Sodom’s ‘Angelripper’ is Taking a Break from Touring to “Spend More Time With Other Things”
Earlier this year, Sodom‘s Thomas “Angelripper” Such revealed that he wanted to slow his touring responsibilities down after four decades. At the time, he told Ghost Cult Magazine that he planned on pulling the iconic thrash metal band back from touring so much.
Now, in a recent interview with RapidMetalFire (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), the 62-year-old musician elaborated even more on why he’s decided to cut back on Sodom’s touring moving forward. And it all boils down to those same issues he mentioned when this whole topic initially came up: ongoing health issues and the need to do other things with his life.
“I think you know the story of [Slayer’s] Tom Araya. Maybe you heard something about it. I think he’s got the same problems, like [issues with his] neck [when performing live]. He couldn’t more headbang. I can headbang. It’s not so massive… But that is not the reason why. The reason why is I want to spend more time with other things. I want to spend more time with my family. I need more time going for my hunting district. I want to spend time doing nothing.
“If you are a professional musician — I’m also the manager of the band — you are busy every day. There is no time to breathe. There is no time to relax. I like to spend the time on stage. I like to spend the time making music, but I hate wast[ing] time on airports or hotels.
“If you’re getting 62 [years old] like me, you say, ‘Okay, I need money to make my [living] from [playing] music.’ I know — money is a very important thing. But there is something you cannot buy with money: the freedom. And that’s what I told to my boys, to my group. I told them, I think two years ago, ‘In this year, I wanna slow down the things a little bit,’ because I can’t do nothing, because I’m still working on re-releases. The only difference is I have my home office. That’s the only thing. But I can tell you, I have no plan what to do. I have no plan how long I’m gonna rest. I have no plan when I restart the band, so I don’t wanna live without any plans in the next times. I can’t tell people I want to come back in ’27 or ’28, maybe ’26 — I don’t tell the people. When I think I wanna come back, I go.”
With Sodom now a scarce commodity on the touring scene, Such said he’s received multiple calls from promoters to get the band to play shows, including some festivals and the ‘Big Four of German thrash metal.” But he ultimately said he needs this time away.
“I receive a lot of booking requests… I get some offers from this [and that] festival. I get some offers for making a tour with Heaven Shall Burn. They were interested in maybe a Sodom tour. I get a thousand of requests [for] the ‘Big Four’ [of German thrash metal: Kreator, Destruction, Sodom and Tankard] worldwide. That is not a problem… People are still interested. It’s not something bad because we have no success. I can book tours every day over the year, if I want. That is another thing. Sodom is still — we are still very much a success, I think. People are really interested in coming [to see us]… So that is not the problem. I know that people wanna see Sodom.
“I love my fans, but I also love myself. I also love my family. I also love my old friends. Now it’s time to stop [and] just [concentrate on] doing other things. That’s very easy. I’m still healthy. I’m able to do it. I’m still creative. Maybe the day will come I don’t know what to do, I’m not more creative, I cannot write lyrics, I cannot play bass. Then it’s gone. It’s just a break. But I don’t know how long it takes.”
Sodom have a new album coming out on June 27 titled The Arsonist. You can check out the single below and if you’re so inclined, you can preorder your copy today.
THE ARSONIST TRACK LISTING:
“The Arsonist”
“Battle Of Harvest Moon”
“Trigger Discipline”
“The Spirits That I Called”
“Witchhunter”
“Scavenger”
“Gun Without Groom”
“Taphephobia”
“Sane Insanity”
“A.W.T.F.”
“Twilight Void”
“Obliteration Of The Aeons”
“Return To God In Parts”
