The noise might have been building since the early 80s, but 1986 was the year thrash metal broke \u2013 bursting like a zit on a teenage metalhead\u2019s bumfluffed chin. Slayer, Megadeth and Metallica all released landmark albums, with the latter swapping fleapit rock clubs for a string of arena dates supporting Ozzy Osbourne. But while these California acts would alter the course of rock music for ever, a clutch of like-minded teenagers were carving their own path 5,500 miles away from the genre\u2019s epicentre.<\/p>\n
What Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard \u2013 the \u201cbig four\u201d of German thrash metal \u2013 might have lacked in finesse and professional outlook, they made up for in sheer unbridled aggression. Faster and meaner than most of their American peers, these bands helped to set a new benchmark for brutality while unwittingly influencing the next generation of death- and black-metal musicians.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always more rough and violent,\u201d says Destruction vocalist and bassist Marcel \u201cSchmier\u201d Schirmer of Germany\u2019s initial approach to thrash. \u201cWe never tried to be the best musicians \u2013 we tried to write songs that punched hard. On English heavy metal albums, it was always the first song on the album and the first song on the second side of the vinyl that were the fastest tracks. We\u2019d listen to those and say, \u2018why isn\u2019t there an album with just those songs?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We never tried to be the best musicians\u2019 \u2026 Marcel \u2018Schmier\u2019 Schirmer of Destruction in 2021. Photograph: Davide Sciaky\/Alamy<\/p>\n
By way of response, 1986 saw the release of sophomore albums by Kreator (Pleasure to Kill) and Destruction (Eternal Devastation), while Sodom unleashed their debut LP, Obsessed By Cruelty.<\/p>\n
Formed in 1982, Sodom were conceived as an antidote to a seemingly preordained career in Gelsenkirchen\u2019s mines. \u201cMy father didn\u2019t want me to be a musician,\u201d says vocalist and bassist Tom \u201cAngelripper\u201d Such. \u201cWhen I stopped working in the coalmine, he was disappointed, saying \u2018you can\u2019t make money with this music\u2019. It wasn\u2019t until Agent Orange came out in 1989 that I got a cheque every month.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kreator, founded in Essen and also set against coalmines and shuttered steel factories, found themselves with a record deal off the back of a rough demo. \u201cWe were spending most of our time rehearsing in a school basement,\u201d says vocalist and guitarist Miland \u201cMille\u201d Petrozza. \u201cWhen we did Endless Pain in 1985 we\u2019d only played a couple of shows in youth centres and that was it. It was only after Pleasure to Kill came out that we started touring.\u201d If their friends in Sodom viewed Gelsenkirchen\u2019s coalmines as a trap, Mille suggests that Essen\u2019s industrial heritage presented certain opportunities. \u201cAll the coalmines were used for cultural events,\u201d he says. \u201cWe rehearsed there, I saw bands like Bad Brains there. It was a place of creativity, with a lot of theatre, art and music.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Music was a gate through which we could escape\u2019 \u2026 Destruction. Photograph: Destruction<\/p>\n
While Kreator and Sodom\u2019s relative proximity allowed for a degree of competition, camaraderie and cross-pollination, Destruction were out on their own in the small town of Weil am Rhein. \u201cEverything was so conservative and so religious that we were trying to break out,\u201d says Schmier. \u201cMusic was a gate through which we could escape and forget about everything. There were six of us who were the first heavy metal fans in our town and we formed a little metal scene. It meant we could create something unique.\u201d Schmier and his friends made connections with Kreator in Essen, Tankard in Frankfurt and Iron Angel in Hamburg in order to gig. And while life as a Weil am Rhein metalhead might have been lonely, Destruction walked the walk from the very beginning. \u201cA guy from our label said it\u2019s not the music, it\u2019s the image that sells the records,\u201d says Schmier. \u201cHe was right, of course, but we didn\u2019t know it \u2013 we really looked like that. I went with my bullet belt and everything to my grandfather\u2019s funeral and my father freaked out. He was like: take this shit off, you\u2019re embarrassing me in front of the whole village!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With no local precedent for what they were doing and widespread derision from the German music press, the bands were forced to learn on the fly. Exposure to more experienced overseas bands helped the young thrashers survive: \u201cSlayer taught us how to drink,\u201d laughs Schmier of Destruction\u2019s time supporting the band on their Hell Awaits tour. \u201cWe learned a lot of bad things from them.\u201d The music was also fuelled by the likes of Venom (\u201ctheir Welcome to Hell album was the spark to the powder keg,\u201d says Angelripper), Judas Priest and early hardcore bands like Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys and DRI.<\/p>\n
The decade\u2019s thrash metal scene was rife with references to nuclear Armageddon and the possibility of life\u2019s destruction. If US thrashers gnashed their teeth about potential annihilation, their German counterparts had a looming reminder of cold war politics on their own doorstep. \u201cOf course it impacted us,\u201d says Mille of living in a Germany divided by the Berlin Wall. \u201cI couldn\u2019t pinpoint how because it was very unconscious, but it was always present.\u201d The GDR\u2019s strict, censorious regime meant there was little crossover between rock scenes on either side of the wall, though all three bands received enough intermittent fan mail to know their music was being smuggled into the east.<\/p>\n
\u2018We knew what was going on in the west\u2019 \u2026 Formel 1. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew what was going on in the west but we had hardly any contact with musicians there,\u201d says Peter \u201cPaule\u201d Fincke, drummer of prominent GDR metal band Formel 1, whose sole album, Live Im Stahlwerk, was also released in 1986. Older and more experienced than the West German thrashers, they\u2019d been turned on to heavy metal via illicitly begotten albums by bands from the new wave of British heavy metal scene. \u201cIt was immediately clear that this was our thing,\u201d says Paule. Recorded, rather fittingly, at a former steelworks and featuring German-language renditions of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden numbers, the live LP is air-punchingly alive.<\/p>\n
Having met Iron Maiden when the east Londoners toured Poland, Paule recalls being taken by the thrill of the band\u2019s visual spectacle as well as the music itself \u2013 something he and his bandmates were keen to bring to the Formel 1 live experience. \u201cMy graphic designer and I designed a castle courtyard, which we then had built, complete with battlements and staircases,\u201d he says. \u201cIn East Germany, bands had to own everything themselves; there were no rental services, so we hauled tons of equipment across the country. I still feel sorry for our four technicians.\u201d The band went on indefinite hiatus in the late 80s when several members applied to leave the GDR, with Paule now playing gigs with Silent Running.<\/p>\n
While Formel 1 might not have lasted to witness the wall come down, in 1990 Kreator became one of the first western metal acts to play in East Berlin. Despite this, the 90s would be a challenging decade thanks to the rise of grunge and, later, nu metal. Like thrash bands the world over, Kreator, Sodom and Destruction variously dabbled with new genres and new members while witnessing record sales slide. They would all, however, find a new lease of life in the 00s thanks to a classic thrash revival and the likes of Mayhem, Immortal, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse acknowledging the power of teutonic thrash.<\/p>\n
Revived \u2026 Sodom.<\/p>\n
Today, Sodom is in a state of temporary hibernation as Angelripper takes time out to hunt, enjoy life and work on multiple reissue projects. Kreator, meanwhile, have recently been the subject of a documentary and a book (co-authored by Mille), and their 16th album, Krushers of the World, heralds an enormous tour. Destruction have already toured Japan, Thailand and China this year, and are about to head stateside to tour with fellow thrashers Overkill and Testament. As for the future? The state of the world suggests they\u2019ll be fuel for the genre\u2019s furnace for many years to come. \u201cI wish I could write \u2018my god, there\u2019s so much peace on this planet, I can\u2019t write lyrics any more,\u2019 but that will never happen,\u201d says Schmier. \u201cI guess we\u2019re doomed to carry on writing about how fucked up the world is.\u201d<\/p>\n