Elevator Boys Interview: TikTok Stars on Fears, Mistakes and Music Careers

The Elevator Boys are the Germans Jacob Rott, Bene Schulz, Tim Schäcker, Julien Brown, and Luis Freitag. They rose to global fame in 2021 with TikTok videos and suggestive looks. For two years now, they've also been trying their hand at music. Their new single, "California," was released on July 28th.

The Elevator Boys became famous through short videos of themselves in elevators on TikTok. Now you're making music as a boy band. Why?

Jacob : When we make music, we can talk about our fears and dreams much more directly, which people can relate to. This way, we reveal much more about ourselves on a more emotional level than in such short videos.

Bene: TikTok is mostly trend-based and short-lived, so we work on our music much longer. We can also put more brainpower into the music.

What are the fears that concern you?

Jacob : Height.

Tim: Fear of no longer being popular and of no one being interested in you anymore. Also social anxiety—the kind of thing you carry around in your mid-twenties.

Bene: In our studio sessions, we also talked a lot about our relationships, especially the toxic ones.

Julien: But of course our music is also about the beautiful things and our gratitude for what we are allowed to experience.

A surprising number of creators are moving from social media to music. It's often assumed that this shift is purely strategic, designed to transform the fleeting social media buzz into something more lasting.

Tim: When we started music, we never imagined it would become a second career. We were often compared to a boy band that doesn't sing. So we thought, why not? When we tried it, it was so much fun that we just kept going.

Elevator Boys

Source: Johannes Kapol

These days, the music industry practically demands that you be active on social media. Do you find it easier because you're going the other way?

Luis: I don't think so. You can't automatically convert all your followers to music. We're judged much more critically from the start than perhaps a newcomer, whose mistakes are more likely to be forgiven. We were immediately compared to professionals. At the beginning, we had little room to develop our own skills because the public immediately judged us as good or bad. Of course, we had the opportunity to make our first performance bigger, but that's precisely why the room for error was much smaller. It's a bit like learning an instrument. Only we're not learning it at home, but directly on the big stage.

Speaking of mistakes, what other missteps can you think of?

Bene: When we first tried to dance. Please don't look for it.

Jacob : In retrospect, we shouldn't have played our second show at a festival. There were a lot of people there who weren't just there for us—you could tell by the atmosphere. It was a huge opportunity, but maybe a little too early at the time.

What from your early days do you still view critically today?

Bene: Sure, we laugh at some of the videos ourselves today. For example, "POV, you're a stable boy"—that was one too many. Or our outfits at our first Fashion Week.

Tim: We looked like we were thrown together.

Luis: But even individually, it was criminal. We looked like highlighters.

What has changed most in the way you interact with each other compared to before?

Luis: We used to underestimate what our jokes could trigger in others. We often made fun of each other. Now we know which topics are sensitive for whom. That's why we understand each other better than ever.

What are these topics?

Jacob: Luis's British accent. I once imitated it in an interview, but I don't do that anymore. He doesn't wear it on purpose.

Tim: It was also important for our mental health as a group to no longer live together. We still see each other almost every day, but everyone has their own safe space now. We're friends and business partners, but at some point, everything just revolved around work.

What would you like to change about the social media industry?

Jacob: A greater understanding of what we do every day. Behind a 15-second TikTok video, there are often hours of work: finding ideas, styling, and then we shoot maybe 40 takes.

Tim: Interviews, shoots, traveling—it's all cool, but also exhausting. You just don't see it in the finished clip. We have to socialize a lot because we're constantly meeting new people.

Bene: Exactly, and especially in the social media world, there are many superficial people. But we consciously keep our distance from such people.

On the subject of superficiality: Your content, especially in the beginning, was heavily based on your physical appearance. How do you deal with the pressure that your success is, to a certain extent, tied to it?

Jacob: Yes, we are getting old (everyone laughs).

Julien: Of course, looks play a role on social media platforms. But we also have the cheerleader effect, meaning that if one person looks a bit sleepy, the others can compensate. (Editor's note: The cheerleader effect describes how people appear more attractive in groups than alone.) We don't put pressure on ourselves to feel like we're no longer relevant if we don't look our best.

Luis: Exactly. We're all creative and have also enjoyed a certain level of education, and we're constantly expanding our expertise in various areas. That means we don't just rely on "a pretty grin and that's it," but have also built other pillars of our business.

Jacob: We don't see ourselves as the ultimate in looks. It's more about entertaining people and making them feel good. Our creativity will remain, even if we eventually turn gray.