KREATOR Frontman On New Album: 'We Wanted To Top Everything That We'd Done Before '

Suicide Scriptures conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Miland "Mille" Petrozza of German thrash metal veterans KREATOR on April 19 in London, England. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts from the interview follow.

On KREATOR's new album, "Phantom Antichrist", which is due on June 1 in Europe and June 5 in North America via Nuclear Blast Records:

Mille: "We made sure that it contains all the trademarks that we're known for — crushing brutality, riffs that are very hard to play, lyrics that talk about things that I get angry about. You know, the full treatment, basically."

"We didn't try to do anything different. The only goal that we set for the band was we wanted to top everything that we'd done before and make this record an exciting record. That's always the main goal.

"First off, we don't plan ahead too much. I take a long time to prepare the songs at home, in my little home studio, and then when I feel that have something lyrically and musically that I feel is good and exciting and powerful, then I play it to the other guys and then we discuss it. And we might come up with new ideas or we might arrange the songs differently, or we tear them apart and put them back together. It's a long process. We started this in the beginning of 2011, and we kept writing and rehearsing the songs until January 2012."

On the lyrical themes covered on "Phantom Antichrist":

Mille: "Many things: injustice; the crisis in Greece; me thinking that religion is obsolete now in this day and age; personal things. I think the lyrics for 'From Flood Into Fire', they're very different, but it's very hard for me to explain what it's about. I want people to listen to it and leave room for their own imagination. I go to the movies all the time and I'm a big movie nerd, and I hate watching a 'making-of' [documentary featuring behind-the-scenes footage] before I go into a movie. So if I would explain the lyrics right now, [it would lose the magic]."

On the "Phantom Antichrist" artwork:

Mille: "I got in touch with [artist] Wes Benscoter in the middle of June last year and I gave him a couple of songtitles. And I told him that the album might be called 'Phantom Antichrist'. I already had the idea and I told him what the lyrics were about — it's all about the apocalypse, evil in the world… typical KREATOR topics that I always write about. I think he had 'Pleasure To Kill', and he knew about the band. I liked this AUTOPSY cover that he did, and then I found that he did a lot of great stuff for BLACK SABBATH, SLAYER and many, many bands. . . I talked to one of my colleagues that plays in a German band and he told me that he would draw, with a pencil, artworks and then he would give it to a professional artist. I don't have that much influence on the artwork. I think it's best to give an idea and maybe a title or something, maybe some music even… I think that's more of letting the artist be the artist. He needs to create the visual as we do with the music."

On how Swedish producer Jens Bogren (OPETH, KATATONIA, SOILWORK, DEVIN TOWNSEND, AMON AMARTH) ended up helming the album:

Mille: "That was also more of a spontaneous idea. I was thinking about who I wanted to work with for the next album. We worked with Andy Sneap, one of the best producers in the world, and for the last album, we worked with Moses Schneider, in my opinion, also a great, great producer. We had the album, 'Hordes Of Chaos', mixed by Colin Richardson. Those are amazing people to work with. We wanted to work with someone else — something new, new input. Jens Bogren, I'm not particularly a fan of any particular band he produced. I like a lot of the stuff that he did and I have a lot of friends that worked with him. Actually, Nick [Holmes] from PARADISE LOST recommended him, but that was already two years ago, three years ago, when they did the first album with him. We met at a festival in Turkey and he recommended Jens to me. [And we're very happy with the results.] he's a great, great producer."

The official lyric video for "Phantom Antichrist", the new single from KREATOR, can be seen below. The song was released April 20 on seven-inch colored vinyl and as a digital download via iTunes, Amazon and various other digital music providers. The release also includes the exclusive IRON MAIDEN cover "The Number Of The Beast".

A music video for "Phantom Antichrist" was helmed by Poland's Grupa 13 (BEHEMOTH, ELUVEITIE, SONATA ARCTICA, DECAPITATED) and will make its online debut on May 3.

A brand new promotional photo of KREATOR can be seen below (photo by Stefan Heilemann of Stuttgart, Germany's Heilemania).

KREATOR is:

Miland "Mille" Petrozza – Vocals, Guitrar
Sami Yli-Sirniö - Guitar
Christian "Speesy" Giesler - Bass
Jürgen "Ventor" Reil - Drums

Interview:

"Phantom Antichrist" lyric video:

"Phantom Antichrist" single artwork:

"Phantom Antichrist" limited-edition artwork:

"Phantom Antichrist" album artwork:

Photo by Stefan Heilemann of Heilemania