Interview с Kreator : DARKSIDE.ru

According to your website, your current tour is the most successful in years – many shows are sold out and some even had to be moved to bigger venues. In your opinion, why is this happening now? Is the market for heavy metal growing bigger, or is the main reason only that you’ve done an excellent album?

It has to do with the fact that we keep doing this, we’ve never stopped. The people are starting to realize that we are serious about what we do.

For this tour you asked the fans to submit the list of the songs they want to hear live…

Yeah, we asked the fans to write down their favorite stuff, and the thing about it is that they picked the songs that we had in the setlist anyway. It was not hard to put together the setlist.

Did you find any surprises on the list of the most wanted songs?

Yeah, a couple of them. We have already rehearsed them, and they didn’t work. There were some obscure songs in the setlists, in Greece we had songs like “Ripping Corpse”, and it didn’t work. With the last two albums that we released, we got a lot of young people in the audience, and they didn’t really know about “Ripping Corpse” and stuff like that. So we skipped it again. Now we have a setlist that is 1.5 hours long, and to me, we cover everything, almost each album.

Speaking about the younger audience – last year you appeared on a children’s TV show…

Someone asked me to do it, and it was a lot of fun. A lot of people ask me why I did it or how it came about, but it was something that the record company asked me to do. We went there, and I was really surprised by the open-minded kids, it was really cool.

Over the years you worked with a lot of artists on album covers, including such names as Markus Mayer and Andreas Marschall, but for “Enemy Of God” (2005) you choose to work with Joachim Luetke. Why Joacim? And how was it like working with him? Some musicians say that he has a very strong vision and can hardly be talked into altering it…

The thing with Joacim was that we developed the artwork for almost half a year. In my opinion, he’s one of the best artists that work for metal and stuff. I really like his work, I’m a big HR Giger fan, and Jo

acim’s very close to that. We’re on the same wave length, he’s the kind of guy that understands what I’m trying to do.

It’s an interesting thing – many of Kreator’s album covers are quite scary, but the album that has such an expressive title as “Extreme Aggression” (1989) only has the four musicians on the cover. Can you tell me the story of how that particular cover came to life?

The cover that we had at the time was something that we didn’t like, so we were stuck. We had a release date back in the day, and things were going like this. We were in a hurry to release the album, so we just figured, “OK, then we’ll just put our photo on the record.” I wasn’t happy with that at the time. The album does stand out, especially cover-wise, but it was nothing we could do back then.

A lot of songs on “Enemy Of God” deal with war and its consequences, and the album overall sounds very pessimistic, it looks like what you’re saying is that war is normal for mankind. Is there a way to stop or at least reduce what is happening in the world nowadays?

No, no, it will never stop. It started back in the day when cavemen were having their little wars for territory. And it’s still there, it’s in human nature, I think. There’s nothing you can do about it. As long as mankind rules this planet, there’s going to be a war.

I have a few questions about some of your earlier songs. For instance, what inspired you to write “The Everlasting Flame” from “Endorama” (1999)? Was there any particular person behind it?

It’s just that a lot of people that I know live that kind of life. You probably know the people that live the same way. I had to write a song as a tribute to those people, because I know so many people that don’t live their dreams.

At what point did you personally realize that you don’t want a regular life with a 9-to-5 job?

It just happened, you know. I’ve been lucky never to be in a situation like that. I never planned doing that, I just knew that it’s wrong. I tried to do regular jobs, but they didn’t work.

And during your musical career, have you ever felt like “to hell with music, I want a house, kids and family”?

Yes. I had

an identity crisis a couple of years ago, but it’s over. (laughs) I’m OK with leading Kreator.

Another interesting song we’d like to ask you about is “Karmic Wheel” from the album “Renewal” (1992). Where is this spoken part taken from?

It’s a guy that shot himself on TV in America. He was a politician that got caught for the crime he didn’t commit, and he felt that he was treated wrong, so he set an example by shooting himself in the head in front of the camera. It’s a statement against politics in general.

While recording “Endorama”, you worked on your vocals with Gudrun Laos. If I remember correctly, she was a singer herself, but stopped doing it long ago. Why did you decide to take vocal lessons, and what were the things that she taught you?

I needed a new vocal approach for “Endorama”, and I wasn’t really experienced in doing that kind of vocals at that time. I needed someone that has the experience, and she helped me.

But why Gudrun?

I knew her from somewhere, and I knew somebody who knew her, and we got in touch.

On “Endorama” you performed the title track in a duet with Tilo Wolf of Lacrimosa. Do you have any ideas for cooperation with anybody in the future?

Right now I’m talking with a German band called Funker Vogt. It’s only an idea right now, they wanna work with me, so let’s see what happens. I haven’t heard the song yet.

Over the past few years you have played in many really exotic places – Ecuador, South Korea, Russia. Is there any place that you haven’t yet played or would like to?

Africa, but we’re gonna go there next week.

Do you ever get scared when you’re going to such places where bands normally don’t go?

The thing is that I get an opportunity to travel to the places that I would have probably never visited if I wasn’t in the band. I don’t even think about negative things. A lot of people go like, “You gotta be careful, there are terrorists and blah blah blah.” But I’m not interested in that kind of stuff. As soon as I start thinking about that, I cannot enjoy myself because I’m afraid of a terrorist attack and taking over my life as well. And I don’t want that to infect me.

Special thanks to Dina Drozdova (MAI-Tur-Servis) and Maxim Bylkin (Soyuz Music) for arranging this interview

Questions by Roman Patrashov, Dmitry “Ward” Kulikov
Photos by Dmitry “Ward” Kulikov
May 27, 2005
3 июн 2005 the End


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