Bill Kaulitz life and biography

Bill Kaulitz is a German singer, songwriter, voice actor, designer and model. He is best known for his work from 2001 to the present as the lead singer of the band Tokio Hotel.

At the age of ten the brothers began performing live in Magdeburg, near their hometown of Loitsche, under the pseudonym Black Question Mark. They played small shows and while their audiences enjoyed them, they were largely unknown. The band lacked a drummer and bass player and the twins relied on a keyboard to fill in other instrumental sounds.

The year the brothers turned twelve, they met Georg Listing (then 14) and Gustav Schäfer (then 13), in the audience of one of their shows. Listing and Schäfer were friends and after the show, having liked what they heard and saw, made an offer to join. The band was promptly re-named "Devilish" due to an article published at the time that referred to their "devilishly great" sound. The four continued to perform, but aside from being featured on a small-time German news program somewhere between late 2002 and early 2003, Devilish weren't going anywhere until Kaulitz auditioned on the reality TV talent show "Star Search."

This continued until 2005 when Jost arranged a meeting between the band and Universal Music Group's Interscope Records and Tokio Hotel was signed. They began working immediately, releasing their debut LP Schrei ("Scream") later that year. Their first single off of Schrei was "Durch den Monsun" ("Through The Monsoon"), which reached #1 in Germany within a month of its release.

Tokio Hotel launched their debut tour in Germany, to support the release of Schrei and its singles. They toured Germany and also recorded a live DVD. On stage, Kaulitz was noted and well-known for his energetic style and harmonizing with the fans (he would frequently let the audience sing verses instead of him).

In 2006, Kaulitz voiced the role of Arthur in the first part of the German version of the film Arthur and the Invisibles.

Tokio Hotel were a household name in Germany at this point, and this compelled the band to return to the studio. After the success of Schrei, Tokio Hotel began working on their second album, Zimmer 483 (Room 483), released in February 2007. The album spawned three singles initially: "Übers Ende der Welt" ("Over the End of the World" – released as "Ready, Set, Go!"), "Spring nicht" ("Don't Jump"), and "An deiner Seite (Ich bin da)" ("By Your Side (I am there)" – released as "By Your Side"). A fourth single, "Heilig" ("Holy" – released as "Sacred"), was released in 2008.

To support the release of Zimmer 483, Tokio Hotel began a continental tour of Europe, spawning another live DVD and a large publicity boost.

As Tokio Hotel's fanbase increased in the Western part of the world, Kaulitz and the band decided to re-record select songs from both Schrei and Zimmer 483 for a new English-language LP so that fans around the world could understand the band's songs. The result of these re-recorded songs was Tokio Hotel's debut English album, titled Scream. The album was released in Europe in mid-2007 (albeit with the name Room 483, the literal translation of Zimmer 483, to express it's continuity with that album), however it did not reach release in the West until mid-2008.

Scream spawned four singles, including "Scream", "Monsoon" (the translated version of "Durch den Monsun" however the title was not 100% literally translated), "Don't Jump" (the translated version of "Spring Nicht"), and "Ready, Set, Go!" (the translated version of "Übers Ende der Welt", again not a literal translation of the title). Scream was moderately successful internationally, and to support the release, Tokio Hotel left Europe for the first time in their careers, and flew to the United States.

In February 2008 Tokio Hotel first set foot in North America to play five shows, starting in Canada and ending in New York. Tokio Hotel were the first German act since Nena to gain success internationally, and maintain their status. The U.S. tour was a success, but when they went back to Europe for their 1000 Hotels Tour, disaster struck.

The 1000 Hotels Tour began in Brussels, Belgium, on 3 March 2008, and was set to continue through the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Scandinavia, ending on the 9 April. However eleven days after the start of the tour, on 14 March, Kaulitz began to experience voice problems in the middle of a show in Marseilles, France. He let the audience sing more often and the band cut their set down from twenty-one to sixteen songs.

Two days after the incident in France, Tokio Hotel cancelled a show in Lisbon, Portugal moments before it was to commence. The band, with the exception of Kaulitz, came on the stage and apologized for the show being cancelled. They explained that Kaulitz was sick and was being flown back to Germany to see a specialist: he had played forty-three shows without a break and had developed an untreated throat infection. The infection caused a cyst to develop on the singer's vocal chords that had to be removed via larynx surgery on 30 March. Kaulitz was unable to speak for ten days afterwards and had to undergo speech therapy for one month.

By May 2008 Kaulitz had sufficiently recovered and Tokio Hotel rescheduled the 1000 Hotels Tour dates, adding several open air concerts. The tour concluded on 13 July 2008 in Werchter, Belgium and, despite the surgery and time taken off, was deemed a success.

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