Interview By Systematic Desensitization Zine November 2017...
Here is an interview with Bernd, who used to play the bass and was responsible for the vocals for the legendary Bavarian grinders ULCEROUS PHLEGM (who broke up in 1993)...
Hey Bernd, let's get started. First of all I have to say by way of introduction that I - born 1978 - never really noticed Ulcerous Phlegm during your active days. When you broke up, I was 15 years old...I came across the name Ulcerous Phlegm every now and then over the decades, but I only really took note of the band when the discography was published via Power It Up. Have you heard from several people who felt exactly the same way or did the discography CD/LP be bought by people who already knew you (although a slimmed-down discography CD had already been released, or even two?)?
Hi! Yes, you are definitely not the only one. Thanks to the discography on Power-It-Up, I even came into contact with people who are just 20 now and who are interested in Grindcore/Death Metal of the 80s and early 90s. But that was also a time that shaped the style. Nevertheless, I think one shouldn't just dig into the past. Musically, every decade actually has exciting developments to show. At the same time, through this discography, I came into contact with people again, some of whom I had completely lost sight of for almost 30 years! That is very exciting, because of course everyone has developed somehow and the common denominator no longer has to be present. All the nicer when it harmonizes again despite all the years. Around 2005 there was an attempt to release an Ulcerous Phlegm Discography as a double CD, but that was then dropped. In 2008 a tape called "Make-Up your mind" was released on an American label, where I plugged together old practice and live recordings. Was fun! The discography on Power-It-Up is definitely the more "official" one as far as the completeness of the recordings relevant to ulcerous phlegm is concerned.
If we do this interview here, it seems like a journey through time. When you founded yourselves, that was about the time when bands like ATROCITY, MORGOTH, LEMMING PROJECT, BLOOD or PROTECTOR (besides the well-known ones like KREATOR, SODOM and DESTRUCTION) started or had been around for a while. In the punk area I think of bands like PINK FLAMINGOS, MVD or SM-70, internationally in the grind scene there were bands like AGATHOCLES, DEAD INFECTION, CARCASS, NAPALM DEATH, EXTREME NOISE TERROR, REPULSION, from neighboring Austria PUNGENT STENCH, MIASMA, DISAHRMONIC ORCHESTRA or DISASTROUS MURMUR...Are you still or are you in contact with some people again? And which bands did you have contacts with at the time? In which "scenes" did you locate yourself back then?
Wow, I could write novels about it now! In retrospect, there were two main reasons for me to start Ulcerous Phlegm. Shortly before that, I had been elected first board member in our local youth center. Back then, to see all the cool concerts, people drove to neighboring Baden Württemberg (NAPALM DEATH, HERESY, FEAR OF GOD, EXTREME NOISE TERROR) and I thought: Why shouldn't you do that here in our sleepy Bavarian town to attempt? When I got a call saying "There are a couple of unbelievably awesome bands from Austria - PUNGENT STENCH, DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA and DISASTROUS MURMUR - want to play in Germany, but in Geislingen it won't work on the planned weekend" I got them in our "JuZe". It was just great! Even my parents still tell me today how nice they all were and so politely at the common breakfast table at home. With Alex the then drummer of Pungent Stench, I am still in contact now and then. We are united by another common passion: the cinema of the 60s and 70s. After a long break, I've been in contact with the people at BLOOD for about two years. For next year the aim is for me to run a marathon with Martin, the singer. This is our current hobbyhorse. The fact that we were allowed to play together with CARCASS in 1990 was thanks to our friendship with ATROCITY at the time. We had many contacts with other bands and my parents' mailbox in this pre-Internet age was always full. To name a few more names from the closer contact: DEAD, GUT, GROWING MOVEMENT, DISTRACT REALITY...the scenes weren't that separated. Which is no wonder, because bands from the beginning had their influences also drawn from noisy hardcore/punk and metal. In terms of "spirit" I would rather assign Ulcerous Phlegm to hardcore. We always had political or socially critical lyrics. Even if they were articulated difficult to understand. Oh shit, I forgot reason number two for founding UxPx: A friend of mine played the guitar incredibly well and later moved to the quiet area to play with DEATHROW. He once said to me: "You can make the noise that you always hear yourself." Yes, he was right (tended to).
Haha, cool, which confirms again that people who listen to or make extreme music are more sociable...have your parents ever seen Pungent Stench videos or cover artwork, haha? Wherever you are addressing this passion for cinema from the 1960s or 1970s : I'm really into Edgar Wallace or Doktor Mabuse films. Does this also happen during this time, do you also like something or are you traveling in a completely different way?
No, that definitely fits quite well! Every year in June I organize a film festival called "KultKino", where I again show films from original 35mm film rolls. To name a few titles from the last few years: Godzilla vs. Smogmonster, Magdalena - possessed by the devil, The Killer (with Klaus Kinski), Harley Riders, Zombi (Romero, 1978), Sadomona - The island of the devilish women, Party of horror, King Kong against Godzilla, The revenge of 1000 cats...here the website: https://kultkino.de. Maybe this is also interesting for your readers. Uwe (ex-DEAD) and other warriors from back then are also often there.
Hey cool, if I should linger down there again, I'll stop by! This is followed by the next question: According to some websites, Ulcerous Phlegm came from Höchstadt, to be honest I always thought that you originally came from Augsburg, also because Zong played for INFERNO. Otherwise I saw that there was also personal overlap with the grinders/crusties from CERTIFIED INSANE and a thrash metal band called SOULSTORM. You play with DEEP, I even own the first LP, someone from Augsburg sold it to me, and through him I also got to know your label DHYHANA RECORDS, which has already released pretty weird things musically...do you still do that?
Oh, maybe I should draw a family tree around ulcerous phlegm and its interwoven ties. Only I come from Höchstädt and since I was responsible for the post office this address has probably been memorized. UxPx was founded in Augsburg, in the rock factory. That was in July 1989. As far as I know, Inferno were founded in 1982. Zong came to us when Inferno broke up for the first time and I don't think Soulstorm existed anymore. Certified Insane, however, is still available in 2017! It is the band that Blinki, UxPx drummer from the very beginning, founded. And Zong and I have been active with DEEP for 24 years now. This year, for example, we published a cooperation 7" with SEVEN MINUTES OF NAUSEA. Not much is happening on Dhyana Records at the moment, except for a DEEP release every few years. That's right, on Dhyana Records I gave free rein to my diverse musical interests. I stand 100% behind every release, no matter if techno, singer-songwriter, noise, indirect rock, experimental, ambient... robably all of this was a very important outlet for me to get rid of the blinkers that I mainly dealt with death metal and grindcore for years keep busy.
What do you think of current Grindcore or Death Metal things? Do you still listen to something like that or do you notice what is still going on in the scene - including new bands? For example, do bands like the Finnish DEATH TOLL 80k, which I think are very good, tell you something, or do you also like bands like MISERY INDEX, which were founded much later after the end of Ulcerous Phlegm?
To be completely honest, the bands you mentioned don't tell me anything at all. Since I put together the compilation LP "Face The Consequences" last year, on which 43 bands replay the UxPx song Consequence, I did come across some bands of the younger generation, but I'm certainly a long way from getting a full perspective. But I'm already interested in bands that manage to give the old style a new face. By mixing elements of Grindcore with other styles. Grindcore was also something innovative once in a while. With Metal I have the problem that many things now sound too smoothly produced. For my taste, it has to be edgy in some way for it to stick in the ear. In general, however, Grindcore and Death Metal make up no more than 5% of my current music consumption .
I also add the next question to this sampler: did you choose the bands and if so, according to which criteria? Or did the bands approach you? And did all of the musicians involved know Ulcerous Phlegm beforehand, I ask, because some of them are stylistically a long way from grind and metal...did some of the things Jesus Jackson and the Grenzlandreiter come from with their common home in Augsburg? According to Discogs, a Finnish cellist is also represented, for example Martyn Schmidt, whom I didn't know before. Do you want to say something about individual artists and bands that are particularly close to your heart? The whole thing also reminds me of the "Tribute to JAPANISCHE KAMPFHÖRSPIELE" (do you know them?) - sampler, which also contained completely different bands stylistically...
I like the comparison to the JAPANESE KAMPFHÖRSPIELE - Tribute! But my real inspiration was SUZANNE VEGA, who put together an LP many years ago on which only her hit "Tom's Diner" was covered. Also in a wide variety of genres. I collected a total of 65 cover versions of the song Consequence and put the 43 best or most interesting ones on the record. JESUS JACKSON UND DIE GRENZLANDREITER are friends of ours, with whom we have played together with our current band DEEP. A singer-songwriter version is also suitable due to the song structure of Consequence. The vocal artist MARTYN SCHMIDT is also a longtime companion of mine. Many years ago he was my editor-in-chief when I worked for the magazine "Intro" (I wrote reviews), and he is a big Ulcerous Phlegm Fan. That was my chance to finally get a version of the song where you can understand the lyrics. Each of the 43 versions grew dear to me in its own way, whereby I personally prefer the avant-garde approach or a modification to another, my own style of music rather than a 1: 1 copy. For many, Consequence is a song by GUT, the cover version of which made our original so well known. What I find very funny, because the lyrics are about environmental protection, which is not really a priority topic of pornogoregrinders.
But apart from or long before this sampler there were also some ulcerous phlegm cover versions. Do you have an overview of which bands have covered you over the decades?
The Consequence contributions, which I put on the compilation LP, date from 1992 to 2017, they were not recorded especially for the sampler. I couldn't find any contact with many bands, so that some of them still know nothing about their "luck". Just for fun, I've sorted the Consequence cover versions chronologically. The result was that the song was covered most often in the mid-90s. Then there was a consequential recession before a progression set in at the beginning of the 00s. The latest contribution was uploaded a few days before the press shop date without my having commissioned it. That was a funny last minute promotion. Can I also ask the interviewer a short question for fun? If so: With which song did you get to know Ulcerous Phlegm and since I suspect you have the Power-It-Up discography: Which song do you think is the best?
After listening to the discography again, I like "Godless" very much! This slowly grooving slurping middle section is awesome!
Ah okay. This is also one of the few parts in which the snare, which is otherwise too loudly mixed on this EP, goes well with it.
My next question would be: did ulcerous phlegm actually occur abroad? And did you ever think about uploading the old live recordings to bandcamp?
We once had a really cool gig in the Czech Republic, in a nuclear shelter. The sound was incredible: low room and all concrete - a single death reverb, haha! Otherwise we have unfortunately never left the German-speaking area. I remember two cool weekend gigs that I plugged together in my youthful recklessness without first checking the distance between the two venues. Friday evening in French-speaking Switzerland with SAMAEL and Saturday in Vienna in the arena (with DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, among others). Some time ago I uploaded all of my old video recordings to youtube. The old live tapes...hm, yes, if anyone is interested, then I could like to tackle it.
Through a little research, I found out that you were often played by a certain Max Schönherr in a show called "Zündfunk" on Bayern 2 and were even allowed to moderate a show there and "fill it up" with music - I neither know this show, nor the moderator, but found the story interesting and the Google research showed that Max Schönherr now lives in Cologne (in my hometown), on his homepage he also writes something about those times, about very conservative radio bosses...what are they your memories of it?
I've been listening to the program "Zündfunk" since I was 12 years old. I heard it today too. When we recorded our demo in 1989, it was important to me to send a copy to them. "What the Donau-Auen produce ..." was the introduction by Max Schönherr and then he played five songs from the demo because they are so short. That was the starting shot to take Ulcerous Phlegm a little more seriously, because we got inquiries from a label and lots of fan mail, especially from the former GDR. Max Schönherr is a very personable person, I appreciate him very much. About 1, 2 years after the demo airplay, he invited my friend Markus, who wrote the lyrics for the first Ulcerous Phlegm EP, his brother and me to the studio to create an hour of Zündfunk musically. It was a lot of fun.
So now I've asked pretty much everything that came on my mind, this was one of the longest and most interesting interviews I've ever done. The last question: That was all about a quarter of a century ago. What feelings do you have when you think back to this time? Nostalgia? Would you do a lot of things very differently today if there were Ulcerous Phlegm today? Why did you split up then and with whom of the former members are you still in contact today? Otherwise: Thank you very much for the interesting interview, and the last words and whatever else you want to get rid of are yours!
I am happy to return the compliment. I have seldom been interviewed by someone who is so knowledgeable and has done appropriate research. Yes, I had a lot of fun! I am just as glad that the time with Ulcerous Phlegm existed for me as I am happy that it was over at some point. I don't even want to imagine that UxGx could still exist today. I am happy to have met people back then whose friendships continue to this day. In the final phase we were two bands at the same time. We practiced with Ulcerous Phlegm and a few hours later Howie joined in as a singer. Kreso and I tuned our instruments 5 frets up again, were called "INFERNO" and played hardcore punk. The background was that our 2nd drummer Max was also a founding member of these punks and was now trying to revive the band. Actually total nonsense, because with Inferno as with Ulcerous Phlegm everything was said from a certain point in time and nothing innovative came about. From time to time I still have contact with Kreso (guitar and vocals at UxPx) and recently again with Blinki (1st drummer and style-defining founding member of UxPx). Who knows, maybe they'll make it to the KultKino film festival in June 2018, then we could all sit down for a nice drink. Would be nice if it works!
