Our current manager, Matthias Prill, knew Tommy Ziegler, the head of Disaster, so he invited the guy to the show. We brought Warfare over from England and we really played our hearts out; the offer came from that night.
...we did receive some other offers, but I won't say from who. We thought Disaster was better for us because we could be more individual if we were on a different label to all those bands who were getting signed by the two labels [SPV and Noise] you mentioned.
Released by Disaster on this day in 1986, EXUMER's classic debut Possessed by Fire.
Harris [Johns] and Tommy Ziegler worked together for many years when they used to bring out punk music on Disaster. They are very good friends and Tommy knows Matthias, so he suggested Harris to us. We're pleased with the production because it's really good for our style.
...
A lot of German bands aren't really raunchy enough, and we told Harris that we wanted a dirty guitar sound. This is also part of the US sound that the band likes listening to.
"No special thanks but pure hate goes out to Ralf Ludwig for cheating us and all the people who ordered our demotape."
Well, as the message on the back of the album says, our old manager Ralf Ludwig cheated everybody. We got a lot of orders for the tape but he took all the money and never sent any tapes out.
At the time reviews often drew comparisons with EXODUS:
It's not just Exodus they talk about you know, it's Nasty Savage, Slayer etc, etc. How would I react? Well, it's not like a copycat thing; you can't say that we put on a record and say 'we'll change this around and play it like this'. I think a lot of people overdo this charge of bands copying other bands. We listen to a lot of stuff and I can guarantee that on any album you could say 'that sounds a bit like Slayer or Metallica or Exodus'. Maybe a few of our riffs are written in the same style as Exodus, but it doesn't mean to say Exodus wrote them and we played them does it. Ray loves Exodus, especially Bonded By Blood (1985), but that doesn't mean Exumer are Exodus. We are trying to do what we want just like anybody else, and I hope everyone understands that!
Paul Arakaki, Syke Bornetto / EXUMER interview, Metal Forces #23, 1987