Interview By Alison Booth
Old school heavy metallers PÄNZER unleashed their new album “Fatal Command” on October 6th, 2017 through Nuclear Blast Records, which is the follow up to 2014’s “Send Them All To Hell”.
Just after the album release, Metal Shock Finland Senior Manager Alison Booth had a chat with front man SCHMIER for a special “Fatal Command” Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem radio show, which can be listened to at this location.
SCHMIER had plenty to say about the new record and line-up of the band, as well as his love of classic British metal! You can read a few excerpts below and the full audio chat, (which was a lot of fun!) is on the audio player:
Discussing “Fatal Command”, Schmier stated:
“A very special song for me was Satan’s Hollow, because it was the first song we wrote together when we started the procedure for the new album. When we knew Herman would not be there any more and we had to create a new songwriting team and we were asking ourselves ‘are we able to sound like Pänzer?’ and to continue. Satan’s Hollow was the first song we wrote and for me it was a do it or leave it kind of moment. When the song was done and it turned out great, we knew were going to do a second Pänzer album.
The song for me is a special one and of course it’s the most Judas Priest moment on the album and I’m a huge Judas Priest fan.”
So we then had a quick chat about the mighty PRIEST! Schmier expressed his excitement about their forthcoming new album:
“Especially because Andy Sneap is doing it, I’m expecting a great album. I’m sure it’s gonna be amazing because Andy is someone who knows how to get it out. The Accept album he did, the comeback album was fantastic because he made the band listen to their old songs again and brought in a lot of good vibes and motivation for the band. And I think it’s very important as a producer to make the band understand that they have to fulfil certain expectations from the crowd. I’m sure Andy will do a great job with this Priest album, I’m really looking forward to hear it.”
Talking about PÄNZER‘s cover of the classic SAXON track ‘Wheels Of Steel’, Schmier revealed:
“My first heavy metal concert was Saxon in 1981 on the Denim And Leather tour and that’s also one of the first moments that the members of Destruction met, at the concert. The first song I could ever play on bass was Wheels Of Steel actually and Doctor Doctor from UFO, those were the two songs.
So, when it came to a cover version for Pänzer, I came up with the idea of doing Wheels Of Steel and I still love Saxon. Actually there is only one main riff in the song – you would think it’s very easy to cover the song, but in the end it was not so easy to cover it. It has a certain feel and there’s not much happening, but a lot of counting is going on. I don’t know if I ever recorded such a stripped down song, it was quite interesting for me as a musician to do that.”
“Fatal Command” – Track Listing:
01. Satan’s Hollow
02. Fatal Command
03. We Can Not Be Silenced
04. I’ll Bring You The Night
05. Scorn And Hate
06. Afflicted
07. Skullbreaker
08. Bleeding Allies
09. The Decline (…And The Downfall)
10. Mistaken
11. Promised Land
Bonus (DIGI and 2LP only!)
12. Wheels Of Steel
PÄNZER is:
Schmier | vocals, bass
Pontus Norgren | guitars
V.O. Pulver | guitars
Stefan Schwarzmann | drums
