To me it's like anarchy. You know, anyone can do anything, which is good and bad. And you know what I'm talking about - I'm talking about the fact that it's good for the Metal community, because you get to communicate from people all over the world very easily – you know just turn on your computer and write an e-mail, it's everything there! Everything runs at light-speed. On the other hand there are certain things which are not so great, such as illegal downloading of course, which takes away a lot of the mystic of a new album.

No, I don't think that the sales go down, especially in Metal music because they are quite solid due to the fact that Metal fans want to have the real thing – it's just that we want to be in control as to when the fans will hear the new album first – and I think this is out of our hands now.

Yeah but you know, what they do, they do it differently, they just invite the press one day and they don't send away promotional copies – which when you are a band like Judas Priest you can do this but for a band like Kreator we need the air-play and the Metal magazines to write about the record before it comes out. I mean we talked about doing this but we thought it would be a little unfair for the magazines that have promoted us for so long – I mean we would trust the people from the Metal magazines so the record company sent out 3000 promotional copies of the new album and it's been in the Net now for about a month. But it's OK. I think that it could have been worse, if it didn't get in the Net it would mean that people didn't care about it. So it's good and bad.

Exactly! Listen, I've been a Metal fan for a long time and I always had a demo of the new album before it came out – but I would still go on and buy the record.

Exactly.

Yeah, right!

I think the most important thing is that Metal fans and generally Rock fans have a different attitude. They really like to take in advance the music and hear it but in the end they will eventually go and buy the record, because they have a different approach towards the music.

And also they collect music. Where it really hurts though, is Pop music. They used to have sales like 20 million copies and now they have fallen to one or half a million, and you know so many of the bubble-gum Pop stuff is mostly affected. But now you don't need it anymore. Most kids aren't related to the scene or the artist or anything – it's enough for them to be accepted in their so called community or their friends. It's like 'I've heard the new Eminem (I mean the artist has an integrity) but there are so many shitty stuff, that kids won't go buy the record, since there is only maybe one good track in the record.

Yeah, most of the time. A lot of fans were saying that they did like the stuff and we are happy with the music that's the most important thing.

No! The thing is that we worked very hard on the songs. We had a lot of time preparing them, so the songs developed for a long time and we changed stuff around a lot.

Yeah, when we did this production, me and Andy - who also did Violent Revolution – we liked that big sound he gave us. For this album a more live – raw sound. I told Andy that I like the old productions of Rick Rubin – you know the Danzig stuff, the Slayer stuff, all that stuff – the very dry production.

Yeah, and Andy really liked the Coma Of Souls production – it has elements from this era.

I think it's quite hard to define a political statement. Making no statements is also a statement and I think many Metal bands don't care about politics – which is OK – I mean if they they think that Metal should be only entertainmnet, that's fine! But nowadays I think that these two things cannot mix. You can listen to Kreator's album and don't think about politics but if you want to, you can read the lyrics and then discover more. You know the title of Enemy of God is a statement, a very powerful statement.

Well, you can either see it like this or ask yourself what does the guy mean with Enemy of God. I am not saying anything anti-Christian, I am saying that nowadays politics use biblical relations.

Yeah, I mean it seems that we are going backwards. And you know, this is what is really scary. I mean the main religion nowadays is capitalism in my opinion – and the whole thing is based on capitalism. It's a disguise for religion and they use it to justify the actions of certain leaders by just satisfying capitalistic ideologies. It's a mix of all that.

Yeah! [laughs]

It was not as dramatic as people thought it would be. To be honest with you I was in the studio and it was this one solo for Murder Fantasies that I could not think of anything. When it comes to solos and lead parts it is hard to get them out of me because I am mostly into riffs, so Andy was pushing it back and we couldn't find anything great so I ran out of ideas.

Yeah [laughs]! So we said let's call Michael and have him play. We sent him the tape, he sent it back and that was it.

To me it's people like Neil Young, Johny Cash.

No, no! I like songwriters like Nick Cave and those kind of people. Because their songs do something. I like their approach. It doesn't have to do anything with Metal or Thrash. Of course I am influenced by what we have done in the past and my way of writing songs should always be meaningful. To bring more emotion, I can.

I think they have songs and I love some of them too. I like some of their stuff and it's not that I am against that kind of music but they don't touch me.

Yeah I knew him. He came to one of our shows, we talked about music and he was a very nice guy. Very nice attitude, down to earth, he asked me questions about the slow Kreator parts and what happened was a fucking tragedy.

No, I don't think so. We played a couple of shows after that event.

No I am not .

No. Do you think that they are going to be any imitators? This guy was crazy, there was a shock in the Metal world and if anything there is going to be more security. I think that one thing we should always keep in mind is that here in Europe it is still illegal to have a gun. So it's hard to get a gun and even harder to shoot somebody. It's different cultures but I still think that this guy was fucked up. But it is a very sad event.

Yeah I have considered doing this. There was a book called The Necromancer and I was trying to do this but it did not work. It is very hard!

Oh yeah. I was in a movie, a very very long time ago! It was Pleasure To kill Time and it was a German movie. Nobody heard about this but it was a gang movie and I was there!

I was just a gang member but it was a long time ago!

Ha ha ha! [Laughing] No, it was like more fun to do with it! They needed kids to be part of a gang, so I would generally like to do what you asked me! Anything interesting!

Yes.

Yeah, it's really strange, because every time I'm on the road I wanna go back home, and when I'm home I wanna go back on the road! It's almost schizophrenic but I would not complain about this. I mean I have so much respect for people who get up in the morning and go to jobs they don't really like and I am doing the job that I like – even though it's stressful sometimes – you know staying away from my home ...

Exactly! So you get so much back. When you are on tour you wait everyday for 12 hours, not knowing what to do, you are in a different place, you don't know anyone, you don't know where to go and it's hard to find a clean toilet! But on the other hand when you go on stage for an hour and a half, this makes it up for the whole thing! These hours make it all worth it!

But the only thing that I don't like is that when you go on stage, play the concert – you get so much adrenaline – and afterwards you wanna party or hang out with people but everybody's gone! [Laughs]

Oh yeah! You are in a hotel room all by yourself.

Yeah! [Laughs] I mean there is nothing to complain about it; it could be worse! [Laughs]

Thank you very much!

A lot of people did not get that record because it's a too basic form of Kreator. We simplified the sound of the band we had more straightforward songs.

Yeah, I like the record too. I think there are some very good songs in it.

Yeah!

Yes there is going to be a release party and then parties all over Germany.

No, not all of them. We will do a small tour of signing sessions the weekend before the record comes out and there will parties with stickers and stuff like that.

Not yet, we don't want to concentrate on festivals, the most important thing for us is to do a headlining tour, 'cause we get so many complains from the audience because they see us for a shorter period of time than usual, at the festivals.

Oh yeah, we'll be on some festivals but for now we don't want to confirm anything before we play our own tour.

Yeah, we have scheduled the whole thing and we have shows until May. We will start from Europe and then go to South America and then to North America.

Why?

You 've got to see it this way. A lot of people here in Europe think that America is very conservative and very strict but it's not like that. You know the audience in America is the same as here. The audience there feels like the European one.

Yeah but it was very clever, very ironic and they will not get it. Anyway, anything that I wanna do in my lyrics I just do it. I will not start to censor myself because certain people don't want me to touch certain topics.

So aren't you concerned that there may be some small reaction when they see a title like Suicide Terrorist?

With Suicide Terrorist I was trying to talk about this issue. A big part about this whole September 11th thing was a Suicide Terrorist or a couple of them. I think it makes more sense about writing how tragic and sad this event was. There was a lot of horror and terror for me. Of course it was tragic and shocking but it makes no sense and it is not interesting to talk about it because it sucks. Everybody was mourning about the people who died on September 11th but with this song I tried to figure out what the guy thought when he did it. He knew the hour and day of his death.

Oh really? [Laughs]

Thanks! But don't handshake me today because it's bad luck! [Laughs]

Ha ha [Major Laughter]! Well first of all I am not only German, I am half Italian!

Thanks to all of you for supporting Kreator all of these years. We will give you a very energetic show on next tour and... Oh I am falling into cliches here! [Laughs]

Thanks!