Alex Kayne: Hello Metal Insiders!
…Since late 1984 with the advent of the EP “Sentence of Death”, Destruction has forever been tearing us limbs from limb with some of the most prolific Thrash Metal ever recorded. Three dead serious dudes on the cover drenched in leather, bullet belts and gauntlets – you knew this band meant business. A lot of people bought this record on the sheer strength of the coolness of the cover alone – I know I did – and we were not disappointed.
41 years and 18 full-length albums later Destruction has not wavered from their point of forward attack. Crushing, concrete-thick guitars flatten you like a nitromethane steamroller. Whether it’s the breakneck speed thrash riff of No Kings – No Masters – an indictment of global corruption – or the trudging sludgy groove of A.N.G.S.T., Destruction has always managed to slake our thrash metal thirst quite satisfyingly and obviously leaving us wanting more. More is what we’ve got with their new masterpiece “Birth of Malice”. Representing the evil and selfishness that can emerge from humanity, it is a flat out brain pummeling, channeling familiar Destruction style thrash with the freshness of 2025. The band’s lineup has embarked on a new chapter and taken all of their fire and fury up to the next level.
Pre-Order Birth of Malice at this location.
We have a very special guest with us here at Metal Insider! Mastermind behind the band, Destruction, Schmier is with us to tell us about their brand new album called The Birth of Malice. It’ll be out on March 7th on Napalm Records. He’s here to tell us about that and all things Destruction. How are you doing, Schmier?
Schmier: I’m doing great, man. Promoting the new album. It’s going fantastic. And yeah, good talking to you.
Alex Kayne: Yeah. So when did the writing start? Did it start right after you guys finished the 40th Anniversary Tour, or had you had some riffs going on before that?
Schmier: Yeah, we actually started writing in between all the shows. I started in January when we came back from a tour. We had a couple of weeks off, so we recorded some demos, then we went back on tour. We came back home. We continued working on the demos. And it was like a process that happened over several months, back and forth on tour. This way you actually keep fresh and you play, you meet the fans, you have the vibe. Then you go back home, you’re productive. Then you just put your productivity from the live shows, all the vibes into the recording. It was always a good way to do it for us. This way we could do part by part until we were satisfied with the material basically.
Alex Kayne: That’s kind of a good way to do it. Take all that energy and focus it, and put it into working on the album.
Schmier: Yeah. Sometimes when you isolate yourself, you go to the studio, you start recording demos and the album, then it’s like two months you’re isolated, and you go crazy basically. So I think, for us, we do it since three years, three albums now this way. That we tour, we record, we tour, we record, back and forth. And then we have to go to the studio at least 5, 6, 7 times. Those times in the studio are more productive because it’s more like a quickie. You are like, yeah, excited, you do it. It’s not like being there all the time and getting bored about being in isolation. And so, yeah, this works great for us.
Alex Kayne: So the album, “Birth of Malice”, is kind of about the human errors, the evil things that people do, selfishness, greed, kind of pushing against authority. “No Kings – No Masters” comes to mind. How did that song come about?
Schmier: Yeah, look at the world of today. I’m like, would you give your life for any of those bastards leading us? No fucking way. I never understood how people can be so much into one person. I think all the politicians, if I look around the world, they all just want themselves being on the fucking newspapers and be more rich and more mighty. They’re not there for the little guys. And that’s why, maybe it’s because I’m a German, that we have a history of bad leaders. But I never saw myself being so much into somebody that I would be like, “Oh yeah, this is the best guy ever.” For me, I think all the politicians all over the world, wherever I go, nobody’s satisfied with the politics. If it’s in Latin America or in Europe, or in the States, or in Canada, politicians are the same everywhere.
Alex Kayne: They’re all into themselves. They’re all into just putting money in their own pockets. They don’t care about people at all.
Schmier: They basically care about divide to conquer the people. That’s what they do.
Alex Kayne: Keep people busy that way. Then that way they get away with all the money.
Schmier: As long as we fight about bullshit, then their flaws don’t get uncovered.
“Follow no leaders. / No bottom-feeders. / Stop the hate. Change your fate. / Abuse of power. Hour by hour, this world has always been a mess. / Authority creating more distress. / They stoke the fires, misusing desires, creating disasters. / No gods, no kings, no masters.” (No Kings, No Masters lyrics ©2025 Destruction/Napalm Records, Inc.)
Alex Kayne: In the video you just released, called “Destruction”, self-titled kind of thing, which is really cool. It’s like an anthem kind of song. How did that song come about? And tell us about the filming of the video in Sao Paolo?
Schmier: Yeah, we’d been on the 40th Anniversary Tour and we thought, “Hey, we’re in Sao Paulo. Why don’t we film there?” Because we have some friends there, we knew this would be a great video crew that we could hire, and we wanted to catch some of the vibe of this. The audience in Latin America, they’re just so wild. And the song, Destruction, is a song that I wrote about the Community of Destruction fans, about the beginning of us. How did we get here, 40 years later now? And basically the chorus, I’m singing, “We are Destruction.” Because I want the fans to be part of it. I want the fans to understand that they are also Destruction. And that was the idea behind the video filming in Sao Paulo.
And the fans, they reacted as good as it gets. They were crazy and they loved it. The video turned out great, and it became the first official single now for the promotion of the album. The new single just came out some days ago. It’s another song called A.N.G.S.T, and it’s more like a groovy song, more like of a grim, groovy track, with a really evil video clip also. So yeah, we’ve been trying to keep the album diverse also. A lot of different tempos. But it’s of course still a lot of fast stuff.
“We’re Destruction. / Looking back in time, to the early days. / It felt like a crime, setting the world ablaze. / We’re an invincible force, ruthless and wild. / No remorse – Born exiled.” (Destruction lyrics ©2025 Destruction/Napalm Records, Inc.)
“Life is a challenge, we are doomed to fail. / We are overthinking how to prevail. / The final enemy is just your inner-self. / Beat your own mind and no one else!” (A.N.G.S.T. lyrics ©2025 Destruction/Napalm Records, Inc.)
Alex Kayne: The title for the record, “Birth of Malice”, how did you come up with that?
Schmier: Yeah, the evil that breaks out of the humans, it’s something that, in the history of humanity, is always like a miracle. How does it happen? And Birth of Malice, we had this idea that we had our logo and our skull, and the evil creeps out of it. And then we came to the title, like this would be a great cover. Easy cover, kick-ass cover, eye-catcher, and describes the lyrics of the album pretty well.
Alex Kayne: Yeah, the cover is fantastic. You have this crazy evil demon busting out behind like a steel mask or something. He’s coming out and he’s eating it up at the same time, it looks like. It’s some crazy stuff, man. I love it. How would you say this record is different than Diabolical?
Schmier: I think it’s more diverse, as I said. When I wrote the songs, I tried to see after a while, okay, what’s missing? Now I’ve wrote five fast songs and two mid-tempo songs. And what’s missing? I need a groovy song. So this time I tried to make the album a little bit more interesting for the listeners. So you have your ups and downs, and your tempo changes. We’re trying to add a lot of guitars on this album. We have two great guitar players, so I even tried to push the guitars more on this album, more leads, more harmonies, more double leads, more duos, solos. And this is thrash metal. It’s all about the fucking guitars, right?
Alex Kayne: A lot of crazy riffage going on!
Schmier: A lot of crazy riffings. And I think that we tried to push that. I mean, basically, Diabolical was a very solid album, I think, and a good step in the right direction. And the new album is basically the learning process that we did as a band. After 200 shows that we played with Diabolical, we came back to the studio and we said, “Okay, let’s do an album that is even stronger. What do we need?” I write from the heart, out of the stomach. I don’t sit down and say, I need to write this and that. I write it and then I look at it, and say, do I like it or not? And then we take it from there.
But I noticed that when I don’t think about it at all, then I would just write 10 fast songs. And this doesn’t work because it’s getting boring. Like Slayer’s Reign in Blood, okay, 10 fast songs. But it was 1985. It was ’86. And the album was just 30 minutes. But 2025, I needed to write an album that is more diverse. And that’s the difference to Diabolical, I think, that the album, there’s more ups and downs in the record, more mood changes and speed changes and stuff.
Alex Kayne: More of a journey…
Schmier: Yeah, yeah. More of a journey. Exactly.
Alex Kayne: I’m sure you’re going to come out in a while and you’re going to probably start pretty soon playing some shows, coming out, backing this album up. When does the tour start?
Schmier: We’re starting the first shows in March now. And we are also coming back to America for Milwaukee Metal Fest. And we’re going to play a couple of shows around the Milwaukee Metal Fest in Canada and the States. So I know we’re going to play in Brooklyn, pretty sure. I think we’re going to come to New York. Yeah.
Alex Kayne: Yeah, I’ll be there.
Schmier: So yeah, that’s going to be in May. But we want to come back for a real American tour later in the year, but we have to go back for the festivals in summer. Then we are going to Asia also, and then European tour in Autumn. And then we want to come back to the States for a real tour, like end of the year, beginning of next year.
Alex Kayne: Awesome, man. You got the whole year planned out, man.
Schmier: Yeah. We’ve got a strong album, so we got to play, man.
Alex Kayne: What do you like to do in your downtime for relaxation? What are some of your favorite things to do?
Schmier: I love to cook. I love good food. And I like to go work out, go to the gym. But I like bicycle, driving my bicycle also. I like some activity to get my old ass not too lazy. And I like the usual stuff, like a good movie. I think it’s a sad development of today that everything’s about series. There are no more big movies coming out. Everybody’s watching Netflix and series. And all these series, it’s good, it’s well done and it’s nice, but I don’t want to be addicted to a series and watch every episode. It takes too much of my time. I want to watch a movie for two hours. I want to dive into a great movie and be entertained. And the good movies are dying out because Hollywood is producing all those Netflix series.
Alex Kayne: A lot more series now than movies. And a lot of the movies are just repeats of old movies.
Schmier: I mean, when I’m home, I manage the band and I do all the social media with the band. So I still have, there’s not so much downtime, that’s a thing, as a musician. There’s always something to do.
Alex Kayne: You’ve got a lot of moving parts, especially if you’re doing an album and then a tour, it’s like baking a cake. You have all this stuff that goes into it.
Schmier: Yeah, it’s a long process. And now we’re doing a lot of interviews, and we have also still some shows. This week we’re going to Greece to play. And so yeah, we’re keeping busy.
Alex Kayne: I’ve been a fan for a long time, and I saw you guys at L’Amour. I was the first metal DJ at L’Amour. I started there in 1981.
Schmier: Oh, wow.
Alex Kayne: And then after that, there was another guy there. Chuck took over after me. And I just started hanging out there because it was kind of like my home anyway. I mean, I only lived a few blocks away, so I stayed there, and I saw all the shows all the way to the end.
Schmier: There’s even an internet page dedicated to L’Amour, right? I’m following the page also.
Alex Kayne: Yeah. There’s a Facebook page that actually I run. It has 11,000 members.
Schmier: Yeah, I’m following that one, actually.
Alex Kayne: L’Amour The Rock Capital of Brooklyn. I manage that page.
Schmier: Oh, that’s your page then?
Alex Kayne: Yeah.
Schmier: Okay. Cool.
Alex Kayne: I feel…we keep the spirit of the club alive. A lot of people have great memories and stories from there.
Schmier: Yeah, it was great. Always great to come to L’Amour to play, man.
Alex Kayne: I remember that you were really excited to play there.
Schmier: Oh, yeah. It was playing like at the CBGB or something for a punk band, playing the L’Amour.
Alex Kayne: The drummer, Mike Portnoy. He said it best. He said: “L’Amour was the Madison Square Garden of Clubs.” Well, I want to wish you the best of luck, man, on this tour, brand new album. Birth of Malice comes out on March 7th, from Napalm Records. Right behind it, Schmier and crew will be coming around the world to kick your ass, man. So make sure you’re there. And like he says, we are destruction, man. We’re all part of the team. We’ve always felt like that. There’s always been that feeling, especially over the years, like 40 years ago, critics in the newspapers were saying heavy metal was a joke, and it was going to die out in a few years. But we all stuck with it. And look, it’s bigger than it’s ever been. Now it’s bigger than ever.
Schmier: It is. I mean, all the huge festivals in Europe, it’s crazy. And there’s so many of them.
Alex Kayne: Yeah, there’s more of them happening every year. And we have some festivals here in the States, but they’re smaller. There’s one in Texas. There’s one in Chicago.
Schmier: The Hell’s Heroes Festival, right? Yeah, yeah.
Alex Kayne: Hell’s Heroes is good. And then there’s Maryland Death Fest, and then Reggie’s has Legions, and so on.
Schmier: Oh, Reggie’s has a fest too. I didn’t know that. But we played the Maryland Death Fest, which was also really cool. America needs more festivals, man. For sure.
Alex Kayne: There’s only a handful of them, but they’re all really good.
Schmier: We did the 70000 Tons of Metal a couple of times. But yeah, there’s Monsters of Rock Cruise and all this stuff, right?
Alex Kayne: Yeah it’s great.
Schmier: That’s actually badass. I like that.
Alex Kayne: Best of luck on the tour, man. We appreciate you. I want to thank you for giving us all this fantastic music over the years, man. We really appreciate the band. We wish you the best of luck. And we’ll see you in New York. Kick some ass in the United States and around the world.
Schmier: We’re going to be over there for some shows in May, so see you in May.
Alex Kayne: Destruction. Schmier, the mastermind behind the band. I mean, I don’t discount the other members. They’re great too. And the two-guitar attack is really fantastic, man. I love that. And there’s a lot of that in this record. So you guys are going to love this one, “Birth of Malice”. And the cover is worth hanging up on your wall alone.
Schmier: Oh, yeah.
Alex Kayne: It’s definitely frame-worthy. Where can we pick it up? Can we pre-order it now? Where can we get it?
Schmier: Yeah, you pre-order it on Napalm’s website basically, mail order. Mail order in Napalm America. You can order it.
Alex Kayne: All right. Thanks, Schmier. Best of luck. Safe travels.
Schmier: See you in New York! Great talking to you, man.
EPILOGUE:
Alex Kayne: There is a forthcoming documentary on the band that not only is well-deserved, it’s a must-watch for all. Check out the official movie trailer for “The Art of Destruction” here:
UPCOMING TOUR 2025:
21.03.25 BELGIUM – Aalst / Sint Annazaal vzw
30-31.05.25 MADRITALLICA FEST Malagón Spain
06.06.25 KARPATY HARD FEST 2025 Slavičín, Czechia
11-14.06.25 METAL FRENZY OPEN AIR 2025 Gardelgen, Germany
20.06.25 DER DETZED ROCKT Daun, Germany
11-12.06.25 RVBANG OPEN AIR FESTIVAL Balingen, Germany
11.07.25 METAL MAGIC FRSTIVAL 2025 Fredericia, Denmark
17-19.07.25 DONG OPEN AIR 2025 Neukirchen-vluyn, Germany
30-02.07-08.25 BEYOND THE GATES 2025 Bergen, Norway
30-02.07-08.25 WACKEN OPEN AIR 2025 Wacken, Germany
13-16.08.25 SUMMER BREEZE OPEN AIR 2025 Dinkelsbühl, Germany
22.08.25 GIESSEN KUTLURSOMMER 2025 Gießen, Germany
DESTRUCTION are: Schmier – Bass, Vocals Martin Furia – Guitars Randy Black – Drums – Damir Eskić – Guitars
To listen to the audio version of this interview log on to https://slaughterhouseradio.com
Written by Alex Kayne for Metal Insider ©2025 RockMachine Media Group, LLC World Rights Reserved.
