0.Short history of band(when were you formed, were are you from....) ?
We were formed "Under the Influence" of "Iron on Iron" between some "Hammer and the Anvil"...but now for something completely different: BOOMERANG was formed in 1996 when a local thrash metal band called Arcus split up. Stefan Zobel, (guitars) Thomas Fahrnbach(guitars, vocals) and Axel Johann (vocals) decided to stay together and form a new band called BOOMERANG, which should be a bit more on melodic stuff than Arcus was. Soon they found Christian Katzer (bass) who brought his friend Andres Reichard (drums) into the band. This line up stayed up to day. All of us are from the southwest of germany, the area around Ludwigshafen/Mannheim near the River Rhine.
1.Hi,first say something to readers of EXTREMERON ZINE......
Hello, this is the second interview outside Germany for us, so we are very honoured that even people from foreign countries took an interest in our music. It is our major interest to support and get supported by foreign metal zines and keep in touch with the metal scene abroad, because a lot of bands make the mistake to concentrate only on germany, forgetting, that there are a huge lot of metal fans everywhere in the world. It is pretty exciting for us to recieve orders or e-mails from Norway, Malaysia and all around the world. To be honest, up to now, I haven’t heard much of the yugoslawian scene, but I hope you will change that by telling me your impression of it.....
2.Can you introduce us to band members of Boomerang ?
Well, I start with the vocals: Axel Johann is studying biology, older than he looks and widely renowned for really heavy stagediving during the soundcheck. Due to his alturistic patterns of behavior, he avoids to be caught by someone. Second: Thomas Fahrnbach, the guitarwizard and responsible for the high, shrieking vocal parts, he works for a company in Frankenthal and does most of the songwriting. He has a thousand tales to tell-everyone of unimaginable boredom, hehe. Third, Stefan Zobel, second guitarist and rumors tell that he moved on stage ! A lot of people refuse to believe that. Fourth: Christian Katzer on the bass guitar and blond wig, and last, not least The Drummer, Andy Reichard-some say his style is influenced by The Animal from The Muppet Show.
3.Before this band did any of you played in some other band and do you still play in some other band or project?
Currently, only Andreas plays in a kind of dancing music in a band for money, the others had one gig on a pop-music contest as guest musician, but there are no "real" side-projects. Ah, Before Arcus, Axel played in a crappy Punkband called "Leberkrampf"
4.Something about your music taste, what do you listen, which band/musicians have influenced your band?
Well, Thomas is a big Judas Priest and Anthrax fan, but I think, that’s not a major influence for Boomerangs music, it’s not a guideline for his riffs. All are a lot into Metal, Andreas likes modern stuff like Machine Head or Fear Factory, Stefan old german metal like Rage, or 70s Rock Bands. Axel prefers Cradle of Filth or some Death Metal stuff, Christian also likes good old Power metal like Exciter. But it is hard to tell which is a "major" influence, it is just about to get a good mixture and add your own approach to music. When some guys from a band only because they are all into Manowar, mostly it results in a crappy copy. You can’t reach the originals, so you have to go your own way. I think, thats what makes Boomerang a bit hard to descibe-noone cares if a certain riff fits "for BOOMERANG" if ist a good one it will be taken, if it’s weak, it gets dumped.
5.Your discography since the beginning and can you describe us your latest material ?
In 1999 a demo was recorded, the one you have now. It was originally not meant to be released, but some people who listened to it, encouraged us to release it on CD-R as a official demo. Still, we dont like the sound, though ist a good production compared to the price. There are also some flaws on the recording, it was not a professional recording session. But now we are going to release a full length CD, 8 tracks, title "The mourning sun" which will be recorded by a experienced engineer on high grade equipment. Only one song from the demo will be rerecorded, The cold one ! We have more than 20 songs now, so we chose to record some new, yet unheard material, because it’s more interesting for us and for the fans. This CD is going to be released in November, the recording of the drumtracks will be done during I ‘m writing those lines. And in winter 01 we will release a seven inch with an ecxlusive track. On B-side we will feature another interesting band from outside germany. This item will be limited to 400 copys and is considered to be a collectors item soon.
6.Favorite beer and movie?
Favourite beer is the next beer available, as long as it is cold and sparkling, hehe. Ah, wait, Eichbaum is a really disgusting one. All other types come in handy in every situation. Favourite movie: There are a whole lot such as "this is Spinal Tap", "Rodgau melodies", "Fluchtpunkt Dudenhofen", all kinds of stupid action movies and Conan, the bavarian....er, the barbarian ! And Aliens 2.
7.What else do you do except playing music, do you have job or something?
As i said above, three students, two hard working guys. Axel does also some Roleplaying games like AD&D in his spare time. Hunting imaginary dragons through imaginary dungeons, drinking imaginary beer and get really drunk, hehe.
8.Interesting name, who came up with an idea and did you change the name since the beginning, also can you explain us what does it means?
Axel came up with the name after the Arcus split. He said, no matter how often we were thrown away, we will always come back- like a boomerang ! No he refuses to take the guilt for that name, but it’s here and it will stay.
9.Lyrics?Do they reflect your way of thinking, your ideas and your personal attitude? Are you religious???
Yes, but it’s not a very pathetic thing, the lyrics should be as artistic as possible, though it’s a vitally important part of the whole song, but it is not meant as a manifesto of our beliefs. In our opinion, the perfect lyric is a well crafted, intelligent and artistic composition of words, like a tune is a composition of sounds. In some lyrics Thomas’ feelings and ideas are reflected, othrs are pure fiction-they were taken as they come. Noone in the band is very religious, some even reject every kind of religion, but thats an individual decision everyone has to make for himself. We once planned to cover a song from Stryper as a bonustrack for an Afghanistan edition of the new album-that’b be a real cracker for the Taliban, haha.
10.How is today's situation in your local underground scene ? Does people support the underground music, do they come to concerts....Do you wish to mention some of your local underground bands ?? Is your town/city a good place for metal and punk kids, do you have some cafe's and similar places where you can go out and listen your favourite music?
Uff, a whole bunch of question, I go and fetch some food first, this may take a time, hehe.....The support is not bad, no comparison to the earlier days, but in several regions, people built up a new scene since the big crunch during the early 90s. But there is simply too much around, big tours, underground gigs, thousands of bands, magazines so that it becomes really difficult to keep the surview. In our area, a lot of people work together and made a scene, a lot can envy us of: The Warriors of Steel heavy Metal Fan-Club does a great job organizing underground gigs visited by 300-500 people. We have a regular day in a local disco called "Climax" where some guys play old metal classics, a lot of partys and really great bands such as Purify or Brightness who both play a speedy kind of old-school thrash metal with really great songs. Also great guys and good friends. We have Revenge Productions, a small death/grind label, whose boss organizes the infamos "Death Fest", which is a hell of a party, but in other regions it looks worse. Hamburg, for example is virtually metal-free. Bands like Eminenz play there for 30 people-auditions ! The biggest problems are the fuckin nazi scums, who tried to infiltrate the metal scene ! A big fuckoff to those bastards. No real Metalhead will tolerate them !
11.Your favourite PORNO MOVIE star???
Gina Wild, She even has our demo CD !!!!
12.What do you think about today's metal music and bands such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, Slipknot, and which metal do you prefer metal of the 80's or 90's?
80 s, no question ! That was the golden age. No new stuff can match the beauty, the aggression, the timeless power of Bands like Anthrax, Griffin, Helloweeen, Rigor Mortis, Slayers first 3 albums, Manowar, Gamma Ray, Metal Church, Agent Steel, Exciter, Destruction to name but a few....the new stuff is not my cup of tea. Too much rap vocals, too much effort in sound, too little in songwriting. I dont like stuff like Korn or Limp Bizkit. In my opinion it has no soul, no feeling.....
13.Do you know some Yugoslavian underground band??? If you had opportunity would you like to play in our country?
No, unfortunately I dont know any Yugoslawian band. But it would be cool if you could recommend me some, concerning eastern stuff I know bands from Poland, Czech republik, Hungary, virtually all over the world like Malaysia, Japan, South America but nothing from Yugoslawia. Thats a flaw I should erase. When it comes to touring, we are very glad if someone could do something for us-unfortunately we not much time due to the job, so we only played several gigs in south and soutwest Germany so far, but we would really love to play Yugoslawia. These small meatballs you make there are really tasty.....hehe
14.If you had an opportunity to interview Brittany Spears which 3 questions would you ask her???
I have only one for her: Would you mind sucking my dick ?
15.Did I miss some question?
Why the fuck is Axel the sexiest man in the world ?
16.Your gigs, how often do you play live, do you have some special act on stage, what was your best gig and what is the biggest number of people that came on your concert? Do you plan some kind oftour?? Does bigger bands supports you and call you to play with them together on their tours?
We try to play an average of 10-20 gigs per year, but we haven’t had some special showcase. Ah, well Stefan uses to move sometimes. Thats very special, at least for him, hehe. Besides that there is only a little violence and spilling of blood, not extraordinary, really....Once, there was a gig in Heidelberg, when Axel was hit by Thomas’ guitar on the forehead while he was headbanging. It was really a mess with all that blood flowing from that wound, but he finished the set and the people really went crazy, but we don’t do that too often, Axel has not enough blood for that kind of show. I think that was one of the best gigs ever. Cool performance and only little mistakes. We had not yet the honour to support bigger bands, but we are working on a gig with Grave Digger. That would be cool. Right now we play two dates with Krabathor, which is the biggest band up to date we could share the stage with. Unfortunately we don’t have enough time to play a real full-scale tour through all big cities, but at least we will play an open air festival next year in Stavenhagen (near Rostock). Perhaps, if everything works out really well, we might also be on Summer Breeze Festival, but thats more a wish than real hope.
17.You home address ,e-mail and address of your home page so people who are interesting could contact you:
For ordering or everything else write to:
Stefan Zobel
Hildenbrandstrasse 15
67227 Frankenthal
Germany
stefan@der-bierfreund.de or check www.boomerang-metal.de
18.And here comes the end of an interview, so the closing words are all yours.....
It was an honour and a lot of fun to answer such an interesting interview, thanks to you, Ivan ! I hope we see each other on tour somewhere. And let the world know that in Yugoslawia are a lot of HEADBANGERS ! Stay Metal, and don’t submit yourself to shitty trends! stay true to yourself !