Flotzilla was a Swedish fanzine in the second half of the 80’s, written in Swedish. Here’s an interview with Tom Angelripper translated to English.
FLOTZILLA TALKS TO TOM ANGELRIPPER
SODOM
As I'm sure everyone knows, we had a visit from Sodom here in Sweden on 7/10 and as you probably also know, they also managed to put on a clearly acceptable concert, something that not many people know is that Sodom is a band that I've really had a good eye for since they released the LP "Persecution mania" and started playing high-class death metal, in my opinion Kreator's successor on the death throne together with Death!! Another thing that not many people knew until they got this magazine in their hands was that I was there and held out the mic to Tom Angelripper to get answers to some questions, something that I also got. Tom turned out to be a damn nice person, so it was a shame that I didn't have a few better questions, but I hope you're satisfied anyway!!
How has the tour been?
-The tour has been great so far, we've had about 1000 visitors everywhere, yesterday in Denmark there were 200 at a small club, so we did two gigs there, but so far it's been great!
What happened to Blackfire?
- He left the band 3 weeks before the tour started, he came to me and said he wanted to quit and start with KREATOR, Tritze has quit in KREATOR and instead Blackfire has started with them. We also had some personal problems with Frank, but it came as a big shock to us because it was only three weeks before the tour started. But then we found Mike who will help us with this tour, but after the tour he will quit so we are looking for a guitarist.
Now you are playing as a headline band again, wouldn't it be better for you to go as a support act and that way reach a larger audience?
- No definitely not, it is better for Sodom or any other band to do a headline tour. Because then you have the opportunity to run your whole show, when you play as a support act you get nothing. Yes, it's true that you reach a larger audience, but there's another problem when you're supporting Motorhead or any other band, and that's that it costs a lot to go with them. So I think we're in a position where we can headline and do our own tours,
Regarding your live album "Mortal way of life", don't you think it was a bit too early to release it considering you'd only done 2 full albums?
- At that time we didn't have any new material for the next studio album so we thought it would be better with a live album, and at first we thought it would be an EP (mini-LP), but when we had recorded a lot of material, we thought it wouldn't be good to take something. So we decided to make a whole live LP. It is not that expensive for the buyers, in Germany it costs 20 marks and that is quite OK. It has also sold a damn good 20,000 & we are happy with that. We also wanted to show the buyers how we are live, that we are just as good live as on album, with a bass and a guitar!
Speaking of the new album, "Agent Orange's style is very much like it was on "Persecution mania". Do you think you've found a style that suits you well now?
- It's the same style as on every album (It's not. Ed) but the new album is better and more technical. On the new album we were also in the studio longer than on "Persecution mania", on that we were in the studio for two weeks and on the new album we had five weeks in the studio with Harris Jones as producer. I think it's better to have more time in the studio because you have more time to develop the songs in a more personal and better way, I think the new album is better than "Persecution Mania”.
Regarding the song "Incest", I know that Kreator has made a song that is also about incest, is incest a problem in Germany, or what is the reason for two German bands writing a song about the same rather odd topic?
- Incest is something that happens out in the world, and I write about everything possible that happens, and it's good that someone brings up the topic, I didn't know that Kreator also had a song that dealt with that topic.
Your way of singing is quite similar but with one exception and that is Remember the fallen, where you sing more normally, why don't you use that side of your voice more often?
- It was just an attempt, a bit odd. We tried to do a bit slower song where I tried to sing a bit more normally, but it was just an attempt, I don't think we'll do a song like this again on the next album, but most people seemed to like the song.
You say that you've played in front of approx. 1000 people at the other places, why are you coming to Sweden to play for 400 people?
- When the manager booked the tour, the new album hadn't reached that high and most people didn't care that much about us, but now the album has sold 50,000 copies and is quite high on the charts and the tour was already booked so we couldn't back out. But next year we're going to do a bigger tour in bigger halls, we've had problems in some places where 1000 people come in and 500 have to turn around and go home and it's sad, I don't know but I feel like we're quite popular at the moment.
Please report dead links!
How is it at your gigs, is there a lot of violence and people getting hurt?
- Yes, unfortunately it happens sometimes, but that's how it is at most gigs. Yes, I think too many people, especially younger ones, drink too much at concerts and that's a problem. But we can't do much about it, unfortunately. But it was the same when I was younger and went to concerts, I wasn't violent, but I drank way too much.
Yes, you've been in Sweden for almost a whole day now, do you have anything to say about our country?
- I really like the country here, the big forests. Like today on the way here we saw a moose. I really like the forest and everything, it doesn't look exactly like it does back home in Germany.
I hope I haven't bored you too much, do you have anything final to say to Flotzilla's readers?
- I would like to say that we will really try to come back next year, with a small tour here in Sweden, Norway and Denmark and get bigger halls and more people. I hope people can buy our records at normal prices so you won't buy via expensive imports, then I also want to thank every Sodom maniac here in Sweden!!
Thank you so much I say to AngelRipper, for the good answer and fun to talk to. After the Fagersta gig they went down to Paris and then ended their European tour (with Sepultura) in London at Marquee or whatever the place is called!