Source: Blabbermouth.net 

Power went out for 30 minutes during KREATOR‘s headlining performance this past Sunday night (November 11) at Salamandra in Barcelona, Spain as part of the band’s European tour with MORBID ANGEL, NILE and FUELED BY FIRE. After power was restored and the musicians returned to the stage, a visibly angry KREATOR frontman Mille Petrozza addressed the crowd, saying, “Fuck the promoter. Fuck those people. Those people rip you off and they rip us off. We don’t wanna play this place ever again. I hope you destroy this fucker.” The band then launched into the appropriately titled “Extreme Aggression”.

Fan-filmed video footage of the power outage as well as Petrozza‘s subsequent comments can be seen below.

KREATOR is touring in support of its latest album, “Phantom Antichrist”, which sold 3,900 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD landed at No. 1 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

Released on June 1 in Europe and June 5 in North America via Nuclear Blast Records, “Phantom Antichrist” was recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden with renowned producer Jens Bogren (OPETH, KATATONIA, SOILWORK, DEVIN TOWNSEND, AMON AMARTH).

HardrockHaven.net conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Mille Petrozza of German thrash metal veterans KREATOR when the band played in Columbus, Ohio on September 14 as part of the “North American Teutonic Terror Attack 2012″ tour with ACCEPT. You can now watch the chat below.

Afer the tour with ACCEPT, KREATOR will film a video for the song “From Flood Into Fire”, and will stay on the road in Europe until the end of the year.

KREATOR‘s new album, “Phantom Antichrist”, sold 3,900 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD landed at No. 1 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

Released on June 1 in Europe and June 5 in North America via Nuclear Blast Records, “Phantom Antichrist” was recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden with renowned producer Jens Bogren (OPETH, KATATONIA, SOILWORK, DEVIN TOWNSEND, AMON AMARTH).

Photo by Stefan Heilemann of Heilemania

Source: Blabbermouth.net

Josh Hart of GuitarWorld.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Mille Petrozza of German thrash metal veterans KREATOR. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

GuitarWorld.com: On [2009's] “Hordes Of Chaos”, you took a very old-school approach to recording. Did you approach the new album ["Phantom Antichrist"] similarly?

Mille: We did a lot of analog stuff on the new record and a lot of vintage equipment. Jens Bogren, our producer, has a lot of goodies in his studio and we definitely used a lot of ancient, very cool-sounding equipment. And also, it was very important that we recorded the album in one room as a band, just like on “Hordes Of Chaos”. It was the same kind of recording procedure, but instead of using all of the basic tracks — including guitars — we only ended up using the bass and the drums tracks, and then went on to do overdubs for the lead and rhythm guitars, which he hadn’t done on “Hordes Of Chaos”. On that album you hear all the rhythm guitars record live and this time we recorded the bass and drums live, all in one room recording. It definitely had the same vibe to it.

GuitarWorld.com: All of the signature KREATOR lyrical themes are present on this album, but one has to ask: What is a “phantom antichrist”?

Mille: The title came from a radio program I was listening to in Germany where they were talking about how Osama Bin Laden got killed and then thrown into the ocean — for religious religions. And there is no such thing as a sea burial in the Muslim religion, as far as I know. And that’s where I got the inspiration for the title from. But the song itself isn’t really a political thing. It’s more about a force that comes to earth, destroys all life and a new beginning starts with a new consciousness. The thing could be really anything. It’s a metaphor for a very, very brutal force that could be destructive but creative too. Basically, what it’s about — and what this album is about — is mass media manipulation. There’s a lot of lyrical variety on the album. You, of course, get the KREATOR treatment where I talk about politics — sometimes — but not in the sense of preaching politics, because I’m not a fan of that. I write songs that are more inspired by political issues rather than talking about my opinion, because politics are boring in my opinion. But there’s a lot of injustice and a lot of oppression, which is being supported by certain politicians and governments. That’s something KREATOR has been writing about forever and it’s always going to be a part of our lyrical themes. You can find anything from fiction to personal stuff to more social issues … like I said, the full KREATOR treatment.

GuitarWorld.com: I know “progressive” can sometimes be a dirty word, but I can’t help but notice that the new album pushes into some new territory for KREATOR. Would you agree there are some progressive elements present?

Mille: Not in the sense of DREAM THEATER progressive. [laughs] Progressive in the sense of longer songs, yes. Progressive for the sake of being progressive, no. Because that’s what I don’t like about a lot of bands. I’m a big RUSH fan, but I think RUSH songs — especially the early albums — definitely has a soul to it. It’s progressive music, but it’s a good song. If anything we’ve been influenced by band like RUSH more than bands like DREAM THEATER, with only the technical stuff. The album definitely has some progressive moments, but not in any technically, showing-off way. More of adding to the song.

GuitarWorld.com: For the B-side to the single version of “Phantom Antichrist” you included a cover of IRON MAIDEN‘s “The Number of the Beast”. How did you go about putting your own stamp on such a classic song?

Mille: We got asked to do a cover version for a magazine. They were doing a tribute to “The Number Of The Beast” and asked if we would like to do the title track. I don’t know what happened to that, it kind of fell apart, I think. At least we never heard back from them. We were very concerned, because there are some songs that you should not cover, that you shouldn’t try to put your own stamp on. Let me put it this way: It’s really not necessary to cover a song sometimes. In my opinion, the IRON MAIDEN version of “The Number Of The Beast” Is perfect how it is, and it’s very hard to make a perfect song more perfect. Like you said, the trick is to put your own stamp on it and make it … not your own song, but make it sound like KREATOR playing it. I think we managed to do that. I can you definitely hear that it’s KREATOR playing IRON MAIDEN instead of KREATOR trying to be IRON MAIDEN, if you know what I mean.

Read the entire interview from GuitarWorld.com.

“Phantom Antichrist” (song) video:

“Phantom Antichrist” album artwork:

Photo by Stefan Heilemann of Heilemania

Source: Blabbermouth.net

Niclas Müller-Hansen of Sweden’s Metalshrine recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Mille Petrozza of German thrash metal veterans KREATOR. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metalshrine: Where did the title “Phantom Antichrist” come from?

Mille: It’s a metaphor. It was inspired by certain things that I read in the media, especially the death of Osama Bin Laden, who got killed and thrown into the ocean for religious reasons, even though there are no such thing as a sea burial in the Muslim religion. It’s a metaphor for control and for the state of the world at this time basically and that’s also what most of the songs are about. You get your typical KREATOR treatments where I talk about injustice, war, horror, pain and oppression of course.

Metalshrine: It is a crazy world. In your country, how are things with the former East and Germany as a whole? Are things getting better for former East Germany?

Mille: That’s a tough question to answer. I mean, I’d like to say yes, but I’m not an expert on these things. I can say it has definitely gotten better in some parts and a bit worse in others. There are places in the eastern part of Germany where there’s nothing and all the people there, when they turn 18, they leave to go to Berlin or somewhere in the west, maybe. There’s no work there. Of course, it’s great to have access to the eastern part of Germany, which wasn’t the case when the Wall was still there and it is also great that the people who live in East Germany can go wherever they want to, but there are still a lot of things that need work in the future.

Metalshrine: The ["Phantom Antichrist"] video then? It looks like you spent some money on that one. It’s a great looking video!

Mille: In my opinion, it’s either you do a video and you do it right, or you don’t. In this day and age, maybe it’s not necessary to make videos anymore. For me it’s an art form and it’s always exciting. It makes sense to me. There are still a couple of TV stations in Germany that play it and some stations play it in South America and even in North America. There are still some stations that play metal videos. It’s not money out the window, but, of course, most people watch it on YouTube, but I think it’s a great promotion tool and also a great art form, in my opinion.

Metalshrine: A video like that, how much is your idea and how much of it is the director’s idea?

Mille: Basically, it’s all the director’s idea. I sent him some rough scripts and then he came up with his own script and I was fine with it. The script that I had was a little bit different, but it was all his idea. I sent him the lyrics I think. The lyrics they wanted and I think they did a great job. It looks spectacular and it doesn’t look like an amateur video or something.

Metalshrine: Those old school gas masks are always kinda creepy.

Mille: I know. [laughs] I think it’s still some kinda ’80s trauma and nightmarish vision that we all have. It gives an association of terror and the apocalypse. It’s quite disturbing, if you think about it, but that’s what I like about it also. The artwork and the music round it up quite nicely.

Metalshrine: What was it like working with [Swedish producer] Jens Bogren and was that something that you decided early on and what made you go with him?

Mille: Well, we were basically looking for a new producer and there were a couple of people that I had in mind, but a friend of mine who worked with Jens, Nick [Holmes] in PARADISE LOST, he recommended Jens in 2009 already. He was like “You should check him out, he’s great!” and I checked out Nick‘s album and I was really enjoying it and I thought it sounded great and it was quite an organic-sounding record, so when I first talked with Jens on the phone, it was either I work with him or I don’t, but I got a great vibe from him and the most important thing, if you work with somebody for production, is that you like that person and when he makes a suggestion you have respect for it and he has respect for the band. I didn’t really think too much about working with Jens, because I had a great feel towards the guy. He’s a metalhead and he knows a lot about music. When I sent him the first demo tape, he wasn’t like “Oh, this is great!” He was very critical, which I thought was great. He was never too enthusiastic, but if he liked something, he was like “Yeah!” and if he didn’t like it, he made it better. To me, he was the perfect producer and we had some really great times. Sweden is very cool for a recording situation. The people were very nice and it was nice living in Örebro. A nice little city. There was not much to do there, but if we went out, it was always great. There were a couple of great nights we had there, and it was good.

Metalshrine: You’ve been doing this for such a long time now, but do you still feel that you need a producer?

Mille: Yeah, definitely. In my opinion, there are very few bands that can produce themselves without losing focus. I mean, you might focus on things but sometimes you… you know, when you’re in the studio you’re very emotional about your music and I think somebody from the outside is always more critical. If I was to record my own album and produce my own album, not only would it be more work, but I wouldn’t know whether or not it’s gonna be better. I trust people, I trusted Jens and I’ve trusted the people we’ve worked with in the past so, yeah, we need a producer. We’ve always done it with a producer. Sometimes we had producers that were great and sometimes we had producers that were OK, but it was always a good experience or an experience. Sometimes it was a bad experience, but most of the time it was great experiences. You always learn something.

Metalshrine: Does it ever happen that you write something and you realize that you’ve already written about it 10 years ago or that you’ve used similar lyrics before?

Mille: Many times. And then you have to rewrite the whole song, which doesn’t make your life easier. [laughs] It doesn’t start with the title, it starts with the words. Look at a band like MANOWAR. I’ve got nothing [against] MANOWAR, but if you take their lyrics, their vocabulary is very limited. Not that I’m saying that my vocabulary is larger or anything. I also have words that I use all the time like terror, war, pain, death… They’ve all been used and I think you have to be convincing. Even on the new record there’s a couple of songs, like I had this title “Death To The World” and it’s a great title, but it sounds like I’ve heard it before and there’s probably a couple of bands that have that title. Then you start googling and you see that NIGHTWISH has a song called “Death To The World” and you wonder “Can I still use it? Is it cool?”, but you have to make it your own song. There are so many songs that have the same names and you cannot always have an album with songtitles that nobody’s used before. But I think a song title like “Phantom Antichrist”, with two words combined that doesn’t really make any sense, is a song title that nobody has. It’s also a very controversial song. When we put up the song title, many people on our website said “This sucks man! What’s up with that?” There’s always people complaining.

Metalshrine: That’s something that has happened a lot lately, a lot of metal musicians talking about people writing negative comments and so on. It’s so easy these days, to sit at home in front of your computer and write negative stuff and not be creative at all.

Mille: Yeah and it’s something that I don’t take that serious. Of course, we get that many times and I know in rap it’s even worse. In metal it’s still OK. People are very passionate about metal, so it’s OK with me. On the other hand, it’s so strange. The reality on the Internet is so much different from the actual world out there. I’ve never heard anybody, at a concert or anywhere else, say something like that to my face. As easy as it is for people to write negative things, it’s just as hard to actually say that to anyone. Whatever. I guess it’s just a human thing when you have too much time on your hands and you start complaining about things. People that don’t do much have the time to complain.

Read the entire interview from Metalshrine.

“Phantom Antichrist” (song) video:

 
“Phantom Antichrist” album artwork:

Photo by Stefan Heilemann of Heilemania

Source : Blabbermouth.net

Radio Metal recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Mille Petrozza of German thrash metal veterans KREATOR. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Radio Metal: You’ve declared about this album ["Phantom Antichrist"] that this is the most epic one that you’ve made. Do you think that this because you’ve managed to put all the aspects of KREATOR‘s music in this record — the gothic parts, the thrash parts, etc.?

Mille: I think so, yeah. Like you said, it features a lot of surprises. It’s like an emotional roller coaster, if you know what I mean. You can expect the unexpected when you put the record on — which I think is cool!

Radio Metal: You haven’t experimented with your music so much since “Endorama”. Is it because you feel restrained by what people expect from KREATOR or is it because you didn’t feel the need to experiment to that extent since then?

Mille: We don’t really think about these things. If I write music, it’s all about the song. I never really think about it. We have a huge fanbase, and a lot of fans are expecting our albums to be very… How can I put this? Very brutal. They expect every KREATOR trademark on one album. As for ourselves, we expect to not get bored! So it’s always a nice mix. Being in KREATOR in very exciting, because we can do whatever we want.

Radio Metal: You once said that you’re not the kind of person who puts out a solo project and that everything you do, you release under the name KREATOR. You said this to justify the “Endorama” and “Outcast” albums. Can you explain what, according to you, is wrong with releasing a solo album?

Mille: (sighs and laughs) Good question! I know what you mean. If I had the time, I would definitely consider it. But I really don’t have the time, because I’m the main songwriter in KREATOR. I have a friend, Tobi [Sammet] from EDGUY, who’s got two bands: EDGUY and AVANTASIA. Sometimes I wonder how he does it. He’s doing so many things at the same time, and I can’t do that. I try, but… It’s not that I’m too lazy, but I just put everything I have into KREATOR.

Radio Metal: You’ve always been cynical towards humanity and you’re also known for your left-wing political orientation. I guess what’s going on right now in the world and especially in Europe must easily feed the lyrical content. I’m thinking for example about a song like “Civilization Collapse”…

Mille: Yeah, that song was inspired by what we see in Greece right now. Greece is going through a financial crisis, but it could hit any European country. There were a lot of journalists in Germany that would look down on Greece, talk about a broken country and make fun of them instead of being supportive. I think the whole idea of the European Union was to help out one another. Like you said, this time and age give me a lot of inspiration for songs.

Radio Metal: We’ve been talking a lot about the “Big Four” lately. Are you kind of mad that we don’t talk that much about the “Big Three” of German thrash metal?

Mille: (laughs) No, not at all! Like you said, I’m very cynical sometimes, but I only feel very happy for the people who had the opportunity to see the “Big Four.” I didn’t, because I wasn’t in my hometown when they played there. METALLICA, SLAYER, ANTHRAX and MEGADETH — those are legends. Without those bands, KREATOR wouldn’t be here, if you know what I mean. What I said about us blowing away everything the “Big Four” has done over the years was pure provocation.

Read the entire interview from Radio Metal.

“Phantom Antichrist” video:

“Phantom Antichrist” album artwork:

Photo by Stefan Heilemann of Heilemania

Source : Blabbermouth.net