KREATOR - Forty Years of Thrash
Written by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment - Sense Music Media | Thursday 9th June 2022
Band Photos by: Christoph Voy
Talking Waterslides and the Berlin Wall with a Thrash Veteran
Having flown the flag of thrash since 1982, KREATOR founder and frontman Miland "Mille" Petrozza has seen and done a lot. From the band’s beginnings in a divided Germany, KREATOR have released fifteen albums and made a living touring the world while their idols became their friends. Ears still ringing from a RAMMSTEIN concert, Mille reflected on the Berlin Wall and forty years of thrash …
How did you come to work with Sofia Portanet?
Me and Sofia, we were friends. We were talking about doing something together, musically, and I had this song for the album, Midnight Sun, which is about the movie Midsommar. In Midsommar, there’s this strong female character, and I had a vision of having the female character appearing in the music. I love her voice, I love her albums, like the album that she put out in 2020. Yeah, we were just meeting in the city and it was very smooth, and I wanted to avoid an operatic kind of … don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t want to do something like NIGHTWISH or something. I wanted to do a very eerie, kind of spooky song that sounds like KREATOR, but with a twist, and I think she did a great job. It’s amazing to have her on the record.
Plus it will be a good way to piss off anyone who’s like, “No, thrash metal needs to be this and that!”
Oh yeah. Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah, it’s definitely a good way to piss these people off! But whatever, you know?
In thrash, people obviously know the big bands – the Big 4 and whatnot – but I wonder, in your eyes, as someone who’s been there since the beginning, who are some of the most underappreciated bands in that genre, and why?
That’s a good question. I think that EXODUS has always been a great band, but I mean, they’re not underappreciated. People appreciate them. I think there was a band from Germany called ASSASSIN back in the day that was really good, but they’re not like the version that they [were]. They are still playing, but I don’t think that the version of the band that’s playing now is as good as the version from the 80s. I think that ASSASSIN was a little underappreciated back in the day.
You’ve had this incredible career up to this point. You’ve played with thousands of bands and met thousands of people. What are some of the best friendships you’ve made during your time as a musician, and why? What do you think has made those relationships special and last the distance?
You mean, like other musicians?
Yeah, or just people in the industry, or people outside your life in music that have had a big impact on you. You can answer the question however you want.
Of course, I’ve met so many people from all over the world that I probably wouldn’t have met if I wasn’t in this band and I didn’t have the opportunity to travel the world. I’ve made friends literally all over the world. Musicians that I’m still in touch with are people like, for example, MOONSPELL, the whole band, or ARCH ENEMY, I’ve become really good friends with … EXODUS … Gary Holt, for example, was one of my main influences when I started, and I can call him a friend nowadays. That’s still mind-blowing to this day. I think that this is something that is really cool, you know? You meet so many like-minded brothers-in-spirit who believe in the same thing when you’re in the metal community. That’s why I love this music so much. I think it’s like, no matter where you go, if you meet somebody who is into metal, you click automatically. Of course, it’s not all about the music … For example, me and Michael Amott from ARCH ENEMY, we love waterslides. [Laughs] Whenever we’re on tour and we see a waterslide, we’ll send videos, and when we tour together, we go to waterslides. So that kind of thing. We always keep in touch. It’s a big family. I’m not exaggerating. Sometimes we don’t see each other, like all the friends that I’ve made from all over the world, especially during the pandemic, it was kind of boring, but we kept in touch.
Following on from that, who are some of your favourite bands to play shows with, and why?
I love playing with all kinds of bands. I mean, I’m really looking forward to playing with LAMB OF GOD. We’ve never played with LAMB OF GOD before, and I love playing with EKTOMORF, which is a Hungarian band. Yeah, whoever. From a fan’s perspective, I love playing with IRON MAIDEN of course, because I’m a big fan, or JUDAS PRIEST. That’s almost like dreams coming true, you know? Little sixteen-year-old me would be like, “Wow!” And I’m still in awe whenever I play with these bands. That’s the beauty of it. Nowadays, we play with those bands and we’re friends with some of the members. Andy Sneap, he taught me the PRIEST riffs when we were in the studio recording. He taught me PRIEST riffs, how they’re really played, and that was so incredible, because he’s a member of the band now, and it’s strange how things go sometimes. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to seeing all these bands again when we go on our little summer tour now.
Pardon my ignorance, but I was born in ’85, so Germany being divided was not a part of my consciousness growing up. This was something I learned about after the fact. What affect did the unification of the country have on your life? And what was it like growing up in West Germany?
I have relatives … I had a cousin from East Germany, so I have always had a connection to East Germany. My mother is from East Germany, and before they built the wall, she came to West Germany. When the wall came down, of course it was like a big family reunion for us, and I made a lot of new friends. I mean, yesterday when I went to RAMMSTEIN, RAMMSTEIN are originally from the eastern part, and for me, when the wall came down, it was like there were so many things happening in German music. For example, they had all these medieval bands like IN EXTREMO for example, and they had a great metal scene and a great punk rock scene in the Germany Democratic Republic, so being able to experience all that, and connect with all these musicians that I couldn’t connect with beforehand, it was amazing, and it still is to this day … I’m living in Berlin now, and I can move … I can go from the western to the eastern part and there’s no wall, and I can experience it. When I came here in ’84, recording Endless Pain, the wall was still there. It was kind of spooky. It was really strange to be inside a city that’s surrounded by a wall.
That just blows my mind. When you were growing up there … You were saying that there were other bands that you finally got to hear. Were you just not hearing a peep out of the culture on the other side of that wall?
Yeah, we were. There was a couple of bands from there that were also kind of known in Western Germany, but very few. One or two bands, maybe. Not metal. We’d heard about these bands that played kind of metal, but it was hard to get their tapes or their records. So yeah, playing in Poland … It was structured like this: the people from East Germany, they were allowed to go to Hungary, Poland and I think the Czech Republic, something like that. So every time we played in Poland, we met a lot of our fans from GDR, and it was very emotional. We were dreaming of a time when the wall would come down, like, “Ah, it would be so great if we could play East Berlin.” And then it happened. It was cool. It was one of the best things that could have happened to Germany.
What do you remember of the day? Did you watch it on TV? What do you remember feeling?
I have to be honest with you, I think I was on tour or something, and I only heard about it, and I watched it on TV. Of course, it was an emotional moment, but you could feel it coming. It wasn’t happening from one day to the next. It was more like … there were open borders already, and people were coming over, and we knew it was going to happen. The day it happened, it was like, “Yes! Finally!” So it was something that went on for like a week before the wall finally came down.
I’ve read that you’re a vegan. What are some of the challenges of maintaining that lifestyle on the road?
It’s not so challenging, but sometimes you have to make a bit of a compromise. But it’s okay – most of the promoters and the local caterers know what veganism means. It was a big deal when I started becoming a vegan, like, thirteen years ago. It was a little harder to find food. But the vegan community is almost like the metal community. In every city, they have vegans, and they have restaurants, and you connect. There’s an app called HappyCow, and every time I come to some cities, I use that app to go and find vegan restaurants. So if there’s nothing … if the promoter couldn’t [provide], or in the hotel there’s no vegan options, I just use that app. But it’s not a big deal anymore. In Australia, it’s also normal to go to a vegan restaurant now, right? When I started becoming a vegan, it was more like, “What? What’s vegan mean?” Nowadays everybody knows what vegan means, so people aren’t strangers to this lifestyle anymore.
You’re in your fifties now. I wonder, if you could give any advice to yourself at twenty-five, what would you say?
I would say, “Just focus on the music, and go do whatever you need to do.” I wouldn’t be like, “Change this or that.” I wouldn’t change anything … Of course I’ve made mistakes and stuff like that, but in general, I was never addicted to anything, I was never living an unhealthy lifestyle, so I’m happy. I’m happy the way it went. I’m happy that we’re still connected with our fans even though we started the band in ’85, even though it’s 2022 and we’re still here. That’s fucking mind-blowing, man. So it’s all good, it’s all good.
I feel like there’s not much more you can ask for in life than to get to fifty and not have any regrets.
Absolutely. There might be some minor regrets … I would maybe do some things different than the way I did it back then. You have to live and learn. When you’re twenty, you’re doing things that twenty-year-olds do. It would be tragic to still do these things when you’re in your fifties, that’s all I can say.
Hate Über Alles is out on Friday 10th June on Nuclear Blast
Pictured: Sami Yli-Sirniö, Miland "Mille" Petrozza, Frédéric Leclercq + Jürgen Reil – KREATOR
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