KREATOR's MILLE PETROZZA: 'We Wanna Progress As Musicians And Come Up With New, Exciting Stuff'

In a new interview with Kris Peters of Australia's Heavy, KREATOR frontman Mille Petrozza was asked how he thinks the band's goals and vision have changed in the four decades since KREATOR's inception. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Of course we progressed as musicians. I think the attitude is still the same. We love to play extreme metal. We love to explore new music. Every time we release an album, it's important for us that we do something that we haven't done before and that we push ourselves and put in new elements and try new things every time we release an album. But the attitude is still the same.

"I think over the years we established our own style and we wanna progress as musicians and we wanna come up with new stuff, exciting stuff," he continued. "We wanna keep our music exciting, and that's why we sometimes take five years between albums, sometimes three, four, but we never just put out something for the sake of it."

Asked how KREATOR's sound has evolved since the release of the band's debut album, "Endless Pain", in 1985, Mille said: "Like I said, we've progressed as musicians. We're more confident. We're more experienced, obviously. But sound-wise, the technology is so different nowadays, even though on [KREATOR's latest album, 2022's] 'Hate Über Alles', we went to an old-school studio called the Hansa studio [in Berlin, Germany], a studio where David Bowie worked in the '80s, U2 did some albums there, DEPECHE MODE worked there. So we keep it old school to some extent in order to keep sound-wise, sonically, just keep some of the elements from the early days. But I would lie to you if I would say we are not using computers. Of course, everybody's using computers nowadays. We're not blocking out this new technology and the possibilities of nowadays recording techniques. So it's a nice mix. But I think as long as the attitude is the same, and I think that's referring to your question, we still have the same energy we put into the music and we work very hard on keeping it fresh and exciting."

This past May, KREATOR released a music video for the song "Conquer And Destroy" from "Hate Über Alles". The performance footage was filmed on March 4, 2023 in front of 6,000 of KREATOR's mighty hordes in their spiritual home of Essen.

KREATOR's fifteenth studio album, "Hate Über Alles" was released in June 2022. The follow-up to "Gods Of Violence" was recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin, Germany. Helming the sessions was Arthur Rizk, who has previously worked with CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, CODE ORANGE, POWER TRIP and SOULFLY, among others.

The "Hate Über Alles" cover artwork was created by Eliran Kantor, who has previously worked with HATEBREED, SOULFLY, TESTAMENT, ICED EARTH and SODOM, among others.

"Hate Über Alles" marks KREATOR's first album with bassist Frédéric Leclercq, who joined the group in 2019.

In March 2020, KREATOR surprise-released a new single, "666 - World Divided". The song was produced by Andy Sneap and Markus Ganter and was recorded at Hansa Tonstudios.

KREATOR played its first show with Leclercq in October 2019 in Santiago, Chile.

Before joining KREATOR, Leclercq rose to fame with U.K.-based extreme power metallers DRAGONFORCE for whom he handled bass duties from 2005 until August 2019.