Bill Kaulitz
| Bill Kaulitz | |
|---|---|
Bill Kaulitz in May 2010
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| Background information | |
| Also known as | BILLY |
| Born |
1 September 1989 Leipzig, East Germany |
| Genres | Alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, emo, electronic pop, powerpop |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, model, voice actor, designer |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 2005 –present |
| Labels | UMG |
| Associated acts | Tokio Hotel, Black Question Mark, Devilish |
| Website |
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Bill Kaulitz (born 1 September 1989), also known mononymously as Billy (stylized as BILLY) for his solo act, 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.
Bill Kaulitz was born on 1 September 1989 in Leipzig, German Democratic Republic. He has an identical twin brother, Tom, who is older by ten minutes. His parents, Simone and Jörg Kaulitz, separated when Kaulitz and his brother were seven years old. Simone married Gordon Trümper, the guitarist from the German rock band Fatun on 1 August 2009, after dating for 12 years.
Kaulitz showed an early interest in singing, as did Tom in playing guitar. Trümper noticed the twins' musical inclinations, and helped the twins to start their own band. According to Kaulitz in several interviews, he and Tom started writing music at the age of seven years.
At the age of ten the brothers began performing live in Magdeburg, near their hometown of Loitsche 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 renamed "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 were not 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 from Schrei was "Durch den Monsun" ("Through The Monsoon"), which reached #1 in Germany within a month of its release.
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