Old School Music

dealing with punk rock, speed/thrash and other music styles of the 80ies and beyond, a webpage connected to Red, Black & Green

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Going to Malaysia...

Yes, here is a sample of the interview of the man behind Afterlife Productions and Deadhead fanzine, mister Wan Syamsul! What made you decide to achieve/write a fanzine? Is Dead Head the first one you are involved with? I decided to write my own fanzine because I wanted to contribute to the local Metal scene here back in the 90’s. I cannot play any music instrument nor have idea to promote gigs unfortunately, so my only contribution is to writing about the scene in a zine. Before that, a few years earlier I had been heavily corresponding with a lot of Metal bands and zines, also made a few pen friends, so from there came the interest to write my own zine since I was connected with a lot of underground people in the scene by supporting their demo, merchandise or just exchanging flyers. To have people replying to your letters was a speechless feeling. So, it was great to get letters every week and I also made new friends as well, one of the main reasons I created this zine. I wish I had done this zine in 1993/1994 but I was still studying at that time, [it's] not until I got my first job in 1996 that I had money to finance the printing cost and buy a computer. To write a fanzine in the 90’s was a pain in the arse. Everything was done by hand written mail. When I started working, I could afford to save money every month to buy a computer finally to do all the typing works, this is really important tool. I was using Microsoft Words 95 for the typing in those days. Are there any fanzines which influenced you and made you start doing one ? Which fanzines then? Probably got influenced with the inspirational works of Slayer Mag (Norway) and Tales Of The Macabre Mag (Germany), these are one of the most top underground magazines in the world which deserved my supreme respects. If you can realize, I followed what Metalion did by giving each issue a special title and using the simple front cover design (with just zine logo and big band photo) came directly from Slayer Mag influence. In the earlier issues of Slayer, Metalion had a lot of humor mixed in the interviews which is entertaining to read. We all know, in the underground, Slayer Mag ruled eternally. In the final issues, his questions were more serious and it’s boring I think. I even interviewed Metalion in my second issue and received a praise from him (in Slayer Mag #13 review) about my zine after sending him a complimentary issue where his interview [was] featured which resulted months later in me receiving tons of orders from overseas. I think without his review, my zine wouldn’t be known worldwide like what's happening right now. Things were brighter ahead because of his positive review in Slayer #13. I really thanked him for that. Why, according to you, are Asiatic bands ( outside Japan) and Asiatic scenes almost not covered by magazines and fanzines, at least here in Europe? You probably missed a lot of things in the past about our local scene. Well, let me tell you a lesson here, during the early 90’s, a lot of Malaysian bands were featured in foreign Metal fanzines, strong names like Rator, Silkhannaz, Nebiras, Brain Dead, Suffercation, etc. were familiar names in overseas zines. Because in those days, they used a lot of promotion through zine editors (as you needed motivation and hard work to spread your band's name around the world) and spread a lot of flyers in the mails. They really had deserved the overseas recognition. In those days, Malaysian underground scene was starting being known overseas (also active locally) because we had already many bands and zine editors who exchanged letters with overseas people in those days, it was like a really good and positive competition, there were lots of releases, things were exciting and emerging. And I am proud to tell you that in those days, we even had our own “staple local” sounds which were intense, barbaric and crucial. Once you heard the stuffs, then you knew this was a band coming from Malaysia or the South East Asian area, due to the exotic sounds. Other great examples from local bands'fame here are : Beherit hailed Rator as one of their influences, Darkthrone mentioned a Nebiras line-up in “Ablaze In Northern Sky” thanks list (their first Black Metal album), Silkhannaz got a recording offer from Peaceville, Suffercation got invited by a booking agent to tour Europe with Kreator in the early 90’s, etc. This was the most important period for the local scene here, but unfortunately things weren’t on our side financially. Who achieved the logo of Dead Head, and does your artwork in general? The logo was designed by a guy from Sarawak, the biggest state in the West of Malaysia. He’s doing a zine too if I’m not mistaken, sorry this was really a long time, and I cannot remember such event 20 years ago. I asked him to draw a zine logo and he did it immediately. His design was perfect to my taste after just one sketch. The pentagram at the center coincidently reminds me of Impaled Nazarene logo. I have never met this guy unfortunately. We only communicated through letters back then as he lived far away from here. He did once trying to work in the Peninsular (at Toyota car factory I think), but after one letter he sent, he disappeared. I don’t know if he ever got my reply or my letter didn’t reach him, sometimes address at work place isn’t secure. I have no idea what happened to him these days. But I really hope he could reach me back if he is still alive. Really would like to meet him one day personally. Ok people, more to come in the paper version, I mean ARGYOPE fanzine!

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