KREATOR Mainman Defends Band's 'Experimental' Albums

Andreas Aubert of Imhotep webzine recently conducted an interview with KREATOR mainman Mille Petrozza. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On European tour with CELTIC FROST:

"It is a special tour — we have CELTIC FROST with us, which were one of the bands who started in the '80s — they have been around before us even, and we toured with them in the '80s in England. It is almost like a reunion kind of thing, you know. School reunion where everybody gets back together — it is fucking amazing and there is a really nice atmosphere on the tour."

On his lyrics being misunderstood as glorification of violence:

"No! . . It is so hard to say; of course I am against violence. Physical violence takes us back to the caveman, that age. It is not an option, it is not a solution. It is unnecessary. But then again — it is only me, I am living in a… I am privileged. I live in a wealthy country, Germany, I am well off. I am a very laid-back person, because I can do what I want, I do not have to do an 8-5 job which I hate. I do not have to deal with fucking neighbours because I have a nice house. So I am privileged. I can talk about violence from an outside point of view. But I know there are tons of people, the majority of the human population, which lives in circumstances which are not as good. And for them violence is necessary because it is the only way for them to survive. It is survival of the fittest. If you go to some suburban ghetto or something, and you are a kid and there is 10 guys who wants to beat you up… If you do not beat the first one who comes up to you the first time he tries to beat you up — if you do not hit him back, you will always be the one they will beat up. So it is very hard for me to answer that question. In general I am anti-violence, but I think the world has to change to make that a reality. War in general can not disappear from this planet as long as there are people. It will always be there, conflicts and… People think that war is necessary, not only on the level of extremist groups, but also on a global level where you have the capitalist society using war for their own interest.'

The four albums "Renewal", "Cause For Conflict", "Outcast" and "Endorama" is to me very good albums, maybe even brave albums, if you know what I mean. You were trying different things…

"I think those albums were necessary for us as individual musicians. The thing is we never had time to grow up as musicians. Most musicians start recording albums when they are in their 20s. We started as teenagers. We never had the time to try different things. We started as one of the most extreme bands, and we had to be the most extreme band for the rest of our lives, because that is how people got to know us. Of course it causes some confusion in the soul of an artist, because you want to express yourself at different levels. It leads to a one way street because there is only so much you can do as an extreme band. Then you start exploring other forms of music, and you want to do things a little differently and your audience is like 'Fuck off!' (laughs) 'It is not KREATOR anymore.' Yeah, but it is the same people, and it is just an album that we wanted to do, what is wrong with this? But then again, I know there is always a certain expectation when it comes to band names. When I was a kid I was a big KISS fan, and when they released 'The Elder', I did not understand what they were trying to say. Nowadays I think it is probably one of their best albums. I always look at the different angles of things. An album like 'Endorama' may for some people seem like a very selfish album; [like] we just wanted to do it for ourselves, we did not care what the audience was thinking. Maybe it would have been a good idea to have had that released under a different name, because people have expectations about the band. If you look at BATHORY, they did the same thing, maybe on a different level. They started off as one of the most extreme bands, and then suddenly released a Viking album. It was great, but different though. When you have a 20-year career you definitely do something that people think… It would have been so boring to just piss people off with medium quality releases rather than different styles, which is more interesting. Instead of 'Endorama' we could have released a thrash album, fast and brutal, but we did not feel that way at the time. It was more honest, but people think it is not."

Read the entire interview at this location.