Sodom - The Early Days - Best of Sodom (2015)

Sodom was formed by Tom Angelripper and Aggressor in 1981 in the Western German industrial town of Gelsenkirchen. They were mostly influenced by bands like Motörhead, Tank, Raven, and Venom.

They soon found a drummer called Bloody Monster who was, however, quickly replaced by Chris Witchhunter, with whom they released two demos, "Witching Metal" and "Victims of Death" in 1982 and 1984, before signing a deal with SPV GmbH. After a gig in Frankfurt in 1984 (with Destruction and Tankard) Manfred Schütz of SPV GmbH came to the band and spoke the legendary sentence "You guys are so bad, you will sell a lot of records!". This led to the recording of their debut EP "In the Sign of Evil". Missing was Aggressor, who had left the band. He was replaced by Grave Violator (recommended to the band by Kreator's Mille Petrozza), who also wouldn't stay very long. A full album's worth of material was intended to be recorded for "In the Sign of Evil", but problems with the label meant the release was truncated to an EP.

In Grave Violator's place, Michael Wulf joined, just to leave the band shortly after the recordings of what would be their first full-length album "Obsessed by Cruelty" in 1986 to join Kreator (where he would last only one show). He later died in a motorcycle accident in 1993. "Obsessed by Cruelty" was entirely re-recorded (also in 1986) with another short-time guitarist at the stipulation of the record company, though confusingly both versions ended up being released. The new recording (featuring an additional song called "After the Deluge" was used by Steamhammer for the European release, but for the American release through Metal Blade the original, rejected recording was accidentally used instead. Mislabelled re-issues of the album over the years have only served to further muddy the waters and the original recording has ended up being more widely heard.

After "Obsessed by Cruelty" was released, the band abolished their Satanic image and replaced it with the (pacifistic motivated) war theme that can be found on most of Sodom's records. With their new guitarist Frank Blackfire, the most legendary Sodom line-up recorded two albums (plus a live album, "Mortal Way of Live", the first of various Sodom releases which had a censored cover in Germany): "Persecution Mania" (which was the first Sodom album produced by the band's long-time producer Harris Johns, and also had the first cover that featured the band's mascot "Knarrenheinz" and "Agent Orange" (including the single "Ausgebombt". This album made Sodom the first German thrash band to ever enter the charts (it reached number 36 on the German Media Control charts).

Blackfire left in 1989 (like Destructor before he joined Kreator) and was replaced by ex-Assassin guitarist Michael "Micha" Hoffmann.

In 1992 Tom fired Chris Witchhunter, who had alcohol problems. Atomic Steif, who would stay in the band until 1996 (and is, like many former Sodom members, still embittered that Tom fired him), became the new drummer.

From 1997 to 2010, Sodom had a consistent line-up consisting of Tom Angelripper, Konrad "Bobby" Schottkowski and Bernemann. In 2001 Tom, who meanwhile also released various solo albums as Onkel Tom Angelripper, has been awarded double platinum for more than 1.000.000 sold Sodom albums.