by Tuffy Brazil of STROMBLE FIX
It all started in 1990 when five teenagers formed a new punk band. In fact, STROMBLE FIX was a merger of two bands that rehearsed door-to-door in the local youth center in the Ruhr area of Germany.
We played many shows in the early 90s and recorded our songs on 8-track or 16-track tape machines in a friend’s studio whenever we could afford to spend a weekend. The music was published on compact cassettes, and there was a culture of sharing tapes with other bands or even taping tapes to get the music heard. Mail orders these days worked so that you requested a printed catalog first and then ordered your vinyl or cassettes by writing a letter.
Listen to the album while reading the text.
When I started recording our music by myself in 2003, this had changed completely: I could do the whole production on a computer, and it was cheap. However, I have to admit that I did not really know what I was doing for the first three albums or so. It was also hard to get good monitor sound because the system often crashed.
We offered our music for free download on the Internet, which received a lot of attention at that time. Through sites like Jamendo or last.fm, we even earned money for this. We and many other independent bands strongly believed this new concept would be a game changer for the music industry.
We were wrong.
We played live shows between 2004 and 2019 as a three-piece band, and with the money earned, we could afford to release our albums on CD. Sadly, at the end of 2019, our drummer was not able to play drums anymore due to his illness and later died.
When I started mixing “Blind Snakes,” I remembered the old analog equipment we used in the early 90s. I bought a cheap mixing console and did a lot of A/B comparisons. To my ears, the analog mixer sounded much better than all my (not so-cheap) software plug-ins. And it was more fun! Consequently, I did all the mixing analog and used the computer only as a tape machine. I think, doing so, “Blind Snakes” got, ironically, even more of a “live” feeling than our previous albums.
Musically, all our influences from the past 30 years are there: Punk, Post-Punk, Grunge, Wave, Indie Pop, and even some electronic sounds.
When we prepared the release of “Blind Snakes,” we realized that the major industry had gained almost complete control over the internet. At the moment, there is only one relevant source for music, and it is highly manipulative. Only a few webzines, music blogs, or web radios focused on independent music are left.
Nevertheless, we are in a good position as a band because we can produce and publish our music independently.
We are in our fourth decade and just getting started!
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