Mille Petrozza, guitarrist and singer of KREATOR, talks about the new DVD, life, the universe and everything else.

V.V: Hello Mille, what are you up to now – you and the band?

M.P: We are taking a little break before the tour and we are promoting the new dvd.

V.V: Yeah, the funny thing is that the idea of this interview is to talk about the new DVD „Enemy of God Revisited“ and is quite amazing but the question is: Do you think that today all the labels are putting their efforts in promoting the DVDs because the record sales are not that important anymore, because that cannot happen?

M.P: I don't think so. Not in metal anyway. When we are talking about dropping record sales, it happens mostly to pop bands. The metal fans want to hear their records and own them, so it doesn't affect the metal world too much, to be honest. The reason we issue DVDs is to give impression how the band looks and sounds live and I think that we had the perfect Kreator show at the Waken Open Air festival in 2005 in front of 40 000 people with great surroundings and great people. It is a highlight of our career, so this is the main reason we put out the DVD, not because of any label politics.

V.V: The thing about Kreator, even when Kreator was in Bulgaria in the end of last century, Kreator was the most brutal band on earth. And now I can see on the trailer of the DVD the word „brutality“. So is there a limit to brutality? What is the most brutal thing in the world of music that happened so far?

M.P: I don't think that there is limit to anything. It depends on you as an individual to set your own limits. We never set ourselves any limits and we know we can achieve anything. We know we are among the most brutal bands on earth and we want it to be that way.

V.V: Yes, but what is the most brutal achievement in music, whatever the year or the band is?

M.P: "Enemy of God" has some pretty heavy songs and we have our own highlights of brutality. I don't really know, I've never analysed it this way. To me it’s important, the brutality itself, the aggression is a part of heavy music and it’s just necessary for heavy music to be brutal. It can be very slow in a brutal way or very brutal in a metal way. It has to transport emotion whatsoever and Kreator chose the path of going into the extreme and coming up with the thickest riffs and the weirdest melodies.

V.V: Talking about brutality again, do you think that today life itself and politically and historically speaking, the world of today got to be even more brutal than the one metal bands created in terms of brutality ever?

M.P: Oh, yeah. The reality in Iraq is a lot more brutal than any heavy metal band ever. The fact that there are people just blowing themselves up to blow up other people is also even more extreme that any grindcore band on this earth. Compared to this, metal and brutal music, is harmless.

V.V: Voila! The metal society on this planet has proved to be one of the most intelligent part of the whole world. Do you ask yourself the question “What, the hell, is going on today on this planet?”

M.P: I came to the conclusion that as long as there’s people on this planet and the human race is the superior race on this earth and they’re killing animals, each other and whatever they can find, and having the new religion, called “capitalism”, it’s gonna get worse. I don’t see an era in the history when there wasn’t war and bloodshed and violence and brutality, so I don’t think it has anything to do with our time. I think it has to do with human nature itself. If we want meat, we don’t kill animals but go to the supermarket. We don’t have to kill animals anymore, but we still have the killer instinct inside. Some people still have to experience this by going to war or beating up other people or just being violent in different ways. There’s lots of other ways of expressing your negative aggressive emotions. You can do many things to harm other people. I think it has to do with human nature, not with the fact that we live in a certain age.

V.V: Yes, only the weapons got to be more sophisticated these days.

M.P: That’s for sure.

V.V: I’ve been following what you’ve been doing from day one and only today I realized that there are bands from this age, like you, Kreator and Desturction and that there is an opposition in the names – creation and destruction. This inspired me for the next question – talking about what we talked about in the last couple of minutes – do you think that all the raw energy you put into your music is coming from a positive or a negative kind of thing? Is it a positive or a negative energy?

M.P: I guess it’s both. I believe in duality of things and it’s a lot of fun to play music and it’s like a relief, it has psychotherapeutic effect to write music and lyrics that come from the inside. It keeps us sane, really. So it’s both negative and positive, because by being creative and writing new riffs that are totally disharmonic and weird and sick and off the track, we are trying to destroy the beauty of music by making it sound heavy and evil and dark. So, it’s both.

V.V: Like in life.

M.P: Yeah, just like in everyday life.

V.V: So, you’ve released a DVD and it’s, like you said, a great DVD – catching the power of a band in front of 40 000 people, which is the audience every band dreams of, but it’s been almost an year and a half since. So what is next?

M.P: Next would be more touring, really. And writing a new record. But I have to get inspiration first. I’m writing some riffs already and I’m trying to get bits and pieces together, but nothing definite yet. I’m really collecting ideas at this point.

V.V: Where do you get the inspiration from? Do you just sit and watch TV and think the world is a shitty place, blah-blah-blah, or you just sit on the toilet seat, like Eddie Van Halen used to do and play the guitar? Where do you search the inspiration, or you just wait for the light to come from the sky?

M.P: There’s no formula, really. If I knew where in the house is the best spot to write music, I would just sit there and wait for the moment to happen. But there’s no such thing. Sometimes it comes by surprise and you get the whole song in five minutes, sometimes you have to wait and put it together like a puzzle, which sometimes can be a process of days and months. There’s no formula for that. It’s mostly by talking to people and absorbing things.

V.V: Remember the time when you were a kid and you played the mock guitar.

M.P: Yes?

V.V: So today, when you are in your car and don’t have your guitar, do you still pretend to play the mock guitar?

M.P: I can remember things really well and imagine riffs, so when I get the guitar, I just write them down. I get them in my head and I can keep them there.