Epitaph's career began in the winter of 1969/70. And that in the cellars of the Dortmund music club Fantasio. Success in the USA came quickly - but also financial difficulties, which led to the multiple break in the band's history. But the group around the British guitarist Cliff Jackson and the German bassist Bernd Kolbe proved to be long-lasting. Their new album "Long Ago Tomorrow" will be released in time for their golden anniversary.
eclipsed: Band foundation in 1969 - how did you experience this great year of rock, keyword: Woodstock?
Cliff Jackson: So most of the bands on Woodstock back then were actually unknown. Santana, for example. The cult festival in Scheeßel was more popular with us. At that time there weren't that many music magazines reporting about it, only the "Bravo". After all, in England it's the Music Maker.
eclipsed: The '70s were your big decade. What was the most important station?
Jackson: After the performance on the Berlin Waldbühne the Gary Pollack from Billingsgate Records came to us in the dressing room and said: "In three months you will be in the USA! At first we didn't believe that, because no German band had played beyond the big pond at that time. But then we actually ended up in Chicago a little later. In 1974 we recorded "Outside The Law" with the sound engineer Dave Purple in only five days - a funny mixture of Anglo-American guitar rock and strange German psychedelic. Would you call it progressive these days? (laughs)
eclipsed: You played three times at the "WDR Rockpalast" - 1977, 1979 and 2004. What was the best performance?
Jackson: I don't have a special one. The first, however, was strange: in a studio, with only thirty, forty people sitting there like extras, there were probably students. (laughs) At the second gig Peter Rüchel had picked us out during the "Brain" tour. In 2004 we rather slipped in.
eclipsed: How is the title of your current album "Long Ago Tomorrow" to be understood?
Jackson: It should actually be called "Long Ago And Tomorrow", so look into the past and into the future.
