Warhammer – Hammers From Hell
Hellhammer Left a lasting impression, though releasing just one formal EP, the band is considered as one of the forefathers of black metal. Germany's Warhammer are both a tribute band and the logical continuation of that legendary group. After 4 album, and 4 years of silence since their last release, the band is back in action, and we spoke with mainman Volker "Iron Lung" Frerich.
Hey Volker, my first question would have to be – what is the band doing these days?
Well, our guitar-player left us on the 2nd of January, so we're looking intensively for a replacement right now. We had to cancel some gigs because of the current situation, of course, this sucks bigtime! Other than that we're still trying to get more people interested in our website.
It's been 4 years since the release of Curse Of The Absolute Eclipse, why no releases since then?
This can be explained easily. During the studio recordings for "Curse of the absolute Eclipse", we had already decided to finish WARHAMMER. The reasons for that were numerous; there were a lot of arguments and disagreements in the band at that time, and it wasn't fun anymore. After I did the vocal-part for "Curse of the absolute Eclipse", it reached new dimensions in extremity, because I got into a fist-fight with Necros II! After that incident, WARHAMMER was buried for good finally! Or so I thought! Because years later I found out, while watching a WARHAMMER-live-video, that the fire was still burning inside of me, and I reincarnated WARHAMMER back from the dead!
Curse was released through Nuclear Blast records; do you still hold a contract with them?
We have no record label right now. But that doesn't bother us too much, because what's most important for us now, is to play live gigs! When we have a complete line-up again, more clubs and festivals are going to be destroyed!!
Have you been active in any other bands since?
No, after the fight with Necros II, I was so devastated, I didn't want to make music anymore. But as you can see, "never say never again"!
Some history, how did the band take form?
It all started, believe it or not, with Necros II playing guitar, me singing and a freaking drum computer! Back then, our name was TRIUMPH OF DEATH. Rolf Meyn, who's still beating the drums for us now, then decided to buy a drum set, and begin learning to play. We changed the name into WARHAMMER, recorded the demo tape "Towards the chapter of Chaos", which exploded like a bomb in the Metal Underground scene, and with our first live guitar-player (Rainer Filipiak) we began to destroy live stages!
Where did you sing before that?
I was in a Speed Metal-band called REST IN PEACE in the 80´s. We recorded one demotape "Frightening Visions", played a few live shows, but that was it. Other than that, nothing whatsoever.
How did the whole Hellhammer influence start out?
Necros II and I always loved HELLHAMMER. I got into many arguments with my Metal friends back in the 80´s, because of my intense love for HELLHAMMER. They always hated HELLHAMMER! I was the only one in my crew, who always defended the group! The same goes for Necros II. The idea was formed, because HELLHAMMER only recorded six songs in a studio ("Apocalyptic Raids" + REVELATIONS OF DOOM / MESSIAH, which were all recorded in the same session), the rest were demo-tapes. We wanted to create more music, that sounded this way, basically just for us, but then we found out, that there were many other maniacs, who liked our idea and approach!
Do you remember the first time you listened to Hellhammer and your thoughts about it?
Yeah, I thought, "these guys, they are coming straight from hell!!". They didn´t play too well and they didn´t had the best timing, but fuck it, it was raw, brutal, without the slightest compromise and it was something, that sounded like no other band around! And they had great lyrics: about the damnation of mankind, the world coming to an end and religious criticism. They simply blew me away!!
What is your take on Hellhammer's latter incarnation, Celtic Frost?
Well, I still can´t understand, why people often say, it´s one and the same band. It is clearly not! It´s totally different in fact! I love "Morbid Tales", "Emperor´s Return" and "To Mega Therion". But WARHAMMER has always been about HELLHAMMER, not CELTIC FROST! Comparing the two doesn´t make sense, just listen to the guitar sound, the song arrangements and everything else, it´s like comparing baseball with football!
Did you listen to their new album? What did you think about it?
I hate it! Nothing more to add…
As with Hellhammer, your lyrics contain a fair bit of Satanism, what interests you on the subject?
No, I never wrote about Satanism! I write about religious fanaticism, that is one of the biggest problems of mankind, about the end of the word, about dark places in man´s mind. I wrote a song against fascism ("The Realm of Torment"), one song about the movie APOCALYPSE NOW ("Devastation of Silent Resistance") and one or two Horror stories (for example "The Grave Hill"). Of course, "The Grave Hill" was also one of the band names HELLHAMMER had before (the other one was HAMMERHEAD). So this is also an inside joke.
I´m not interested in Satanism at all.
In what ways do you approach the lyrics of a song when writing?
The most important thing is the song title. When I have that, the words just flow out of me. For example, when I wrote "Imposters for all Times", I needed hours for the right title, and ten minutes for the whole lyrics! Sometimes I need longer, but then I´m mostly just cruising around a few words in specific. Right now, I´m working on a song trilogy about the TUNGUSKA region, where in 1908 something very strange happened, that is not clarified until now!
Hellhammer are considered as the originators of black metal, if so, in what genre would you put Warhammer?
I always describe WARHAMMER as Old School Death Metal. To me, old Black Metal is VENOM, BATHORY or TORMENTOR (Hungary). New Black Metal, of course, would then sound something like MARDUK, DARK FUNERAL, EMPEROR or IMMORTAL. So I rather stick to the term Death Metal, most times adding the "Old School".
Since the band is mostly considered as a kind of a tribute band, did you consider taking your music to a different direction in the future?
No, WARHAMMER will always sound like HELLHAMMER! When we have no more riffs like HELLHAMMER, and no booking agent will let us play live any longer, we will lay down the WARHAMMER-thing, and start something different. No compromise, no backing down, we still hold true to what we said, when we started this monster called WARHAMMER!!
What now? What does the future hold for you?
Hopefully we will find a new guitar player quick, so that we can continue destroying live stages and crushing poser fools! And then there´s still the idea to record new material, but that will take more time. We are in no hurry, regarding that topic, we first want to play more live shows and spread the message to more real metal-heads, that we are back! My personal dream would be, to play live in Japan!! Thanxx to you for this interview and for your interest in WARHAMMER! Keep up the good work! See you all in fucking hell!!!! If you want to, you can contact me through our site!
