Currently celebrating their 25th anniversary as a band with the release of their latest album 'D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N.', we catch up with the mighty Schmier to find out more and to hear what the forthcoming tour has to hold.  

MM - Do you think the band has evolved more than most of the other Trash bands over the years?
Schmier - Oh no I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that but we do always try to keep our roots always pure and as a musician you always want to progress in your music and when you write good songs you don’t want to repeat yourself all the time. We’re thrash all the way through to the bone and our songs will always be thrash because that’s our inspiration.  We’re not scared we might drift away from what we’re doing because we’re always focused on doing the best we can.  I think we don’t want to limit ourselves too much and so this album is not 100% pure thrash.  What it is is 100% Destruction. 

MM - How long did it take for the whole album to be put together?
Schmier – We wrote the songs for 2 months and then we wrote for another month while we recorded and mixed it.  It was perhaps 3 months work in total.

MM – You’re about to embark on another massive tour again, including appearances at 3 festivals prior to the tour, how have these festivals gone?
Schmier – We’re actually playing festivals the whole year.  Now we’re still playing festivals before the tour starts.  We’ve just played Bloodstock in Southern England which was a really nice festival and it was full of young fans.  There was a very nice circular pit which was full of the young fans and we also have another festival next weekend in Germany which is called The Summer Breeze.  This is one of the new up-and-coming festivals which will again have a really young hungry crowd which I like to perform for.

MM – How did you find the Bloodstock festival because it must have been a lot smaller than some of the other festivals you have played in the past?
Schmier – I was surprised because it was good organised and this year it had the most people ever, I think it was something like 10,000.  I think I saw flags from everywhere in the world, people from Germany, Columbia, Greece, Spain, people from everywhere.  Maybe it’s becoming the Wacken of Great Britain?

MM – Well we need something like a Wacken to boost the whole metal scene over here.
Schmier – Yes I noticed you have a lot of those trendy festivals going on.  But I saw all those young kids there and I feel there is a lot of promise for this festival. 

MM – Well Bloodstock first started as an indoor festival and now it’s grown to an outdoor festival so hopefully it will grow again.
Schmier – That’s what has happened at many of the big festivals, festivals like Bang Your Head and Summer Breeze.  At Summer Breeze it started out as an indoor festival also with only 500 people, or maybe even less and now they are all big.  It’s important to have a melting pot for the kids and it’s important to continue to support the scene and this festival Bloodstock.

MM - Back to the new album, who came up with the idea of the first letters of the tracks spelling out D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N.?
Schmier – It was my idea.  It’s kind of a word puzzle called a cross-stick, it comes from the Greeks and I thought it would really fit the theme of the more mystical album which is more dark.  I thought it would give a nice dark note to the whole concept of the record. 

MM – Were there any other names you thought of for the new album or did D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. just seem right from the start?
Schmier – I had the lyrics for the first song on the album and I thought it would make the perfect title for the album.  It’s a nice word and it’s a very similar word to Destruction and also it fits with evolution and the interesting movement of mankind.  When I had this idea of using this cross-stick I thought it would be the perfect title.  After that all the lyrics were always going to lead towards this one point of regeneration of a kind.

MM – Back to the tour, is there anywhere in particular that your really looking forward to playing?
Schmier – Well we’ve been playing a lot of festivals lately and so I’m just really looking forward to sitting back in a tour bus and having a different show every day.  At the festivals you fly every day but for tour you just put your ass into the tour bus and then you hit the road and I really like that.  I look forward to playing everywhere.  Hopefully on this tour we’re going to play some exciting places that we’ve never been before.  Basically though there’s no favourite countries, the world is a great place anyway and as long as you have fans there it’s the place you like best.

MM - I noticed the tour takes the band on the road right up until your birthday, do you have any plans to celebrate this in true metal style?
Schmier – So many times over the last few years I’ve had a show on my birthday and all the time it was great because I was playing with the fans up on stage and it was the best birthday you could ever have. 

MM - After such an intensive tour do you prefer to chill out for a while or are you a workaholic and is it straight back to work?
Schmier – Well this tour will be in legs.  The first leg will be in South America, the second leg will be in Europe.  The third leg will be the United States and Canada, but in between we always have some days off and some breaks.  Of course I like to keep myself busy and right now we’re in the best shape ever so I don’t want to lose that momentum.  This is our anniversary album and I want to go out there and play the biggest tour ever.

MM – Yes I would just going to say that this will be your 25 year anniversary tour, do you have any special surprises lined up for the tour?
Schmier – We don’t know yet.  On the last few festivals we brought in Butcher some times, so maybe we can do some surprise gigs with him again this time.

MM – How do you find the difference between the European and the US fans reactions?
Schmier – There’s no big differences you know.  Meanwhile the thrash fans are crazy all around the world, the whole mosh-pit thing is crazy.  Even in Japan where you think people are quiet and stuff I tell you Japan are as crazy.  Of course when you go to the more Southern countries with the Latino fans they are a little bit more nuts, but basically thrash fans are crazy everywhere.  They aren’t going to just stand there and applaud, they’re going to thrash shit out of the fucking venue or at the open air festivals. 

MM - If you could outline one defining moment in your life that led to a life of metal, what would it be?
Schmier – It just happened back in the day when I first started to play music.  There was no metal scene existing at the time, it was just starting.  We were a bunch of heavy metal kids at that time and there was no scene so we were just this couple of kids hanging out at all the parties and trying to get more parties going.  When we started to get the band together we never thought we’d go anywhere with that.  For us it just felt great to be playing our kind of music.  Now 25 years later we’re still around and that feels fantastic.

MM – Did you ever think you would last 25 years in this business?
Schmier – Oh no.  I never thought I would even turn 30! (laughs)

MM – The European fans seem to be more loyal towards the thrash bands whereas over here in England they tend to go more for the trendy bands.  The European fans seem to follow a band from beginning to end.
Schmier – Yes these trends are everywhere though but it is a very loyal scene in Europe.  The strongest thrash scene in the world is definitely in Latin America.  I think South America has the biggest metal scene in the whole world.  They don’t seem to be touched and influenced by all the trends that come and go, in South America the metal fans there they love their metal.  They’re not interested in the trends.

MM – Thank you for chatting to us this evening Schmier, it’s been an absolute pleasure.
Schmier – It’s been a pleasure for me also.

MM – Good luck with the tour and with the new album.
Schmier – Thank you, hopefully I will see you when I come over at one of our shows.