WARBRINGER

When the early 2000’s brought us a revival of classical thrash metal, there was a feeling that many of the newer bands would drop out of sight pretty quick. That’s exactly what happened, but it was certainly not a total wipeout. HAVOK has endured, along with MUNICIPAL WASTE. But arguably the most successful of the “new wave” thrashers has been WARBRINGER.

For sure, they’ve been the most reliable. The band has released reliably neck-wrecking albums on a clockwork basis, the latest of which is “Wrath and Ruin”. WARBRINGER has now been a part of the scene for so long that they can put out a record that covers the vast range of their own catalogue. That is “Wrath And Ruin”. From blood and guts thrashers that make your head spin like Regan McNeil to melodic epics put together with the military precision of an invasion plan, this record covers all the bases when it comes to WARBRINGER.

Evil John Kevill has been the face of the band since the beginning. Recently, the troops played a devastating set at the Blades of Steel fest in Madison, WI. That’s where I caught up with John, who was gracious enough to grant me this interview...PREPARE FOR WAR!

WORMWOOD CHRONICLES: I remember the very first time I saw WARBRINGER. It was at the House of Blues in Chicago and you were opening for EXODUS.

JOHN KEVILL: That was our very first US tour.

WC: I remember talking to you briefly in the pit there. I thought, “these kids are ready to go”. This is the next generation of thrash metal.

JK: That’s right!

WC: And now you’re veterans yourselves. Do the same things motivate you now as they did back then or has there been a change?

JK: No. I mean, my life has changed, but the core goals of the band are more or less the same. I still like metal as much as I ever did and the band’s mission to play as hard and fast as we can live is still there.

WC: Is your show tonight part of a tour or is it just a one-off?

JK: This is a one-off. We’ve done three tours so far this year, one in the USA and two in Europe. We’ve been off the road less than two weeks so yeah...(chuckles)

WC: How did the tours go?

JK: They went well. We played a bunch of festivals, some really big shows. Can’t complain!

WC: Now that the new album “Wrath and Ruin” has been out for a while, what’s your assessment of it and how it’s been received?

JR: Yeah, generally we’ve had a great reception to this one. Generally, I think the whole kind of progression as WARBRINGER shows us operating on a really high level and that shows on “Wrath and Ruin”. People can hear the level of work we put into things and they seem to really like it. I’m happy with the reaction and we’ve put another quality entry into the discography. We’ve continued the standard we’ve been at for a while and we are the best WARBRINGER we can be.

WC: To me, the album came across like a kind of tour of your own history. Each song had its own identity, which is important these days because it’s a real slog when every song on an album sounds the same. You had the really hammering thrashy songs, you had one that was really melodic and composed, one that was kind of progressive. Was doing it that way your idea going into the recording or did it just happen that way naturally?

JK: That’s always been our idea. What happens naturally is the result of planning in a lot of cases. (laughs). You have to think of what you want to happen to even point yourself that way and do it. We definitely are trying our best to make every song stand out because we have the same criticism of a lot of music we hear. “Hey, this all blends together...it’s a one trick thing. I might like that one trick but you want a little variety. I think doing that in an extreme genre, where everything is as fast as hell, is difficult. When the core identity of the band is WARBRINGER and you’ve got a big spiky logo, clearly the band is here to beat the crap out of you. How can we do that and be true to that part of the band and still keep the album interesting, that’s something we’ve been doing our whole career and especially since album #3 or #4. Our first couple of albums were mostly fast thrashing and we’re still a fast thrashing band, but we now try to do it as interestingly as possible, with each song being it’s own thing where you can say something different about it.

WC: Do you write songs pretty much the same way you always have or have you gotten a “revelation” of doing things a different way?

JK: Early on, we kinda just did put together riffs and did things that way. The last couple of albums, I’d say the writing is a lot more constructed. It sometimes starts with a vocal or lyrics idea, which is an unusual way to do things in the riff-based genre we work in. But we’ll take ideas however we get them. Sometimes we start with riffs, sometimes we start with words, we’ll take it anyway it comes. But recently the trend for us has been a lot more thoughtful in how we do it.

WC: The lyrics seems to have the same plot as the music...they are all coming from a different place. On the new album, “The Sword And the Cross”, “Neuromancer”, “Through A Glass Darkly”...those are all very different in their approach. It’s not just nuclear war, drinking beer, eating pizza…

JK: We see ourselves as being at the serious end of the thrash metal genre. Now that doesn’t mean there’s no fun in the music...especially live, there’s a fun angle to it...but the music doesn’t have that tongue in cheek aspect to it. It’s pissed off music based on real stuff that affects the world or just interesting subjects. Like the song “Through A Glass Darkly” is about reincarnation and the whole concept of being an eternally reincarnated warrior. I try to stick with something I actually think is cool or interesting. I definitely try to tailor them to each song and I’m glad you noticed the separation because that’s what I want.

WC: Is it a bit too early to ask what might be coming after “Wrath And Ruin”? Are the ideas bubbling along or are you in “kicking back” mode?

JK: We’re not kicking back, that’s for sure. We will be supporting this album for at least another year before we seriously start working on the next one. But I’m thinking about stuff.Whenever we get to the end of an album cycle, I’m thinking, what the hell am I going to do next? In every case, we put a lot of thought and work into these things. It’s a challenge for us to answer...how do we top this, how do we progress? How do we do something new while staying true to the fact we’re a thrash band? I’m not interested in us turning into a prog band or anything like that...I still want to kick ass. (laughs)

WC: Now is WARBRINGER the only band you guys are involved with or are there other projects you are involved in?

JK: No, there’s all kinds of other things we’re involved with. We’re a band in the year 2025, it’s just not possible to survive being in one band.

WC: What are some of the other projects you’re involved in?

JK: Well, speaking for me personally, I just do this. WARBRINGER is it for me. I wouldn’t want to be in a second band at the same time, even though that’s almost what you have to do. 

WC: You take the touring and the support really serious.

JK: You can’t not. You’re out there for months at a time...or what are you doing? I’m used to it, I know all the places we’re likely going to play. Not that I don’t enjoy it, but if I’m there, I’m gonna give a killer show, that’s what I’m all about.

WC: What was the most unusual venue you ever played?

JK: There was a pagoda outside in Taiwan somewhere. And we played a boat in a harbor in Bristol. Yeah, those would be the top of the list for me. We’ve played all kinds of venues...great venues, total dives, everything in between.

WC: What was your best show out of your most recent tours...the one that stands out the most?

JK: Tolminator Metalfest. (Located in rural Slovenia—Dr. M). That coincided with my wedding anniversary. I had my wife there with me, we got married in the region. So that was really cool. We had a pretty damn good show at Wacken. Bloodstock was good, too. Those were some of my favorite ones.

WC:  Wacken has a gigantic crowd. That had to be a huge rush.

JK: That was a big rush for sure.

WC: What would you say your favorite track off “Wrath and Ruin” is, if you have one?

JK: I’ve got a couple. For me, I’ll it’s between “The Sword And The Cross”, “Strike From The Sky” and “Cage of Air”, those are my favorites. The last several records we’ve done in general, the songs are really strong. I wouldn’t put something on the record if I thought it was weak. We keep the quality control high. When I go through a record, I think I’ll like some less than others, but actually, I wind up going, yeah, that’s not too bad. I get that way about it sometimes.

WC: I feel bad about being in the digital age because I get so buried in a million promos. Most of them I can only listen to one time. I have to put down my initial impressions because I don’t have the time to listen to something over and over. You just get buried if you do.

JK: In a manner of speaking, they killed music and replaced it with content. I actually wrote about this subject in songs like “A Better World” and “Cage of Air”. A lot of things about the modern age I find really bleak and depressing. I put some of that on this record and you can expect more on the next one. It’s not getting better.

WC: I’m an old man. I remember things the way they were before. This is a bad, bad period of history.The nation seems to be in an irreversible decline. There might be slight improvements but it will never be what it was when I was growing up.

JK: Yup, same here.

WC: I don’t know how many generations we’ve got before the machines take over and figure out the world doesn’t need us anymore.

JK: Pretty much. We’ll have some kind of elite cyber-technocracy thing. And that’s if the climate holds up.

WC: It won’t. It’s a snowball rolling down a hill. The oil companies basically stalled around until it became inevitable.

JK: Right. Basically the bad guys won and I’m pissed about it. That comes out in our music. It doesn’t really change anuything but it’s a little bit of artistic expression. It’s the most I can do, small person that I am.

WC: It has to be cathartic as well.

JK: There is definitely that as well, “Wrath and Ruin” deals with a lot of these issues. What the album is largely about is looking into the near future and saying oh God, how did we end up with this?! There’s a dystopian modernity to songs like “A Better World” and “Cage Of Air”. “The Sword And The Cross” is my favorite lyric on there. It’s a medieval warlord basically describing how he owns the peasants and we make the connection to the powers of today…

WC: There’s no difference.

JK: Yeah, he’s basically laughing at the listener. “You think you’re a free person, You fool, my children will own your children.”

WC: Not exactly what you’d call a knee-slapper…

JK: No. I wrote the last words to that song before we wrote the rest of the music. It was all about finding something to put those lines into. I knew I came up with something good when I wrote those lines...that gave me chills. That was cool as hell. And also, that’s not just “stock” evil. There are a lot of stock subjects in metal...zombies, bloody knife guy, whatever. The CANNIBAL CORPSE type lyrics don’t shock me that much because I’ve heard them from hundreds of bands by now. I’m trying to write stuff that focuses on true evil.

WC: I did an interview with King Fowley from DECEASED. Their last album was called “Children Of The Morgue”. I said to him, this isn’t about zombies or gore. It’s about real life death and how it affects people for real. He agreed and said it wasn’t the cartoon version of death. You seem to be coming from roughly the same place.

JK: Yeah, ultimately you want to make music that hits at real feelings you have. You usually have those real feelings for a very good reason and that’s the way you have to look at it when you write a metal song. Or any song, really.

WC: If you had the chance to have dinner with any three people from history, who would they be?

JK: Oh Jeez! Alright...Napoleon Bonaparte would be on the list. I’ve studied history a lot and he’s an interesting characterI might pick one of the great philosophers or something like that. I’ll do Diogenes. He might decline the invitation, but there you go. Fuck, who would the third one be? How about Marshall Zhukov who led the defense of Stalingrad in World War II. There’d have to be some translators, because I don’t speak French, Russian or ancient Greek. (laughter)

WC: Any last words?

JK: Keep on keepin’ on. We hope you guys enjoy our music and check out “Wrath And Ruin” if you haven’t already. We bring the most solid thrash you can hear in this day and age.

WARBRINGER