Kreator

I did this one for Monday Magazine and was pretty happy with how it turned out. Building character in these small pieces is a challenge but I was pleasantly surprised with this one. Of course, when it's metal legends Kreator they pretty much build character all by themselves.

A quarter-century of violence
Kreator just keep on thrashing

It’s strange talking to Mille Petrozza. Petrozza, vocalist/guitarist of pioneering German thrash-metal band Kreator, is the man responsible for countless amounts of incredible guitar riffs and obscenely catchy songs that have been the backdrop to many a night spent drinking beers and talking metal shop with the pals. But Petrozza is a mild man when not on stage, and as we chat, this legend of Teutonic thrash is sitting on a bed in a hotel in Cleveland; “We’re in Cleveland today. The shows are all very good,” he says in a monotone at the beginning of our conversation, with the mannerism of a very polite man who’s done a lot of interviews in his day.
But polite does not a thrash album make: with album titles like Violent Revolution, Enemy of God and, their most recent, Hordes of Chaos, comprising the band’s new-millennium catalogue, you’d be right to guess that lyrics about relationships or drunken nights at the bar would be a bit misplaced. This is serious stuff, and this is where Petrozza starts to open up.
“The thing is, playing this kind of music, playing extreme metal, demands extreme lyrics, otherwise not only would it not fit, it would make the whole music sound ridiculous and pointless,” he says. “I think it’s just necessary to have these lyrics if you want to make sense in your music and what you want to get across to people.”
Looking back, Petrozza pinpoints 1988—four years after the band formed—as the year his lyrical focus shifted from fantasy to reality but is quick to add that he’s not here to preach.
“It’s not that we want to spread a message or tell people what to think but we do want songs that make sense, you know?” he says. “We want to be happy with the music and the lyrics so we can perform them more convincingly.”
In a better world, this man wouldn’t be in a quiet hotel room in Cleveland waiting to play an okay-sized venue as he trucks across North America in less-than-perfect conditions. He’d be rewarded for 25 years of uphill battle, 25 years of thrashing good times, 25 years of being at the forefront of an underdog of a subgenre. Maybe next time around, Mille. But until then, you should stop worrying about trying to convince anyone—your music already does that just fine.
-Greg Pratt