'We Can Get Through This' - Kreator's Mille Petrozza Combatting 'Negative Energies' With 'Krushers of the World' Album

The world is giving us plenty of doom and gloom, but you might not know it from Kreator's latest album. Though very much inspired by the current state of the world, Kreator's Krushers of the World album is more an escape from rather than a recap of modern day negativity.

"It was more I wanted to take people away from all these negative energies that are surrounding us everywhere now. It's not only in America, but also here in Europe where things are getting kinda strange," singer-guitarist Mille Petrozza told Full Metal Jackie on her weekend radio show.

"This is like an album that is full of empowerment more or less. it's not so much about what divides us, but it's what really can unite us and that is the music. That, to me, is the most important message on this, that you can kinda overcome all the negative forces in this world by sticking together and doing good things."

Unity and hope play a big role in the most recent release and Petrozza is keen to point out that they are on the side of their fans, hoping to inspire a more positive state of mind.

Within the chat, Petrozza digs into the album a little bit more and reveals the spontaneous way in which some of their movie fandom played into not only the music but some of the upcoming videos. They also discuss the challenges of keeping things fresh at 16 albums in and how the art of creation has changed for the Kreator leader over the years.

Check out more of the chat below.

It's Full Metal Jackie. This week on the show we welcome a true thrash legend. It is my pleasure to welcome Mille Petrozza of Kreator to the show. Kreator are back with their Krushers of the World album and a North American tour this spring. It's a very powerful album you've got here. Obviously there's a lot going on in the world that concerns us all. What was your entry point in how you wanted to approach writing about the state of the world around you?

It was more I wanted to take people away from all these negative energies that are surrounding us everywhere now. It's not only in America, but also here in Europe where things are getting kinda strange.

This is like an album that is full of empowerment more or less. it's not so much about what divides us, but it's what really can unite us and that is the music. That, to me, is the most important message on this, that you can kinda overcome all the negative forces in this world by sticking together and doing good things.

Mille, the video for the title track, "Krushers of the World," starts with a quote from 1984 author George Orwell, "Don't let it happen. It depends on you."

Yes. There you go.

The clip itself is quite dystopian in nature. It paints a dark picture. But that's one of the great things about music is that it provides you a platform to work through some of your biggest fears. Can you speak about not only having the musical, but the visual outlet to bring this warning to your audience?

See, what we did in this particular clip, we destroyed Berlin. If you take a close look on the narrative, it is like a dystopian setting. The band is playing in a destroyed version of the city that I'm living in.

It kind of takes place in the future, but not in the so far future. It takes place in the, let's say, maybe, hopefully never, but like I said, this is like a dystopian vision, and the Orwell quote was very important to me, because we can still turn it around. Don't let it happen. So that's the main message, really, in the song also is to just let our fans know that we are by their side and we can get through this.

Kreator, "Krushers of the World"

One of the really cool things about this album is that two of the songs and their corresponding videos allow you to pay homage to legendary horror films - "Tränenpalast" for Dario Argento's Suspiria, and "Satanic Anarchy" for the horror classic, Hellraiser. What drove you in particular to make a musical nod to these two particular films?

It was a spontaneous idea, to be honest.It was very obvious for the song "Tränenpalast" because the lyrics talk about the '77 version of the movie and also to the '90, no, 2017 version, the newer version. So it was very obvious.

The lyrics talk about that movie and the witches' coven that is hidden in this ballet school in the later movie in Berlin and in the old movie, it was in a German city called Freiburg. So that was obvious. The visuals were based on the movie.

When we were doing "Satanic Anarchy," we had like a little bit of a shortage of ideas and the guys came up with the idea, why not make another homage to a different horror movie from the '80s. And "Krushers of the World," which was the third, now the fourth, also has this homage to movies like Terminator, maybe.

And there will be a fifth video for this album where we pay homage to another classic horror movie. So it became a thing for this album, for some reason. But I like it.

Kreator, "Tranenpalast"

Mille, at 16 albums in, you probably have your groove in putting together albums. How do you make sure it, it remains fresh? And in particular, as a songwriter, do you find you're still learning and evolving and finding new challenges that keep you engaged with wanting to learn more?

We have to keep keeping it fresh is the key. Otherwise it becomes boring and it becomes like a routine. And that's something that we try to avoid.

It's kinda hard, I know, but I think what really helps is taking time and wait until you're inspired rather than putting out albums every two years. We put out albums every four to five years. So that means after two years of touring, I will have inspiration and there will be some new themes that I can think of, writing lyrics and new themes for songs and new ideas and new riffs and new music.

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I just wait for the right moment to come and hopefully we are keeping it fresh. It's hard for me to judge because I'm too involved in the music, but I think we're doing our best to not repeat ourselves. Even though we found our style, we try to keep it somehow exciting.

It's Full Metal Jackie, Mille Petrozza from Kreator with us on the show. While we're on the new album, I've gotta give some love to the artwork for this record. I may have some trouble with the name, but Zbigniew Bielak.

Zbigniew Bielak.

I was totally wrong, but you said it good. Well, very cool cover you have here and I wanted to know if you give notes beforehand. Does he create from listening to the music or can you talk about how the Krushers of the World artwork came together?

He listened to the music and he was sending me early drafts and early pencil drawings, how what he would have in mind and what direction he wanted to go into. The very first version of the cover almost looked like what we see now, even though it wasn't so detailed.

This was more a very, very rough version and we went from there and I kept sending him demos, I sent him lyrics and he just created his own vision of how he felt the music spoke to him. That made it really easy for me because he's an old fan of the band and we were talking about doing something together for a while.

We were meeting in 2010 and since then, we always wanted to have him work on some of our artwork but it never happened and this time it did.

And I'm very happy because this is the most surreal album artwork in Kreator's history. It really makes you feel uncomfortable and I like that.

Mille, this past year was a big one for you and Kreator in that we not only got a book [Your Heaven, My Hell] but also a movie [Hate & Hope], both pulling back the curtain a little bit more on yourself, the band and this music. Obviously, for years, you let the music do the talking, but what was it like using these other avenues to share your world with the fans? Is it a process you enjoyed?

I had help especially with the movie. The movie wasn't made by us, but it was made about us. The director, Cordula [Kablitz-Post], she was a very famous director here in Germany. She did a couple of movies about other bands and we liked her work.

We approached her, because she approached us earlier and when we thought the time was right, which was like three years ago, she came and followed us around the world for a year and a half, and then she finalized this movie I think last summer.

We were really blown away by the results. It's very personal but not too private, if you know what I mean. It gives you a little bit of a closer look behind the scenes without demystifying the music and that was very important to me.

I think it's a fun ride. If the fans see it, they will kind of maybe get to know us a little better and get to see how glamorous life on the road is, which is absolutely not the case, but then they can kind of look behind the scenes.

They followed us to India. She was at our last show when we played at the Hollywood Palladium and she was also in Japan with us. So that was one thing.

The other thing was the book of course, which I also wrote with a co-author. The fun thing about the book is, to me, was that it ended in 1993, so it doesn't become boring. It's a fun read. It's a quick and fun read. It's very entertaining. Both the movie and the book are very light and entertaining things that you can enjoy and on the side.

It wasn't like the main focus. We are, first and foremost, musicians so our focus is on the music but we had the help from my co-author, Torsten [Grob]. He helped me with the book, and Cordula Kablitz, she was responsible for the movie

Mille, it's right there in the name, Kreator. Obviously, the gift of making and creating music is something you enjoy and still get plenty out of. But time has a way of consistently redefining our passions. What do you currently get out of the creative process and has it evolved for you from the joy of when you first started making music?

It became better and better over the years, because I kinda know my craft a little better, like the technical side of things, which is in my DNA now because I've been doing it since my teenage years. I'm in my 50s now, so I've been doing this for a long time. The craft is there, the technical skills and all that is there.

It's like you're painting a picture, a nice artwork, and all the colors how they would look in the end of the day and what you wanna express.

So, it's the same with the music. This is the most important thing is that the band enjoys what we do first and if we get something out of this and we do demos and we feel the excitement of a new thing that wasn't there before and we create something new, that's the best thing in the world.

And it's something that I have done all my life. I don't think I'm gonna stop doing this until the day I die, it's just what I do. And it's fun. It's more exciting than in the early days, because in the early days, we were still trying to figure it out.

It was more of a challenge to kinda get the things that we had in our mind on tape, playing-wise, technically. Nowadays, the technique is there. Now we have to express the emotion and the feeling, which is a different level of excitement.

Thanks to Kreator's Mille Petrozza for the interview. The band's Krushers of the World album is out now. Stay up to date with the band through their website, Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie's weekend radio show here.

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