1986's 'Maximum Destruction' album on Auburn (licensed for Europe by Roadrunner Records) is an eternal Thrash Metal classic ? no doubt about that! In the following years Destructor still carried on playing live and putting out (rather low-key) releases but'somehow they would not be able to repeat the masterstroke of their debut album. Until now that is ... There lat'st offering 'Forever in Leather' (issued by High Roller Records in an exclusive vinyl edition) is the ultimate follow-up to 'Maximum Destruction'. Finds singer and guitarist Dave Overkill as well: 'Yes, I would say so. Destructor felt we had come full circle. 'Sonic Bullet' was a great release but that was only intended to be an E.P. to support our 'Bang Your Head!' festival appearance in 2003. We wanted to have some new material available for our first overseas trip so we wrote two new songs: 'Sonic Bullet' and 'Heavy Artillery'. The other studio and live songs on that release were written with the old line-up. 'Forever in Leather' was our first real effort beyond the songs we had written with Dave Iannicca that never saw the light of day. They were all songs written with Jamie Boulder in the band. Jamie has been a great addition for us as our bass player. He also helps with the songwriting. He has been a key member in Destructor. All of the songs on 'Forever in Leather' were new songs and written with Jamie in the band. We started writing them after returning home from Germany in 2003.'
According to Dave Overkill, there is a huge difference between 2003's 'Sonic Bullet' album and the current 'Forever in Leather': ''Sonic Bullet' was a t'st that we passed and 'Forever in Leather' was our real chance to create music. That was where we wanted to go and we accomplished our goal. 'Sonic Bullet' was a collection of new and old studio and live songs to support our trip to Germany. It included the first two new songs we wrote with Jamie in the band. 'Forever in Leather' was our first official full-length album since reuniting.'
The cover artwork of "Forever in Leather" is very simple but very effective. However, is Dave aware of the fact that Exciter had this idea before Destructor (with their self-titled/O.T.T. album)? Obviously not: 'Honestly, I never saw the Exciter album cover before we did 'Forever in Leather' but it doesn't really matter considering the cover really fits the title and songs contained within. Bill worked on the idea with one of his Auburn art'sts, Aaron Sechrist. We were all very happy with the way the cover and packaging turned out.' For Dave, there is one key song on the album: 'If I had to pick one song, it definitely would be 'Tear down the Heavens'. It always goes over very well live and I think it'shows what Destructor is really about. It has been a staple song in our set ever since the album was released. Honestly, the recording as a whole is a t'stament to what Destructor is all about these days.'
"Forever in Leather" was released (on CD) via Auburn Records, just like the classic 'Maximum Destrcution'. Was Auburn going all the time or was the label reactivated especially for 2003's "Sonic Bullet" and the following Destructor releases? Dave Overkill explains: 'Auburn took a temporary hiat's for a few years in the '90's and reactivated around the same time Destructor did, in 1998 or so. 'Sonic Bullet' was simply the perfect'storm for Bill Peters and Destructor to reunite and pick up where we had left off in the 1980's. The death of Dave Iannicca took its toll on all of us and the Cleveland Metal scene. I know Bill was affected as much as we were by his death. They were good friends too. Things became unraveled and the 1990's sealed the deal with the American uprising of Grunge.' But today Destructor are back stronger than ever. Would Dave Overkill have thought that "Forever in Leather" is to be coming out on vinyl three years after its original CD release? He answers: 'We have hoped the album would come out on vinyl and I think it just took the right relationship to make this happen considering we have had many offers in the past but nothing credible enough for Auburn and Destructor to venture into. Bill waited for the right opportunity and wanted to work with a label where quality was important. From everything I have heard from Bill, High Roller definitely was the right choice.'
As mentioned above, Destrcutor were an integral part of the first wave of Thrash Metal in the mid-1980's. Over the last couple of years, bands like Gama Bomb, Municipal Waste, Bonded By Blood or Baphomet's Blood have been staging some kind of Thrash revival. Is this development in any way helpful for Destructor? Dave Overkill is not really sure: 'Many of the younger bands list bands like us as influences. I think it's great that Metal in general has a renewed interest worldwide and Destructor is just glad to be part of the great'st music movement in the world. We played in front of a lot of younger fans at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2008 and went over very well. The reaction was incredible actually. Many of them had not even been born yet when Destructor started. It's always great to see younger fans getting into Metal so the torch can be passed on to the next generation.'
Now that Destructor are back for good, it is easy to forget that there was a very sad time in the history of the band when it did not look very likely that they would ever record another album or play live again: 'We split up in 1992. It was after a long period of trying to get back the life of the band after our bass player Dave Iannicca was murdered. Dave was murdered on January 1st, 1988. At the time we were in the studio working on our new album 'Decibel Casualties'. Bill (Peters) from Auburn had signed a label partnership deal with Island Records. We were going to be one of the first bands on the new Island/Auburn label. We were all very excited and then everything suddenly came crashing down after the murder. Dave had just gotten engaged a week earlier to his girlfriend. It took some time to recover from losing not only our bass player but one of our best friends in life who we all considered a brother and had grown up with together. Pat and I were there when the murder took place. We had to go through the murder trial six mont's later and relive the whole tragic incident again. Island Records didn't want to wait and dropped us from the deal a few mont's after the murder. They had initially said they would wait for us to recover. Bill eventually pulled out of the entire label deal because of this. We tried to continue on in the years that followed with different bass players but the chemistry was not there. That was a really bad time in our history.'
Matthias Mader
