By Andrew Bansal
In celebration of their 30th anniversary, German thrash legends Destruction are about to release their studio album ‘Spiritual Genocide’ on November 23rd via Nuclear Blast Records. This will be the follow-up to last year’s ‘Day Of Reckoning’ album, and features some special guests, and even the original ‘Mad Butcher/Release From Agony’ lineup joining in on one song. A couple of weeks ago, I caught up with frontman Schmier to talk about this album, among various other things. Read our conversation below, and visit Destruction at their official website, facebook and twitter pages for more info.
Your new album ‘Spiritual Genocide’ is a celebration of the band’s 30th anniversary. So, can we expect something special this time?
Yeah, of course! We have some special guests including Tom Angelripper from Sodom and Gerre from Tankard, and they are singing on one song with me where we kind of celebrate the roots of those bands and the 30 years of German thrash metal, and we have some old band members also playing with us. Oli and Harry are doing one song with us. So yeah, we have some very special guests as a celebration and also we have all the former members of the band singing two songs with us as the backing vocals. So everybody from the old days is involved, basically.
The last album ‘Day Of Reckoning’ was released in 2011, so this album has come pretty quickly. Do you think that if this year wasn’t the anniversary you would have taken longer to release this album?
I don’t know, may be we would taken a little more time, but on the other side, it was a good year. We had a good push, we had a busy year and a great run. We feel that if we have a great run we should just bring it into the studio and it really helps us to compose a great album and be in shape. Also, you have a tendency to get lazy when you don’t push yourselves. Back in the 80s when we started, it was just normal to produce an album every one or two years, so we kind of tried to keep our thing going because you never know when it’s your last chance to record an album! Sometimes circumstances come in, so as long as we feel great, feel comfortable and full of power, we want to keep playing music. We had this album planned for the anniversary, so it was a rush but it wasn’t a bad rush. It was a positive, productive one.
As you said, it’s been thirty years since the band started. Honestly, how would you compare Destruction’s sound now as compared to that on the first album?
We were 17-18 years old when we started, and we were young and wild. We didn’t play that well at the time. Of course now, we have the experience of 30 years and our playing skills are totally different, so we cannot really compare, but I still compare the style of music and it’s still thrash metal. We still do it with a lot of emotion and a lot of aggression, and those things will never change. I think we even came more brutal and more aggressive with this new album as compared to the old ones, actually. Destruction 2012 doesn’t sound like an old band.
Yeah, exactly. Your new drummer made his studio debut on the last album, but based on what I heard off the new album, I think he’s playing even faster and heavier. Would you say he has improved on this album?
Oh yes, of course. When he joined us for the last record, he had only done a few shows with us. He was brand new in the band, and of course it’s not as easy to join a traditional band like Destruction with so many years on the past, but he did a great job on ‘Day Of Reckoning’ already. For this new album, of course, we wanted him to be a bigger part of the band and obviously we had played 200-plus shows after the release of the last record with him, so the band became much tighter and he became a big part of the band. So, it was great to see that he kind of improved and he has really grown with the band. His drumming is a very big, important part of the new album.
You mentioned the guest musicians, and one of them is Gerre from Tankard. I think if Destruction and Tankard toured together, that would be a big party. Have you toured with them in the past?
Actually, we have never toured together! We played together many times, specially in the early days. Hopefully, may be with this new record there will be some opportunities to play together.
Yeah, specially because they’re now also on Nuclear Blast, so you’re label-mates with them.
Exactly, and it will be great because it’s the 30th anniversary for all of us. It’s the 30 years of German thrash, and it will be great to play a lot of shows in 2013 with Tankard, Kreator and Sodom. The fans worldwide really want that and it would be amazing to do it, so we have to wait and see if it’s possible. We will be ready to do it, for sure.
Do you think you’ll bring the guest musicians on stage when you play shows in Germany and in other places?
We will definitely do an anniversary special gig in Germany early next year. We’re thinking about the guests, of course. We have to bring in the old guys and we have to ask Angelripper and Gerre if they have time. So we will see, but we definitely want to do a special show.
Earlier this year, you played some US shows in celebration of the anniversary. Will that celebration continue for the next year?
Of course, it’s going to be all through next year and we will be celebrating 30 years of German thrash and Destruction. So we’re looking forward to it. There are a lot of new opportunities to play now. We have new offers coming up, so I want to cover some new countries and have new experiences of different cultures. The greatest aspect of touring all around is you get to see so many different parts of the world.
Till now, what are some of the most unique countries you’ve visited throughout your career?
Well, last year for sure was the first time in Singapore, and it was definitely very interesting, very nice people. A lot of fans had waited many years to see the band. Also, we played for the first time in Taiwan last year, which was surprisingly different too, because we played in China and Japan before, and Taiwan is kind of a mix of both countries. We also played Australia again last year which was a country we had only played once before. So of course, it’s special when you play for the first time in any country, so we hope this will continue. We have some offers for next year already for playing in Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. That would be very interesting. You’re from India, right?
Yeah, I was actually about to ask you something related to that! I thought you were confirmed to play a show here in India last year, but you didn’t. What happened to that?
That’s a very good question, because we confirmed the show and said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do it!’ They said the show was confirmed, and all of a sudden the promoters told us that they had problems with money and couldn’t get sponsors or something, and then they cancelled the show, which was kind of weird for us because basically for us it was confirmed, and we thought it was definitely going to happen, so we announced it on our website and everything. It didn’t happen finally. Of course, we’ve never played India before so it would be an amazing new experience if it ever happens!
You do have a lot of fans here, and even on my website anything Destruction-related, people get excited. They are definitely waiting for you to come and play here.
That’s great news! Give them our best regards. We’re trying our best to come over. We just need a good promoter to bring us. We hope it happens one day.
Final question I want to ask you is, I’ve always noticed at Destruction shows that you meet fans and talk to a lot of people before and after the gig. Does it become hard for you to save your voice for shows? Do you sometimes try to avoid meeting people because of that reason?
Yeah, sometimes you do have to take care. You’ve got to watch your voice because dehydration is dangerous for the voice. But I usually take good care of my voice and I don’t have problems because I’m aware of what I’m doing. I didn’t lose my voice in 13 years or so, and I’ve had no problems, no canceled shows or anything because of my voice. It wasn’t always like this. When I was young, there was much more of a problem. Since the comeback in ’99, I’ve been much more aware of what I’m doing.