INTERVIEW WITH MARCEL “SCHMIER“ SCHIRMER BY KEVIN STEWART-PANKO
PHOTOGRAPH BY JENNIFER GRUBER
Who would have ever thought that when, through my early tape trading activity and connections, I scored an umpteenth generation copy of Destruction’s Bestial Invasion of Hell back in 1984 that 41 years later I’d be sitting down to a Zoom call with bassist/vocalist Schmier to talk about that same band’s 16th full-length album? Titled Birth of Malice, it’s another rollicking burst of the Teutonic thrash Schmier has never given up on and continues to lay down his soul for five decades down the line. Having coming off the celebratory high of the band’s 40th anniversary tour, Schmier, drummer Randy Black and guitarists Martin Furia and Damir Eskić parlayed years of stored energy and more recent face-to-face good vibes into their latest blast of thrash metal fury. Original member Schmier—who formed the band back in 1983 originally as Knight of Demon—was a few days off the road when we caught up to talk about all things new and old as well in addition to what keeps things fresh for a guy who’s been at this racket for longer than much of the band’s fan base have been alive.
The 40th anniversary tour that happened throughout Europe and South America in 2023 was a resounding success. What did the reaction to that tour mean to you, and what did you learn from all of that?
We’ve gone frequently to Latin and South America, it’s basically our biggest market. Not in terms of sales, but from the fans. The people are poorer, but they love thrash and the shows have always been amazing down there. We’ve been going since the ‘80s. The first time was when we played in Brazil and we were totally blown away by the energy and the crowds. This is an important part of the puzzle when you’re a long-lasting band; the fans are so enthusiastic that they give you the power to go on and the fans in Latin and South America have always been a big support for Destruction. That’s also the reason we wanted to film the video [for first single “Destruction”] in Brazil. We wanted to catch the energy for the first single and that tour was an important part of the new album because we’d be on the road, then back to the studio, then on the road, then back to the studio. We went back and forth like that during the whole recording process and that was inspiring and motivating. We’ve done it like this for a couple years where we don’t record in one shot because it keeps you fresher and you can go back and change stuff.
When you go to South America, how does the rabidity of the fans compare to when you first started going down there and touring?
It’s a little bit like it was back in the day still. They travel to see the bands, come and hang out before the show, have a beer together, hang out, wait for the band to get stuff autographed. They’re still celebrating. In Europe, we’re all spoiled and we have all the big festivals. When you announce a tour, people are like, ‘Oh, you’re playing in my city on a Wednesday night? Fuck you!’ This is where we’re at. Those fans there really appreciate it and we also played some crazy places on this tour. It was our first time in Dubai and I could never imagine playing in Dubai. I always thought the Emirates were an interesting model of Arabia because it always seemed like they were more open and more modern and there’s little to no unemployment. They give people jobs, they give people plots of land to build houses on. I thought it was going to be interesting to go there and see if what I’d heard was real. To actually play there was an interesting international surprise because there were Americans, Canadians, Arabians, Europeans, Russians, everybody was there. Those shows are special and they motivate you.
Logistically, when you go to a place like South America, you guys cover more of the continent than most other band. Does Destruction as a business entity end up taking a hit? Do you find yourselves having to alter your expectations and business model?
Yeah, yeah. It’s not like Elvis Presley who would never go to Europe because he couldn’t make as much money as he would in America. When you go to places where there’s less money involved, your own fee has to go down with it. You talk to your manager — even though we’re mostly self-managed — and I say to the guys, ‘There’s not as much money to make. What do you want to do?’ We talk and when we decide to do it, we do it because it gives us a lot [beyond money]. For example, if we go to Asia, we can go to Japan and Singapore and make a bunch of money, but then we go to the Philippines or Thailand we have to bring our financial standard down. But if you’re a band and you want to play crazy places, you have to adjust to the local economy. Like in the Philippines there are so many metalheads, but nobody goes there because you can’t charge more than $5 for a show. However, even if a thousand people show up, that’s $5000 but that’s not enough to fly in the band, crew and whatever. It gets complicated and you have to know the circumstances, make adjustments and see which screws you have to twist to make things happen. A lot of bands are going to Asia now; China has developed a good scene and the scene in Indonesia is really strong, especially for a Muslim country. The world is a big place and there are a lot of interesting markets. People always ask me, as a band, ‘how was it in this place and that?’ and I tell them to go and try it. It’ll boost your ego, it’ll boost your band and it’ll help you to understand how difficult it is for some fans to get physical copies of your music, even if it’s easier to listen through Spotify and whatever.
Are there still places on your bucket list?
Of course. I always say that I’m a citizen of the world and that I don’t just consider myself being German. I love to see the world and experience different cultures. Africa is still a difficult place to play and it would be great to at least play in South Africa because I know there’s a scene there. I know some bands that have played in Morocco, so Africa would a nice and interesting place to finally play. Hopefully, one day we can go there. There are also places we want to go back to. Japan is a country that, every band that goes there says, ‘Is there any better place than Japan?” It’s so well-organized, the fans are so enthusiastic, but educated. They give you gifts and you feel really appreciated when you come back from Japan. Martin is in China right now. He’s doing front of house sound for Suicidal Angels and he said China has a hot metal scene right now with a lot of young kids. The scene is rising over there.
Is it still difficult to get into some of these countries as a degenerate bunch of metalheads?
Yeah, because the governments don’t want you to be there. They don’t want you to come and confuse the kids [laughs]! We used to go to China without artist visas; we’d go in on tourist visas. Nowadays, it’s too risky and you can’t do that anymore, but they are giving out artists visas to bands and it seems like it’s more open. We’d like to go back to China for sure. When I come to a country and everything is blocked, there’s no social media, no YouTube, no porn [laughs] and the internet doesn’t exist as we know it, then I have concerns, but still in those countries the scene develops and it’s great to go back. Still, there’s nothing like playing in a country for the first time. It’s like anything in life: there’s nothing like the first time. I remember 15 years ago when we played in the north of China, there were 500 cell phones held up filming the beginning of the show and I had never seen that before. China is very developed in terms of technology, so everyone had the most modern cell phones 15 years ago and we thought that was weird that people would put up their mobile phones and film the show from the start. It seemed like they were more into their phones than the show. But later on we started seeing that everywhere. The first times you play places are always interesting: how do people react? Do they just stand there? Some people are filming. Some people are freaking out completely.
It’s interesting that all that filming probably ended up being uploaded to places and websites we’ll never see because of China’s locked down and insular internet.
Of course, they live in their own bubble. But we’re living in a bubble too; we’re living in Zuckerberg’s bubble! Zuckerberg tells us what we’re about to see, he dictates what we’re seeing, he dictates who sees my posts. Destruction’s Facebook page has more than 600,000 followers and when I make a post, the Meta algorithm censors my post so that not everyone sees it and they want you to pay to access a bigger audience. We’re also censored by Meta, it’s just a different kind of censorship.
This has been a theme and concern for you for a while and continues to be on the new record. The Under Attack album [2016] had that as its loose concept, and there’s the song “Cyber Warfare” on the new album.
Of course, and now it’s developed to where we have the bot attacks. The Russians attacked our website and Facebook site when the war with Ukraine started because we cancelled a bunch of Russian shows. We put the news up on Facebook cancelling the shows and the Russian bots attacked us. There were 10,000 comments on our Facebook and it was all ‘whatabout-ism?’ posts saying stuff like, ‘Russia didn’t start the war’ and ‘It’s Ukraine’s fault and here’s the video proof.’ We had to go through it all and erase comments and block people. We’re just a metal band from Germany, we’re not important to the political circumstance, but if a Russian bot attack can attack us like this, imagine the power there is to manipulate the entire internet, shape opinions and everybody does it nowadays. Cyber warfare is very powerful and a lot of people don’t even realize it’s happening and the opinion making is done on their own social platforms. It’s divide to conquer.
Funny, a stat yesterday says that 47% of what you read online is a lie or not true.
[Laughs] That’s 100% true! I can confirm it!
Even though Destruction is definitely still playing thrash metal, where do you, as lone original member and chief creator, hear the changes between the Destruction of old and new?
When you’re 17 and the only English you know is the little bit you’re taught in school and you want to break out of the boring society that you live in, it was a different attitude and you make a different record than when you’re older and have a lot of musical and life experience. I think the big difference is that we’re more skilled and experienced and we know what we want nowadays. Back in the day, we had the original energy of 17 year olds, but that can’t be recreated. It’s why a lot of the records of bands when they were young are so amazing because it was their first outburst. I’ve kept a lot of this rebellious spirit over the years: I fucking hate our government, I hate world politics, there’s a lot of stuff I’d change on this planet. I think I never got old and fat and boring and complacent. I’m always looking for more. With the band, I want to reach more. I don’t want to stop. I’m still angry at stuff and music is still a way to blow it out; it’s therapy for me. A lot of it is the same, but of course, the musicianship and the way we record the albums nowadays is a different thing. It’s 42 years of experience. It’s like buying a car back in the ‘80s and buying a new car; there’s a lot more technology in there, but that doesn’t mean it’s better car because the old car was one that would last for years and the new car will breakdown earlier because there’s too much technology. With the music, we try not to overuse our musicianship. We try and write songs that are catchy and brutal, but of course our new car is running on a different kind of motor than the one in the ‘80s.
As a fan going back to even before Sentence of Death, I appreciate the references to the past in “Destruction,” but also understand what you’re saying about being old-school, but not denying forward movement. In that sense, how do you write and record these? Do you still get together in person and play and write as a full band?
Yeah, we do. I start writing at home, record some ideas and we meet in the studio and we go with my ideas and refine the riffing and harmonies and everything. I’m the main song writer, but the guys are all contributing. I consider what they have to say, but it’s my final judgement because I know how Destruction should sound like. We had a difficult time at the end of the ‘80s when there were too many cooks trying to prepare the Destruction soup and it went the wrong way. Nowadays, I’m very open to everything the guys contribute, but they also have respect for what I’ve done with the band. Martin contributed a whole song on the new album and we all work well together. The good thing is that we work on the songs for a long time. It’s not like we write a song and it’s done. We write a song, record it, put it away and then come back to it and go through what we like and don’t like and re-do it. That’s the good thing about this process and the way we work. I like this much better than back in the day when we’d go into the studio for five weeks, record an album and six months later, you’re like, ‘I don’t like the solo, I don’t like the chorus and I can’t change it!’ That’s why we do it this way. We record early, do good demos and from the demos the final album gets shaped.
For your place as lyricist, it must be easy to come up with stuff to sing about. Do you find yourself being more discouraged because how things haven’t changed and how you’re singing about a lot of the same stuff as 40 years ago?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, humanity never learns. You see it Europe, you’re seeing it in America at the moment and of course it could be tiring to write lyrics, but it’s my honest and most natural way to write, even though I wrote some stuff on the album that’s different, like the song “Destruction” and “Evil Never Sleeps” which is more like a hippie song. I also try to bring a twist into the lyrics so they’re not always super-negative. Like “A.N.G.S.T.” is a song about fear and our fears, but it’s still a song that has a positive message. I think it’s important to deliver something that people can hold on to, so that it’s not all negative energy and by the end of the album you’re wanting to commit suicide [laughs]. I don’t want that. Maybe one day the day will come when I have to start writing more positive lyrics because the world will really suck. We’re still in the phase where we can still save the planet, save the world and save humanity, but who knows where we’re going. And then I’ll be able to understand the bands that sing about rainbows and butterflies and positive things.
Was the cover art something you came up with or did you let [artist] Gyula Havancsák go off on his own?
We always talk about what I would like to have and then he says, ‘This is impossible to realize!’ and then we take it from there. This time I had the idea of the Destruction skull and this monster coming out of it. The first draft he did was really good and this cover was the fastest one we’ve done in many years. Gyula is someone we’ve worked with for many years and he understands what we need and want and it was easy. We still like the cover to show you what’s in there and what to expect.
On the internet—which is apparently right only half the time—I the German thrash metal Big Four (Destruction, Sodom, Kreator and Tankard) played a festival called Klash of the Ruhrpott in Gelsenkirchen Nordrhein-Westfalen. Was this the first time the German Big Four played together?
That was last year and it was actually the second time all four bands had played together. It was planned to happen that way, but it’s not easy to get it all together. We actually did the same thing in Romania at a festival a couple weeks later and who knows if that’s ever going to happen again because it’s complicated to get all the bands together on one bill. We’ve tried real hard to make it happen again, but not everyone wants to make it happen. There are booking agents, promoters, record labels and managers in between the bands and…what can I say? I wish I could do it and I’m always telling everyone I wish we could do it, but I’m not the one making the decision. All four bands have to really want it. People around the world are saying ‘Bring this to America! Bring this to wherever.’ If we brought that package to Santiago, Chile there would be 10,000 people there no problem, but it seems difficult to make it happen.
After 40+ years, have you had anyone approach you about writing a book about the band?
Actually, not yet, no. I started writing a book about Destruction once and it as like, ‘Oh my God, this is killing me!’ [laughs] Because all of a sudden you dive into a billion ideas and it’s like where do I start and where do I end? It’s not like writing a song where I know where I want it to go. It’s like all of a sudden you have all these memories. I started writing on my iPad for a while, then I stopped and never went back. I’d love for someone to write a biography, it would be cool because I could deliver tons of stories because in ten years from now I don’t know how much I’m going to remember [laughs]. We’re doing a movie right now [The Art of Destruction] that’s coming into the cinemas here in Europe. We have the premiere in Berlin in March and hopefully it will go beyond Germany after that. It was interesting; a filmmaker followed us around for five years and it’s a pretty cool movie. It’s a documentary about a rock band on the road, how circumstances change, what fucks you up and how you go on, believing in the music and the magic that music can do and the film is about the magic of music, basically. They started filming us in 2019, so you get to see the band in shutdown mode because of COVID, the desperation and the problems like lineup changes. I think it’s a cool and interesting movie because you don’t normally see those things on social media and stuff.
After all this time, what most surprising and exciting for you about Destruction after all these years?
The most surprising thing is that we can still do this after 43 years. There have been ups and downs and a lot of changes in the music industry that has forced an old-school band like us to adjust to the modern world to survive all those things. That we haven’t broken up is a big achievement and the band sounds better than ever now and we love to tour still, so let’s play. Hopefully we can come back to America, but we don’t know yet because Mr. Trump is making it more difficult for us to get our visas. We just had to cancel all our American shows for the spring because our attorney said the visa cost doubled and it’s not possible to pay that much. We still want to come, maybe later this year, we’ll see. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.
What you can do is tour across Canada as an alternative. If you approach it the same way as you do South and Latin America and lower your guarantees and expectations, a band can spend a month going across the country and back instead of just doing what most bands do—play Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal as part of a US tour.
We have some funny Canadian stories about the border, the famous border crossing at Windsor where we’ve been fucked a couple of times! But, we always love to come to Canada. Our first show on North American soil was in Montreal in 1985 at the World War III Festival, so I will always have a huge love for Montreal and Canada. We’ve played some of the more uncommon places in the north over the years and they’ve always been interesting shows. There are ways to do these things, you just have to find the right bookers and promoters. It’s not always up to the bands.
