Tom and I were raised as humans, so our early childhood was uneventful up until Year Seven. That was the year our teachers decided it would be “beneficial to our growth as students and individuals” to put Tom and I in separate classes.
It was horrible. I woke up every day dreading the eight hours I had to send away from my other half. We didn’t even have the same lunch period. We became so desperate to be around each other that we began coordinating our trips to the bathroom, just to be able to chat for 5 minutes.
I guess administration noticed that we were a little bit off, to say the least. We both got called down to guidance multiple times to talk about individuality and how important peer relationships were at our age.
And so, to appease them, Tomi joined band, and I choir. We put up with the classes for the rest of Year Seven, but when we got our schedules for Year Eight, I knew Mutti must have pulled a couple strings because we were back together. We were ecstatic and actually did our chores for nearly two weeks straight as a thank you.
During that horrible Year, Tomi and I created Black Question Mark. It began as a way for us to escape our mundane daily lives, but quickly became so much more when we realized the power music gave us over humans. We were master manipulators, emotional puppeteers. We made the crowds cry, laugh, dance, and once, on a truly awful day, we created a mosh pit.
I developed a craving for that sense of control, of power. And of course my sweet big brother Tom indulged me endlessly. I got so power-drunk and overconfident that I actually convinced poor Tomi that it was a good idea for us to play a club in the Underground.
There were a few things that I had conveniently forgotten.
1.
We had never been to the Underground, and didn’t know where we were allowed and who would accept us.
2.
We would be mature Changekin in the Underground, which is the Undead equivalent of a German in America circa 1940s.
3.
We didn’t know how other Kin would react to our music. We knew of no one from the Underground besides ourselves.
But still, Tom somehow managed to get a phone directory for the Underground. I was the one who called however, a club by the name of the Black Iris. The phone rang so long I almost hung up, but finally someone picked up.
“H-hallo?” I stuttered nervously, trying desperately to calm my frantic heartbeat. “Erm, Ich bin Bill Kaulitz, und—“
He interrupted me in some kind of hissing, ancient language that I miraculously understood. “Speak the tongue, boy, speak the tongue!”
After a few confused seconds, I gathered my thoughts enough to reply, “Sorry, sorry. My name is Bill Kaulitz.” The silence on the other end boosted my confidence. “I’m calling about my band, Black Question Mark, playing the Black Iris.”
And that was it. We got our first gig in the Underground. When I hung up, Tomi hugged me excitedly and we celebrated by going to our hometown of Magdeburg and bingeing on ice-cream and coffees.