“Kaulitz Hills – Mustard from Hollywood”: Podcast by Tom and Bill Kaulitz

It is early afternoon in Berlin and on the table in front of Tom Kaulitz is a beer that he has already drunk half of and that he can look at with great comfort in quiet moments. If there were to be quiet moments. Because next to him is his brother Bill Kaulitz and the two of them together quickly recall the famous Mentos Cola experiment, which everyone who was young knows: You stuff a handful of Mentos chewy candies into a full liter bottle of Cola and the shower shoots almost meters high from the bottle and does not stop foaming. That’s the way it is with Bill and Tom Kaulitz, one is Mentos, the other the Cola. Let’s go.

Actually they are musicians and their once very famous band Tokio Hotel is still around, they even want to go on tour again, but that’s not what this afternoon should be about, but about their other skills, probably only now recognized: Talking, a lot Talking, falling into sentences, this one more thing and that one more, and have you seen that and in general, don’t you think that … Mentos in Cola, as I said. Well, others do that too, but Tom and Bill are residents of the attention industry, formerly musical and now more private, one as the husband of Heidi Klum and the other as a brother-in-law.

Anyway, they have friends and the friends told them, just turn on a microphone when you talk, you’re so entertaining. Well, that was like an invitation, “license to talk” so to speak, and so they have and will continue to meet once a week for a podcast that they call “Mustard from Hollywood” because they live there, but it does will not be pure “inside Hollywood”, because nobody is really inside because Hollywood is simply too big and the residents too famous. From the first episode you can hear that it will be more of an “inside Kaulitz”, a chat for two just without coffee, but with real drinks, which of course makes the 32-year-old brothers’ loose tongues even looser.

Tom and Bill Kaulitz chat about Heidi Klum

And this is how the first “Mustard from Hollywood” round sounds like. Actually, they don’t have a real topic, but that doesn’t matter, the Kaulitze have themselves. First of all, it’s about the drinks Tom brought along, namely an “Arnold Palmer with Tequila”, an iced tea and soda mix Alk, and, he says, “Heidi didn’t know what an Arnold Palmer was either”. And, bingo, we’re on the subject.

Because the podcast, according to the brothers, actually came about because the two are separated for the first time after 32 years of life together. So not really in separation, but spatially. Because since Tom Kaulitz married the really famous Heidi Klum two years ago and moved into the probably very large house in Beverly Hills, Bill has to live alone for the first time without a brother. But, all clear, not very far away, actually almost on the same street, three traffic lights away, as Bill describes it. And there at Bill’s studio they meet once a week to do what they always do anyway: gossiping, drinking and being chewed.

If you just listen to it and don’t know the twins very well, they are a bit difficult to tell apart at first. But when they sit in front of you, the differences are enormous, at least externally. Bill, the bird of paradise, in an orange-beige and big somehow suit that lights up the whole room at the same time and next to him Tom in a somehow black and gray inconspicuousness, long full beard and long mane of hair with lighter shades on the side. In any case, like a man who doesn’t worry too much in front of the mirror in the morning, while Bill looks as if he’s plucking his appearance for the next day in the evening. And if you look closely, Bill fits exactly into his 32 years, while Tom behind his beard could also pass as around 40.

Cola Mentos in the word ping pong

But that’s only visual, acoustic, so when speaking the brothers sound like Cola-Mentos in the word ping-pong. One of them says that for the podcast they also had to learn not to interrupt words or sentences all the time, but to allow themselves to be talked out of it. As brothers, they would already know after half a sentence what the other would think, but of course the podcast listener doesn’t know that. And what is it about every week? Oh, they’d find a topic of the week. In the first episode they tell themselves about the new fashion in Los Angeles, to buy birthday greetings and other messages in short videos from very prominent people, “Cameo” is called it on the Internet, and whether that would be something for Germany.

And then they read a few reviews from buyers of the Bill Kaulitz book “Career Suicide” on Amazon and have fun, then it’s back to “Arnold Palmer” and actually these are all trivialities, but the art of gossip is yes, Presenting unimportant things so entertainingly that you listen without knowing why. Here the somewhat worn saying applies that you could also read out a phone book and it would be funny.

It is then even so that you can suddenly imagine what it is like in the Kaulitz-Klum extended family or how it sounds, because Heidi Klum, who is cheerful at heart, is a frequent speaker and you suspect that when they come together in the garden, by the pool or in Klum’s kitchen, as can be seen again and again on Instagram, the moments of silence will be very, very rare. To put it differently and nicely, everyone jostles to add a bit of mustard.

If you take Tom, you also get Bill

Whether they actually agree with his wife Klum, who is now called Kaulitz, what will be so bogus in the podcast. No, that is not necessary, because they would all trust each other very much. And somehow the podcast is also a kind of free time for husband Tom, he can go out to his brother and have a drink. But that’s not what they say. Only their previous LA life together with nights spent and bed at five in the morning is of course over. Tom can suddenly look very grown up and clear that early in the morning children are now being brought to school and things like that. At first it sounds like a tired househusband, but in the second it just sounds like a man who likes to take on responsibility that goes beyond glamor, record sales and flashlight. A responsibility that grows up, because in the hysterical times of Tokio Hotel it was impossible for them to grow up.

Seen in this way, there have certainly been many changes in the life of the Magdeburg twins – the fame with Tokio Hotel, the move to America ten years ago – but the biggest change was the meeting with Heidi Klum and the wedding of Tom and Heidi. Because suddenly there was family, children, a dog and of course a lot, but not every day, to laugh at. If you ask her whether Heidi Klum might not have wanted to adopt both of them, but then married Tom instead, the amusement is great.

As big as you can tell about the many colorful rumors about this amour fou. More kids, hahaha. Move to Berlin, hahaha. They don’t take what’s being written so seriously because we never speak to that kind of press, they say. Nevertheless, one thing was clear at the time: if you take Tom, you also get Bill. It has always been and will always be. Of course not physically as a man next to it or on top of it, but rather emotionally and spiritually. How it works, you will certainly tell in “Mustard from Hollywood”.

The podcast “Kaulitz Hills – Mustard from Hollywood” appears every Wednesday from today.