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Christian Lorenz

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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: (1966-11-16) 16 November 1966 (age 57)
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 addition to the cancellations, Flake was also not present for the Rosenrot album photoshoot. The band was photographed either a five piece, or Flake was replaced by his brother.

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

Solo

Guesting

Literature

Books

Radio

Television

Movies

Soundtrack

Documentaries

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

16 November