Dr. Awesome of Crusaders was interviewed by Chester and Orlando of Brainstorm. 
 
Tell us your computer history? 
Oh it all started back in 1983 when my friend got a ZX Spectrum for x-mas, and I got "hooked" on Time Gate, Football Manager, Penetrator and Hobbit. I got myself a Speccy and did some programming in Basic. I remember making a database thing, and about 50 different versions of the old "Western Shootout" game - all in basic. In 1987 I got the Amiga and instead of starting programming, I started doing music on it - first with Sonix, and moving on to Soundtracker later. At that time I was in a small group called IFF (International Fart Federation) - which was just a joke really. Ok, later on we got together with some old members of Jetboys and Abnormal, and started Crusaders - that was about x-mas time 1988. Unlike most other Amiga freaks, I've never owned a C64 - not for more than 3 days anyway. I hated it. There was sort of a war between Spectrum owners and C64 owners - like the one we have today between Amiga owners and ST owners. 
 
We all know that making 'Eurochart' is a hell of a stress. What is the motivation to still continue this job? 
It's good fun! It's not so bad really, it's just the last week or so before a new release that it's such a shitty job. The worst part of the job of course is counting the votes. We can't stop now - there's a lot of freaks out there expecting a new issue every 2nd month. How can we let them down? Why do all groups go on making demoes etc.? It's the quest for fame and fortune, (well, only fame really), and the excitement, the friendship, the competition and lots of other reasons... 
 
Has Crusaders got a slogan? 
Yep. "We brake for nobody". What gave us the idea was the opening scene of the movie "Space Balls". Outasight stuff. 
 
Do you personally think the eurocharts refer to the reality? 
Hmmmm...  tricky question.  I'm not so sure whether it really reflects the reality in FACTS..  I mean, even if someone is voted best coder, I'm not so sure that he really IS the best coder in the world - but I know that the Amiga freaks out there THINK he's the best.  Get it? It doesn't necessarily reflect the truth, but it reflects the opinion in the scene. 
 
How many votes do you get for one issue? 
About 250-350. 
 
Your favourite Amiga products. 
Music-X.  No doubt about it.  This program is a true pleasure to use and it's got so many options and functions, it doesn't stop at being a MIDI sequencer - it's a whole music studio.  I think the only program worth comparing it to, is DPaint III - they both show the same pure quality.  I recommend each and every musician out there to go and BUY this program. And of course Noisetracker is great stuff.  But watch out for ProTracker from Amiga Freelancers - this might be the one to finally beat Noisetracker. 
 
What do you think about other musicians in the scene? 
(Maestro, Bruno, Romeo Knight, 4-Mat, Uncle Tom, Dr. Awesome (?), Firefox, Jesper Kyd, Walkman,...) 
My full respect to all the musicians you mentioned, although I don't personally like the style of all of them, they're doing great jobs - all of us can't have the same taste... If I was to pick out a couple of them that I especially like, it would be 4-Mat and Firefox. But as I said, all of them are obviously great musicians. But why didn't you mention Chris Huelsbeck and Tim Follin? 
 
That's a question of the personal taste! When did you start composing sound? 
I started composing long before I got my Amiga - it was when I bought my first synth and played around a bit with it.  Already at that time I was in a band, we composed all our material ourselves.  I've always been very interested in music. 
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Talk about your synths. 
At the moment I've only got 2 synths - a Roland U110 and a Korg DW8000. I buy some new stuff every now and then, and also sell most of it after a while.  I always get new ideas and new creativity when I get my hands on some new synths, so I think it's important to change a bit every now and then.  The Roland U110 is a 31 voice multitimbrale sample player, which means it can play 31 voices at the same time, including a rythm part (drum machine) This gives you that professional sound on the basis "back bone" of the music.  The DW8000 is pure synthesis, and is good for those freaked out synth sounds. Blipp-blopp-weeeewooowwWW. 
 
To what kind of (real) music do you listen? Slayer? 
Absolutely not. My all-time favourite is Prince, closely followed by such wonderful stuff as Rush, Marillion, Pink Floyd and Genesis. And when I'm in my black and funky mood, I'd go for Defunkt, Parliament Funkadelic, Herbie Hancock etc. etc. Screw Slayer. 
 
Have you gained any money with the Amiga? 
Yes, I've done some music for commercial games, and made quite a bit on it lately. Some of the titles I've done are Driving Force, Time, Shaddam, Fireball and a couple of others.  I'm also working on a couple of games right now, one with the working title "Don't Fall Off" and one with no name yet.  Oh, and there's some project going on following the films of Freddy and Nightmare on Elm Street - I'm supposed to do the music for that. I'm considering buying an ST in the near future, to do games music on that piece of shit too.  It's quite good money in music if you can get good contacts etc.  but the competition is rough, and it's a lot easier to get work if you live in the UK than in any other country.  It's obviously much easier for a company in UK to get music within their own country, than dealing with for example Scandinavia.  Unfair - yes, but it's the way it is. 
 
Have you ever had any plans to release a real disk-magazine? 
No. The reason for us making the EuroChart in the first place, was that we saw that a lot of disk mags were coming up, and the competition was going to be hard - so we figured that we would do something completely different - and look, it's worked out real fine! We have no competition at all on the Eurochart - all the other charts are usually just a few guys' personal opinions, not really charts at all, right? 
 
Yes of course, you've got a big advantage with your voting system. Something else now, what's your favourite joke? 
I refuse to answer that question before I've consulted with my lawyer. 
 
"The Fucking best...". What about that? 
I don't mind. I'm sure there's supposed to be some humour in that. Didn't y'all get it? 
 
What does your kitchen look like? 
What kind of silly question is that? It looks just like any other average kitchen, with a stove, some cupboards, a table and some chairs. Just like a kitchen is supposed to look. 
 
Is there a meeting place for Crusader members? 
We have our own little "clubhouse" where we spend a whole weekend every now and then. It's really a kindergarden (no rude laughing please :-) but there's not many children there at 4 in the morning - especially in the weekends.. They let us rent the place for almost nothing, and it's really a nice place to hang out - away from all annoying parents and little brothers who want to play Super Hangon. Apart from that, the guys drop by my place quite often, where I sit in my little "cave of electronics" - a tiny little room stuffed full with all kinds of useless stuff. 
 
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Is the Norwegian scene a good scene? 
For a country as small as ours, I would say it's a very good one. We have at least 4 or 5 groups who are in the "top league" so to speak. The Amiga is extremely popular here in Norway, much more popular than for example the ST, and there's an Amiga in almost every home! (Every home should have one) There are also quite a few copyparties (only these days they're called "demo conferences" because of police actions..) 
 
List us the names of your songs? 
Are you totally, utterly and raving mad ? I promise you that it would fill this issue of Zine if I did! But just to be nice, I'll list my latest few tunes... 
Empty Spaces, Cooking It Up, bAsKeTbaLL, Niagara Falls 1990, Ozone Wildwalk, Tuna Fish, Moongazer, Snow Blind, Subdivisions, Swing High, Justin Bloom, Yaunt, Alien Atmosphere, Operation Starpig, Drome 15, Ghastobello, Barracuda, Sphinx, ...and so on and so on... I could go on for hours just listing the ones from the latest few months. 
 
Do you like lyrics? 
Sure. But they're not the most important part of a song I, think. Not even close. The music itself is A LOT more important to me. I definately *hate* writing lyrics myself, because I'm so hopeless at it. The best song lyric I've ever heard is "The Trees" by Rush. Go check it out now! 
 
Do you rip sounds? 
Of course. Everyone does it. If someone tries to tell you he never rips any sounds, then he's a liar. Guaranteed. My tunes have about 50% of my own sampled sounds, and 50% ripped sounds. Something like that. 
 
Thanks for your answers. 
My pleasure - best of luck with Zine also in the future. 
 
                       Chester/BRS