When Mille Petrozza sits down to talk riffs, it’s rarely small talk. On a recent episode of “Coffee With Ola”, hosted by Swedish guitarist, producer, and Solar mastermind Ola Englund, the Kreator frontman dug into how the band’s upcoming sixteenth studio album, Krushers Of The World, took shape.
For us, wondering how a band this deep into its career still finds fresh ways to thrash, Mille laid out his process in detail. For him, it all starts with riffs that feel just out of reach.
“The thing is, it’s like a puzzle. You start coming up with all these riffs that you think maybe it’s a little bit above what I am able to play, but if I rehearse and if I get into practice, and if I get into the mindset, I might be able to do this at one point. That’s not when we go into the studio. But it might be when we play the first five shows of a tour. And then everything starts to flow,” he explained (via Blabbermouth)
That idea of writing slightly beyond your comfort zone and then growing into it on the road will resonate with anyone who’s tried to tighten down alternate-picked riffs the night before a gig. A lot of metal players think in riffs first and everything else later. Mille flips that around more often than you’d expect for a thrash legend.
“The lyrics, most of the time, they’re first. And there needs to be an idea. And when I have a lyrical idea… then I come up with the riffs. And the riffs, I don’t wanna limit myself. I want them to be a little spectacular or something that not everybody can just play right away. But also harmonically, they need to be nice for my voice, for my mid-rangey kind of voice, in order to work in a live situation… But in the end of the day, in my experience, it was always good to play a little bit above your abilities. But at some point, it makes you a better musician because you challenge yourself. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean that, that there’s the. The riffs have to be complicated at any cost. If they’re cool and they’re very easy to play, they make great songs too. So, I think you always have to find whatever’s best for the song. And I think finding the riffs is only 10% or 15% of the whole composition. But it’s very important, especially in metal.”
Host Ola Englund mentioned that, for him, riffs are almost the whole game — “90%” of the writing. Mille was quick to point out that what works for one band doesn’t define the genre.
“There are definitely exceptions to the rule. I don’t know how Metallica write their songs. But I think they also have the riffs first. So every band is different. So there’s no formula — there’s no certain formula that works for every band. And I think for my band or for my style of songwriting, it always worked quite well to have a lyrical theme or sometimes even just some chorus. I need to have something that people can sing along with. I like it when people sing along. And I like it when you can remember the songs. I like catchy stuff. I’m not a ‘prog’ head. I love Rush — don’t get me wrong — and I love Tool, early stuff, but I also like songwriting. And I think, for example, a band like Tool and Rush, they have this in between — they have great songs, but they have weird rhythms. And so it makes me, as a listener, it makes it enjoyable. But if it’s just too [complicated] for the sake of it, it’s not my taste.”
When the conversation moved to how the songs for Krushers Of The World actually came together, Mille described a process a lot of modern metal writers will recognize: home-grown demos that are already close to album quality.
“The way I write is I just record demos. I have a friend [Andy Posdziech] who has a great studio. He plays in a band called Any Given Day. They’re a really good band. And this time, when I recorded the demos, the demos almost sounded like the album, because it was so detailed. The drums sounded great. And the way we recorded the riffs, the sonic quality of the demos was really good. So I enjoyed listening to the demos. I listened to the demos for a couple of months, really, before I even played it to anyone. That made me kind of figure out whether or not I enjoyed these songs. And I lived with it for half a year or so and then went to Jens’s studio. I went there with the demos, and he would do a pre-production of the pre-production, like coming up with his ideas.”
Krushers Of The World is due January 16, 2026, via Nuclear Blast Records. Pre-order it here.
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