KREATOR Frontman: 'I'm Gonna Do This Until I Die'

Brian Giffin of Australia's Loud magazine recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Mille Petrozza of German thrash metallers KREATOR. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Loud: KREATOR has been around a very long time. You were one of the first thrash metal bands, so how have you seen metal evolve over the thirty years or so that you've been doing it?

Mille: To me, it's not about the trends that come and go, it's about the quality of the music. In my opinion, there's no such thing as... you know, with everyone jumping on the bandwagon, the lastest trend, I don't buy it. I'm a big fan of metal in general. I see the evolution of thrash metal as very critical. There's a huge amount of new bands coming out that are carrying the torch and trying to copy the sound of back in the day. That's their main gimmick. I like a lot of those bands. I like many, many of those new artists like WARBRINGER, VIOLATOR, and all these newer bands, but I am still hoping that one of them comes up with a killer album and killer songs. I think the last WARBRINGER was pretty cool. But, in general, metal has changed, of course. The Nineties were not so good for metal, but there was some great modern metal bands. From 2000 onward, metal has become almost bigger than ever and a lot of new bands came along and not a lot of them were great. There was many, many bands, but they weren't all of good quality.

Loud: So how does that affect a band like KREATOR?

Mille: It's all about endurance. If you're a band and you believe in what you do, when you've been in a band for that long, you should just try and do your thing and don't look too much right and left to see what's happening with the scene. Who's coming out, who's splitting up and who's dying... whatever. I think the most important thing is to believe in what you do and try to be the best you can.

Loud: I know a few people are really looking forward to your next album. It seems like people are just as keen for new stuff from KREATOR as ever.

Mille: The great thing about our band, one of the things I'm really proud of, is that when we play new songs, it's not like the people don't wanna hear 'em. I've seen a lot of old bands, they create a new song and the reaction is freezing, then they play an old-school [track] and everyone goes berzerk. That's not the case for KREATOR. We play a new song and then an old-school and it works perfectly!

Loud: So have you ever thought about a time when you might retire from KREATOR or from playing metal?

Mille: No. [Laughs] I'm gonna do this until I die, I guess! There's no reason for me to not do this anymore. I've been doing this my whole life, you know. What else am I gonna do? I love what I do and I'm gonna keep doing it as long as I can. It's very interesting when you think about it. Look at a band like MOTÖRHEAD... Lemmy's gonna be 70 in a couple of years. And he doesn't seem like he wants to stop or anything. It's great. It's really good. I think metal is the best form of music to keep doing as long as you want. There's no age limit. It's great.

Read the entire interview from Loud magazine.

"Phantom Antichrist" (song) video:

"Phantom Antichrist" album artwork:

Photo by Stefan Heilemann of Heilemania