01: I am totally unfamiliar with the Band's first two releases, so please explain the biggest differences between those two releases and the new one. It looks like they were less thrashy, true? The biggest difference are of course the new vocals. We think they are similar to old Kreator and Slayer, although some people say they'd sound hardcore like, which was never intended. Our old singer tried to sound like "Blitz" of Overkill, but didn't improve at one point. Another difference is the production, which is totally in our own hands now. We have all the time we need to get the sound we want, because we have a recording facility of our own. But you are right, we tend to write harder, thrashier stuff than in the early days, when our music was influenced by bands like Maiden and Priest more. 02: Are those first 2 CDs still available? I guess they were both released on the band's own label as well? How many copies of each release have been pressed and sold so far? 500 copies of the first MCD were pressed and we sold about 400. The rest was for promotion. It' not available anymore. The second CD ‚Tied' wasn't sold much. The most copies went to foreign countries, about 250. Many copies were used for promotion, so we only have a couple of CDs left. But it'd be worth waiting for our next release on Black Arrow Production (Germany), which is planned to be released at the end of the year. This fulltime CD will contain the best songs of ‚Tied' as well as all songs of the ‚Airraid' MCD and some new songs. This album will be distributed worldwide and should be available in most of the big record stores.  03: On the new MCD guitarist stefan fischer has taken over the lead vocals. Why did original shouter David leave the band? And did you try to find a new vocalist before deciding stefan was the best choice for the job? David had some private problems, so he said he wanted to begin completely new. That meant also to leave the band. But we are still friends and meet sometimes. We tried to find a new vocalist, but in the surroundings of munich there seem to be no thrash/metal singers anymore and the ones we've tried out were awfull.So we gave each one of the remaining band members a try on the microphone and Stefan, since he had done backing vocals all the time, had the most appropriate voice and we think his screaming style fits very good to our current music. 04: Would you say the german speed/thrash bands from the 80's were a major influence on the band in the beginning or were you guys also influenced by the US thrash movement of the 80ies, you know since there's almost no 90's thrash... We'd say that the biggest influence for us are the American speed metal bands like the old Megadeth, Metallica (it hurts), Overkill, Annihilator. But the german Kreator and the Swiss Coroner are also big faves. On the other hand we are not so much in the typical german speed metal like Helloween and Blind Guardian. 05: Another german (young) band which can be compared to you guys is Personal War also their sound is a bit more modern sounding (fat sounding guitars for instance), are you by any chance in touch with them? Would be a killer team to do a tour with? We don't know each other or the band's music but it surely might be interesting doing a tour with them. At the moment there seems to be something going on in the german underground again. That's a good sign. 06: If the Airraid MCD would have been released at the end of the eighties it would probably have been labelled something like hardcore-thrash metal, a label which nowadays is completely disappeared. How would you describe the band's sound if you had to describe it to someone who has never heard of the band before? Our sound comes definitely from the guitar. The most important thing for a good Armistice song is a good riff and this is always the beginning. Very important is also the groove and how the song works live, because we are a live band and no studio product like many bands nowadays. We also use to play fast, which has become very unfamiliar in the scene. So the old bay area sound of the late eighties is a good reference as well as Overkill and Annihilator. 07: It's quite obvious that a band like Armistice hails from germany, a country which has never given up on heavy metal in general, contrary to most of the rest of the world. How do you see the resurrected interest in metal these days, do you think it will ever get to be as popular again as it was a decay ago? It's not likely to become as big as it was, we are not dreaming on this. But it's sure that metal will never die (fuck you, Lars) and it will always rise from the ashes when it's said to be gone. Real metal always means love or hate and there's no other music you can identify with that way, since it's no matter of coolness anymore. 08: Your bios states that Armistice is a band without compromises, so it's save to say that we don't have to fear that someday you'll be pulling a metallica on us (changing your style, cutting your hair, start to look and act like a fag band and so on, hahaha...)? As long as we don't get blown tons of money up the arse, we surely will metal up our asses. We have no money left for stupid haircuts. And by the way, our music is everything else than cool and popular and we continue doing this for 6 years now so you can kick our asses when we'd became mad and play Britpop or whatever shit. 09: The coolest thing about metallica's change of direction came from Joey De Maio who said that for die-hard metalli-fans, the last couple of albums were the same thing as coming home and finding your wife in bed with another guys. Can you relate this statement. Not so bad, you can still kill both. I'd say it's more like coming home and your wife is telling you with a smile that her operation was a perfect success. She'd feel very comfortable in her new body and she wants to try out her new long, big dick on you. "... enjoy it, you've payed some bucks for this." 10: In the past the band managed to achieve a third place on the audience chart of a local cuban (!) radio station, how the hell did you manage this? In fact we were also very surprised of that. We never sent something to Cuba. Probably a fanzine has made a compilation tape and sent this around. It's quite cool that the underground scene is well organized and a lot of people are in contact. We are very happy about the support we get from the underground fanzines, so very heavy thanks to you and keep the faith. 11: It seems that the band is no stranger to live concerts and has been gigging heavily since its foundation back in 92. Name some of the bands you played with, some of your best, and worst gigs and so on... We often played with local bands, so there are not much well known names to present. We have played together with Reactor several times. They are friends of us. We've played some concerts with Third Degree, Inhuman, Shy Malice, Sophistication and Con-Fusion. These are great guys too. One of the best was at the Open Air in Pullach/Munich, where it rained and a heavy storm came up when we started to play. But the people staid and banged their head. We've played some cool gigs in Sachsen. The people there are really crazy. The worst gigs are of course those nearly without audience (3 to 5 fans), but these are fun too. 12: Have you ever been able to play gigs outside of germany as well? Are you trying to do so in support of the new MCD? Unfortunately we didn't manage to play outside of germany till now. We have a lot of places in germany where we still have to go to. Of course it would be fun to play in an other country, but the problem is to get 3 to 4 in sequence, as it's not possible to drive very far just for one concert. And we don't have enough connections to plan a tour through Belgium for example. 13: The average age of the band members is still quite young (22). So it is a bit surprising to see a bunch of youngsters play this type of old fashioned metal, any reactions here? Shouldn't you be playing stuff like machine head or Korn or something? (don't get mad, hahaha) Our average age is a little bit higher, but that doesn't matter. The thing is that we all are into metal for a long time. Stefan (Fischer) for example buys metal records since he was 11 years old. We've found our favorite music. All the trends don't catch our ears. 14: One of the songs on the new MCD is a Black Sabbath cover by why not simply release 5 new songs (old songs) instead of doing a sabbath cover, I mean with all the tribute albums which are being released on almost daily basis, the last thing I was waiting for was another cover version ... We wanted to play that song for a long time. But our former singer didn't like the vocal style of Ozzy. With Stefan on the microphone we've always played the song live. We found the song fits well to our own material and would make the ‚Airraid' MCD complete. It's true that there are too much of those tribute albums around, but does it matter? A lot of people like our version, it's meant as a bonus. 15: Alright then, I guess that about rounds it off. Anything you like to add to all of this? Typical last question type of stuff... Has someone found Costano's (bassplayer) right Doc Marten's boot, which he lost on the highway to Berlin? 16: Please list all available merchandise : shirts, CDs, tapes, etc... Make the prices out for europe/world... Airraid MCD - US $ 8 incl p+p (Europe), US $ 10 incl. p+p (world). At the end of the year: NEW fulltime CD distributed WORLDWIDE T-Shirts are sold out, wait for the next CD release For true fans: * used underwear of Pastore (drummer), special flavor!!! - US $ 10 incl. p+p (world) * tested condoms (don't rip) - free to each order!! * big black bugs from our rehearsal room (delicate!!) - US $ 100 incl. p+p (world)

Manfred Hockauf