The Forbidden Floor : The novel based on Tokio Hotel (English)

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December, Sunday 10th, 2007.
9:15 am

The teenagers had an appointment under the Arc de Triomphe. Aby and Chrystal had awaited for fifteen minutes already the arrival of Delphine, Clauchette, Amélie and Line.

All were members of the official German rock band Japan Road website and spent their evenings commenting on the news about the four young musicians. While discussing on this forum, they had decided to come to Paris, to try to see the band who came to France for the promotion of their new dvd and the recording of TV shows.

There was a crazyness around Japan Road that no one had seen since the Beatles, Abba or Claude François. Everywhere they went, a crowd of hysterical girls awaited and acclaimed them. They knew absolutely everything about them. The hour when their planes arrived, the name of the hotels where they stayed, the restaurants they attended, the promotion places where they had appointments... Never a fans community had been so well informed or had deployed such ways to see their idols. These girls, still teenagers for the majority, would cross kilometers to see them one moment or would camp several days before a show to be in the front row. They could go without anything just to save money and to reinvest it into the cds, dvds, show tickets and merchandising. They only lived for them. It completely baffled the parents and the adults in general. The loss of control upon their teenagers was something rather worrying and they didn’t know how to face it."

The name Japan Road hides the real band Tokio Hotel. Caroline Sauvageot is the French author of the "The Forbidden Floor", the novel based on the fan movement that the German music group has risen up in the last years.

And the differences between "The Forbidden Floor" and other writings about Tokio Hotel are many. First of all, we could not talk about fan fiction. Carrie is a writer and her work is far from being fiction. She has collaborated with Universal, she has swum in the depths of the music movement caring of what Tokio Hotel takes behind, she has been on backstage and on a tourbus with other artists to feel how a musician lives the previous moments to a show...

So we've talked to Carrie about her book and this is what she has told us :

- Why do you decide to base your novel in the music world? What has the music world which attracts people so much ?

People think that singers don't work a lot, party all the time, stay in luxe hotel and earn a lot of money. It really seems to be a perfect life. But unfortunately, that's not close to the reality and that's why I wanted to write about this industry, to show to the people all the work

- How does the idea of basing it on German band Tokio Hotel come up ?

I already built the story of Anaïs Parïs and it was planned that she spent two years in Germany because I wanted to talk about the german culture, mostly about the book "Christiane F.". I was working on the story the summer 2007 in Sweden when a night, on Mtv Sweden, they played Monsoon. That's how I knew the band and I just had heard about them as a german band so it was perfect. And later back home I listened to the songs, and I loved "Stich ins Glück", that is a similar story of "Christiane F." At the end of the year I discover the whole universe of the fans and then I changed a lot the story to base the novel on the band and on the fans too.

- For someone not being part of the fan world, how is the first contact with the band ? What were your firts impressions about all the movement which surrounds Tokio Hotel ?

First I really didn't know that they were such a phenomenon so I expected to be able to meet them at their hotel and talk a while about my novel. Poor me ! We can say the first contact was rather with the security and the Universal staff, and they were really nice, but I understood quickly that the band was under a serious protection. And at the same time I discover the passion of the fans in front of the hotel, their patience to wait so long for the band and the hystery when the band came out. But at first, as everybody, I thought they were crazy ^^ then I talked a lot with some of them and I learn why the band is so important for them and why they love them so much. Each fan has got her own special story with the band.

- Which is the plot of the novel ?

The story is about the famous german band Japan Road, who comes to France for 3 days of promo. We can follow them at their hotel and at the tv show that they come to record, as well as we can see the fans that are there to see them, in from of the airport, the hotel, the tv studios... all through the chapters, we can learn the beginning of the band by some flashbacks and what is their private life look like or how they deal with the medias. The second important character of the story is Anais Paris, who is a very close friend of the band and they try to keep a secret of her presence, what is not easy with such curious fans...

- Have you found many difficulties when trying to get information close to the band ?

Actually it wasn't so difficult. The fans helped me a lot by telling me who to contact, and that's crazy to see that they've got a lot of personnal and professional infos. But of course, when you've got the right person or the right email, you have to introduce well your project, and explain what are exactly your goal because as I said, the band is very protected and people around them don't talk easily. Everything was very professional each time. But it was fine, because I asked nothing else, I'm not here to collect gossip or private infos...

- What has been the fans reaction to your novel when they first get to read it ?

I was surprise that they supported me from the start, before the book was even written, and when I gave them the three first chapters to read, they loved it ! Soon I made an english translation for the band's management and also for other artists mentionned and it was a great surprise to see that some fans made an article on a popular spanish blog, and from there it turned all around the world and the fans started to ask to me if they could translate the chapters into russian or brezilian portugues, and then spanish, greek, danish etc... that's amazing and I can't thanks them enough for this big support :D

- We imagine that when writing a book like this you needed to interact with Tokio Hotel fans, what can we tell us about the experience ?

I can say it was an interesting experience. Sometime good and sometime bad, but they really took me into their world. That's when I realized that some fans really know everything, daily, about the band and I started to find it strange. I discovered that some fans were really too much into their passion, it wasn't a passion anymore but an absession and that's sad. For the fans who got no own life anymore, but also for the band who is tracked by these kind of fans... So as much as I want to show the passion of the fans and their amzing support, I also want to show the negative side because that's a part of a famous band's life that we don't really hear about. But to be able to really talk about the stalkers cases, I needed to stay in contact with them, to talk with them and understand why they acted like that. And here again I got their help and confidences.

- Did you find it difficult to get to know the band enough to write the novel ?

It's not really difficult but it takes time. I think that's only now that I know them quite well, that I know how their staff is organized and that I can make the difference between what they are and the image they have from the medias. My chance was to be in the fan world and also in the professional world. And of course my knowledge of the music and fashion busines were helpful. In fact that's obvious that common people can't have a right idea of what a band or a singer are because they just see their image in the media, and the show that the magazines, tv and website play everyday ^^ That's why I wanted to explain a bit how the media work, for the fans focus again on the main topic : the music.

- We know that you have also paid a lot of attention to their music and you have found some interesting facts about their lyrics, what could you tell us about it ?

I think I can't tell everything here or people won't read the book to see what I found out ; p But I can tell at first I saw some references of a zen philosophy in the lyrics of "Leb die Sekunde" and in a lot of songs from Humanoid, as well as influences of Krautrock - that was a very important music wave (or style ?) in Germany, that they called "Kosmiche Musik". So we can see the influences of bands like Pink Floyd, Depêche Mode, Kraftwerk and all the "electro-music" from the 70's. And I can see some references to some famous novels like "Christiane F" in "Stichs in Glück" and some other, but I let the reader discover all that in the story.

- Is there any future perspective of being published ?

I don't have a concrete deal with a publisher because I didn't send the book yet but I've got a contact at Hachete, the publisher who released Twilight in France, and another contact from a small publisher in my department is reading the book to advice me the right publishers to contact. But if someone I don't find a publisher I will make a self-published book because I already got a lot of readers who wait to buy a real book of the Forbidden Floor.

- For those who still have not read it, how would you convince them to have a look at it?

I would say that's a novel about the music world where they can know more about all the work that an artist has to do in the shadow like the time it takes to record an album. And it's also about the relationship between a rock band and their fans, what a band can mean to someone, how they can help them... Especialy for the fans of Tokio Hotel, they should be interested by some real facts never told in the médias about the band and their teenage years. And of course, all the fans that follow the band and the one who were at this promo in Paris, in december 2007, it will be a reminder of this time ^^ .


If you want to know more about Caroline and "The Forbidden Floor" you can get her at any of the official links :


http://carrie-fan-club.blog.jeuxvideo.com/

www.facebook.com/letageinterditofficiel

http://wilkommenimhotel.forumactif.com


You can also get the novel for free in PDF if you write to her :

carey.s@wanadoo.fr

It's avalaible in French, English, Russian, Spanish, Greek, Danish, Portugues and some translations are started into German, Italian and Serbian.

"Everything was ready inside the hotel and Steven required from the hostess that they blocked the elevators. Then, they remained in front of it, blocking the doors with their feet. Two security agents stayed beside them. Another hung around in the hall. Jaki repeated to them that it was important that nobody came in the way of the main door to the elevators, because the boys won’t stop.
The stress of the staff grew higher. The band was going to enter in the hotel, it was imminent. The personal Japan Road guards went out and the fans screamed louder. They knew what that implied : they were going to leave the cars. The small group of the SDF continued to sing :

WE ARE HERE !!!
JUST FOR YOU !!!
Anywhere !!
We swear to you !!
We will stay forever !!!
And `till you feel better !!!
We'll stay together !!! "