MINOTAUR

Andi & Dave

Going deep into the realm of German Thrash underground, You'll sooner or later bump into Minotaur from Halstenbek outside Hamburg, Germany. They formed in the early days of the genre and they recorded a couple of demo tapes that led up to the release of their debut album Power of Darkness, which was released in 1988 an album that has been compared to the early works of Kreator. It took some time but Minotaur released an EP in 1993 but without the notorious frontman Andi Richwien.

After a break and a regrouping of the band Minotaur finally released a new album in 2009 God May Show You Mercy... We Will Not. Now in a couple of days Minotaur will release a new EP titled Beast of Nations. The band now consists of original members Andi and Joerg together with new bassist Dave.

Minotaur

We can begin with a small presentation of Minotaur...

Andi: MINOTAUR was formed back in 1983 by drummer Joerg and after a couple of months I joined the band on vocals and guitar.

During the beginning and early days we played with bands as: Rage, Risk, Messiah, Samael, Vendetta, Helstar, Torment, Emils, Erosion, Nihilist, Kazjurol, Happy Farm, etc, Great time by the way. After a couple of lineup changes we released three demos until we got the offer to release a track on the Rockhard sampler via Roadrunner Records called "Teutonic Invasion". After that we in 1986 we entered the studio to record our first demo "The Oath of Blood" which got pretty good reviews over European and it was also voted the seventh best demo in 1986 by the German "Rock Hard" fanzine.

Our first LP was limited to 2500 copies which were sold out after a few months. The “Power of Darkness” first real CD (not the bootleg from No colours though) was re-released via I HATE Records including four new recorded bonus tracks. It also included a cover of Def Leppards' Wasted. Our current line-up is: Dave on bass, Joerg on the drums and myself on guitar and vocals.

Your new EP Beast of Nations will be released in a few days. what can you tell us about it?

Andi:Yeah, first of all, we recorded four tracks with some help from Jan (Paragon) who'd helped us out on bass. The songs 27 Dead, Beast of Nations, Ignite Me and Skipping the Sin was the first songs Joerg and I wrote right after our latest album “God may Show you Mercy...We Will Not”. A good friend of ours who also owns a small recording studio here in the north of Hamburg were I use to live, made us a special offer to record the tracks. The mixing took place at Schrödey´s Absurd Studio which is also based here in Hamburg. We sent these four unmastered tracks to High Roller Records and Steffen, the owner liked it.

On his advice we mastered the songs with Patrick W. Engel at the Temple of Disharmony Studio. The new EP comes out on April, 22th via High Roller Records in Germany. Vinyl limited to 500 copies and MCD also limited to 500 copies, and both formats comes along with a special lyric sheet and a very cool cover done by Phil Lawvere. (Kreator, Celtic Frost) . We have a guest musician on two Songs of that EP which is my good buddy Wes Rhodes (ex-Dekapitator) from Sacramento, US.

Dave: As much as I can say the EP is a strong comeback for Minotaur. I've been a big fan for years and as I heard the EP for the first time I was thrilled by it. It's the same powerful Thrash Metal that Minotaur always played, even if the recordings sound quite clear and mixed well. No new-school Thrash elements are in the songs and I think it sounds evil and brutal as usual.

Beast of Nations

Let's go back in time, you recorded a couple of demos in 1986 and 1987, how was those days for the band?

Andi: It was 100% different compare to current days, as you can imagine. There was no facebook, band homepages or whatever- no internet at all. But we had these tape trading, though. The bands trades their stuff by post and instead of webzines we had underground fanzines which was mostly handwritten. Back in days it was more difficult to get gigs allthough there wasn't so many bands around like these days.

I've heard that you were offered a deal with Roadrunner Records, what happened to that deal?

Andi: Yep, this was by far the biggest crap I´ve ever seen in my whole life. This “contract” was more like a oppressive contract to be honest. I know that a couple from the bands from the Teutonic Invasions sampler signed that contract and after a year or so they had split up and you never heard anything from them again. As far as I know Mr Wessels from Roadrunner Records had a deal with the guys from the Rockhard magazine. Both sides offered us a “deal” which was as I mentioned before, more than odd. We turned it down and it was unnessessary to contact a attorney to look over this crap.

You album debuted in 1988 with Power of Darkness. What do you think of it in retrospect?

Andi: I still like the energy and brutality of the release. The album is pure aggression. Most of the songs are still in our live set, like Fall of the Gods, Incubus, Maggots in my Body, Necromancer, Fierce Fight and The Power of Darkness. The cover...well, that wasn´t our idea. Unfortunally it's not the cover from the demo with the same name, which was made by Nonos from the french band Mutilated.

Power of Darkness

Is it correct that the album was limited to 2500 copies? Why wasn't there more albums pressed when the copies sold out so fast?

Andi: Actually, it was originally our third demo. A record company from Switzerland asked us if we wanted to release a LP with some bonus songs. The orginal Power of Darkness demo (Demo no.3) contains eight tracks including the Intro and that was a litte bit to short for the Record company. Crazy Records from Switzerland asked us if we had some more tracks to add . So we added the “bonus" tracks Planed Head and Savage Aggressions from our second demo to get a full length album.

You opened up for Sodom in the eighties, how was it to do shows with them?

Andi:Actaully we opened up two times for Sodom. The first Gig with them was in Sargans / Switzerland and the second was at a new years eve party close to Osnabrück together with Holy Moses and of course Sodom. We had similar crowds so... yeah, both Gigs with them went very well.

In 1993 you released the Welcome To... EP, why did it take so long to get another album out? Was there still any thrash fans in Germany in 1993?

Andi: Well, this “Welcome to...”EP isn´t really `TAUR to me. Joerg (drums) used my short break from the band and recorded some old and new songs we were working on in the nineties with some random guys. The last song we practiced together before my break was Wish You Were Dead.

Did you disband after the Welcome To... EP or what happened in late half of the nineties?

Andi: Disband? Hell, no ! A break doesn´t mean that we split up, y´know. Right after the release of the “Welcome to...” EP we spent a lot time searching for a decent rehearsal room again and this is more than a pain in the ass in Hamburg, I can tell you that. We started writing new songs and after we finally found a new bass player, we played a lot of shows in and around Europe.

Your music is often compared to the music of Kreator. What do you think of them, are they a source of inspiration?

Andi: Hmm, I don´t think so. The vocals maybe sound similar but the music itself? No way! A good friend of mine is a huge Kreator supporter and that's why I followed Kreator's career over the years.

In 2009 your comeback album God May Show You Mercy... We Will Not was released. Are you satisfied with the album and the reviews it received?

Andi: I won´t say it's a comeback album, and yes, I love that album. If somebody mentions "Comeback Album" it always sounds like we had split up and that's not the truth.

With Power of Darkness, we still play a lot of songs from that Album. My favourite tracks are Rather Die, Cannonball Fire and Into Oblivion which is still an unusual Song for `TAUR. I remember that after we had picked ten songs for God May Show You Mercy... We Will Not we immediately contacted our past producer Joszi who still owns a small but fine studio in Elmshorn close to Hamburg.

Dave: I first heard the album in 2010 and it's a favorite album of mine. Songs like "Cannonball Fire" and "Into Oblivion" are tight as fuck. I really love the mix of this album and the guitar sound. Really dirty Thrash Metal straight from the eighties. So even if I did nothing on this album, I'm really satisfied and proud to be part of the Band.

What bands were you influenced by?

Andi: We grow up with the entire NWoBHM stuff, so you can say that a lot of these bands inspired and influenced us mainly.

Dave: Like a good friend of mine used to say, I play the bass like it was an ordinary guitar, so you could say that Cliff Burton is a big influence on my style of playing the bass. While I'm quite new to the band, I wasn't involved in the songwriting yet, but I think that Andi, Joerg and I can write great songs in future. In my former bands I was the main song-writer, so I think the new songs will be slightly influenced by me.

What's the highlight of your career?

Andi: Hard to say.... the Mexican tour was very, very cool and we would love to come back one day. I'm in that lucky position to say that most Gigs and Tours were great and lots of fun. We met a lot of cool people and bands on the road and who knows, maybe one day we can make it to South America. We surely know that we´ve got a huge fanbase in South America.

Have you got any funny story to tell, if anything weird has happened while touring or so?

Andi:Man, I could write a book about all the funny things that happened on tour. All these funny, sad, hilarious and wet stories that happened to us during the late eighties and nineties. I won´t go into the details just to protect the innocent, y´know... but hey, maybe one day I should write a MINOTAUR book, without any boundaries.

Any last words for our readers?

Andi: thanks for the interview, Jim !

Dave: Stay tuned and look up our facebook page. I think in some time we can announce the first live gigs! Hope to see you there! Thrash on.

Andi: Also a big “Thank you” to all all our die-hard supporters, be with the `TAUR and visit us

at:

www.minotaur-thrashers.com

/Ruthless

(19-04-2016)