Tote Hosen film documentary “The Last Album”: How to finish something with dignity

Campino, who was born Andreas Frege in Düsseldorf in 1962, means this is probably the very last studio album that he recorded with his band – after he himself had decided to leave it alone with these last new songs and albums after 44 years of band history.

“Die Toten Hosen – the last album” is simply the name of the film by documentary director Eric Friedler, which he made for SWR and NDR about the recordings of this album with the title “Drink up, we have to go!” has turned. Of course, this was at the request of Campino and his men, despite all the reservations they had.

“This is definitely the most intimate thing we do together in the studio, something that has never happened before,” says guitarist Andreas “Breiti” Breitkopf. “That can also be annoying,” says the band’s second guitarist, Andreas von Holst, actually just called Kuddel. And Campino, scolding the media a bit: “Under normal circumstances, you don’t let anyone else have it. If the record goes to shit, then it’s your fault.”

But the Toten Hosen are not just anyone, but have been one of the most successful rock bands in the Republic for decades, since their 1988 album “A Little Bit of Horror Show” with the hit “Here Comes Alex,” right after Udo Lindenberg and Herbert Grönemeyer. Hence this production. It’s simply not enough to announce an ending like this through promotional interviews alone. You don’t really trust the whole thing anyway, too many pop stars have already backed out of their retirements.

But the narrative of a “last album” makes this film coherent, structures it, ensures a certain melodramatics – and provides insightful insights into the lengthy production of a rock album, which began in February 2024 and was completed two years later with sixteen finished songs.

No trace of glamour

There is no trace of glamor in this country house in Münsterland with a studio, kitchen and accommodation: only the carpets in the studio. Then the pizza from the delivery service, one of the worst Campino has eaten in a long time, the blue Crocs from Vincent Sorg, the band’s producer, who seems very youthful compared to the pants, and Campino’s Birkenstock sandals.

With the Toten Hosen at work, that’s what it looks like in this film. Singing and music are rehearsed, songs are discarded, lines are shortened, solos are worked on. At the end, friends and acquaintances come to a first, crucial listening session, after which the band sorts out further songs and reworks others.

And then there is Campino. Everyone has to submit to him, and that comes through quite well here: as the boss, as the person responsible for the lyrics, as a fan of Liverpool FC, whose games he also watches during the recordings. “I have to be able to handle it. I’m not a football fan, I wouldn’t allow myself to do that with the valuable studio time, but it’s important to Campi,” says Kuddel.

And Kuddel also says that he fails to provide a sympathetic explanation for Campino’s boss moments: “He means it that way, especially when it gets loud and hurtful. He just doesn’t package it correctly.” Not to forget Campino’s opening about becoming a father again: “I had imagined my path to retirement would be different, but that’s just canceled now.”

Minichmayr saved “On days like these”

Between the scenes from the studio, Friedler and the band members review the Toten Hosen’s career. From the successful album “The Little Bit of Horror Show” we go back to the beginning: Ratinger Hof, the song “Opel-Gang”, the first two albums, the monster hit “On Days Like These”, which has essentially become a folk song and which the Austrian actress Birgit Minichmayr saved from the trash.

Then the success in Argentina and Chile, the 1997 concert in Düsseldorf where a 16-year-old died in the crowd in front of the stage, the drug excesses that occurred over the course of his career; plus recordings from a club tour through Europe, from Paris and Amsterdam.

The last twenty minutes are all about the recording sessions and the album production. There are also thoughts from the Hosen musicians about the fact that they will never produce another studio album and what the future will bring. Kuddel expresses himself most credibly, almost elegiacally. He confesses to being afraid of the great emptiness.

But it’s also just a “last regular studio album” that will be released next Friday. After that, the pants immediately go on tour. It begins on June 7th in Esch in Luxembourg and ends over a year later on July 10th, 2027 in Düsseldorf’s Rheinstadion. The Rolling Stones, who doesn’t know, didn’t release an album for almost twenty years between “A Bigger Bang” and “Hackney Diamonds”, but they were constantly on tour, are now all in their eighties – and are releasing another album soon.

“Perhaps the question that burns in my mind the most is how to finish something with dignity,” Campino says right at the beginning of the film. And maybe the pants will actually succeed. It would be one of the greatest achievements of her long career.