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Interview with WHIPLASH´s Tony Portaro and Joe Cangelosi

Interview by Niko Karppinen

Live pictures by Arto Lehtinen

Transcription by Antaura Zed

About once in a lifetime you get an opportunity to meet one of your childhood heroes. When I heard that one of the thrash metal legends,Whiplash, was going to play at Jalometalli festival in Oulu in 2009, o’boy I became very excited!

As if that already wasn´t enough, I also got a relatively privileged chance to talk with the one and only original member of the band Tony Portaro and Joe Cangelosi (who replaced Joe Scaglione in 1986 when he temporarily joined the Slayer ranks) - just before their gig took place at the festival. So one can only think how such a larger-than-life opportunity meeting these fine 2 maetros of thrash was for an old-timer metalhead like me.

In case you might be eager to know a bit more about Whiplash´s latest activities – just like hearing a thing or two about their comeback album, titled UNBORN AGAIN (which is out and available now, carried by some of the biggest metal companies from Displeased to Nuclear Blast, etc.), what happened to the band some 10 years ago since they released their THRASHBACK album – amongst other things as well.

Made you curious about them already? Then be my guest and just keep reading on… ;o)

TONY PORTARO & JOE CANGELOSI - NEW COMING OF THE LEGENDARY WHIPLASH

Interview by Luxi Lahtinen

The true heyday of thrash metal was naturally the 80´s. Many great thrash bands were formed during the 80´s, and also many great thrash albums were released back then that are considered as some of the genre´s most classic and strongest  albums even these days. Exodus´ BONDED BY BLOOD, Vio-lence´s ETERNAL NIGHTMARE, Slayer´s REIGN IN BLOOD, Dark Angel´s DARKNESS DESCENDS, Metallica´s RIDE THE LIGHTNING, Testament´s THE LEGACY, Forbidden´s FORBIDDEN EVIL, Anthrax´s AMONG THE LIVING, Kreator´s PLEASURE TO KILL, Destruction´s INFERNAL OVERKILL – and just dozens of other releases from that particular era, were definitely some of those genre-defining albums that many today´s releases often get compared to – and that´s just really understandable when overall thinking what thrash metal is really all about: Violence, rage and aggression.

For some strange reason, Whiplash from Passaic, New Jersey, never seemed to reach the same cult status with their releases as some of their fellow thrashers did in some other thrash bands at that time. Whiplash 1st two albums, POWER AND PAIN and TICKET TO MAYHEM were both some of the most frenzied, rawest, most powerful and unstoppable slaps of intense speed/thrash metal from those days that hardly paled in comparison to any other albums from the same genre, but were still somehow left a couple of steps behind the shadows of many other speed/thrash releases back then. Fair to say, the world isn´t always that justified place for everyone, I guess.

Whiplash´s last studio album, THRASHBACK, was released in 1998 with 3 Tonys (R.I.P. Tony Bono), and I bet many of us already thought we would never see another Whiplash album any more.

But as so many old thrash acts that undoubtedly lived their gloriest days in the´80´s before splitting up, have made their comebacks on the verge of new millenium and released decent albums, it was finally Whiplash´s turn to return back to form and start writing new songs again.

Tony Portaro, Joe Cangelosi (ex-Kreator, ex-Massacre, etc.) and Rick Day (ex-Primal Scream) are currently preparing songs for Whiplash´s 7th full-lenght album, titled UNBORN AGAIN – and before it will hit the stores around the world, let both Tony and Joe tell more about this process, plus the past days of the band a bit as well…