I'm not a Skin, actually (besides the fact I am bald these days haha). I was actually always a long-haired Metal motherfucker, but I’m loving the sound and this scene more and more since I’m hanging out with guys like Bert Daniels, since I saw the connection between the old school football hooligans and the skins. Football is something I grew up with, UP THE HAMMERS! Respect the true skins!
So.. in this introduction I already mentioned I am actually not a skinhead, that’s why I brought the local Skinhead father of all young skins, Bert ‘Fucking’ Daniels with me!! Don’t expect any insider questions from me. I am and will always be an old school Metalhead, I was just getting more and more into this kind of music and skinhead culture when I saw that you guys (Stomper 98) were coming to Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Well, let’s give it a shot and have a small chat with them! Here we go!
-Hi how’s it going? When was ‘Stomper 98’ founded and by who? Which town are you coming from? I’d also like to know, why is the original drummer not here today?
Hello! Holgi Stomper, our saxophone player, and I (Sebastian ‘’Sebi’’ Walkenhorst) founded the band back in ’98 in a town called Göttingen (Germany). Holgi is actually the only founding member left, he used to play bass in the beginning. We’ve been a band now for 20 years, we’ve been through a lot of changes.. but we keep going!
Phil, our drummer from New York (in the band since 2005) is not here, he’s back home working at a hospital.. it’s hard for him to get days off. Because of his work he can’t be our full-time drummer, some members also play in other bands (like Rancid) so in some cases not all of us are able to play a show, so we agreed to play with other musicians when someone is not able to make it to a show. We got a lot of friends who want to play shows with us, people we meet on tour, so that’s cool, you know. We don’t ask fill-in musicians to play with us, we always ask friends, people we already know.
-What bands influenced you lyrically and musically? I also hear Ska influences in your sound!
You know, back in the days it was easier to point out a band who influenced us, I can’t really say what it was in the beginning. It was more of a mix of our living situation and the bands who we were listening to when we were growing up. Back in that time we were listening and searching for a lot of music that no one was really listening to, like French music. A lot of French music wasn’t very big or popular. We had the idea of using a saxophone in our music, not really as a ska-thing but more as an Oi! thing, like Camera Silens (France). At the time we were starting to be a band, most of these French bands were already gone, no one would know where the musicians were. These bands just disappeared; even not much British bands were around in the ‘90s with that specific sound. So we started searching for our own stuff. Football, drinking beer, fighting and all that skinhead street shit came up around that time, and then our music came.
Holgi, the oldest one in the band was putting all that shit together and was like, ‘Let’s drink beer and practise with the band’, so we did that. Practising like crazy all day and after that, everybody got tired and went home; no fights happened; just putting all of our energy in the music. It was a mix between music, British Oi, some German Oi, and a little bit of ska.
How’s the skinhead / OI scene in Germany? Is it hard to be a skinhead in Germany? Since I know many people have wrong ideas about skinheads in Germany..
Well for me, the main problem is.. everything’s labelled as a-political, non-political, whatever-political, etc.. who decides what is political, left-wing, right-wing or not? Mainstream media? I don’t know. Who has the right to judge our band, us, me or whoever and say ‘’Oh you guys are non-political’’, that’s bullshit to me. Everything is political to me, I am a father, we all have our families we got to feed. The world is not just ‘black or grey’. We live in this world as skinheads. The world is changing and in 20 years everything has changed so much, and I think it’s really important to have a view on things that are going on in this world. (Guitarist Lars Frederiksen from the US joins in on this topic): Here’s the thing about German politics/European politics, they’re so much different than American politics; two totally different worlds. But when you take a subject that is politicised in my country, like racism; it is in itself not a political thing, it’s right or wrong. And I know the difference as an adult, I’m 46 years old, I’ve got kids, it’s just a ‘right and wrong subject’. And I know for a fact that racism is wrong, you know. There’s nothing political or in-between about it. (Sebi): For me, it’s really important that I’ve got an honest opinion about things, when is something political or not? And I sing about what I think. (Lars): My history is long with Streetpunk, Oi! and everything, I’ve been playing in bands for nearly 30 years, and I am pretty outspoken of where I am politically. I teach my kids the difference between right or wrong, I teach them not to judge someone based by ethnicity, sexuality, etc. If you blindly judge people like; ‘He’s a skinhead, so he must be right-wing’; that’s just blind judgement. I’ve been judged before, people told me ‘Oh with these tattoos and all you must be a white supremacist’’ That’s just what uneducated people say, they are making assumptions based on what the media tells them. But that’s just my experience as an American. We are pretty clear in what we’re saying, we are anti-racist, anti-fascist. It’s about the music for us, we accept everyone; but if you bring hate into it, that’s stupid. (Sebi): Back in the day the skinhead scene was totally different than today, and it’s hard to explain. When the nazi skinheads came we didn’t want to associate with them or hang out with them, but society was looking for someone to blame it on and just measured everyone by the same standards. We got chased, stabbed, Lars actually got stabbed by a Nazi for having a black girlfriend, and he was a skinhead back then.
-Do you also listen to Metal and or Hard Rock music? What bands do you like? Is it possible to be into Punk and Metal at the same time?
(Lars): Well I’m going to answer because Sebi is in an awesome Thrash Metal band called Übergang. I wanna say this, 35 years ago you might not (In the US at least) be into both. The thing about it was, when you had 10 dollars and you had to go to the record store to pick up a release and you had to pick between a Metal or a Punk record, you needed to commit. If you were into Punk and Oi at that time.. you committed. You chose a team and you stuck there. I had judgements against Metal bands back then. I’ve seen Slayer and Metallica when they just started playing club shows, then the crossover stuff started to happen in ’87, D.R.I, Exodus, etc. and I never gave them the time of day, why would ya? Because you know, I’m into punk. This is my culture, my scene. But now, the world we live in today; we have streaming sources, Spotify, YouTube, etc. You don’t have to commit your 10 dollars to any particular band anymore. You can listen to Slayer, and go ‘Oh that’s kinda cool!’ and then you can go and listen to Stomper 98 and be like ‘yeah I like that too!’. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking both, I grew up on loving music. But the subculture chose me, that’s the way I lived my life for as long as I can remember. Now, I’m much more of a Metal fan than I ever was! (Sebi): When I started listening to hard music it started with a German Punk band called Die Ärtze. Then a label came up with Metal stuff like Helloween, Anthrax, and I got into Thrash. I worked a lot as a kid so I could buy all the records I wanted. I started going to shows at a certain age with friends when crossover happened, like D.R.I. We started discovering Hardcore and Punk more and got into it way more. For me it was just ‘hard music’ the whole time, with the same energy.
-Are you guys into football and which team are you supporting?
(Sebi): I support HSV Hamburg, and when you are a strong supporter of HSV Hamburg you know what pain, struggle and tears are about 😉 It’s a nice club, and a nice culture around it. (Atleast, it used to be.)
-Lars Frederiksen from the American Punk Rock band Rancid! It seems you joined Stomper 98 and you are a huge Millwall FC fan? Do you live in Germany right now and how is it to be in the band?
(Lars): I live in San Francisco right now, not in Germany. I am a Millwall FC fan. When I first went to see English football it was back in the ‘90s when I was producing a record by The Business, and they took me down to West Ham. It was that team that the Cockney Rejects always sang about. I first learned about the sport when my parents separated and me and my brother moved back to Denmark with my mom, my grandfather used to play football as a goal tender before WO II, so he taught me and my brother the game. Back home in the 70’s we had the SJ Earthquakes, they were the first team I ever really liked as a kid. One of my friends took me down to Millwall sometime, and that’s where I found my kinship for the club. I love the game, I love watching it. I don’t like the big-money thing that’s ruining some clubs.. that’s something that’s ruining it for the real fans. It’s just amazing to be part of this band and meet so many new people and play shows, it’s like home to me here, I feel like this is my band too.
-Are you familiar with Dutch Skinhead bands? I’m sure you know the Eindhoven Streetpunk bands ‘Tech 9’ (HEIN IS GOD!!) and ‘Discipline’ (BOTH LEGENDARY BANDS!) Do you also know The Bruiseheads and Complaint from the Tilburg area?
(Lars): Yeah we know Tech 9 and Discipline! I’ve heard of Complaint, I’m gonna check them out more. (Sebi): I’ve known Tech 9 for a long time and I know some other Dutch bands, like Backfire from Limburg. I saw a few of them touring. We also got a few friends over there in Holland who play in bands.
-Do you guys have any plans on recording a new album in the future?
(Lars): We just released our record back in April, so it’s been a few months now. We’re going to be touring for another week, and I’m sure there’s going to be more touring in 2019. By the end of the tour there’s definitely going to be a lot of new plans. We just keep going! 😉
-Patchman Marco-
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