Intervista Kreator (Sami Yli-Sirniö)

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Hi Sami, how are you doing?

Everything’s great, thank you!
We’re doing weekend festival shows and, you know, summer is the best time for a musician: you go home in between, you have 3-4 days at home, then you go to festivals or whatever.
Yesterday it was in Copenhagen, Copenhell, a really nice festival, Ozzy Osbourne was there too.

He’s playing here too, tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of the same bands are going all over Europe.

Let’s start talking about your latest album, “Gods of Violence”, which came out last year after 5 years since “Phantom Antichrist”. This was the longest gap between two albums in Kreator’s history, why did it take this long?

We were touring so much, we got so many offers we couldn’t refuse! [Laughs]
You know how it is, when you tour for 3-4 years…also, we are the kind of a band who takes time to write songs, also you need to have something to write about, you have to live your life [laughs], ‘cause when touring there’s nothing going on or, at least, nothing you can tell about to anyone [laughs].
We’re trying to make that gap shorter with the next one, we are excited about recording new music as well.

Have you got some songs ready?

There are some riffs but there’s…Mille said he had some songs’ ideas, I asked him to send them to me but he said he doesn’t want to [laughs], so I’m waiting on those, it’s still early.

The album also was the first to ever debut at number one on the German charts, were you surprised by such a good result?

Yes, very much so, unfortunately it doesn’t mean the same thing as 20 years ago [laughs], it would be great if it did.
Yeah, it was unexpected, of course, for music like that, when you listen to it you wouldn’t think that it would chart so high [laughs].

The album touches some different topics, “World War Now”, “Satan is Real”, they are quite different songs lyrical-wise; I know Mille writes them all, but do you share the ideas he puts in those lyrics, or you are more detached from them?

No, I mean, when I started recording guitars and the vocals are still not recorded of course I ask, “What is this about?”; the songs usually have a title already, and they have been done as demos before, so the idea of the song, what it is about already exists when we are doing the final version in the studio.
If I agree on those things? Those are easy things for me to agree on…’Satan is Real’ is, of course, not a song saying that Satan is real, it’s more against religion, and I’m also against religion, aren’t we all? [Laughs] But it still plays a role in so many people’s life.
Another song like ‘World War Now’ is just asking the question if we are already in a World War.
They are easy things for me to agree on, because I think we all share many aspects about life, political opinions and all, if that’s even interesting [giggles].

I’ve seen you guys a bunch of times in the last few years, and both in open air festivals and in closed venues your shows were really powerful and extreme both from your side and from the crowd’s reaction; do you have a preference in the venues you play, or is it the same to you?

Well, of course summer is the best, when you get to play big festivals, of course it’s different feelings…okay, okay! In the beginning of June we were doing Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park – they are huge! – and after that a small club show to fill in the gap in the week, it was in Rostock, a small club, it was also nice but, let’s be honest, the more people the better! [Laughs] What the hell! [Laughs]

The last time I saw you you were doing that amazing tour with Sepultura, Soilwork and Aborted. What are your favourite bands to tour with? And is there any band you’d like to play with in the future if you had the chance?

I can’t think of any right now, but when you are at festival you always meet people that you have already toured with, take for example the Exodus guys, they are right over there, they are brilliant company, and usually it’s very easy to get along with most people, musicians are usually like-minded people.
Favourite band that I’d like to tour with…Celtic Frost, I loved them when I was a kid and when we got to tour with them, it was fantastic! But, any band…I mean, it depends…

Thrash Metal is a genre born from rebellious young people pissed off at society; is it any harder to find the motivation today, now that you are a little less young and maybe with a different prospective?

Well, if you think of the lyrics that Mille writes, the topics are rather different than the used to be when he was writing stuff when he was 18.
If you think of “Pleasure to Kill” it’s like a horror film really, there’s nothing wrong with that, I can still perform it, it’s not embarrassing or anything like that – at least not for me, I’m just playing guitar! [Laughs]
But the new stuff, songs like ‘Death Becomes my Light’, it’s a song about a near-death experience which older people might start thinking about, I mean, I’m only 46 years old…which is pretty old actually, but I still have the mind of a younger person, I mean, I’ve never done anything else except touring and music, I believe it keeps you mind young.

A while back Mille said that there were plans to do a Big 4 of Teutonic Thrash Metal tour, is there any news about that?

No [laughs].
No, there’s no news about that, it could but…I don’t see any reason why, what for?
I’m not German, by the way [laughs a lot].

I’ve got a friend here at the festival with me who’s got two big “K” from the Kreator logo tattooed on his arms…

Wow!

…and I’ve seen other Kreator’s tattoos around, how do you feel about people having Kreator’s tattoos?

It’s, it’s, it’s amazing, it’s an honour that someone likes us so much that he’d tattoo that on himself, it’s a huge compliment!

This was my last question, thanks for your time and I’ll leave this final spot for you to say hi to our readers.

Graspop is going to be brilliant, thanks for everybody’s interest and hopefully we’ll start working on new music again soon and I hope people will still be interested.
Thank you!

Davide Sciaky