February 1993: After a long time, 3 punks meet each other again in one of Berlin- Kreuzberg´s pawnshops. As a matter of fact they wanted to pawn their musical instruments, because they needed money to pay their bills. But what happened ? Archi "MC" Motherfucker (voc, git), Johnny Bottrop (git) and Hermann von Hinten (drums) were celebrating their reunion and decided to form a new band together.
Soon after a bassplayer called "Ice Tüte" joined and in April´94 the four punks rehearsed constantly in their basement. They were looking for a peaceful sounding name for their young band, so they called themselves "Terrorgruppe" which of course means Terrorgroup.(in English)
It did not take to long and the band was well known in Berlin. They released a couple of self produced 7" vinyl-ep´s which sold an amazing amount amung german punk-scene. In fall 94 "Ice Tüte" left the band and after a miscarried experiment with a guy called "Fritz", Zip Schlitzer took place as the bassplayer.
Until today "Terrorgruppe" released about 18 1/2 Singles, 6 full length albums and one monster of anniversary compilation.
Musik für Arschlöcher 1995 (CD/LP) Gringo/Metronome Melodien für Milliarden 1996 (CD/LP) Gringo/ Metronome Nonstop Aggropop 1997 (CD/LP) Gringo/Intercord Keiner hilft Euch 1998 (CD/LP) Gringo/Intercord 1World - 0 Future 2000 (CD/LP) Epitaph Blechdose 2002 (Live CD) Aggropop/Destiny Aggropop Now ! (Geburtstags Sampler) 2003 (2 CD Boxset) Aggropop/Destiny)
With the last two albums, they hit the top ten of the german alternative charts and the single "Rockgiganten vs. Strassenköter" - a split singel with "Die Ärzte" - even made it in the german Top 100 charts.
The early recordings sounded strickly punk-rock, somewhere between melodic skate-punk from California, London 77 and old german punkrock of bands like KFC, Razors or Middle Class Fantasies...... Then MC & Co added more and more Reggae, Ska and Pop elements to their songs and on "keiner hilft euch" you can even hear a jazz - song. Today the band calls their music AGGROPOP and has founded a little aggropop-scene with their own small fanzine "Church of Punkology" as the central organ of public propaganda.
Terrorgruppe´s (most german) lyrics are as important as their music & style. They write about politics, sexuality, religion, drugs,relationships and boring life in Germany in their own respectless, naive and unconcerned way. Cynical and ironically they like to spread salt into the open wounds of the modern, German society and sometimes they give practically instuctions for rebellion. "We want to spread hate and mistrust among the shitty people of germany and make kids rebell against their parents, against the state, church and society", the four Berliners confess. But Terrorgruppe is not a politically punk-band. They characterize themselves as 10% PC (and 90% politically incompetent).
They like to disfame stars from politics and show-business in their own way of despising mankind. Melicious joy is their most important driving element.
Of course, with this attidude they do not only make friends: A certain chain store was not willing to distribute Terrorgruppe´s products; some well known stars were thinking about sueing "Terrorgruppe" (but refrained); communities tried to prohibit Terrorgruppe´s live-shows and the "Office for Protection of the Constitution" recorded every little move of the band. Christian moral-theologains and radical femenists were threatening with riots...etc.....etc......
Notwithstanding to this little problems the band was constantely following their triumphal procession. ("learning from Terrorgruppe means to learn how to win") so they were touring the hell out of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Until today they did about 450-500 live-shows and tons of fanzines voted them as "the best german live - band".
With the idea "language-barriers fuck off" the four maniacs also visited countries like Poland, Czec, Holland, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain and California (where they released 1997 their compilation-album "Terrorgruppe uber Amerika" on BYO-Records).
Unfortunately drummer Hermann v. Hinten left in summer 1998. 4 days later Maschine West joined the band and made their music more compact an powerfull.
For 1999 they only played around 40 shows because the band needed a little break to clean their instruments. But............ They recorded another great full lenght album with their alltime fave producer Uwe Hoffmann in Javea/Spain. Also a new record label was found called Epitaph Records. They gave this new album the name "1 World - 0 Future" and it became the best selling record of a german punkband in 2000. From the 1st of april untill the 30st of december 2000 the 4 aggropoppers were constantly touring..... they played holy 109 shows all over europe in 8 month. Not bad for a bunch of lazy bastards. But still they had time to record their very first titeltrack to a movie called "OI!WARNING" which already drew 80 000 people in germany´s movie theaters.
It´s 2001.... a silent year for Terrorgruppe? Not at all, Mr. Zip Schlitzer left the band in September because of privat changes and during a sold out show on the 14. of September in Berlins SO36 he was replaced by the young Slash Vicious. But befor this, they played only a few shows, but recorded them all and entered a studio to mix their very first Live-Album "Blechdose". After their new record-label "Epitaph" denied releasing this live-record it was pretty clear to the guys want to leave this ship to found their own label called "AGGROPOP". The boys know best whats good for them and where sick of dealing with ignorant business people. They released "Blechdose" in January 2002 and it became, off course, a big success in the german speaking countries. The tour to this mother of all live-records was mostly sold out.
In February 2002, the little brazilian record-company NITROALA released the brazil-version of "1 World-0 Future". In September 2002 Nick Wanker, the owner of the big punk-rock label "Wanker Records" called the band to ask if they are willing to be part of a split single with DEE DEE RAMONE. Yeahhhh, the 5 seconds they needed to confirm this, where pure SHOW. As big Ramones fans they screamed a fat YES in the phone. But during the recordings DeeDeeRamone died and they decided to write a sad hymne for DeeDee. Today you can hear the Song "DeeDee" on the DeeDeeRamone/ Terrorgruppe Split MCD/ 12".
2003 is the 10th anniversary year for Terrorgruppe. Terrorgruppe like to party and so they’ll celebrate their 10th birthday all year long. This is the masterplan. On the 8th of march they stacked 3000 of their biggest fans into Berlins Columbiahall to play their 10th anniversary-show with lots of guest, like The Movement, Guttermouth, Bambix etc. Then they went on holiday (3 weeks Tour) to Brazil, to avoid the trouble of the release of their anniversary-monster comp. called "Aggropop Now !". 50 bands which are all friends with TG are part of this 2 CD Boxset. What a great thing. ...And the year isn’t over. In October the next Studioalbum "Fundamental" is going to be released. Since 3 years, the 4 guys collected songideas, practiced and recorded and this summer they’ll mix their 6th studio-album. An international version of it is planned to be released in winter 2004. And of course the aggrobus rolling on tour again.
The struggle goes on!!!!
