Yeah, it’s been a long time !!! And I’m pretty pleased to have kept going 10 years, even though the publication of the zine has sometimes been erratic. I feel rather proud.

Things have undoubtedly changed over the years, lots of fanzines have come and gone. I don’t think zines have changed a great deal, or if they have, it’s more because the music and scene itself has changed, ie. The various styles/factions of punk/hardcore have split apart more, and maybe todays zines reflect that. The zines that were around 10 years ago seemed more political and had crusty/peace punk bands, whereas todays zines feature a lot more pop punk etc. Also, I think things are different today in that there’s not nearly enough zines around, especially ones that keep going for a while. Which is surprising really, cause low price zines are still pretty popular in the scene and I still find I can shift plenty of zines at gigs….

I’ve always tried to feature bands and music of different punk and hardcore styles, I think especially in the last 2-3 years where I’ve featured melodic punk as well as extreme hardcore thrash-punk. Bands that influenced me to start in the first place were Subhumans (music and politics), and a clutch of DIY thrash-punk bands from Europe like Wretched (my fave band ever), Indigesti, Negazione, Raped Teenagers, CCM, Gauze, False Liberty (OK they’re American!!), Infest etc etc - too many to name really. These days, I still like these sort of bands, along with a clutch of melodic bands. A few names: Tilt, Rhythm Collision, Decadence Within (until they split), Totalitar, English Dogs, Chaotic End, Snuff, Acao Direta etc etc. There’s so many bands I could list here, that I’ve probably missed out someone…..

I didn’t do any half issues!! Perhaps you mean my newsletter, which is called Ripping Thrash Ten And A Half. (what a shit name!). #10 was a mini issue gone wrong, it was planned to be a mini issue, but in the end it turned out to be a fairly normal issue!! That sums up RT really, anything that’s planned never quite happens as per the script!! Early issues were rather basic with some dodgy printing, then after #7, I started going to Juma, so printing quality has been a lot better, although #7/8/9 were still not as good as they could have been layout wise, I think since then that side of it’s been better. #11, the split issue with Hell And Damnation was a little disappointing, ask BHP printing about that, avoid them for printing unless you’ve got no other option!! They’re not even that cheap either…anyhow, that’s my sledging over for now. Circulation - well #5 onwards I think (can’t remember for sure) have had print runs of around 600-800 (varied on each issue), #11 was 400 copies each between me and Colin HAD, and the current issue, well, as it’s a 10 year celebration issue, I went mad and had 1000 done (so please buy one! Still loadsa copies left - they’re 50P + SAE (31p stamp). Plug plug.

Would you pay over £1 for any issue of RT ?????!!!!!! I don’t need to sell it for £1, as it doesn’t cost that much to make !! Maybe if I sell it for 10P more than I do, I might break even !! But it’s a conscious decision to sell RT for as low a price as possible, and I don’t do the zine to make any profit. On the other hand, you can no longer produce 7" records for 45P and zines for 5p, although you still get people at gigs asking why your zine isn’t free !!!! I think CD’s are overpriced, even by some supposedly small labels, and I would like to start a label releasing CDs for £4. After all, they cost relatively little to produce…. I think with zines it varies from each publication, I think you just have to judge each zine on it’s content and value for money. With RT, I’m not interested in doing snazzy covers etc, but I try to make it reasonable quality, I like it to look neat and readable, nothing more, except to say that the content is more important than anything.

Best one I’ve had (or worst, whichever way you look at it!!) is ‘got no money’, then when they saw someone nearby come over and buy one, then find some money and decide to buy one !!

Well, sometimes the factions in the scene can result in cliques, I’d like to see the scene more united. Yes, I believe in the underground, and the DIY spirit, that doesn’t mean that I don’t wanna share it with a younger generation (that means most people cause I’m nearing 30 !!). Yes, we need new blood in the hardcore scene, but I’d like to see more unity and less cliques. As for people who have no wish to share with a younger generation, who are you getting at ??

I’ve recently hit the computer age in the last couple of issues of RT, managed to get an old computer for nothing from work. It’s damn useful, and although RT isn’t completely computer produced (and I wouldn’t want it to be!), I do all my typing with it, and layout the reviews with it. Saves a lot of time, and you can change layouts, move things around etc, which you cannot do with a typewriter. It’s made a difference to me, cause before I had to borrow a typewriter when I could, or use a works computer, whenever I could find spare time. But I wouldn’t want to see zines become too computer oriented and too clean looking.

Er, that’s a difficult question !! I suppose the main misconception is that producing a fanzine is more difficult than it may seem. Bands don’t always answer your interviews, other contributions don’t arrive on time, it’s quite often difficult to find a good printer, it takes longer than expected to finish each issue, unless you’re either doing it full time, or you’re out of work (in which case you’ve got the time but not the dosh for the printing!), and it takes a hell of a long time to shift all your finished copies. Unless you’re only printing 200 or so, you’re not gonna shift them in a month !! I usually find with RT that 700 or so copies takes about a year to completely shift. Obviously it’s more difficult when you’re first starting a zine, cause nobody’s heard of you, it gets easier after a few issues. But if you think one day "I’ll start a zine" and you think it’s easy, that you can knock a zine together in a couple of days, pay for printing and sell them all in a week, think again !!! If anyone’s thinking of starting a zine, and wants some help, then write to me, I’ll try and help, let’s get more zines out, there’s not enough of them these days !!!!

The main destructive thing about the underground or punk or HC scene, whatever you want to call it is unity. The different factions as I said earlier, are too split apart. There’s too much petty slagging and holier-than-thou attitudes, and as Ian Glasper hinted at in RT12, we may end up like the US, where the melodic punk and the crusty noise punk scene are as far apart as folk and heavy metal !! I don’t think each faction is big enough to keep the scene, especially the DIY scene alive, I mean, promoters have a real hard time putting on gigs, cause people will only turn up if the bands playing are ‘their kind of punk’, so a lot of unknown bands (lots of UK ones for instance) can only pull crowds of about 50 or so people unless they happen to get a support slot for a US band. Gig attendances in the main (around here anyway) overall are pretty appalling, especially for smaller bands, and when that happens, promoters stop doing gigs (look at Stoke for instance!), and who can blame them ! Support the scene. Also, promoters, put on different bands, not 4 bands that sound the same!!

I’ve been doing tapes for years, with the usual photocopied covers. But I’ve always gone more for quality and honesty/intensity etc in the music, and as long as I could do some sort of cover and that the lyrics got printed, I wasn’t too bothered about doing snazzy inlays etc. In recent times, I started a series of split tapes, to raise money for the H.S.A, so I started getting copies of the tapes duplicated and generally trying to raise the profile of the tapes label a little bit, trying to get people interested in tapes rather than just records and CDs, as well as helping the bands released and trying to raise money for a good cause, so to do that I decided to make the covers a little better. They’re not exactly snazzy, to say I’m not artistic is a hopeless understatement, but they are neat and printed at Juma on nice gloss paper at little more cost than normal paper, so they do look fairly good, but the important thing is still what’s on the tape itself, the music and ideas presented. And to be honest, the HSA split tapes haven’t really done any better than the tapes that went before them ! So that’s been a little disappointing…. Maybe I’ll start a DIY CD label soon, I’d like to do a compilation CD and put it out for about £4, but I’d like to do this as a collaboration with 2 or 3 other people/labels. Anyone interested? Send me your thoughts! Plans for MUT - well tapes wise, not too much at the moment, a 90 min compilation should be out by the time you read this. It’ll have a booklet with it and has bands from all over. Then I wouldn’t mind releasing cassette versions of band’s 7" records (or CDEPs) for those people who haven’t got a record player (CD player), but that depends on if any bands will let me use their stuff….Other than that I’m concentrating on the zine, and if I do more tapes, or the comp CD, then that’s an added bonus!!

I’d say the best way to start a zine is to keep it small first issue, just do say 200 copies of a 28 page zine or something, make it A5 cause I still think it’s the best format, and fits in people’s trouser pockets when bought at gigs!! And to start doing interviews with bands you may already know locally, bands/people you can have a chat with etc, cause if you start of writing to bands far and wide who you don’t know or they don’t know you, you’re liable to end up with little feedback and it’ll take ages to get your zine out!! Do a local scene report, write an article on something that’s pissing you off, and review of a few of the items that you’ve recently bought. Then you’ll find you have the basics to get a smallish zine going quite quickly. Write to a load of distros and take some to gigs when it’s out, try and get your zine out to as many different places as possible, to get your name about. And don’t leave finding a cheap reliable printer until the last minute, cause this part of doing a zine can be very hazardous - there aren’t enough printers about, unless you’re one of those lucky people who can do copies at work, or has a friend in the printing game ! Zines I rate (in no particular order) : Heart Attack, Punk Planet, Your So Hideous, Profane Existence, Aversion, Tilt, Hell And Damnation, Why, and loads of others.

One - Seeing the finished zine come back from the printers (at least, hopefully if it’s come out OK!).

Two - Seeing plenty of people at gigs eager to buy your zine (it does sometimes happen!!)

Three - Listening to some ace bands that I may never have got to hear if it wasn’t for contacts made through doing the zine.

Thinking of the above helps you through the sometimes laborious tasks of typing (It’s a lot easier with a computer!!), transcribing interviews from tape (not too keen on that!!), and reviewing (not always as easy as it sounds - it’s real difficult sometimes trying to find different ways to describe music!!)

Thanks Rick for the space, hope I’ve not waffled on too much at a tangent, honestly, I did read the questions first !!! Anyone who wants more info, just write. No SAE/IRCs needed with a decent letter. Otherwise, send an SAE for a full list of zines, tapes, records and CDs. I’m always looking for contributors for Ripping Thrash, so send your reviews, rants, gig reviews, articles, essays etc. Next issue due out February ’97. I’m also on the lookout always for people to distro the zine, not only through mailorders, but at gigs. There must be loads of gigs out there where there's no-one selling zines. Just Do It !!!!

A quick hello to everyone I write with, meet at gigs etc and anyone who’s helped me with anything over these 10 long years of Ripping Thrash. I ain’t quitting yet, look out for a special New Millennium issue in the year 2000 !!!

I should also plug my newsletter here too. The new one is out now and is available for an SAE. It’s a double sided A5 sheet of classified ads and some gig news. I’m always taking ads for future issues, classifieds are £1 each for 40 words. Send in your gig news as well, space for these is free.

Thanx again Rick for the space.