By Carl Begai

When Sodom released the Lords Of Depravity DVD in 2005 people were forced to do a headcheck. The band took everyone off guard by turning out a documentary of cinematic proportions, tracing Sodom’s thrash history from their humble beginnings in 1981 to its hiatus in 1995, leaving no stone unturned. Press and fans saw frontman / founder Tom Angelripper – Germany’s answer to Motörhead legend Lemmy – in a much different light given the scope and depth of the production. His greasy, long-haired, party hard elder thrash statesman persona was still intact, but for many the DVD’s attention to detail and the level of intelligence propping it up were completely unexpected. It proved beyond any doubt that, like Mr. Kilmister, underestimating Angelripper was a remarkably foolish thing to do.

No surprise, then, that Angelripper made good on his promise to deliver Lords Of Depravity Part 2. A little later than planned, perhaps, but no less epic than the first go round.

“Some people are surprised that we actually did a Part 2, but the second DVD was planned two or three years ago” says Angelripper. “The record company (SPV) had problems with insolvency so it took us some extra time to get it finished, but I told them I wanted to release it now because I need my mind free for the next album, which we’re working on now. I wanted to be able to look forward. The last six months before the release of the DVD, I went to Berlin every week to do the editing with the producer. The most work was to go through the material and collect all the stuff we could use, which was taken from hundreds of tapes. My part was to put it in chronological order. I’m so glad we’re finished, and I’m really happy with the interviews with the other guys talking about their part in Sodom. Now the history is complete.”
“It was fun to do because it brought back a lot of memories. When we did the first DVD it was like sitting in a time machine and going back to the ‘80s. Contacting the old Sodom members to do interviews and get material, it was crazy. But, Sodom is a band with a long history and it was my dream to make a DVD like this. I didn’t want to do an interview in the back of a club someplace talking about Sodom’s history for 20 minutes, I wanted to make a real documentary and that’s what we did.”

Angelripper is characteristically blunt and honest in recounting Sodom’s past - 1995 to the present this time out - and putting it on film, including his inability to remember key events…

“We focus on the tours and things that went on backstage. People say ‘Oh, you’ve been to South America; it’s wonderful there.’ It’s not wonderful in South America. The fans are great and the shows are great, but everything that happens behind that stuff isn’t pretty. It’s real life, it’s real rock n’ roll. We don’t have stories about girls or drugs because we don’t have groupies and we don’t take drugs, so what can we talk about? We’re just metal fans making music.”
“When I was doing my interview for the new DVD, Ronny would say, ‘Okay, in 2006 you played in South America and in Greece and in Turkey; talk about that.’ I couldn’t remember that stuff (laughs). I can’t remember what we did in ’84 when we were in the studio. We’ve done so many shows over the last several years and I’m getting older, I forget everything (laughs). I had to ask Bobby (Shottkowski / drums) about those things, like what the hell we did in 2003, so that we could put things in chronological order.”

Both Lords Of Depravity DVDs were made on a shoestring budget, but Angelripper saw it through to the end in the interest of the Sodom fans rather than his wallet. Director / producer Ronald Matthes was on board every step of the way.

“Ronny didn’t do the DVD for commercial success. He spent more money on doing it than what he got from the record company. I think he’d like to have more bands come to him for doing a documentary like Lords Of Depravity. It’s very low budget because we’re not a band like Iron Maiden, but I received a lot of mails from fans after the first DVD saying that no band had ever given 100% for something like a DVD before. We had to give them the same thing on the second DVD, but we had to think about how we could make it interesting because one of the main things on Part 1 was all the line-up changes. That was really interesting. There are no line-up changes in Sodom in Part 2, so what could we do?”
“I think the first DVD was easier to make because we had more material to use and more ideas. We were afraid that Part 2 would be boring because I thought that nothing special happened in that time from. That wasn’t true at all; it was very interesting. We went to South America, we played in Thailand and Asia, and it turns out a lot of fans really like seeing and hearing about that stuff. Some of them like the new DVD better than the first one.”

The fans have always been and will continue to be Angelripper’s focus regardless of whether he’s working with Sodom or his Onkel Tom and Die Knappen side projects. As far as he’s concerned, without that connection making music would be pointless.

“Since the release of the first DVD we’ve gotten more respect from the press and the fans,” Angelripper confirms.”But, the fans know that we’re just like them; we’re just making the music as well. And we always give back to the fans, doing signing sessions and talking to them after the shows. That’s what the people like. I know a lot of bands that go home after the show, go back the hotel or the bus, and the fans never get a chance to have contact with them. We want that contact, which is why we do this.”
“There’s a new generation of metal fans out there,” he continues. “I’ve noticed there 15-year old boys and girls coming to Sodom shows these days, and that’s great. I always try to talk with them, and I notice they’re really into this old school heavy metal even though there’s all kinds of new, younger modern metal or hard core bands coming up all the time. That’s fantastic for us and for metal. They know that Sodom represents thrash metal music, and thrash has always been about doing what you want. That’s always been the spirit of Sodom.”

With the Lords Of Depravity saga out of the way for the time being – Angelripper has hinted at a third installment – the focus is on a new Sodom album. Currently in production, a release is planned for the end of the year.

“I think the new album will be a lot different from the last one,” Angelripper offers. “The last Sodom album (2006) was great but the production was… I can’t really explain why it bothers me. This time we have a producer, Waldemar Sorychta, who is like the fourth member of Sodom. He’s going to work with each of us individually. I don’t like the digital recordings where one band sounds like the next. Sodom has its own style. It’s like listening to an old Venom; you just hear one guitar and you know it’s them. We want to have a modern production but in an old school way.”

Sorychta is known as a member of Grip Inc. and more recently Enemy Of The Sun, but he initially made a name for himself as producer to metal’s goth-oriented contingent like The Gathering, Moonspell, Tiamat and latter day Sentenced. He seems an odd choice for the Sodom control room…

“He knows exactly what we want,” says Angelripper. “My big thing is the drum sound. I think that if you’re going to listen to an old Venom or Mötley Crüe or KISS album, it was a big drumkit on those recordings. I want that big sound on the new album, and I don’t know how we’re going to reproduce that. Sodom has a special sound that I can’t explain, but hopefully Waldemar will understand it (laughs).”
“The new songs are great. We have a couple songs with good chorus lines. You hear them once or twice and never forget them. We did pre-production and I’ve heard people say my voice hasn’t been this good since the ‘80s. Waldemar did some pre-production with me and told me I sounded like Tom Araya back in the old days. So, if somebody is going to compare my vocals to Tom Araya, I’m not going to complain (laughs).”