For any band, let alone one playing what might be considered a niche style of music, to have a career carrying on into it's third decade is quite an achievement. Well that's what Destruction have managed. Even Anthrax legend Scott Ian is quoted as saying that "Destruction defined Thrash Metal in the 1980's and are one of the true forefather's of extreme music“. 

Now with a new album to promote, Thrash Anthems”, a CD that includes 13 Destruction classics from the years 1984 to 1990 as well as two brand new songs, and a UK tour alongside Onslaught in the offing in November, all things are go on the Destruction front. HRH caught up with band mailman Schmier to have a chat and find out more..

Destruction

How’s it going?

Schmier (Vocals/Bass): Its fine, a little stressed at the moment because I am doing Headhunter stuff in between all the Destruction shows. So I’m running from the studio to do live gigs back and forth, so I’m a little tired at the moment but things are going good. We are going to Japan again with Destruction next week, so I am really looking forward to that. 

“Thrash Anthems” has come out recently, is that to mark 25 years of the band being together?

Schmier: Yeah, basically the 25^th anniversary is going to be next year, so we’re going to release a DVD and everything and do a big tour, but “Thrash Anthems” is looking back at the years in the eighties when Destruction was founded and because all those albums don’t have such a great sound. So we recorded all the old classics again especially because there was a demand from all the younger fans who prefer the newer Destruction sound, which is tighter and better produced, so that was actually the reason why we did that.  

You also recorded some new tracks for it as well [Profanity and Deposition (Your Heads Will Roll)].

Schmier: Yeah we said it’s always fun for us in between to write songs, so in the rehearsal sessions we wrote some new stuff as a bonus for the best of album, so people have some new stuff in between the old classics. For us it was a chance to produce something new and something fresh in between all the classics. It was a good thing for us and for the band. 

Is that the sort of stuff we can expect from Destruction in the future?

Schmier: No I don’t know, for the two new tracks we sat down and said let’s do something we wouldn’t really do on the next album, so we can try out some stuff on the best of album or do something that we may be afraid to do on the regular album so we wanted to have one song that was a little bit more melodic and not so fast and then and one song had to be longer and more aggressive. So we just tried to see how people would react to this but basically the songs feel like Destruction and they sound like Destruction it was nice to experiment a bit more than we usually do.

On the last album, “The Inventor Of Evil”, you had people like Shagrath (Dimmu Borgir), Biff Byford (Saxon) and Paul Di’anno (Ex-Iron Maiden) guest on the track “The Alliance Of Hellhoundz”.

Schmier: Yeah we can actually stop playing music now because we have achieved our aim (laughs). We had some of the best metal singers all on one album.

Was there any particular reason for doing that?

Schmier: Yeah, those guys are my heroes. We started with New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the eighties and I wanted a song which features all styles of heavy metal. When we started there was thrash metal but now there are so many different styles and I wanted to show some unity and bring my heroes like Biff and Paul Di’anno and bring in the new heroes like Shagrath from Dimmu Borgir and Peter Tägtgren (Hypocrisy, Pain) and people like this and having all the styles, starting with heavy metal, over to doom, to thrash, death and black metal, we have all the different styles of heavy metal and it was to show some unity. It was an important message from me because I’m a metal fan in general and I’m not a specific fan of thrash just because I play this kind of music.  

You’re touring the UK this year with Onslaught, is it going to be a thrash of the titans tour?

Schmier: It’s going to be exciting for us because the last time, I had a broken knuckle and I couldn’t do the last UK tour, finally now we have this great line up with another great eighties thrash band and we are really looking forward to it. It’s also the most UK and Ireland shows we have ever played in Destruction career and we promise the fans a really long show with lots of classics. 

When you started the band back in the eighties did you expect to be still around today?

Schmier: No, never. We just wanted to play a few shows then we had a gig one day, we never thought we’d go on; we were surprised with our success of Destruction in the beginning. It was a big surprise.

I am really thankful that we can do what we love because when we started Destruction the music was still too heavy so the critics were either really really bad but the underground thought we were really really good. At the time we didn’t know we had started something called extreme metal and that’s why we are still here I guess. 

Destruction and Sodom both defined German Thrash, what do you think of the current Thrash revival?

Schmier: It’s good to see that because for many years it was just Destruction, Kreator, Sodom and Tankard from Europe still flying the flag of thrash metal and it was very difficult for the other bands to get a record deal and get the recognition from the media but of course the success of the older bands has helped the younger kids to follow up. It’s great to see at many of the shows we play at least ninety percent of the people are under twenty years old; there is a whole new generation. Lots of new bands are getting record deals again and it’s great to see because I remember when I came back to Destruction as the singer in 1999, everybody was shaking their heads and telling me there won’t be any young kids left to listen to thrash it will just be old people and thrash will die and stuff like this. Thrash is more than music it’s a way of life and that’s why it has survived and its coming back.  

Finally what can we expect from you for the rest of this year and early into next year?

Schmier: The main plan for next year is the 25^th anniversary tour, so we will definitely do a DVD and an anniversary album which will have a lot of special bonus on it, then we are going to do a world tour starting in September next year, that will hopefully bring us back to the UK again. This UK tour in November is going to be the first in line for the next one where we’re going to bring some great bands for a special 25^th anniversary show.

Well thank you for your time…

Schmier: It was my pleasure. And to all the fans out there in the UK in general, Destruction is very thankful for all the support over the years, playing underground thrash isn’t always the easiest thing to do because it’s an un-commercial statement and I’m really happy that we have so many fans worldwide who have supported us over the years. For all that people that will see us over the next few weeks and months we can promise you a really strong live set that will feature all the classics and the newer anthems, people will see what thrash metal is all about when they see us on stage and we are really looking forward to it.

You can find out more about Destruction by visiting their website @ www.destruction.de. Their latest album Thrash Anthems is out now via AFM Records and you can check out the HRH review via this link