Individuality - Perfect State of Being

We bid a fond farewell to Coolbreezegirl as she wraps up the final part to her interview. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we have.

NTO: How has the band or individual members inspired/motivated you to be independent or to go after a personal dream?

CBG: This is a super hard question and I don’t know how to answer it without being too longwinded. I don’t really know how to summarize it really for it to make sense. But TH has inspired me a lot. They provoke very strong emotions, positive and negative, among people. I don’t know any other band that polarizes that much.

I can’t even remember the last time I was inspired by a musician or a celebrity, but I am inspired by the strength and integrity I see in Bill. That boy attracts a lot of hatred and shit from people because of his style and individuality, and still he seems just to grow stronger and better. Narrowmindedness in society is disheartening because I am all for individuality and for the right to be whoever you are without people judging you.

Bill is my favourite for many reasons. He is the one that caught my interest when I became a fan and he is the one that keeps me interested. I am fascinated by his extreme spectrum of emotions and how that is seeping through everything that he is and does; from how he laughs to how he can switch between innocence and childlike pureness to mischievousness and being the epitome of fierce; from extrovert and social to introvert and reclusive; from happiness to sadness. It’s not only apparent in his mannerisms and behaviour, but also in his songs. Sometimes I think he and his twins are actually triplets. Hehe.

David Jost [TH's producer, songwriter, and manager] has described Bill numerous times as someone who always is on the extreme ends of the emotional spectrum, and whose absolute truth is the emotion he is feeling at that very second. I am very fascinated by the opposites in Bill, because they are things I have fought to find a balance in myself, both in my personality (my private life and my career) and outlook on life.

I am emotional as well as intellectual, impulsive as well as a control freak who loves planning, creative but way logical, individual at the same time as I crave to belong, love being alone at the same time as I devote my life to friends. It’s always a constant fight to find a good and healthy golden way.

I used to have such a hard time balancing those things. Things either became too emotional (when I focused on my career as an artist and didn’t want to sell my art to people I didn’t like, or when I took it personal when my pitches were rejected); or things started becoming too static, too analytical, too uninspiring, too technical. Sometime along the years in my early 30s, I ended up in the dreaded "grey zone," where I had lost my creativity and sense of individualism, and was pretty blasé and jaded.

But when I discovered TH, and got inspired by the individuality of the band, of the emotions in the songs, of the pure creativity and uniqueness, how driven and ambitious they are, how they came from literarily nowhere, their "we do what we want attitude," their stamina to stick to what they believe in, I recognized the extreme opposites. I just embraced it and was reminded again that it was OK to be complex, to not be able to be narrowed down. So I stopped obsessing about finding a balance, stopped switching between one opposite to another. And in a short time, the balance which I had strived for all those years was suddenly  there.

So yes, now luckily I can say that I think I have found a good balance in my career and life between creativity and intellect, and I must contribute that to TH.

Another thing I want to mention is how the band evokes so much negativity and prejudices in media and among general public due to the fandom consisting of females -- “Oh only 16 year old girls like TH”. Not only is the statement not true, but first and foremost, the sexism in it baffles me. As if girls aren’t as good as boys to judge music.*rolling eyes* And that kind of sexism is unfortunately embraced and seeps through everywhere. This kind of prejudice that Tokio Hotel attracts is disheartening, but it also makes me even more loyal to the band, because it really creates the feeling of wanting to stand up for yourself as a fan, as a person and for the band.

I love being a Tokio Hotel fan. It’s an honour.

Coolbreezegirl, you mirror our sentiments. Come back and visit with us soon.