Terrorgruppe interview: Terrorgruppe are a brilliant German punk band & I feel really honoured to have gotten my questions answered via e-mail by Terrorgruppe's guitarist, Johnny Bottrop. Thanx so much! And everyone should go buy some Terrorgruppe immediately! They're awesome!!!! -Mikki 11/02

Johnny Bottrop: No, absolutely not planned...the funny thing was that we immediatly found a rehearsal space (under the roof of the house I used to live). Rehearsal places are really rare right now in Berlin. So we could start quickly and learn songs right from the start and had a little live-set after 2 weeks.

DML: What bands have you all been in previously?

JB: Please read details in our website www.terrorgruppe.com (info/history), to name a few: Inferno, Hostages of Ayatollah, Vellocet, Happy Hour, Testers, Sick Pleasure, Lunatics, Scott Free ... ... ...

DML: Do any of you have any side projects? If so, what are they?

JB: Hehe, our side-projects are surfing, diving, skating, snow-boarding etc...whenever we have a little time and money for a short holiday, which is not very often. Other side projects: making sex without making babies, power-drinking and bullshit-rapping... and our drummer sometimes plays with other groups like "Mad Sin" f.e.

DML: What influences drove you to create music, musically & otherwise?

JB: All early punk-records and early punk-shows in Germany: bands like KFC, Abwärts, ZK, Razors, Male, Der Moderne Man, Hans A Plast,...before that none of us (except) Steve had ever had any interest in "musicianship", "musical instruments" or "writing songs"

DML: How are your songs usually written?

JB: Mostly first lyric, then music...one comes with a lyric, the others help to finish the words, then "the author" explains his vague idea how the song should sound like, then we start to play the song in very rough version and then we try to play it better and better by repeating it again and again...

DML: How did you first start releasing music & what have you changed since the beginning?

JB: Since that time studio technology has become much better and much cheaper, because of all that digital recording technology, we can spare much time by working digital, everything's really easy and affordable. In the 80ties, when our first bands released records, everything was really more complicated and much slower, not just in the studio but also with pressing-plants and cover-printers.

DML: Any chance a live video will be released to complement the release of your sort of new "Blechdose" CD?

JB: Yes, we are working on it! But it won`t be a simple live-show but live-scenes, clips, interviews of 10 years plus some guest-stars like some German famous commedian or bands we toured with in the past...

DML: What exactly was your involvement with the "Oi!Warning" movie?

JB: Both directors of the movie asked us at a show in Hamburg for our contribution, we watched the rough version of the movie and started to like it, we wrote the song a couple of days later, really quick...

DML: "Nazis im Haus" *sounds* to me like something that would be a huge punk hit... but that's from an American standpoint. What IS your most popular song?

JB: Yes, it`s one of our hits, the others are "Wir Müssen Raus", "Stay Away From the Good Guys", "Schöner Strand", "Der Rhein ist tot", "Keiner hilft Euch" and always "Tresenlied", I cannot tell which one is "more" popular.

DML: I was going to ask why you chose the songs you did for Besonic. I just noticed, however, that only one song remains! Why is that? And why did "My Dick is my Religion" get a parental advisory when the song remaining, "Make Sex not Love" doesn't?

JB: I have no idea why they censor or don`t censor certain songs.

DML: Have you ever been arrested because of antics during a show? Or for other band related incidents?

JB: No, never because of any band related incidents, but for others reasons like drug-posession, staying in a squat etc...

DML: What was your most memorable show & why?

JB: I really cannot say, we played on the Deconstruction-tour in London in front of 12.000 people: the biggest punk-festival ever in Europe, we played other even bigger "rock-festivals"...but probably some of the small club shows are more worth to remember: many many many crazy incidents, I cannot write down here. I have to write a book about it...

DML: Could you tell us something about the punk scene there? Maybe what is great about it but also what would make it better?

JB: A really complex question...there`s not one punk-scene here in Berlin or in Germany, but 7 or 8 different scenes: SE-HC, Crusties, Skate-kids, Oi-Punks, Garage RnR-Greasers, Glam&Trash-punkers, Power-poppers...everykind of music style has it`s own scene...I think all these scenes come along with other scenes quite good, probably there`s not much in common between Crusties and stylish Garage Rock`n`Rollers, not much similarities between Skater-kids and Oi-Punkers, and a complete different perspective of life between SE-HC kids and Glam&Trash punkers, but people try to respect the other scenes, except one (of course): nazi-skinheads, those idiots have nothing to do with any of our scenes!

DML: What do you guys do when not making music/touring/usw...?

JB: We write new songs, produce new albums or singles, I release records once in while on destiny records, Archi produces other bands, Maschine is a DJ for any kind of Rock`n`Roll, Punk and Alternative-Music, Slash doesn´t do anything at all.

DML: I think all you German punks should get together for a "Blitzkrieg on Amerika" tour & give us all some music lessons! What do you think about that?

JB: That would be funny, but do we have chances to get papers and permits with names like Terrorgruppe, Scattergun, Hass or Molotov Soda ???? I think that many American bands have really good records and stage performance but their lyrics and their attitude are lacking a little bit of that pure punk "fuck all of you, we don`t care"-feeling, making jokes about everyone incl. yourself. Probably because the USA are more "puritan" about every issue (???)

DML: Ok, that Blitzkreig on Amerika is not so likely... what can we really expect in the future?

JB: We will release an album with 100% English songs and then tour England and hopefully the States...the album will be released around next September!??!

DML: The generic question, one we ask everyone: What is your favorite band & album?

JB: Cannot mention just only one name, to many good bands and albums: Ramones, Radio Birdman, MC5, Buzzcocks, Specials, Sex Pistols, Clash, Beatles, Iggy Pop, Music Machine, Rodney On The Roq- and Flipside-Compilations... all of them are my faves once in a week...cannot tell which one is my fave...

DML: Anything you'd like to add?

JB: Yes, watch out for our in English album in the second half of next year! Check out website www.terrorgruppe.com! Make Sex not Love! Tell Terrorgruppe to fuck off and start an own band! Fuck George W! And Dick Cheney! And Donald Rumsfeld! And all ugly muslim-hippies!

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