EMQ’s With Blast Bomb
EMQ’s With Blast Bomb
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with German Hardcore Punk band, Blast Bomb. Huge thanks to frontman, Johnny, for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Blast Bomb is a band that is 20+ years in the making. Torben, Tobi, Klaus and our old bassist had been friends since school, and after years of talking shit about joining a band together they finally did it! But they needed a frontman and that’s where I come in! New to Germany and looking for some Rock ‘n’ Roll.
In the beginning the band wanted to be a Stoner Rock band but once we started writing it became very clear that was not going to happen!
We have been blessed to play with some fantastic bands over the years, the highlight was being invited to support Life of Agony and Doyle from the Misfits! The Pandemic did us no favours as in 2020 we were really hitting our stride, we had just done a UK tour and had shows booked in some iconic venues including a show for FC st Pauli HOWEVER it did improve our writing! We had time to really break down our songs working on our sound, trying to not be the standard Punk Rock band and to offer a few other elements of our influences. In the beginning it was a little confusing but now I would say we have the right recipe and since our new bassist Robin joined, the jigsaw came together our last release “Rock’n’Roll Junkie” really paved the way and with our new project called ‘Explosive Sounds’ you can really hear the results of not rushing!
How did you come up with your band name?
Really easily from what I remember, when I joined I was seeing the Blast Bomb Project written over everything and the group chat had something about an 8bit bomb…. so we just made it smaller and more catchy hence Blast Bomb.
What Country / Region are you from and what is the Metal / Rock scene like there?
We are based in a small town just outside Hamburg in Germany called Elmshorn and I’m origonally from Birmingham in the UK. Elmshorn actully has a very cool scene of bands, with many genres from Ska and Rockabilly to Death Metal. Sadly there was nowhere to play so we neeed to venture into Hamburg. Actually, we had a fantastic venue in an old Cinema called Apollo, sadly it closed down. Alongside other bands we are fighting to get it re-opened and active. Our town needs this venue! We are not getting any younger and where is the next generation going to play?
What is your latest release?
Our current single ’21:47′ was released last week with a music video to accompany it. It’s a riff filled roller coaster that perfectly demonstates what we are all about. It was written about 3 hours after the birth of my son. I was tired and emotional and I just jotted down my thoughts and to be honest the lyrics recorded were the same with very limited edits. What’s cool about this is while we were recording, my son came to visit me. I thought I would show him the vocal booth and let him hear his voice through headphones and not to my knowledge Timo, our producer, had hit record! So fast forward to hearing the first mix and there is my boy… Laughing at the end of the song! It was quite emotional.
Then to top it off the song was sent to Abbey Road Studios in London to get mastered, so not only has my voice, but my son’s voice been run through the desk and speakers of the most famous studio in the world! Now that’s something I won’t forget in a hurry.
Who have been your greatest influences?
As a band our influences are vast. It’s really cool when we get together to hang out because the playlist flows through many genres from Jazz to Metal and everything in between! But the music that bonds us is Punk Rock/Scandi Rock. We love bands such as Turbonegro, Gluecifer, The Good The Bad and Zugley and our heroes in Smoke Blow from Kiel.
What first got you into music?
I’ll answer this one personally but it was my Father’s taste, David Bowie, Pink Floyd both who I still love but his favourite and still my favorite is The Beatles. That will never change. Coming from Birmingham I also adore Black Sabbath.
When I first decided to make music it was in the era of Ozzfest, I remember going to Ozzfest ‘01 in Milton Keynes and seeing Sabbath with so many top early 2000 bands like Slipknot,Tool, Mudvayne, Soulfly but the one that made me say “ok this is what I want to do” was seeing Amen, they were fronted by a guy called Casey Chaos and he was just a hurricaine of noise, aggression and passion.
From them I discovered bands like Snot, Turbonegro, Living End and that’s when I realised that you can mix genres and that’s what I continued to do throughout my life as a musican. I mean again that’s also what Bowie, Pink Floyd and The Beatles did also so I guess it was no suprise I took this direction!
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
Oh I would love to collab with Sir Paul but I guess that’s a little unrealitic haha! Also unrealistic but a band like Kveletalk or The Living End.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
As a Brit I would say Download festivsal or Rebellion Festival but Wacken is also an unbelevable festival. Also, Mighty Sounds in Czech and Sjock festival in Belguim would be amazing.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
A Potato… I have no idea why he thought I needed one!
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
It would be to just keep on supporting the underdogs! We are going into a new era post-covid where venues can’t afford to lose money anymore and bands are getting ripped off with streaming rights and stung bigtime on high shipping rates.
So if you like a band at our level, please buy your concert tickets in advance and when you are there buy a shirt, CD, or Vinyl. This helps keep us and many other bands both above and below our level going… We also don’t charge 45 Euro for a shirt!
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Oh easy, John Lennon. We need him in this current world.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
I love playing live, that energy is unbelevable. Earlier this year we played our first pretty much sold out headliner and it was really electric. The crowd singing along, dancing, being nice to one another. It was a welcome release.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
Streaming sites!!!! 0.000000021 cent for a stream… Fuck off man that’s horrible and now they want to not pay until we hit 1000 streams! But here’s the dirty secret. We need to be on there. So people can check us out! It’s a lose/lose for bands at our level.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
My favorite albums of all time are The Beatles – “Abbey Road” and Pink Floyd – “Dark Side of the Moon” but maybe not the best answer for a metal magazine! So outside of them, “Get Some” by Snot is one hell of a record, as is “We Have Come For Your Parents” by Amen. Both albums have so many crossovers, it’s just pure entertainment friom start to finish.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
Vinyl! But sometimes for my Progressive releases I order the Blu-Rays with the perfect mixes on. Tool for example work so much better in these Blu Ray mixes. But for Punk Rock, vinyl just sounds better. Our last EP “Rock’N’Roll Junkie” is still on sale on beautiful 10” Transparenmt Red Vinyl! (Sales Pitch hahah).
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
Our headliner at the Indra Club earlier this year, the first place The Beatles played in Hamburg, it was electric. We fed off the energy of the room and really delivered our best show. But playing a big stage with Life of Agony was also fantastic! Oh, and supporting Japanese Rockers Electric Eel Shock on their 25 year anniversary tour… That was fantastic!
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Well unfortunatly Rock’N’Roll is not my full time job so outside of that world I teach children English! That’s right, in one district of Hamburg there are children walking around speaking English with Brummie accents… poor kids!
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
OH that would be easy. These peopple, they are all so open minded musically that I can imagine the stories being fantastic:
Steven Wilson from Pircipine Tree
Paul McCartney
Little Steven (From the E Street Band)
Chris Cheeny (From The Living End)
Corey Taylor (From Slipknot)
What’s next for the band?
So right now it’s promoting our new project the best we can! We have five singles coming out over the next year with a package at the end entitled ‘Explosive Sounds’. We are taking our Explosive Sounds on the road starting 9th of December where we do a joint headliner at Molotow in Hamburg with Ska Punkers The Surfits. Plus with a few Festivals already confirmed I am very excited to see what comes next!
What Social Media / Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
We are on all good sites, if you head to www.blastbomb.de you can find all our socails, latest singles, ticket links and merch. If you order something from us please include the name of this site in the comments and we will send you something extra as a gift!
Time for a very British question now. As an alternative to the humble sandwich, is the correct name for a round piece of bread common in the UK either a Bap, a Barm (or Barm Cake), a Batch, a Bun, a Cob, a Muffin, a Roll or a Tea Cake?
Hahaha man I wish one of my German band mates was answering this question as I would have to translate it for them and they would still not get it! But to answer your question, it’s a Bap! But my mother used to call it a Cob… But I go with Bap!
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Thank you very much for a very entertaining interview and to the people reading this.
Please remember your favourite band started somewhere dark, dirty and dingy. If you have no plans this weekend get into your local bar/venue and see some underground music… you never know you may find your new favorite band!
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