SACRED REICH Is 'Not Opposed' To Making New Music

Arizona thrashers SACRED REICH are contemplating writing and recording their first new music in over twenty years.

Formed in 1986, SACRED REICH is part of the second wave of thrash, along with TESTAMENT, DEATH ANGEL, DESTRUCTION and DARK ANGEL. Over the years, SACRED REICH has produced a catalog of politically charged aggressive songs that have stood the test of time.

SACRED REICH's last studio album, "Heal", came out in 1996. The band broke up in 2000 and remained inactive until 2006 when they received offers to play European festivals.

Since coming out of retirement more than a decade ago, SACRED REICH has almost exclusively played the European festival circuit every summer. But that will change this year as SACRED REICH is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of its classic album "Ignorance". To commemorate this milestone, the band is bringing its "30 Years Of Ignorance" tour around the world, which kicks off in Europe on July 26. Following the European run, the trek will make its way to the USA in September, featuring BYZANTINE as support.

During an appearance on a recent episode of "The Official Danko Jones Podcast", SACRED REICH bassist/vocalist Phil Rind confirmed that the band has reconsidered its previous stance on recording new material.

"We're not opposed to maybe doing some new stuff, which is, for us, kind of a change of plan," Rind said (hear audio below). "We've always been adamant that we weren't gonna do any new music, and our attitudes have changed, so we'll see what's on the horizon."

But Rind admitted that the desire to create fresh material may come with its own set of challenges.

"Thinking about doing new music isn't just doing new music, it's making a commitment to do new music and support it," he said. "Wiley [Arnett], our guitar player, just opened a second restaurant, so it's pointless to try to do something if you really can't get behind it, so we need to talk about, if we do do something, is there an opportunity to support it properly, what are people available for, and all that kind of stuff.'

According to Phil, his motivation to get creative is not influenced by the potential demand that may — or may not — exist for new SACRED REICH music.

"Do people wanna hear [something new from SACRED REICH]? I don't know," he said. "I'm to the point where I don't care. I've always been more or less to the point that I don't care, because people go, 'Oh, there's a big audience.' I'm, like, 'Well, how do you know there's a big audience? How do any of us know?' We don't. We can make an assumption that there's an audience. But my point is, look, when we made our first record, there was no audience, no one knew who the fuck we were, and we did it anyhow, 'cause we didn't care, 'cause we knew we had to do it. So you just have to do it with the right attitude. You have to do it 'cause you want to, you think the time is right, you have something to say, and then you go from there. So there's all that crap."

Adding that his "voice has actually gotten better" over the years and describing himself as a "more confident" singer than he was in the past, Rind said that he is not entirely sure what musical direction a new SACRED REICH album would take.

"I'm super guilty of overthinking things, generally speaking, so I can obviously overthink, like, 'What does SACRED REICH even sound in 2017? Should I kowtow to whatever expectation that our fanbase may have of what we sound like?'" he said. "So there's all those things, like twenty years of not making new music. What do we sound like? And I finally just came to the realization we sound like whatever it is that we put out, and that'll be fine. Which is pretty obvious, I think, to probably most people, but to me, I had to work through the process and get to that thing. So we'll see."

During the "Danko Jones" chat, Rind also laid out the SACRED REICH timetable for the rest of 2017. He said: "We've got four weeks of touring in Europe, which is like a long time for us, 'cause we really… basically, we have been doing [short runs] of maybe about two weeks. And then we have our first U.S. and North American shows in, like, twenty years — we're doing three weeks in the States and a couple of dates in Canada. And we're gonna do a thirtieth-anniversary edition of 'Ignorance' coming out, I think, end of July in Europe and then a few weeks later in the States and North America. And right now we're kind of in negotiation to get our whole catalog back, 'cause there's been an issue, contractually, with different record companies, so the records haven't been available 'cause we haven't had the rights to 'em. So I think we're on the verge of getting everything back. So that's really cool. And then we'll go from there."