RIPPER

South American extreme metal is here to stay! It’s been close to 40 years since voices like SEPULTURA, KRISIUN, VULCANO and more screamed from the jungles of Brazil. And in time, Brazil was not alone, as powerful metal scenes emerged in Chile and Argentina. This was not a flash in the pan, because once you are bitten by the underground metal bug, there is no cure!

Chile remains a dominant location for thrash, death and black metal. But I haven’t heard a better band from there than RIPPER! Take it from the Good Doctor, the latest RIPPER album “Towards Rebirth” has every element that made the bands mentioned in the first paragraph work…and more! It’s a riff factory that combines old school hooks and attitude with modern production!

Upon having my brain wrecked by said album, I made it a point to talk to the band. That brings us to my interview with Patricio Spallinger, who founded RIPPER back in 2007. Read on and enjoy…

WORMWOOD CHRONICLES: Greetings to RIPPER! Thanks for talking to us! Can you give us a brief history of how the band came together?

PATRICIO SPALLINGER: We originally met at school, and later we discovered that we lived in the same neighborhood. Through mutual friends from Talagante and Peñaflor, we began to build a friendship and started getting together to share ideas and create our own songs. During one of those gatherings, the name RIPPER came up because we remembered the JUDAS PRIEST song. Over time, the line-up changed, but most of the new members were friends from the neighborhood who shared the same passion for heavy metal and extreme music. We began playing gigs and spreading our music by taking part in different shows around the city. We have kept this spirit alive to this day. Most of the musicians who were members of or involved with the band have continued working on their own musical projects.

WC: “Towards Rebirth” is the first RIPPER album in about 10 years. What was the story behind the long gap between albums?

PS: During that time, the band went through several line-up changes. At the same time, I was also grieving the loss of someone very dear to me, which forced me to put my everyday life on hold. It was incredibly difficult for me to move forward and get my life back on track, but I have to say that this experience also had a profound influence on the inspiration and lyrics of the album.As for the instrumental side, many of the songs were already quite advanced by 2020, and some of the riffs even date back to 2016. Throughout 2019, we were also fairly stuck in the songwriting process, mainly because we could not agree on the instrumental direction or the path the band should follow. Eventually, with the arrival of new members who shared similar influences and a common musical vision, we were able to move forward and overcome that period of stagnation. We also managed to leave behind the extreme perfectionism that, rather than helping us, often prevented us from finishing the songs and continuing to make progress.

WC: “Towards Rebirth” is one of the best death/thrash albums out of South America since the heyday of SEPULTURA. I detect a lot of influence from “Schizophrenia” and “Beneath The Remains” in the album. Was this kind of sound always the goal or did it just kind of happen naturally?

PS: It was one of our main influences from the very beginning of the band, but we never limited ourselves when it came to incorporating other influences, such as early KREATOR, EXPLICIT HATE, ATOMIC AGGRESSOR, NECROSIS, PENTAGRAM from Chile, DESTRUCTION, SADUS, DEATH, and many others. I also believe that, through those influences, we gradually developed and learned to create our own variations within that style of riffing. Some people claim that we are simply a copy, but I think that is mainly because they are not familiar with much beyond SEPULTURA, so they find it difficult to recognize the other influences present in our music.

WC: What was the writing process like? Are the songs all relatively recent or do some of them go back a long time?

PS: As I mentioned earlier, some of the riffs date back to 2016, such as those in “World of Darkness,” although they were later reworked and refined for the final version. “Towards Rebirth” was written in 2019, as were “Final Hologram,” “Into the Coldness of the Land of Death,” and “The Secret Dawn.” The most recent songs were “Procession to the Eternal Rest,” “Message From the Other Side,” and “End of Universe,” which were completed around 2022. The part of the process that took the longest was having the other members learn the songs and finally getting into the studio to record them in 2024, if I remember correctly. As you can see, several situations prevented the process from moving forward the way we wanted it to. It was all extremely difficult, but I feel that we are now much more stable and solid as a band.

WC: Your partnership with Dark Descent records should see RIPPER reaching a lot of new ears in the U.S. and Europe! How did this deal come about?

PS: We have been working with them since 2016, together with Unspeakable Axe Records, which was their sub-label at the time. This connection came about thanks to Gabriel Gatica from the Compilation of Death zine, who saw us perform live in Chile and recommended us to both labels.

At first, they were interested in reissuing our debut album, but I decided to take a chance and propose that they release a completely new album instead, which eventually became “Experiment of Existence”. They agreed, and that is how we were able to sign a deal with them. In my opinion, the partnership has worked very well.

They have been extremely patient with us, especially considering that it took us ten years to release this new album. I am confident that the wait will have been worth it.

Also thanks to Gabriel, we were able to work simultaneously with Iron Pegasus Records from Germany, who helped us greatly with the distribution of our first and second albums throughout Europe.

WC: Chile has been known as a hotbed of South American metal. What’s the strength of the metal scene there currently?

PS:I think it is actually quite strong. There are many shows throughout the year, and while some are bigger than others, the underground scene has always remained active.

There is a strong presence of zines, distros, and labels, as well as a lot of underground material being sold and traded, including CDs, tapes, and vinyl records. Honestly, I feel that Chile is a heavy metal paradise, especially because of the attitude and passion of the people who attend the shows and concerts.

WC:Any newer metal bands from Chile that you can recommend to us?

PS: DESECREATOR, EVIL WARRIOR, DEATH’S REVENGE, IMPURO GRAL, ZWEIHANDER, PHANTASMAGORE, FUSILATED, FRENESI, BLOOD OATH, to name a few. 

WC:Does the band play live a lot? Any plans to play outside of South America?

PS: We were very active playing live for quite a long time. These days, we try to be more selective about how often we perform, since we all have regular jobs that allow us to support ourselves in our everyday lives. Now that I think about it, playing so many shows also took time away from working on the new album.

And yes, there are plans to play a few shows outside the country. I hope they can be arranged in the best possible way and that everything goes well with those dates.

WC: Do you have any ideas for what comes after “Towards Rebirth” or is it too early? I’m hoping we won’t have another 10 year wait for a new album?

PS:I hope it will not take another ten years. The good thing is that we already have some new songs and even a possible title for the next album, although I would rather not mention it because of our previous experiences. In the end, everything changes according to what happens along the way. But there are definitely plans and projects to keep moving forward. We obviously want to continue, but everything has to happen in its own time. I also do not want to feel pressured, since we do not make a living from this—unless someone offers us the opportunity to do so.

WC:If you could have dinner with any 3 people from history, who would they be?

PS: That's a difficult question. There are many people I could choose, but for now I would choose… Alexander the Great, Friedrich Nietzsche & Carl Jung.

WC: Has RIPPER ever had a “Spinal Tap” moment where things went haywire that you could share with us?

PS: We have quite a few stories. For example, some of our guitarists have fallen over onstage. I also remember that, during our South American tour, a group of trans women robbed one of our bandmates and took his tickets back to our hometown.

When we were younger, we also got into fights with other bands or people in the audience at shows because we were drunk. There are many more stories, but I would rather keep them private, haha.

In Peru, when we suddenly found ourselves without a tour manager and were left on our own. An event promoter from a show we played with VIOLATOR from Brasil made us hand out flyers for “Juanes” in the streets so we could earn a little money and survive the rest of the tour, haha… good and weird times.

 WC: Any last words or messages for the fans?

PS: We would like to thank everyone who has continued supporting the band despite the line-up changes, as well as our record labels, who have given everything for us and believed in the band. We would also like to thank all of you in the media and the zines, whether in print or digital format, for helping to keep alive the essence of what is happening in the lives of extreme metal musicians.

RIPPER