Jeb Wright from Classic Rock Revisited spoke to KROKUS frontman Marc Storace recently about a number of topics including their latest album, Hellraiser, out now via AFM. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Classic Rock Revisited: Seven years ago Krokus could not get arrested. Now you have a couple of new albums out and are touring. What is different between then and now?

Marc: "I think it is the world outside of Krokus that has changed. Over the past ten years there has been a lot of electronic music out there. It has allowed people to have a little home studio in their house and they are able to play all the instruments themselves and then they can use the electronics to make it sound better than it is. You hear it in dance music and in techno and it is kind of brainless, plastic and repetitive. It is all cheating, really. Krokus is one of the bands that did everything by hand. We are the real thing. We are like whole wheat bread [laughter]. I think the people need to have something real. I think they want to watch musicians work at their craft. They can see a band working and sweating away and they can appreciate the fact that it is being done right in front of their very own eyes at that moment. The old classic rock fans and the younger generations who are following the footsteps of their parents are getting interested in what bands like Krokus are doing. They listened to their parent’s vinyl collections and they are impressed and want to see the band play live. It is coming back out of the underground. In Europe this process is happening faster than in the USA. In 2000 when I phoned Fernando to get Krokus back on it’s feet, I looked through the internet and there were packages that were touring the USA and filling big halls. My antennas perked up and I knew that this was not a time we should miss. We released an album titled Rock the Block that went straight to # 1 in Switzerland. Keep in mind, Switzerland had been really into techno. It took us by surprise because we didn’t think they would open up to hard rock again. Krokus is Switzerland’s best selling international rock band. Suddenly, we were accepted again and it got me going 100%.

Classic Rock Revisited: I like that you don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You don’t try to sound modern. You make Krokus music.

Marc: "Krokus is a brand. It is just like our logo – it has to fit. When fans go into a shop and ask for the new Krokus album then they already know in their mind what kind of music they intend to hear. We have to fulfill this. At the same time we don’t want to straightjacket our creativity. On Hellraiser there is a leap forward into innovative ideas for Krokus. There is a wider spectrum of music on the whole album. As a singer, it gave me lots of room to stretch my legs. Sometimes in the past that was frustrating for me. If you listen to songs like “Angel of My Dreams” and “Midnight Fantasy” or “Hangman” then you can tell they are really new but they still fit into the Krokus repertoire.

I think this happened because everyone in the band was writing and we knew what we were going for. We had a huge number of songs to choose from so we were able to choose the songs that would fit in for Krokus. Songs that were doubted were put to the side. I think the energy and the spirit was right. If you have a positive attitude then you can make great things happen. It is difficult to describe music with words because music is melodies and notes. I love to let the music to the talking!"

Classic Rock Revisited: Have you heard from any of the past Krokus guys?

Marc: "We had litigation going on with Fernando about the name but that has been settled in court. We have the rights to the name. The other guys haven’t been in direct contact with me. One gets the feeling from what we hear through the grapevine that it is not all positive, you know. I think some people just can’t let things be. They might be jealous about something becoming successful when they are not apart of it anymore even though it became that way through their own fault. When people take certain steps and decide to leave the boat or do things that cause their dismissal then they can’t turn around and start spreading negative vibes. I think that is really weak. We don’t allow it to get to us because we are doing our thing. We are a good team and we have good people around us who are really into the band."

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