projects |
| 198?-1990 | Roland TR-606 | Drum Machine | Used in Magdalene Keibel Combo and side projects |
| 198?-1994, 2016-2017 | Casiotone MT-65 | Synthesizer | Used in Feeling B and acoustic version of Ohne dich |
| 1988-1990 | unknown Hohner keyboard | Synthesizer | Used in Frigitte Hodenhorst Mundschenk |
| 1988-1990 | unknown Yamaha keyboard | Synthesizer | Used in Frigitte Hodenhorst Mundschenk |
| 1992-1993? | Akai S900 | Sampler | |
| 1993-today | Ensoniq ASR-10 | Sampler | Modded to use a hard drive instead of floppy disks |
| 1994 | Kawai Midi Key | MIDI Controller | |
| 1994 | Ensoniq EPS-16+ | Sampler | Used in Knaack Club during the recording of the Herzeleid demos |
| 1994-1999 | Roland JD-800 | Synthesizer | |
| 1994-2004 | Korg M1 | Synthesizer | |
| 1995-2001 | Korg Wavestation | Synthesizer | Only in studio |
| 1995-2005 | Roland A-33 | MIDI Controller | |
| 1996-1998 | Akai S3200 | Sampler | |
| 2000-2002 | Korg X5D | MIDI Controller | |
| 2004 | Korg Microkorg | Synthesizer | Used in Keine Lust music video |
| 2004-2005 | Oberheim MC 1000-76 | MIDI Controller | |
| 2004-2005 | Roland FR-5 V-Accordion | MIDI Controller | Used live in Reise, Reise |
| 2005 | Roland PC-180 A | MIDI Controller | Replaced Roland FR-5 V-Accordion |
| 2009-today | Roland VR-760 | MIDI Controller | |
| 2011-2012 | Ensoniq TS-10 | Sampler | |
| 2011-2013 | Alesis QX49 | MIDI Controller | Used live in Pussy |
| 2016-today | Nord Stage 2 EX | MIDI Controller |
Other
| Years used | Name | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994-1995 | Optical Media Sonic Images | Sample CD | |
| 1994-1996 | ProSamples FX-Area | Sample CD | |
| 1994-1997 | Ensoniq Masterbit Hotkeys | Sample CD | |
| 1994-1997 | Zero-G Datafile 1 | Sample CD | |
| 1994-2009 | Zero-G Datafile 2 | Sample CD | |
| 1994-2009 | Zero-G Datafile 3 | Sample CD | |
| 1994-2001 | Akai Emu FX | Sample CD | |
| 1995-2001 | ProSamples FX-Area | Sample CD | |
| 1995-2004 | Claudius Diemer: Schwerelos | Sample CD | |
| 1997 | Vengeance Vocal Essentials | Sample CD | |
| 1997 | e-Lab Xstatic Goldmine | Sample CD | |
| 1997-2009 | Best Service Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestra | Sample CD | |
| 1997-2009 | Vengeance Effects Vol. 1 | Sample CD | |
| 2001 | Spectrasonics Distorted Reality | Sample CD | |
| 2001 | E-MU Classic Series Vol.13: Dance 2000 | Sample CD | |
| 2001 | Symphony of Voices | Sample CD | |
| 2001 | Best Service XX-Large Pads | Sample CD | |
| 2001 | ILIO Trancefusion | Sample CD | |
| 2001-today | Native Instruments Omnisphere | Software Synthesizer | |
| 2004 | ES2 | Software Synthesizer | |
| 2004 | Audionerdz Delay Lama | Software Synthesizer | |
| 2004-2005 | Native Instruments Absynth | Software Synthesizer | see Absinth |
| 2004-2005 | Zero-G Ambient | Sample CD | |
| 2004-today? | Logic Pro | Digital Audio Workstation | |
| 2004-today | Native Instruments FM8 | Software Synthesizer | |
| 2005-2009 | Sample Pool 2 | Sample CD | |
| 2005-2011 | Best Service Orient Odyssee | Sample CD | |
| 2009 | Zero-G Total Drum & Bass | Sample CD | |
| 2009-today | Native Instruments Massive | Software Synthesizer |
Sources
- ↑ http://www.rammsteinworld.com/forum/topic/6939-les-presets-synthétiseurs-de-christian-flake-lorenz/
- ↑ http://www.rammsteinworld.com/rammstein/materiel/christian-flake-lorenz
- ↑ Galenza, Ronald & Havemeister, Heinz: Mix mir einen Drink, page 339