Pic courtesy of: Assassin "I wanted a music that represents pure handmade aggression without any compromise. What I wanted was aggression in ANY part of the music"

CR: Hey man thank you so much for the opportunity, how are you?
Micha: Hi. .Everything is rolling fine.

CR: What were you guys doing during the time that Assassin was inactive? What part of playing metal did you missed the most?
Micha: Well, I played guitar at the german thrash band “Sodom” for a couple of years which is not that unknown but I also played other musicstyles with more unknown projects: Damo Suzuki (Which is the singer of a 70´s psychadelic band called “Can”, which also got famous worldwide), Catapulta (This was a band I played with in Salvador/Brasil. That was a mixture of metal with brasilian folkmusic. Very heavy). Scholli and Frank played in different bands,too.
Our singer Robert, was always into soccer and he moved to China, where he is taking care of the IFFC, which is a soccerleague. He still is doing that besides Assassin and his other chinese Project “Raging Mob”.
Dinko had a psychadelic thing called “Void Forum” which changed their name to “Vibravoid”. He is now making a break in Croatia because of personal reasons. We don´t even know if he is able to come back to Assassin. You know, our songs are kinda hard to play without rehearsal, but maybe he is still good enough, we´ll see.

CR: Assassin got back on 2002, self released The Club in 2005, man we are waiting impatiently a new album! When can we expect one?
Micha: Yeah, we are working on a new album. One track “Breaking the Silence” has been already released on our myspace http://www.myspace.com/assassinthrashmetal
The new track got a lot of good resonance to the fans. The album release depends on our management, which will work to get a record deal.

CR: You guys were going to play in South America, but the tour got cancelled, what happened? Was that going to be your first time in the south of America?
Micha: Well, I guess we worked with the wrong booker, who wasn´t able to put up a tour like this. I am still pissed off about this whole issue and I am very sorry about how the fans were treated.

CR: Assassin had a show this year, this past month if I’m not mistaken, how was it, and why just one show this year? Is it hard for Assassin to find places to play?
Micha: This year 2008 was exclusively reserved for this tour and the recordings for the new album. We lost a lot of time and money preparing the tour, which we could have used to finish the recordings. The show in Oberhausen was held close to Dusseldorf and it was a friend who organized it. It was more like a test as we have found Michael Hambloch, our new bass player.

CR: Assassin is one of the few bands that I know off that has constantly put forward the support of a manger Rudy Schmitz, you know most bands don’t ever mention the supporting cast around them…how important is Rudy for the entire Assassin operation?
Micha: Rudy has always been a part of Assassin. His magazine Metal Warriors was about the first to review our first Demo “Holy Terror”. You know, this guy knows every fucking metal band worldwide. As soon as some guys in Cameroon or anywhere in the world recorded a demo, Rudy is the first to get the tape.

CR: How hard is it to come back, not just to play in front of a live audience, but to write songs again and get involved in the entire “music business” after so many years away from the scene?
Micha: Man, I never left the music scene. After leaving Sodom in 1991 I went to Brasil and spent 6 years as a producer and soundengineer besides playing with Catapulta. After coming back to Germany 1997 I played some different projects until Assassin came back together in 2003. Now we are here.

CR: For “The Club” you guys released that album independently, but I see on some websites that the album is said to be released by AGD records, are you signed to this label or that is your label?
Micha: AGD-Records is our own label which was exclusively founded for the Assassin release in 2005.

	Pic courtesy of: Assassin "I don´t take it too serious when a “Thrasher” uses hairspray or makeup, sorry"

CR: There are some “Chinese” references on The Club…what do they mean, and how important are they for the songs? (I’m sorry I didn’t find any reference to what they meant anywhere else)
Micha: Robert lives in China as I mentioned. He speaks Chinese and Japanese so he wanted to do some Chinese lyrics.

CR: When you guys released “The Club”, the album had some “modern” elements to it, making it transcend from your previous works, how much musically do you think Assassin grew in that period of time that the band was disbanded?
Micha: “The Club” is like a soundtrack of these past 17 years. We took a lot of old and new ideas and we put them together into one album. I don´t think that It represents Assassin as it is 2008 but it shows our influences from 1989 - 2003.

CR: You guys came back before this so called “thrash revival” era that we are living right now; do you see now more interested labels on releasing a possible new Assassin album, or this is of no interest to you?
Micha: We are preparing to send around the new demo to companies. If some good offer shows up, we are ready to sign.

CR: How much do you think thrash metal has changed since the early years when you guys were putting out “The Upcoming Terror”?
Micha: When we meet with people at our shows it is like nothing has changed. Thrash will never die.

CR: Assassin might not have put out a lot of records during the 80’s but those two records are mention by a lot of thrashers these days as a direct influence in their music; are you surprised at all that thrash metal is back now after been ignored basically by so many media outlets during the late 90’s?
Micha: There is no other style of music, which represents our state of mind more than Thrash. OK, let´s philosophy about this for a moment. I remember very well, what happened to me, when I first listened to AC/DC ´s album “Highway to hell”. I thought to myself:” This is what I want” When I listened to Motörhead´s “Ace of spades” this was even more what I wanted. Then Metallica and Slayer came up with their debuts. These two were exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a music that represents pure handmade aggression without any compromise. What I wanted was aggression in ANY part of the music. You can´t find it in most of the modern metal bands, because they always have some kind of compromise like keyboards or they have two singers – one that is aggressive and one who mostly sings the refrain in a melodic way that fucks up all the aggression and I stop this CD immediately. I want to growl the refrain and bang my head, that’s it. I don´t want funky drums or any DJ. I want real played most aggressive drums possible. This is not easy for a beginner, so you can´t play good thrash without experience on your instrument and a sense of a good aggressive composition. Not just playing as fast as possible but just as fast as it has to be. Today most people are not willing to spend a lot of time learning, so they fail when trying to sound aggressive.

CR: Some bands during the 80’s made it into prosperity even thou they were not what we can call a great talent; Assassin has great talent, do you think that if the band had stayed together, the name Assassin will be right next to such names as Destruction, Exodus, Metallica when talking about thrash today?
Micha: Hmm we still have a chance I guess.

CR: I read some place that your decision back in 1898 to disband the band was due to the lack of money to buy new equipment, because someone stole your previous gear… is that correct? Did you ever find out who did this? There had to be other reasons apart from that single event to stop playing as Assassin, where there?
Micha: We never found out who did it. I think our management at that time fucked up a lot.

CR: Man I have to tell you, your album cover for The Upcoming Terror totally got me into your music, I know it sounds a little superficial, but as I saw that kick ass cover I though “the music has to be good, just look at that fucking tank man!”; was there anything in particular that you guys wanted to portray with such a cover?
Micha: There is no special meaning in it. Just pure fucking aggression.

		Pic courtesy of: Assassin "You can´t play good thrash without experience on your instrument and a sense of a good aggressive composition"

CR: Assassin’s thrash was always a bit more “acid” than your normal thrash at least comparing you guys with the Bay Area style, perhaps clinging more to the Destruction side of thrash you know, faster, rawer, to put it plainly way more aggressive than what we were used to back in 1986. Was Destruction a direct influence for you guys or what was going through your mind when you began to write songs for your awesome debut “The Upcoming Terror”?
Micha: Destruction didn´t influence us anyhow. I don´t take it too serious when a “Thrasher” uses hairspray or makeup, sorry.

CR: In your opinion what has been the greatest “advance” in the general sound of metal around the world? Don’t you think that perhaps merchandising and publicity has grown and develop more than the actual art work behind heavy metal music?
Micha: It is easier to get the music you want. In 1980 you had to buy the record or you needed a friend to put it on a cassette. Today you get it online in a minute.

CR: Why will thrash ever die?
Micha: THRASH CAN`T DIE! THRASH IS THE ESSENCE OF PURE HANDMADE MUSICAL AGGRESSION.

CR: What do you think was so important about the career of Assassin? What was the aspect of the band you think was worthy of rescuing after so many years of inactivity?
Micha: We didn´t know that Assassin was still so popular among Thrashers all over the world. They were asking for Assassin until we made our comeback in Wacken 2003.

CR: Any new thrash bands that you find interesting?
Micha: Sorry, but I still listen to “Reign in Blood” or “Kill ém all” instead of any new act. I think, Pantera was the last band which got me off. I don´t call them Thrash though.

CR: Well what can we wait in the future from Assassin, maybe a DVD, surely your history will be interesting to tell!
Micha: The next step is the new album and a tour April 2009.

CR: Man thank you so much for your time, I just ran out of questions here, but please if you will like to add anything else, feel free to do so! GO! FIGHT! KILL!
Micha: Thank you for support. Visit our homepage http://assassin-online.de for updates.