Interview with Ronnie Ripper and Freddie Fister (Turbocharged)
Questions compiled by Cornelius of Encomium 'zine
and Georgius of Archangel's Lantern
Hail Ronnie and Freddie! As I’ve written in my Hungarian review in Kronos Mortus e-zine, the new Turbocharged material “Above Lords, Below Earth” is an excellent intense unholy deathpunk LP. I know it would be a bit complicated for you, but try to say a few thoughts about each track of the new album, please.
Ronnie: Thanks man, it’s always nice to hear someone likes our stuff! Let’s see what there is to say about the song…
The crawling path of worms:
A crusty D-beat number with pretty much all the elements you need to make some serious noise, not too much finesse but a whole lot of anger.
Total doom arise:
Even more intense than the first one, this is blastbeat royale with a hint of Motörhead in the middle.
Above lords, below earth:
D-beat again with quite odd riffs and rhythms for being us, it however lacks none of the energy of the previous ones.
Doomsday hammer:
This one is shortest on the album and it has a pure death metal vibe to it, nothing fancy but just a machine rolling over you as you listen.
Low-tech blasphemy:
Fast one again, almost a bit melodic for being us but also full of blasts and ferocity.
Thirteen burials:
This one is death metal, most likely the most elaborate song on the album but it’s still quite primitive and straight to the point.
Obscurant:
Mid tempo double bassdrum mayhem, plain and simple.
Harbingers at dawn:
D-beat punk with double bassdrums, if that even makes sense? Quite the typical style from us.
The burning of a redeemer:
This is blastbeat carnage with quite thrashy riffs, it stands out of our common style but I think it still follows the thin red line of ours.
Black tornado:
Celtic Frost gone Turbocharged! This one is intentionally a homage to the old masters, it was so close to their typical riffing so we took in one step further and it turned out pretty damn nice.
Dried blood (The heretic confession):
Starts with the slowest part of the album but kicks off into D-beat and blasts as it moves along. Also has the grooviest bridge on the whole album.
Unholy deathpunk:
This is our translation of old Motörhead on good drugs, it’s fast and it’s punky as hell. Kind of a trademark for what we are and where we come from musically.
Freddie:
1.”The Crawling path…” is the perfect opening track for this album! This is what we´re all about! And what the listener should expect from the album. Punk, Metal and blasphemy.
2. ”Total doom arise” Fast, to the point blastbeat armageddon.
3. Title track of the album. A nice, groovey, mid-tempo fucker!
4. Nice quite slow intro. Perfect for the headbangers out there. Short and to the point song. Some nice profanities in the lyrics as well. Cool song to play.
5. ”Low-tech…”. A personal fave for me. Fast, blast-beaty motherfucker! Nice chorus with alternating singing (Singing, yeah, right…) from both Ronnie and me. Great solo from Nick as well.
6. ”Thirteen burials”. It has almost some heavy metal vibe to it I think. This is how close to theatrical Turbocharged ever get. And this song is a good example on how we work:
When I first came and presented the song to the others it had a totally other time signature. But after we been hashing it out and arranged and re-arranged it, it ended up as it is now. And that is how we do things! Doesn´t matter who´s coming with a song, or idea, we ALLWAYS arrange it together in our rehearsal-studio. Also there is a little nod to my old/other band, Necrokült, in the lyrics. Thanks, Ronnie!
7. ”Obscurant” was the last song written for the album. Turned out great! Double bass-drums and a fucked up attitude!
8. And ”Harbingers…” was the first I think. D-beat crusher!
9. ”…Redeemer” is a fast fucker! I think of our brothers in the Serbian band INFEST whenever I play or hear this song: Turbocharged and Infest has been touring together 3 times by now and of course that will rub of on you and your music! We are legija!
10. This has some Celtic Frost/Hellhammer wibe! One of my favorite tracks to play. Great solo from Nick.
11. ”Dried Blood…”: D-beat, blastbeat, some groovy middle tempo parts, dirty lyrics, bad-ass guitar solo. What´s not to like?
12. THIS IS WHAT WE DO!!! ”Unholy deathpunk” sums it up. Really.
To be honest, musically I found the new stuff as a natural continuation of its predecessor, which is, of course, not a bad thing at all, if we take into account that there’s only 2 years between those releases. But will you agree with me if I say that “Above Lords, Below Earth” is “Apocalyptic” Part II?
Ronnie: You’re probably right about that but we never think like that, we just try and make the best album so far. We however never try to reinvent ourselves too much so I guess your theory is spot on. Every album is mainly built on new ideas but also some left over ideas we couldn’t fit on the previous album, that probably goes for most bands out there.
Freddie: I have personally not thought about it like that. But it might be true. We tend not to think too much about what we are doing when we write our stuff. If it sounds bad-ass, then it is a keeper. If not: down the shitter with it!
Ronnie, you are tearing the bass strings for 30 years now. Please share some memories about the beginnings. What I’ve noticed on “Above Lords, Below Earth” that your bass playing turned more significant. What kind of brand you’ve used 30 years ago and what do you use nowadays?
- Yeah, time flies when you’re having fun! Memories huh? I don’t know really, there’s not much to say from that time that is not still going on today, I’m still a quite average bassist and I basically only know what I need to know for the band. You should hear us play spontaneous covers, they really suck, ha-ha! On this album we had a guy outside the band who produced the drums for the first time and the bass followed the trail of what became of them, I had to back off a bit with the distortion and it made my sound a bit clearer. Other than that it’s the same sound as always and I play what needs to be played in the songs, nothing fancy or groundbreaking. My brands so far has been quite cheap ones: Ibanez, Harley Benton, B&CH, Traben and now I play an ESP LTD, I played what I could afford at the time and when I could I would upgrade a bit. I’m not a gear head, I just want something that I like and if it’s a 3000 Euro bass or a piece of wood with wires on it, it doesn’t matter. As long as the air around me vibrates when I hit the strings it’s all good.
Freddie when did you start playing the drums? Which drummers influenced you back in time and do you have some favourite ones from our days?
- I started when I was around 13. First drummers that influenced me was Cozy Powell, Bonham, Nicko McBrain and such. Then later Lombardo, Ulrich (Can´t deny it!). Then when it came to the more ”extreme” drummers I would say Ventor, Igor Cavalera and of course Mick Harris. Nowadays I can be impressed by drummers who have their own style and you at once can hear who is behind the kit. Nicko is a perfect example to this! When it come to the more extreme drummers I´m not at all impressed by lightning speed. It has to have some ”groove” to it. The first drummer that comes to mind when I think of this is Perra Karlsson who plays in Dreadful Fate and has played with Suffer, Benediction, Die Hard, Destroyer 666 just to mention a few. There you got both power, speed and a hellish groove!
Ronnie, in our private conversations you’ve mentioned that you used only one time the corpse paint. Tell us more about it.
-Argh, that old thing, ha-ha! Yeah, back in 1993 or something we were playing a local gig with Gehennah and we still hadn’t found our style so it was kind of typical for the time that it was slightly Norwegian BM which meant that there were plans to use paint and so we did. Once. Never did it again and never quite understood the meaning of me wearing it. I don’t blame others for using it but it’s too much work and has nothing to do with the music I play. I’d rather bathe in blood or just smear myself with dirt to boost the experience. Mind you, the sweat during a gig or far more deadly than any paint!
Freddie, you played drums in the Swedish black metal horde, Hellwar. How do you remember that period? Did you play in any other bands before Turbocharged?
- HELLWAR!! Wow, that was a long time ago! Well, I vaguely remember that. There was a lot of cheep beer and homemade booze involved. Haha. I got into that band around 97 I guess. They had made a first demo called ”Hellfuck” with a drum-machine and of course wanted a real drummer. Then we made a demo simply called ”Hellwar” and played a couple of gigs. And that was it. I also played in a band called Decapitate which was some kind of death metal. At this time I more and more started to sing in bands instead of playing drums.
Ronnie this year will be 10 years that you’ve released the Ronnie Ripper’s Private War “Socially Challenged” album. Where can the fans buy this album nowadays? Do you have some plans to continue your Private War in the future and/or prepare some bonuses for the 10th anniversary?
- Actually, it was released 1/1 2010 so it’s next year but yeah, you’re right! Damn, time really waits for no one! RRPW was never intended to be heard in public so the release was just a happy accident that somewhat gained some attention. This means that despite three live shows and all, this project has no solid plans ever. If there will be anything more is your guess as good as mine. I don’t think I will ever make new material for it but there is more done than the public has heard so maybe one day there will be another rattle from this old corpse, who knows…
Last year you’ve released a promo stuff on CD-Rs to give away for free to the fans at the Metal Magic Festival in Denmark. It included 4 tracks from the “Above Lords, Below Earth” material plus extra bonuses. Tell us more about this special release. How many copies you’ve spread at the festival and will it be ever released on vinyl or CD?
Ronnie: Yes, it has been tradition for us to bring something to our friends there so it was like the third or fourth CD-R we brought there. The bonuses were just failed outtakes of the songs featured there so it’s more humour than a collector’s item really. We gave out 100 copies and that’s it, no other releases of them as far as we know.
Freddie: . Well, that is something of a tradition we have. We make some special promos for MMF. Think we have done 3 or 4 by now. 100 copies each of every promo and they are strictly handed out as freebies at Metal Magic. So, Sorry but there will be no vinyl or CD-versions coming of those.
For the second half of this year I already see a gig booked in Burgas (Bulgaria). Will there be more turbo-live-shows in 2019? If so, please enlighten us more details as well as what kind of setlist will you perform at the upcoming Sea of Black Festival.
Ronnie: The Sea of Black gig is the last this year that we know of at the moment but there have been some talk about more coming up, we’ll have too about that though. We did a tour in Austria and Germany with Serbian Infest in May and we also played our release show at Heavy Agger in Denmark on top of that so we basically chewed off the gigs of the years already but we are always eager to get on the road so we’ll see what happens next.
Tell us more about your new excellent DIY Turbocharged video, called “Total Doom Aries”. How went your show in Bulgaria, Sea of Black Festival?
Ronnie: I've been trying to get the ball rolling for a couple of new videos for ages now but we have gotten nowhere and somewhere along the way we talked about trying to document this trip and make a roadmovie of it. However, as always, the drinking and chilling got the best of us so there was not much material for that and we used it all for an official video to a song instead. We shot the vocal part at the bar and the rest is what we brought home with us. It could be fun to have such a weird mix of a sunny beach, colorful drinks and stuff with the fastest song from the album so there you go, the video was a fact. The show went great, we did have some technical problems and the place was so big that the sound kept bouncing back at us but we pulled it off and people seemed to like it a lot. The festival was a great one and that always helps us delivering something worth remembering. All in all it was one of the best trips we did with the band so far.
Freddie: The Sea of black festival in Burgas was beyond great! We played the longest set-list we have ever played. We actually also had the headline slot at the festival as well and that was strange and a first for us. We also had a few days after the gig as vacation. More info about that is in the official video for “Total Doom Arise”…
Thanks a lot, Ronnie and Freddie! Best wishes to you with Turbocharged! At the end, please unleash an unholy deathpunk message to the readers.
Ronnie: -Thank you, brother, for showing interest in our little band! To everyone else I can only say that we are never slowing down and we hope to see you out there on the road one day! We need to put more pins in the world map so if you know someone who can book us, just pass it on! Stay metal!
Freddie: Thank YOU! A message… hmmm… let´s see… something smart…
Okay, here goes: Jazz, jazz, jazzguitar for few, Batman jazz!
Important links:
Nincsenek megjegyzések:
Megjegyzés küldése