Rockezine.com interview with Terrorvision on Jul 14, 2001

with Tony & Leigh on Jul 14, 2001

The first time I ever saw Terrorvision, they played a song of their (back then just released) album `How to make friends and influence people` on the (in)famous MTV `Zig & Zag Show`. I instantly bought the album, and the copy on tape did not leave my walkman for at least two months. After that album I kind of lost track of the band, although occasionally I heard snippets of info about a new album released or award won. When I recently got hold of their new cd `Good To Go`, I took the opportunity to travel to Amsterdam to meet up with singer Tony and bass player Leigh, to ask them in person what they`re doing nowadays…
		What`s your fascination with Amsterdam?" (referring to the lyrics of `Come home, Beanie`) Well, the line before ends with Milan, and I needed a place which would rhyme with that! No, seriously, the song is about this girl who runs away from home. She ends up living in a squat, but they get kicked out and she has to call home. (It`s her mum who says `Come home Beanie`). The moral of the story is that everybody wants to run away at some point in life, but it`s not always a bad thing that you`re running from. Beanie could have traveled to the beach, or to Amsterdam, or where ever, but instead she ended up with the squat. It`s a true story actually.
		You`ve had 12 top thirty hits, many sold out shows, won four Kerrang-awards, so we can state Terrorvision is quite popular in the UK. How come this is not the case in the rest of Europe, or other parts of the world? Well between `93 and `96 we did play in Germany quite a lot, and even some gigs in France and Holland; those were as a support act of bands like Möterhead and Def Leppard, but that`s about all. When we signed with EMI, we didn`t know they had a bad reputation as far as worldwide promotion and distribution is concerned. So we were doing ok in England, but the rest was crap.
		There were people from the US and Japan asking us why we didn`t play there, and we were like: "Our record isn`t even released over there!" So now where signed with an independent label, and Roadrunner is distributing the album in Europe, so at least we`re here now doing promotion and hopefully play some gigs in the near future. Because we don`t care if people don`t like our music, but we really hate it when people can`t listen to our music!
		So we can expect a European tour, then? Well, we were actually talking about it when we were in Germany for promotion a month ago. We thought: Fuck it, lets just do this. Let`s get our stuff, go into Europe and play! I can`t be bothered with the excuses of a record label anymore. "Now`s not the time, your record isn`t doing that good", they`ll say. But I don`t care about the money, I just want to play, and I`m sure that there _are_ people out there who want to see us!
		The new album sounds a lot more raw and rebellious than the last one, `Shaving Peaches`. Does this have to do with a commercial vision of your previous label? Many people think that because you sign with a major label, they tell you what you can or cannot write and record. This is not true. If it were, we wouldn`t have signed with them in the first place! But they did not want to promote the album, they didn`t want to work with us. But at the same time, they wouldn`t drop us either! Tony: It`s like that one greedy kid in school, with a bag of sweets. Even if there are sweets he doesn`t like, he still keeps them, because he doesn`t want anybody else to actually enjoy them. Very childish, really.
		So `Good To Go` is a ventilation of your frustration? Well, actually more the sound of relief. And the fact that most people tell us that this album captures best what we do live, gve me the feeling we got the record out the right way. Tony: The last couple of years we`ve been stuck in traffic, so to say. You know that feeling? You`ve got places you want to go, but there`s this dumb fucker in front of you, blocking the road. So the first single of the album, `D`You Want To Go Faster?` is where we pull over to the side lane and start moving again, our own way! It`s probably not the best single of the album, but it puts into words what we`re feeling right now. And that counts for something, right?
		Will there be a video for `D`You Want To Go Faster?`, being the first single? Yes, we did a 1979 kind of punk style video for that song. White backgrounds and all. And we made a video for `Fists Of Fury` as well. I won`t tell what that one is about, just check it out. Actually, I`m not sure which song will be released first in various countries, so just keep on the lookout for both of them!
		Last but not least: anything you`d like to say to our readers? Just check us out! We`ll be putting some songs up on our website soon (www.terrorvision.com) so you can listen to what we do. You know, our album is very difficult to get on the American continent for example, yet we get a lot of email from all over the world with people saying they want us to play there, and that they can`t find our albums anywhere. It`s very frustrating when you can`t do anything about that, but I promise we`ll do anything we can to play in a location near you.
		Recently, some sad news was announced on Terrorvision`s internet site: the band is breaking up. After 11 years the band has decided to quit, though not before doing one last farewell tour (in the UK only, unfortunately). I contacted Leigh again, to get the information on why this happened. Leigh: Things just would not get moving again for us and the record company lost interest because we were told we would never be playlisted on Radio 1 in the UK, so we found ourselves without a deal once again... so we kinda thought fuck it... we would never carry on going if the desire was not there for the band. We made 5 great albums.. played hundreds of brilliant gigs, and we wanted to walk away now before it got too sad.... and maybe we can try something else ... Tony and me are both continuing to write songs separately and you never know what might happen there !!!! So there you have it, right from the band themselves. Another example of the relativity of success. But as Leigh said, "..you never know what might happen..", so we`ll have to keep an eye on the boys from Bradford, because you never know when they`ll be back. With a vengeance! (Tjerk Teitsma)