S. A. Destroyer (Nocturnal Breed) interviewed

** Norwegian thrashers Nocturnal Breed have been kicking it old-school for the better part of the last 15 years. Formed by guys originally associated with the black metal scene, but are now fully entrenched in the rigors of thrash, Nocturnal Breed know exactly what they’re doing on new album, Napalm Nights, the group’s first in almost a decade. Horns up and high tops on to S. A. Destroyer (aka Kenneth Svartalv Skibrek Halvorsen) and his band of ‘Breeders!
It’s been seven years since Fields of Rot. What prompted you to get Nocturnal Breed together again?
S. A. Destroyer: It has kinda been a long slow buildup to the point we’re at now. The band never broke up or anything like that. But we needed to get that good old feeling back in the band. Too many years had gone burrowing down into personal shit and since the start of the band 18 years ago, and we needed to find back to that original path we were on. We actually spent years talking about how we should do things in the future and to re-kindle that feeling that really inspire us to do what we do. And when we lost our two former guitarists Ben Hellion and A.E Rattlehead back in the end of 2010 and the start of 2011, we understood that it was about time to get the wheels rolling again, but in a more concentrated version. So, we just started talking more and more about doing a new Nocturnal Breed album. And when V.Fineideath joined the band, the spark really lit up like a new flame. He had been a friend of the band since the early beginning, and he’s been sharing bands with T.Terror in a bunch of different death and thrash metal bands in the hillbilly area of ‘Fetsund’ since the early ’90s. So he was a natural pick for us. Also, it must be honored that he more or less carried the band on his shoulders to make this whole thing work again, and we are eternally grateful for him being this dedicated to the band. Then I.Maztor decided to join the band early in 2011, and it felt like someone just flicked on a switch, and the old feelings came creeping up the spine again. Another big driving point to keep the band going and to record a new album has been the way the whole metal scene has evolved into the toilet through the last 20 years. Facebook and its like has also contributed to a shitty vibe, I think. It’s just not hard enough to break through as a band anymore! And it is at times too easy for the old long-distance runners, in all genres, to surf the waves of past glories, without being put to question for the quality of their music, like all upcoming bands have to answer for endlessly, like being trapped under ice, before getting the approval stamp and the keys to the realm. But all in all, shielding the eyes from some ugly ‘bumps in the road’, I’m very glad the whole metal scene, as a unison, is rising out of the muck again. This decade bears much more promise than the last two did I think. And this is really inspiring us to give it a go again.

What were the members of Nocturnal Breed doing in the years between records? I’m sure you guys have day jobs.
S. A. Destroyer: Well, the other guys in the band have got day jobs; T.Terror owns a car-saloon shop, where you can get your vehicle shined and pimped and blinged up. I.Maztor is a chef and makes some killer food. And V.Fineideath is the computer tech in the band and works at a big export company. Personally, I refuse to be driven through the grinder like that. I spend my days writing and recording music as well as writing books and scripts for movies and TV series. I live in the middle of the woods, with no Internet and humans around, and I’ve got my studio and production office based here as well, in a 300 year old cabin next to my house. So, I guess I’m taking this creative shit as far as I can run with it. [Laughs] During these last seven years, all of us has spent time doing all kinds of different other music projects and bands. I spent several years finishing a bunch of albums and projects I had been keeping in the drawer for way too long. Such as Aiwass, Antikrist, Combath, Svartalv, Nåe and Cold Orbit. I also do a lot of the lyrics for the 1349 albums, and I guess I’ve been with them as a ‘shadow’ member since they got started way back then. It has been through these projects I think we in a way built up the urge to give it a go with the new album. Especially [the Conjuration [EP] has been an inspiration to do. Exploring a much more wicked music style, both lyric-wise and musically. It is a death metal project that included, apart from myself, my right-hand Breedsters T.Terror and V.Fineideath. In fact they almost had to kick my ass to get me into doing this project. I was kinda drifting into too much personal shit. T.Terrors’ consistent nagging for me to get up off my ass and to do this project helped me get my head out of my ass. And this again made me think more about getting Breed moving again. So, after recording Conjuration, The House on Nuclear Hill, and doing some gigs related to that, we really got down to renovating the Breed. In a way, The band has been cursed with bad luck ever since the very get-go of its creation, and these last years has been no exception to the rule. There has been a lot of shitty obstacles and hurdles to get through, from personal shit to more band-related stuff. So, I’m glad we came out ‘head first’ and ended up in a place feeling much more comfortable than we’ve ever felt before.

The lineup’s slightly revamped. Sounds like you’re “in for the kill” with the current members.
S. A. Destroyer: Most definitely, man! The atmosphere in the band nowadays really flipped on the ‘kill-switch’ for us. And I guess the last seven years building up for this really has made the blood-lust in us grow to the point that we’re pretty damn hungry for some new meat and to kick some ass again. As I talked about earlier, that good ol’ feeling is back, and that just takes the band to new levels, man! The fact that we got V.Fineideath on guitars really lifted the band to a new stage of aggression and ‘steadiness.’ He riffs like no one I’ve ever played with before. He’s steady in that Exodus, Slayer kinda way, you know. And this lays down a very tight and machine gun-like mortar to the new songs, that makes it so much more pleasurable laying down the rest of the music. As well as Live, he’s like a wall off tightness and precision, taking the live act to a more aggressive layer than before. Then there is Mr. I.Maztor, who was a big part of the early days of the band, and forging it into what it is today. He was our first permanent lead guitarist, and he did some wicked work on the albums No retreat… No Surrender and The Tools of The Trade, as well as a bunch of EPs, 7″‘s and all the tours and gigs in the ’90s. He took a 10-year retreat back to Alta, at the very top of Norway, in 2001 to take care of his family and re-group his forces. But still playing in bands like Slogstorm and other projects. He came in and added that very rare extra touch to the band. And we almost immediately started working on a new album when he joined us again. kinda like having our personal Randy Rhoads back from the grave. His style, that is very inspired by Adrian Smith and Andy La’Roque, amongst many others, makes up quite an impressive array of feelings and techniques that suits our sound very well, I think. And it makes it feeling like we’re back in the starting pit again, in a positive way of course. This and the fact that T.Terror and I really have found the sound and feeling we’ve been after for so many years, makes the band kick and scream like a mother fucker again.

Looking back on Fields of Rot, what did you do differently on Napalm Nights?
S. A. Destroyer: I guess a whole bunch of things, really. The months leading up to the recording was a bit chaotic in terms of how, when and where to do the actual recording and mixing. At the start of the album process we intended to record the album more or less live, and planned to build a studio in our rehearsal place, having Ravn from 1349 doing the engineering. But we never really got down to doing this because the songs weren’t finished yet and we still worked on how we wanted the sound to be and details like that. We were very sure that this time we wanted the album to be darker and more ‘cruel’ sounding than the previous ones. This is probably just a result of the before mentioned irritation over the weakling sound that overtook the last decades. We simply wanted this album to be raw like a fresh wound and heavy with the influences that made metal into metal in the heydays of the ’70s and ’80s without turning it into a cliché act. Monkey see monkey do, you know. And you add your own twist on it. On the Fields of Rot album we also had most of the songs pre-written and planned out, but the studio was very inexperienced and was only built shortly before the recording. Thus making the album recording a very prolonged adventure both for us and the engineers. It resulted in a very good album and some awesome tracks, but there was a little here and there that should’ve been dealt with. Like the drum sound, for example. It’s a bit too cardboardish’, I think. And my throat was very fucked up around the time I did the vocals, making a lot of [the songs] sounding far from what I had in mind. This time around every key really fitted the lock, so to say. Opposite of the last album and more in thread with what we used to do on the first albums, al ot of the music and sound, and the actual outcome of the tracks, was made and created while in the studio. Killer studio and our co-producer Nicolai Ryen Christiansen is very much to thank for the final outcome of this album. ‘Nico’ really got the clue and essence of what we do and what we where after. And he had tremendous patience, time and effort to put into this album, and I think it really shows in the individual songs and the totality of the final product. He really let us experiment more with sounds and recording settings than we’ve had on previous albums. As well as taking the time to let us write the music in the studio, something I’m sure all engineers find pretty damn boring at times. [Laughs] Compared to former albums, this time it just felt 100 percent right, and the lineup we have now just gave the band back that rotten ol’ feeling we shared in the vile infant days together. I guess this really shines through in the aggressiveness and intensity we ended up with on Napalm Nights. But the most important factor and difference I think, is that we really let all four individuals in the band have time to explore and record their parts to their own fashion and liking. The drums T.Terror put down on the album has a lot of the intensity similar to that of a drummer like Mickey Dee or Lombardo, and that drive was just crucial to getting the songs to plow on like they do. And this comes very much from having the time and right feeling without time pressure and shit like that. When we record we really don’t give a damn what other bands play or how we should try to fit into this whole mishmash of genres and terminologies of it all. We just do our shit as our souls spew it out. And what comes, comes. And like the way I live, out here in the boonies, I have almost no influence or clue of what is really going on out there in the metal landscape. In my mind, it’s still mid-’86, man. And the killer music is chain bombing our ears just outside the door, and the room smells fresh off patches, denim and bullet-belts. So, I guess this makes it easier to create stuff straight from one’s own core of the bone. And that was important during the recording process, to just listen to one’s self without putting down too many boundaries. Playing the songs as they, in a way, asked to be played.

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I like the fact that the music is pretty varied. Was this something you’ve learned to appreciate over time, creating music with different textures and tempos? The thrash is still there, however.
S. A. Destroyer: I’m glad you feel the thrash is still there. It is the one pillar we’ve, at all times, felt closest to. We have always been thrown into the ‘black thrash/neo-thrash’ basket, and that’s OK in some ways. But personally think those terms are a bit meaningless. It is thrash metal through to the core man, with an emphasis on metal in the same breath as thrash. At least as far as Nocturnal Breed goes. I guess the term ‘black thrash’ is more a way of telling folks what music scene this music derives from. And most of the guys from the older bands do come from the black metal scene. Same goes for me, as I did all my first steps as a recording artist through bands such as Gehenna and Satyricon, and of course this shines through every now and then in the music I make. I think on the new album, more than before, we’ve managed to really weave in there our influences through the general sound of the songs and the album as a whole. I guess, we have always been fond of mixing up all our influences into our songs, but this time we, in a way, managed to really underline where the band comes from. In difference from a lot of the other bands from our stable, we are more influenced by American thrash than European. And, in the new songs, I think you can really hear that. Take the track “Thrashiac” and I’ll be sure you can hear the influences from the very early stuff of Nuclear Assault, Exodus, Lääz Rockit or very early Metallica stuff like Kill ‘Em All. Then, if you go to tracks like “The Devil Swept the Ruins”, “Napalm Nights” or “Dragging the Priests” they’re more down the Megadeth, Testament, Metal Church street. But, man, we love to take influences from all kinda places. So, there’s traces of everything from old-school heavy metal like Ozzy’s first three albums and the classic Iron Maiden albums to the good old death metal scene of the mid- to late ’80s. And even all the way to old ’70s and even ’60s stuff. And of course there’s tracks like “The Bitch of Buchenwald”, “Speedkrieg” or the end section of the 13-minutes long “Napalm Nights” that pull much more in the Motorhead-mixed-with-Venom-on-speed kinda sound. But since we are a European band there is of course traces of stuff like old Sodom, Celtic Frost, Destruction, Deathwish or even the classic Norwegian thrash band from the ’80s, Equinox. Also, the reason why the album is varied like it is comes down to the way we mixed and mastered the tracks. We mixed each song separately, and some songs even got instruments recorded with separate sounds. And in doing this we managed to really zoom in and only focus on the feel and story of the individual tracks, and what it needed to kinda pop out and fill its shoes. And it also got mastered in the same studio, making it possible to really get all out of our possibilities sound wise. Nico’ spent tons of hours fine-tuning it. We pushed for an old-school sound and at the same time making it kick hard enough to give the people a jaw break.

Which song or songs came to you first? Is there a song that speaks to you? Maybe one you keep going back to with a smile on your face.
S. A. Destroyer: All the songs on the new album have their own little snippets here and there that take me back to a certain time or feeling. So, it’s kinda hard to pick out one in general. “Thrashiac” is the ‘oldest’ track on the album. I recorded a demo of that one 11 years ago. And as we started rehearsing it we understood this one was a ‘keeper’ for the new album. The “Speedkrieg” song was I.Maztor’s creation, and I remember the day he showed it to us at rehearsal. I guess it instantly kick-started the album process. And it was so good to hear an old-school Breed song again. A track that really makes me grin is the “Krigshisser” track. It means ‘warmonger’ and was written by T.Terror about a year prior to the album recording. But what really makes this one tumble the old memory box is the recording of it. As we brought in my old friend Nocturno Culto on the vocals for it. We had such a killer time in the studio with him and his vocals just ripped like a mutah’fucka out’a Hell, man! And the track, that is more like a bonus track, turned out quite surprising to the fans, I think, pushing that black metal influence pretty far. Songs like “The Bitch of Buchenwald”, “Cursed Beyond Recognition”, “Dragging the Priests” and “Dawn Campaign… Flamethrower Ridge” have a unique feeling to us, since these were all made completely during the recording sessions. “Cursed…” is a very personal song dealing with a personal and band curse we’ve had clamped to my feet since I ever took up my instrument back in 1987. As if dragging the dredge of all Hell’s evil with you at any given time, it gets tiring, I promise. And it effects all of the guys in the band to the point where it’s like a fifth ghost member. Tracks like “The Bitch of Buchenwald” and “Speedkrie” make me smile a bit, even though they take up some pretty serious issues. ‘Cause there’s some people out there that just can’t handle a band that tells a story from the Second World War, without starting yapping about the Nazi stuff. They aren’t smart enough to realize that we write about this kinda stuff because it’s something that people should learn from, you know. It is written from a strictly historical perspective, but I knew we’d get some spittin’ from it. And it already has. [Laughs] You know, If you gonna spend your life worrying about political correctness you might as well just go shoot yourself in the foot in the first place, man. Political correctness is made for and by people who don’t want to know and can’t handle the truth of things. And are content to being led around in blindness like mongrel dogs, brown-nosing their masters for the scraps on their table. I say, put the whole carcass upon the table, and don’t go off hiding the guts and innards just because it is too hard to swallow. I think there is a debate within the metal community that needs to be shaken to its feet. And I might just as well be the one to take the spoon from the mouth and uncork this thorn in everyone’s ass. Even though I’ll probably piss people off; it is pretty annoying for a lot of really good bands and people, how these allegations that this band or that song or album is a ‘nazi song’ or got strings attached to that whole right-winged political side of things. And especially if they derive from the black metal scene, and Norway in particular, it get easily very bad very fast… And it is about due time, I think, that artists and bands should be able to write about or to touch the subject of the matter, be it with hearts of inspiration or through the looking glass of history. Without mixing in the goddamn politics of things. One does not have to be a Nazi or right-wing sympathizer, just because you feel the urge to tell a story from the Second World War, man. Nocturnal Breed has been slapped with this stamp many times, and we’ve even had gigs canceled because of stupid shit like that. I guess it’s time to get back to the school books, people. And see the difference it makes. For me and lots of other artists this is just a way of shedding some light upon uncomfortable themes that need to be included in the mental archives. If you’re not gonna end up with a “golf-ball sized” outlook on things like David Lynch says… There is a bunch of songs on this album that are based in the Vietnam War. I aint hearin’ no complainin’ from neither sides of that war… So, why this fucking hair soreness when it comes to especially the world wars, huh? So, yeah, there’s songs that make me smile a bit now.

The solos have gotten kind of out of hand. In a good way. Where do solos fit in the overall sound spectrum in Nocturnal Breed?
S. A. Destroyer: Hell yeah. Solos got really all out of hand in a very positive way this time. We had no idea how the solos would turn out before I.Maztor came to the studio after we had laid down the ground tracks. He spent only two days and 40 beers recording them, and man it really blew our mind when we heard them. He was definitely back from the grave this time, and with some damned finely honed skills too. The range of his inspiration is so wide, it makes you go all ways and sideways at the same time. He jumps easily from the 1960s Hendrix/Doors-inspired end section of the title track “Napalm Nights” to the finger-bending early King Diamond and Iron Maiden-inspired stuff he lays down on tracks like “The Devil Swept the Ruins”, “Dawn Campaign…” and “Dragging the Priests”. We have always had good lead guitarist in the band. And ever since the start of the band I was determined to always have killer solos on all songs on all albums. So, even the demos we made in ’96 and ’97 have some killer solos on them. I guess this makes us a little different from the other bands from our corner. We just want those killer old-school heavy metal solos in there, and my man Maztor is sure as Hell one of the best at what he does.

The vocals on Napalm Nights have changed a bit. There’s a bit more rasp, different ways of presenting the vocals. Sort of like Schmier mixed with Souza mixed with Lemmy. Was that the idea?
S. A. Destroyer: Well, first off, thanks for the comparison man, they’re three of my all-time inspirations, besides many others. But the idea was just to try to use the whole range of my vocals and try to nail it onto tape this time. And as I said earlier, I’ve never fully felt that I got to put down the vocals like I’ve had in mind. And this time I really felt like they hit the target. I never try to mimic anyone, but of course when my voice turns a little Lemmyish it gives of the same feel. I like using this and mixing it with the more aggressive vocals, and the low dirty ones to kinda give the song its right feeling. And it’s cool to have a couple ‘moods’ to choose from and not just one long constant whine. Nocturno Culto really helped us out, as he laid down backing vocals and barks here and there on half of the songs on the album. This really made the ‘thrash choirs’ punch you in the face like Exodus or Accept, and it took the vocals many a’notch up.

The war theme continues on Napalm Nights. Are you specifically referencing a war, a battle, or a time in which war was conducted?
S. A. Destroyer: I study my history well before I get into the actual writing process. Many of the stories got handed down to me by my own family and grandparents and such. And I guess they just got stuck, and force themselves out through the music. In a way, it’s not like I can choose. I’m sure a lot of musicians and artists can relate to this. Some songs or titles or lyrics just pick you to tell their story or to express that specific felling or message through art. And there is no way that thought is gonna let your soul get any rest before you have gotten down to doing something about it. And that is just what happened on many of the tracks on the new album as well. All the war-related stories on the new album are true, and based on actual historical events. I find it much more rewarding and interesting doing the research and really getting into the matter of what the story and music are suppose to portray then to take the easy way out and just fill in the blanks with pointless words and sentences. Tracks like “The Devil Swept The Ruins”, “Napalm Nights” and “Dawn Campaign… Flamethrower Ridge” are based on true stories and battles that took place in the Vietnam War. From the carnage at Khe’Sanh to the death-hills of the A’Shau-Valley and the Ho-Chi-Minh trail bombings, etc. And in a way this album is a hats-off salute to the feterans of this and of all other wars through history. As previously mentioned, the tracks “SpeedKrieg” and “The Bitch of Buchenwald” have been taken from the iron-grey history pages of the Second World War. As has the cut “Krigshisser D.N.K”, but more from the perspective of the Norwegian resistance during WW2. My family is tied to this war in so many ways. And in a way, I guess they are much of the reason why I have become such a history nerd. As I grew up, I was constantly surrounded by books containing harrowing photos and epic tales from most wars on this planet. My dad comes from a long line of navy marines, and he was an elite navy seal and a deep-sea diver for most of my upbringing, and looking through his books as a kid, I got inspiration for a lifetime of creativity. Those wicked photos and stories get to you after a while, as one grows older and becomes more conscious to the world around. My grandfather was in the UK-Norwegian convoys, trying to duck the torpedoes of the U-Boats, while my grandmother was back home and helped out the resistance, she was also tortured at interrogations, as was my other grandfather who spent several years in a concentration camp. My father’s aunt, sadly, was a Hitler Jugend and got caught in Berlin in the last days of the war, and was sent to a Russian gulag in Siberia. She told me some of the most gruesome shit I’ve ever heard in my whole life. Trust me! The stories these family members told me have been very influential on my view of the world. And as they used to take me with them when I was only 8-10 years old to these invalid veterans meetings. And I’m sure you understand what an extreme impression it was to a young boy talking to people who had survived Auschwitz and other death camps, and seeing the blackness in their eyes as their stories took them back to that Hell on earth. So as you see, this war influence has always been there, deep in my bones. And I’m sure that is why I tend to write so many songs about it, too. It’s been a constant on all the albums in some way or the other.

Is there a particular war that fascinates you?
S. A. Destroyer: Oh, I’ve had my ‘crush’ on most of them wars, but the World Wars is, of course, an ever-present theme I go back to over and over again. Both WW1 and WW2 were just so insanely cruel and bursting with evil inventiveness, but so filled with tragedy and shared horror, it’s just mind-blowing to study at times. Take a story like “The Bitch of Buchenwald”. This story has been taken from history and took place at the infamously cruel concentration camp in Buchenwald, one of the first and largest camps in Germany. The prisoners here had a life expectancy of only three months. The camp was presided over by SS Officer and Commander Carl Koch, one of Himmler’s protégés, notorious for his wicked methods of torture, cruel disciplinarian ways and sadistic tendencies. His wife, Ilse Koch had risen from the working classes to the Nazi-elite in a short time, and she reveled in the power it gave her. She led a life of luxury and privilege, though surrounded by death and degradation everywhere. They lived just outside the camps perimeter fence with their children. As well as prisoners that served as servants who tended to her every sick whim. She used to tease them half-naked as they served her in bed. And in Ilse’s dining room where she entertained guests and played with her children, it was decorated with shrunken heads from the Buchenwald doctors pathology lab and lamps made of human skin. She loved dominating the inmates, mocking the dying prisoners with her sexuality, and dressing in provocative clothes, exhibiting herself to the prisoners and guards. She rapidly got to be known as “The bitch of Buchenwald” or the Commanduce. She was exhilarated and drawn into the killing as if possessed. And personally selected out prisoners and loved both taking part and watching the camp punishments. She often picked her targets from horseback and later had them sentenced to death, killed, and then flayed. If she liked the “prison number” she got them cut off and used for her lamp shades. A special camp workshop was set up to make the skin artifacts. There were lamp shades of human skin and book covers with prisoners’ tattoos, which was often given away as gifts to other high ranking Nazis. Prisoners were also forced to decorate the skin of their dead comrades for this same purpose. And she made the camp doctors collect prisoners skin, with tattoos on.
As the war came to an end. She tried simply to blended back into the population. But her contribution to the atrocities that took place in Buchenwald death-camp caught up with her. And in 1947 she was imprisoned and sentenced to life in prison. She denied everything and after 24 years incarcerated, she committed suicide in 1967, by hanging herself with the cell’s bed sheets. She never showed any remorse… Shit like this just needs to be told, you know. There are lessons in history, and it sure inspires me to write its sick story. But on this album there’s a strong link back to the Vietnam War, which I’ve been very fascinated by since I was very young. And when T.Terror came up with the title, and we’d already for years wanted to do an album inspired by that war, we just felt it was time to unleash the jungle-madness. And if you read the lyrics and get deep into the songs referring to that I’m sure you’ll be able to feel the heat and the mud and crippling conditions those boys had to go through.

Nocturnal Breed was part of the late-‘90s thrash revival. Thrash is back again. What do you make of the younger generation of thrash?
S. A. Destroyer: I think it’s bout’ fuckin’ time this scene rises and gets some recognition for what it has been laying down. As I said, I live way out in nowhere, so I don’t get the latest news and bands and such, but from what I’ve seen it’s fucking awesome that there are so many new killer thrash bands out there plowing through the fields again. The metal dry-spell through the ’90s and into the new millennia made it pretty clear that razor-edged music was slowly dying. And I personally think that most of the big old giants from the ’80s like Slayer, Exodus, Testament, Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax or Destruction, for that sake, and so many more, should be grateful there were bands and fans still out there, who refused to forget the amazing music and feeling from the past. And that still banged their heads to the metal drums, even though the entire metal world was fading into piles of uninspired albums, hardcore hip-hop metal, fabricated black metal, hipster dufus emos, wet Limp Biscuits everywhere and Korn’ish high school metal and grunge foaming through the financial systems and out of our TVs and radios. In fact, the whole metal community worldwide was chain-fed and drowned in this shit spewing from the asshole of record labels, wannabe artists and money whores, only seeing the dollar sign in the shit they put out there. It was like the genocide of classic old-school metal music. And it is a big inspiration as the whole scene is kicking back from the gutters, showing there’s still life in this old horse. And doing what we do and did back then, side by side with bands like Darkthrone, Aura Noir, Infernö, Overkill, Sodom, Audiopain, Gehennah, Sabbat (Japan) and so many others who carried the flame through those weakling years of metal; it seems in hindsight to be a force that stood its ground fiercely and thoroughly. And luckily for many of the older bands that desperately changed styles from album to album, trying to fit the perfect pattern of the ‘market’ of those miserable years in metal history, we kept the leather-heated and the blood-thirst alive until they could get back in the saddle again. I see now that there is a lot of younger fans into thrash and old-school music who got into this though the ‘black thrash/neo thrash’ scene, and not through those old runners. And that kinda proves the point for me. I got no beef with those older bands. And I’m glad most of them are back in the game, ripping eardrums again. But there has to be some self-reflection involved here, guys, ’cause man, the truth is, there was so many weird and shitty attempts at finding the perfect ‘metal sound’ for the ’90s. And it was just as bad, at times, even worse in the first years of the millennia. So, yes, I’m both proud and glad the thrash metal movement is really stirring up some noise again.

Any chance of Nocturnal Breed hitting the states?
S. A. Destroyer: Yes, in fact, there is. We’re currently working with ‘Signature Riff’ on laying down a headlining tour on the East Coast. We got a bunch of really loyal speed metal legion fans in LA and NY–and all over in the US–who have been waiting for far too long for us to come over to kick their asses, so it’s about due time people don’t u think? So put on them’ tight-ass denim pants, put on yer’ spiked vest and get ready to lay low the ramparts thrashiacs!

** Nocturnal Breed’s new album, Napalm Nights, is out now on CD and LP on Agonia Records. Various thrashtastic configurations are available HERE.