SCHMIER Fights Against Fascism And Misinformation On New DESTRUCTION Album, 'Birth Of Malice'

By David E. Gehlke

The 2021 departure of founding member and guitarist Mike Sifringer has seemingly galvanized long-running, legendary German thrashers DESTRUCTION. It’s not a reach to suggest that the band’s modern era that began when vocalist/bassist Schmier Schirmer rejoined in 1999 has produced more notable releases than forgettable ones. None of those albums, however, have lived up to the indispensable trio of “Infernal Overkill”, “Eternal Devastation” and “Release From Agony”, each of which are true standard bearers for German thrash. Whether the band’s new “Birth Of Malice” can hang with any of those platters is debatable, but one thing rings true after giving it several listens: It may be DESTRUCTION‘s heaviest long player to date.

The aforementioned Schmier is now firmly in control of DESTRUCTION and doesn’t appear to be lacking in lyrical subject matter. When geopolitical relations are on edge and right-wing, fascist sentiment is rising in all corners of the globe, now feels like the right time for a new DESTRUCTION album. As always, Schmier was more than happy to chat about his band’s latest endeavors and the state of the world when BLABBERMOUTH.NET caught up with him.

Blabbermouth: This seems like a cliché question, but let’s start with it: Do you think this is the heaviest DESTRUCTION album?

Schmier: “For me, I think it feels like it’s a really great album. The reaction has been amazing. I don’t remember having so much positive feedback from the press when the singles came out. I always say, ‘You got to look back in a couple of months and a year on how good an album is.’ I have a feeling this is a great one. It is heavy. It’s very diverse. It has a lot of different tempos and ideas. There’s a lot of shredding — catchy songs and cool riffs. It will hopefully go down in history as a top five DESTRUCTION album.”

Blabbermouth: There’s the idea that just because a band plays fast means they are heavy, which isn’t necessarily true. Where do you fall nowadays between writing fast and just heavy material?

Schmier: “It’s extremely difficult not to write fast songs. I’m an old punk at heart. I grew up with speed metal in the ’80s. Fast songs are totally my thing, so when I have to write something else, it’s more challenging. In the last few years, I have started to write better and easier those types of songs that are more groovy. I think the new album has this diversity and different approach with tempos because of the learning process you have as a songwriter. Look at SLAYER. ‘Reign In Blood’ was written when they were young and wild. Later on, all their albums became mid-tempo heavy. For DESTRUCTION, we’ve always been writing fast songs because it’s our thing. It’s in our roots and we love to be fast. Over the years, you start to learn that heavy songs like ‘Life Without Sense’ and ‘Armageddonizer’ are a big part of our history. The fans love those songs. It’s how we become better songwriters in this kind of music. I call them ‘tank tempos.’ Like, it’s rolling over you. It’s not only about speed. You are totally right. As a young kid, it was all about speed and over the years, you start to improve your songwriting by going into your past.”

Blabbermouth: “Life Without Sense” is a good example. It sticks out on “Eternal Devastation” and you’ve kept it in the set for a while.

Schmier: “We took it out once and people were like, where’s ‘Life Without Sense’? Then we played a shorter version and people wanted the whole song. It’s hard to keep out of the set. For us, when we play it, it makes a difference. It’s a song where you animate the crowd really well. It has a different tempo. It’s fun to play it. It’s a headbanging tune for us and the crowd.”

Blabbermouth: You have a pretty good new song that’s in that vein, “Scumbag Human Race”.

Schmier: “That’s going to be the next single and will have a video. That’s one of those ‘tank metal’ songs.”

Blabbermouth: You have created a new genre of metal, “tank metal”!

Schmier: [Laughs] “I see it in the vein of groovy SLAYER. I love it. That’s why we chose it as a single. We talked about the last single of the album. Should it be a fast, typical DESTRUCTION song? Or should it be something like ‘Scumbag Human Race’? We chose it because it’s so diverse.”

Blabbermouth: Is the title as self-explanatory as it seems?

Schmier: “Exactly. It’s a metaphor for what the world would tell us if it could talk. There’s a movie with Mark Wahlberg that wasn’t that good, [The Happening’]. That’s how I came up with the idea: ‘What would the world tell us, you fucking scumbag human race?’ We were laughing about the title. Is this even proper English? Can we say that?”

Blabbermouth: No, it’s correct! Your English has always been pretty good.

Schmier: “I’m trying. [Laughs] The German language is so far from English. It’s a metaphor for the world. It’s good because we need to be screamed at for what we’re doing to this planet. Then Donald [Trump] came around. [Laughs] Oh my god. It’s ridiculous. I started watching the movie, ‘The Apprentice’. It’s quite interesting. I haven’t made it through yet since it’s so long. I’ll watch the rest of it today to understand what is driving this man. It’s all the same. Those guys want to make history. As he said, ‘There are only winners and losers,’ and he’ll do anything to be a winner.”

Blabbermouth: Yes, but at what cost?

Schmier: “Yeah. It’s crazy. We never learn from history. What’s going on in the world right now, with all the right-wing parties being important again in so many countries, even in Germany, where it shouldn’t happen. We also have this right-wing party that Elon Musk was recommending to the Germans to vote for.”

Blabbermouth: I was going to ask you about that.

Schmier: “First of all, you don’t tell a country who to vote for when you’re in the government of another country. It’s disrespectful. As Germans, we know that this party is a right-wing party. Germany has a lot of problems, of course. We have too many immigrants. That is a problem that has to be solved. We’re a small country and we cannot take millions of immigrants and it’s going to cause problems and it will bring the Nazis out. That’s what history is all about. Just learn from it. It’s happening again. For me, the mistakes that happened in the past are here now because politics takes time. It’s the same in America. The problems of America now are not the fault of [Joe] Biden. It’s the fault of former governments and older policies. That’s what people don’t see. People want to see just the actual state. The actual state started 20 years ago or longer. I’m a big ‘Star Trek’ fan. I always ask why we aren’t learning from movies or shows like ‘Star Trek’. Put people in office that have something to say. People who are smart, who studied, who are scientists. Those people should be politicians. People who are not selfish. People who are there for us, the humans. This has to change about humanity to make this a better place. At the moment, we’re in the middle of the shit. There’s war everywhere. It looks bad. When I talk to people, everyone is scared. People in Scandinavia are telling me they’re preparing for war with the Russians. It’s coming. It’s possible. It’s a scary time. If America is destabilized and America backs out of NATO, [Vladmir] Putin will be like, ‘Hey, it’s all mine now. Let’s take it.’ This balance was always important. Of course, everyone is afraid that the balance of the world is getting out of hand and there will be more war. War can escalate really quickly with all the weapons we have. We don’t want it to happen. I guess it’s maybe time for another one.”

Blabbermouth: Isn’t it sad that a lot of things you’ve sung about over the years are coming to life?

Schmier: “Oh, it’s horrible. Humans never learn from history. Manipulation is now easier because of the internet. Back in the day, it was more difficult with newspapers and books you had to burn and shit. Now, the divide and conquer on the internet is so easy. You can program some bots over AI, and they can manipulate the internet for you. That is why we wrote ‘Cyber Warfare’. We had a bot attack when the Russian war started with Ukraine. We had it on Facebook. It was insane. It was thousands and thousands of bots attacking our Facebook site. In the end, we had 12,000 comments. We had to erase and block so many bots. We did it for three days—me and my guys, just 24 hours blocking and erasing comments. We were like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ I realized it was a Russian bot army that was so big that even a metal band in Germany that has nothing to do with politics was a target. That’s how ‘Cyber Warfare’ came about. Also, a lot of people don’t have time to read the news, so they get it off the internet. Fifty percent of that is false information. People don’t have the time since they come home from work; they have two jobs. They want to see the news; they read something and believe it.”

Blabbermouth: They want to read something that fits their worldview, regardless of whether it’s true or not.

Schmier: “Exactly. If it fits your worldview, you accept the lie without questioning it. It’s absurd how so many people can be manipulated so easily. There are a lot of similarities between what happened in the past and what’s happening now. It’s the same recipe, the same prescription, but all done with the modern world tools we have.”

Blabbermouth: On a brighter topic, you finally have a song named after the band. What took you so long?

Schmier: “You normally write that song when you’re 17 and wild. There’s a lot of pressure in writing a song named after the band. People expect it to be a new anthem. As soon as you overthink, you can’t write it. I took my time to write it. I felt the time was right at the end of the songwriting process. One more song was missing and we came back from tour. I had those great moments with the fans. I was just reflecting. I wrote down the first lyrics, reflecting in time. I had some cool riffs. I played them for the boys. They were like, ‘Yeah, this sounds cool. Let’s do it.’ Sometimes, the time has to be right for stuff like this. If we release a song called ‘Destruction’, it has to be kick-ass.”

Blabbermouth: Was (ACCEPT‘s) “Fast As A Shark” the first speed metal song you ever heard? The cover you did on “Birth Of Malice” turned out great.

Schmier: “From Germany. For sure. I’m not sure if it’s the first speed metal song from around the world. There were some riffs and some bands that made similar songs. The intensity was a new one when ‘Fast As A Shark’ came. The sound of the album [1982’s ‘Restless And Wild’] was really good; the riffs were new. He’s doing this string-skipping. It was really new to do that. The whole song was so impressive, as was the double lead solo. Then, the vocals, the chorus. It was a very special song. It must be the first speed metal song from Germany. There were bands from England like JAGUAR, RAVEN or from the States, like RIOT. They were doing similar stuff. It was the most influential because it was a German song from a German band. We had the SCORPIONS before, now there’s ACCEPT. They were making fun of German country with the intro. It was that rebellion. We needed it when we were teenagers. I think I was 14. It was about making fun of the music my parents listened to. It was a statement. I think the song was super important for my youth. Without the song, there may not have been DESTRUCTION. It was a kick in the ass for us.”

Blabbermouth: There’s such a big divide in the current ACCEPT camp and what (vocalist) Udo (Dirkschneider) is doing. Where do you stand?

Schmier: “I supported [ACCEPT guitarist] Wolf [Hoffmann] from the beginning when he came back with ACCEPT. He was the main songwriter. I thought it was sad that Udo didn’t join, but some people just don’t get along, like Udo and Wolf. Everybody in a band knows how this is. If you have a guy in the band and you don’t get along, it doesn’t work. There’s the best of both worlds. They have a great career now. Wolf has a great singer [Mark Tornillo] who respects the legacy. He’s fantastic. They’ve done some really good albums. Udo has a great career. He’s touring Europe right now, and all the shows are packed. For them, it’s good. Maybe one day, at the end of their career, there will be a reunion like BLACK SABBATH. I think that’s the biggest rip-off ever. [Laughs] The fans will go there and I understand they want to see it again, but it’s a huge rip-off.”

Blabbermouth: Have you adjusted to life without Mike in the band?

Schmier: “It wasn’t easy the last years with him. I didn’t want any bad blood. We tried to get away to solve this and he decided to leave, which is very sad. It made me very sad. I didn’t know in the beginning how we would continue. When we found Martin [Furia] as a second guitarist — he was our soundman. He was a part of the family. When we found him, I knew I did the right thing. He was very respectful of Mike‘s legacy. He was good friends with Mike. There was a lot of respect toward Mike when he left. I knew I did the right thing. We all get along. The vibe is good. Of course, there will be one guy going, ‘No DESTRUCTION without Mike!’ I would say, ‘Maybe you should listen to the 1990s albums that were made without me. Then we can talk again.'”

Photo credit: Jennifer Gruber