Probably one Peter Ahlqvist’s best known fanzines… (Also because he named his first label Uproar recs.) The first zine he did was Ayatollah (with Fredrik ‘Fredda Frivolt’ Brickman of ‘Bedrövlerz’). After Ayatollah #3, he went on to publish Uproar zine and also did one issue each of Stick Together and D.N.N.H. (with some remaining material intended for Ayatollah). All off them in Swedish.
Peter (residing in Fagersta at the time) provided the first 4 issues of Uproar. #1 (1983) was with his fellow countrymen ‘Bedrövlerz’, ‘Ugly Squaw’s Trozor’, ‘Crude Society System’, ‘Asocial’, ‘Distrust’ & ‘Fear Of War’. For #2 he ‘crossed the borders’ to get in touch with… ‘Disorder’, ‘Depression’, ‘Crass’, ‘Varukers’, ‘The Dicks’, ‘Crucifix’, ‘Subhumans’, ‘Flux Of Pink Indians’, ‘Crucifix’ & ‘Youth Brigade’. #3 (in English) was with ‘Bedrövlerz’, ‘Bizarr’, ‘Cruel Maniax’, ‘Fear Of War’, ‘Rescues In Future’, ‘Crude S.S.’ & ‘Ugly Squaw’. #4 featured ‘R.I.F.’ (again), ‘Bl’ast!’ & ‘Hirax’.
Brob
Uproar #2 was the real magazine I intended to do. The first issue started with local bands, the second was sort of the continuation of Ayatollah fanzine. #3 was for The Vikings Are Coming compilation. (It came with the records.) And #4 was some kind of “I’m gonna stop doing fanzines and push more for the mailorder”, so that was half fanzine and half mailorder-thing. Later (in 1990 or so) I came back and did a few zines under the name The Burning Heart before I started the label in 1993.
Peter Ahlqvist
‘Fear Of War’ played tight and fast melodic HC. In the band in ’83: ‘Kerra’ Dick Karlsson (bass/vocals; also in ‘Crude S.S.’), ‘Micke’ Mikael Krigge (guitar; also in ‘Bedrövlerz‘) & Marko Vuorinen (drums; also in ‘Bedrövlerz’; earlier ‘Hocke’ Håkan Stadin, when they were called ‘The Dickheads’ & ‘Practical Joke’). They appeared on The Vikings Are Coming… (’85) & Really Fast Vol. 3 (’86) compilations; and Peter A. deemed them the “local band with the highest potential to become big”. They were also on a compilation (on the Brazilian label New Face recs: Afflicted Cries In The Darkness Of War) and there was a split-7″ with ‘Instigators’ announced…
[Translation below; with help of Peter Ahlqvist]
NOTHING LEFT
Sirens wailing, everyone panics
Bombs fall on cities, millions die
Ref: Millions dead / Nothing left / Millions dead / Nothing left
The bombs fell and people died
Dead corpses slowly rotting away
No human life remains
Nothing is left anymore
Everything has crumbled, only ruins remain
Beneath the ruins lie dead, dead corpses
FEAR OF WAR – FEAR OF ALCOHOL – FEAR OF WOMEN’S CUNT! [Peter A.: ‘Kerra’ always ended up leaving with girls after shows, never followed us home, stayed with them.]
FEAR OF WAR are: ‘Kerra’ – bass & vocals / ‘Micke’ – guitar / Marrko – drums
The band’s words (see above) are simply not worth five öre [Peter A.: Swedish experession, similar to ‘not a penny’ but hard to translate to English, something like ‘not the slighest’.]. There’s absolutely no evidence that even any of the bandmembers feared alcohol after their first gig in Hedemora [town in Sweden]. You have to actually look for more alcoholic bands [Peter A.: The word ‘full’ means very drunk in Swedish; as in intoxicated.], and that evening’s version of ‘Toxic Reason’s song Drunk And Disorderly will probably go down in history as the world’s worst song (but oh so true)? That fear of women’s cunt is probably not very serious either. At least not when it comes to singer and bassist ‘Kerra’ whose love for the gorgeous (ahem) Petra is widely known. It almost seems as if women are drawn to him just like flies are attracted to sugar (Ed. Call him a sugar-cube…) That the ‘Fear Of War’ is present, however, seems to be quite right; you can clearly notice that when reading lyrics such as Fear Of War, Fruktan [“fear, terror”] and Ingenting Kvar [“nothing left”], which are all about and against war. Even though the band’s lyrics are good, they still stand in the shadow of the band’s music, which in my opinion is absolutely superb. Their melodious, quite fast, raw and aggressive punk puts Fear Of War, at their best moments, among the 4-5 best bands in Sweden, and I mean that without being biased in any way. “Hearing, seeing and witnessing a ‘Fear Of War’ gig/ rehearsal is better than having an orgasm.” (quote from Cash From Chaos).
If the band continues to develop, in a few years they will probably be one of Sweden’s best and most famous bands. As I said: they’re all very young and have time ahead of them.
THIS IS ‘FEAR OF WAR’, NOT ‘DISCHARGE’, BUT WHO CARES ANYWAY?
DO YOU THINK THAT THERE’S ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND THE OTHER BANDS FROM FAGERSTA?
We’re more musical than ‘(The) Bedrövlerz’ and don’t play raw punk like ‘Crude Society System’. ‘Bizarr’ may be a bit more musical than us but we don’t play the same music at all. We have a much more varied style than the others.
I THINK A COUPLE OF YOUR SONGS REMIND A LOT OF ‘JERRY’S KIDS’. ARE YOU INSPIRED/INFLUENCED BY THEM, OR?
No, we don’t think so. We’re not trying to imitate them at all, but we sure think they’re good. Among other things, we play their song Lost live. When we started we really liked ‘T.S.T.’ [‘The Shock Treatment from Västerås] and we are probably inspired and influenced by them, but now we don’t like them anymore. ‘Discharge’ has also meant a lot, as well as a lot of American bands such as ‘Dead Kennedys’, ‘Bad Brains’, ‘Hüsker Dü’, ‘Gang Green’, ‘7 Seconds’, ‘Black Flag’, etc.
AS KNOWN, MIKAEL AND MARRKO ALSO PLAY IN THE ‘BEDRÖVLERZ’. ISN’T THAT HARD? DOES IT CAUSE ANY PROBLEMS?
Marrko: No, I don’t think it’s hard at all. I’ve wanted to play bass for a long time and now that ‘Kerra’ [Dick Karlsson; ‘Crude S.S.’] left ‘(The) Bedrövlerz’ I got the chance. Playing drums and bass is very different, so there’s no risk of mixing up the songs. I just think it’s great to be able to play both instruments.
Micke: I don’t think it’s particularly difficult either. Sure, it’s hard to play drums but on the whole it’s not that much harder to play in two bands at the same time. It actually has no disadvantages whatsoever.
CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT THE EP YOU’RE GOING TO DO, I.E. COVERS, SONGS, RECORDING, ETC.?
We thought the cover should show the world’s injustices in the form of a poor family on one side and a rich family on the other. Some of the songs that we will include are What Do You Gonna Do?, Ingenting Kvar and Fruktan. We’re going to record everything in Sala [town in Sweden] sometime mid-August; so it might be done by the time this zine comes out. The EP will be together with ‘(The) Bedrövlerz’ [‘Bedrövlerz’ did a split with ‘Asocial’ in ‘84], who are recording at the beginning of September.
ARE YOU REALLY MATURE TO RELEASE AN EP? HAVE YOU EVER RELEASED OR RECORDED ANYTHING ELSE BEFORE?
We are clearly ready for it and you have to start somewhere. Maybe you could start with a tape, but what the heck… Anyway, we’ll record a tape that will be released around the same time as the EP. Hopefully it will come out before so that we get a little more known and that gives us some more experience. At the moment, in any case, we rehearse a lot and know to play the songs without any difficulties, so the EP won’t be a problem.
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE IN TODAY’S SOCIETY: WHAT IS IT?
There are many errors and they’re all huge. A big mistake is that the system is based on the exclusion of the poor and that money has too much influence on us people and the life we live. The violence in the world, however, is perhaps the biggest problem. It’s also wrong for others to be in charge and tell us exactly what to do. We must learn to think and create for ourselves.
HOW IS IT THAT YOU HAD SO MANY GIGS DURING YOUR SHORT CAREER? (7 in 8 months)
We’ve simply have been pushing/ working hard and been trying to fix ourselves ever since we started playing. It’s not like that we’ve been so good that people have been screaming to hear us. However, two of the gigs have been excellent and we would like to thank Sven Lampic [‘Crude S.S.’ vocalist] and Pille [‘Cruel Maniax’ vocalist] for the dancing at the Hedemora concert.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF NON-COMMERCIAL MUSIC OUTSIDE PUNK?
We like that kind of bands. How a band looks or sounds doesn’t matter, as long as the intentions and views are decent. It would actually be fun to make a record together with such a band.
ANYTHING TO ADD?
More fun at the gigs. It’s so damn boring if half of you people have fallen asleep when the last band plays. More action please. The way it is now, it’s far more energetic when ‘The Herrey’s’ [Swedish mainstream pop-group] are playing.
‘FEAR OR WAR’ CAN BE CONTACTED THROUGH: MIKAEL LARSON – FORSBACKVÄGEN 8A – 77300 FAGERSTA
Brob Tilt's zine-world 2 