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Album Production Information:
Producers Harris Johns, Karl-U Walterbach Harris Johns – Producer, sound engineerIf your record has that gritty Berlin-concrete punch, there's a decent chance Johns was behind the glass. Read more... Harris Johns is the Berlin-bred producer/engineer who's been putting steel-toed boots on tape since 1978. I first clock him in the late 70s punk grind, then the early 80s when his Music Lab rooms started spitting out Slime (1983) and Daily Terror (1984). Mid-80s through the early 90s he helped define Teutonic thrash for the Noise Records crowd: Grave Digger and Helloween (1984-85), then Sodom, Kreator, Tankard, Voivod and Exumer (1986-88). He kept the soldering iron hot into the 90s-2000s (Sodom again, 1997-2001), later taking on international metal like Enthroned (2004-07). After a decade at his countryside "Spiderhouse," he reopened Music Lab Berlin in 2007 and ran it until 2016 - still producing and teaching the craft.
Recorded at Musiclab Studio/Berlin April and May 1990.
Mixed at Hansa Studio Berlin, June 1990
Backing vocals by Gerre, Ken (Criminal Justice), Tommy (Megalomaniax)
Album cover concept by Buffo
Uwe "Buffo" Schnädelbach - Photographer, editor, band manager (Tankard)
Uwe "Buffo" Schnädelbach is the kind of behind-the-scenes metal lifer I love: camera in one hand, scene control in the other. Since 1986 he's been Tankard's manager, while also writing/editing for Rock Hard, and his photos stamped the era on releases by Exumer (1986) and Kreator (1987-1988). I spot his credit in the sleeve notes and instantly expect sweat, denim, and flash-lit chaos. He kept snapping into the next wave too, with Blind Guardian credits from 1990-2003.
Cover artwork by Sebastian Kruger/Becker-Derouet
Sebastian Krüger – Painter, illustrator (album cover art)The 1980s metal scene got some of its most unhinged (in the best way) cover art thanks to his razor-sharp caricature-realism. Read more... Sebastian Krüger, born June 30, 1963 in Hamelin (Germany), is the rare artist who can make a face look hyper-real and totally distorted at the same time—like reality got remixed and mastered. After studying free painting at the Braunschweig University of Fine Arts, he built his early reputation in commercial illustration (press work and LP covers) before stepping back to focus on painting; in the 1990s he also collaborated with the Italian political magazine L’Espresso. For us record nerds, his metal-era “runs” are basically a greatest-hits list of late-80s chaos: Destruction (1986–1990), Tankard (1987–2005), Running Wild (1988–1989), Risk (1988–1990), plus one-off punches like Sodom (1988) and Steeler (1988), and even Hobbs Angel of Death (1988–1990). Outside metal, he’s famously linked to lifelike, exaggerated portraits—especially The Rolling Stones (Keith Richards is basically a recurring character). Sebastian Krüger Wiki
Photography Buffo, Petra Gall
Uwe "Buffo" Schnädelbach - Photographer, editor, band manager (Tankard)
Uwe "Buffo" Schnädelbach is the kind of behind-the-scenes metal lifer I love: camera in one hand, scene control in the other. Since 1986 he's been Tankard's manager, while also writing/editing for Rock Hard, and his photos stamped the era on releases by Exumer (1986) and Kreator (1987-1988). I spot his credit in the sleeve notes and instantly expect sweat, denim, and flash-lit chaos. He kept snapping into the next wave too, with Blind Guardian credits from 1990-2003.
Uwe "Buffo" Schnädelbach
Uwe "Buffo" Schnädelbach - Photographer, editor, band manager (Tankard)
Uwe "Buffo" Schnädelbach is the kind of behind-the-scenes metal lifer I love: camera in one hand, scene control in the other. Since 1986 he's been Tankard's manager, while also writing/editing for Rock Hard, and his photos stamped the era on releases by Exumer (1986) and Kreator (1987-1988). I spot his credit in the sleeve notes and instantly expect sweat, denim, and flash-lit chaos. He kept snapping into the next wave too, with Blind Guardian credits from 1990-2003.
Sebastian Krüger
Sebastian Krüger – Painter, illustrator (album cover art)The 1980s metal scene got some of its most unhinged (in the best way) cover art thanks to his razor-sharp caricature-realism. Read more... Sebastian Krüger, born June 30, 1963 in Hamelin (Germany), is the rare artist who can make a face look hyper-real and totally distorted at the same time—like reality got remixed and mastered. After studying free painting at the Braunschweig University of Fine Arts, he built his early reputation in commercial illustration (press work and LP covers) before stepping back to focus on painting; in the 1990s he also collaborated with the Italian political magazine L’Espresso. For us record nerds, his metal-era “runs” are basically a greatest-hits list of late-80s chaos: Destruction (1986–1990), Tankard (1987–2005), Running Wild (1988–1989), Risk (1988–1990), plus one-off punches like Sodom (1988) and Steeler (1988), and even Hobbs Angel of Death (1988–1990). Outside metal, he’s famously linked to lifelike, exaggerated portraits—especially The Rolling Stones (Keith Richards is basically a recurring character). Sebastian Krüger Wiki |
