FAQ

John Clifford White, who composed the songs. There are various rumours going around, however, saying that genuine racist bands, such as Skrewdriver, performed them.

Some members of 'Bastard Squad', a local Melbourne (anarchist, anti-racist) punk band from the era arranged the recording of the songs. AFAIK, all were written and recorded especially for Romper Stomper, with none of the soundtrack coming from pre-existing bands, or reflecting the actual views of the musicians. It was all pretty tongue-in-cheek, from the sound of it (bizarrely, that soundtrack was extremely popular in Melbourne's super-progressive anarchist/punk scene, for a few years in the early 90s, in this weird, ironic way. Because the music was great, and hearing those goofy, cartoonish, far-right lyrics coming from these guys who everybody knew were far-left, and were in bands with gay and black members, was goddam hillarious. The far left was much less sensitive, much better at mockery, and much better at treating dumb ideas with the seriousness, or lack thereof, that they deserve, back in those days...)

None of the "bands" on the soundtrack were actual bands that ever played live, or recorded; It was just one or two members of Bastard Squad, mixing and matching players from other Melbourne, late 80s/early 90s punk bands; I heard that (apart from Bastard Squad) there were members of Christbait, Tusk and Death Sentence on the soundtrack, but don't quote me on that.

(I never heard any rumours about Skrewdriver. And the songs all sound pretty different to Skrewdriver, to me. If they'd used real R.A.C bands, they'd have just put the bands' names to the songs. Or even if they didn't do that for some reason, fans would have recognised the band in the 30 years since. The reason there's always been been all this mystery about those songs, is because they WEREN'T from any "real", pre-existing band, and they WEREN'T from any band who wanted to put their name to lyrics like those, like Skrewdriver, or any R.A.C band)

But the closest-sounding band is probably Bastard Squad... if you're Ok with music at the complete other end of the political spectrum.... A lot of that soundtrack sounds pretty similar to Bastard Squad's two original albums (before they broke up for decades, then re-formed), 'Shows Over', and 'Hardcore Revolution'.

There are three alternate scenes of Bubs, the boy that got shot: the blood from the bullet wound in the forehead has been retouched from version to version. The uncut US DVD by Fox, the old UK editions on VHS and DVD and also the shortened German VHS by UFA contain the more harmless version of the scene.

The uncut German DVD by Capelight and the new UK edition by Contender Entertainment contain a bit more blood while the old German DVD by Universum Film is the bloodiest but also the cheaper version.