For a very long time in the nineties and early noughties, Terrorizer Magazine was essential reading every month. It was the acceptable face of music journalism that rarely veered into covering bands of a “Kerrang level” and if it did, it was because Terrorizer wrote about them first. It felt like a fanzine as much as a magazine and large parts of this were down to Ian Glasper. With his legacy in U.K hardcore/punk/metal already cemented as part of bands like Decadence Within, Suicide Watch and the mighty Stampin’ Ground, Glasper gave a voice to upcoming bands within the scene and was, on many levels, a vital part of the UKHC resurgence in the mid to late nineties and beyond. With Terrorizer now sadly defunct, Earth Island and Glasper have teamed up to bring you two absolutely stacked volumes of interviews with Terrorized: The Collected Interviews.

Kicking off with Volume One, an absolute doorstop of a book (as both are) Ian opens with the story of how his journey with Terrorizer began and how his column Hardcore Holocaust came to be. Now Hardcore Holocaust was an absolute must read for people of my age at the time, who were looking for the newest demos that the U.K hardcore scene could throw up and gave new bands tiny but vital bits of exposure that succeeded in bringing many parts of the scene together. The book then moves onto forewords by Mike Score of All Out War and former editor Nick Terry before we get to the bones of the book. Such is the number of bands featured, this could only be done alphabetically, so Volume 1 deals with bands A-J. I mentioned before that some of the bands interviewed by Ian, went onto bigger things and perhaps the biggest example of that in this volume is AFI, who were still on the rise when Glasper caught up with them in 2001. Band development is unwittingly captured too as three interviews with NYHC legends Agnostic Front show the band as they embarked on their comeback tour in 1997 through to 2004 where they were once again at the head of the hardcore table. In relation to the UK scene and the vital space I referred to before, Glasper conducted interviews with the likes of Assert, Canvas, Freebase and Icons of Filth, instantly giving each band more credibility. And there’s even several interviews with Rick Healy (Rick Ta Life) before his sad descent into obscurity and madness.

Volume 2 opens with Glasper reminiscing about his favourite interview subjects and his personal feeling at the time. Jaz from Killing Joke, Danzig and Paul Bearer of Sheer Terror get special mentions here amongst others, before we embark on bands L-Z. Again, some of the bigger names to get some “Glasper time” before they broke were The Offspring, NOFX and Slipknot, while the UKHC scene gets some love with interviews from the likes of Knuckledust, Public Disturbance, Pulkas and Withdrawn.

At a combined 1054 pages long, Terrorized: The Collected Interviews is not merely a snapshot, but more a comprehensive record of heavy music during that time period. Glasper’s knowledge of the bands is second to none and his interview style is easy going and friendly which makes for hours and hours of fascinating reading….Chris Andrews