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PROTECTOR “Kain and Abel” 2xLP OUT NOW!! An Interview with Martin Missy

FOAD Records is proud to announce the release of PROTECTOR “Kain and Abel” Double Gatefold LP. This album recollects and testifies the thrashing madness of one of Germany’s own fastest Thrash/Death bands of the ’80s, and comes in a deluxe case-wrapped edition. If you wanted to get more metal than this, we think you could just try to shit iron ore!! You can get yourself a copy of this album by clicking on this button, and you will be redirected to our webstore.

To celebrate this release, we reached original line-up singer Martin Missy for a short interview about things present and past…

PROTECTOR Backstage in Emden,1989: Michael, Olly, Martin, Hansi

FOAD- How do you feel about having these early cult recordings of PROTECTOR being pressed on vinyl? Do you agree that vinyl is probably the best format to keep the originally rawness and intensity of the original sound, and maintain the feeling those songs had as they were firstly recorded?

This feels amazing. It’s great to have these old recordings on vinyl for the first time. To be honest I thought that the vinyl-format was dead, but these past few years I’ve experienced that there are a lot of fans out there who still want to buy recordings on vinyl. Probably because of the cool format and the great sound that a vinyl provides. Yes, I think that vinyl is the best format to keep the intensity of the original sound.

FOAD- How old were you guys when these early Demos were recorded and how was the background of those years? What do you mostly miss of the German thrash scene of those days? Is there any special anecdote about those early recordings?

Back then we were about 18-21 years old. I still went to school, while the others (at least Hansi and Michael) worked at the VW-factory. For a long time I thought that the Thrash-scene was bigger back then, but when I visit gigs these days (both as a spectator and with my band The Protectors) I still see a lot of dedicated fans of all ages, with jeans-vests, patches and leather jackets. The only difference is maybe that everything was new back then. Today you get a little bit of a retro-feeling. But that’s ok with me. Nobody can bring back the old times, so this is the next best thing.Can’t remember any anecdote, but an interesting thing may be that the gig in Düsseldorf was my last gig with Protector.

FOAD- Among the classic bands generating that peculiar sound roughly called “Teutonic Thrash”, PROTECTOR was without doubt the fastest. What were the main sources of inspiration making you push the accelerator so much? Songs like “Spacecake” and Urm the Mad’s “Molotov Cocktail” sounded almost like your own answer to the newborn grindcore movement that Napalm Death was developing in those same years…  Have you ever been influenced by this kind of stuff?

I think we took the music of bands we liked (Slayer, Kreator, Sodom, Possessed for example) and just played it all a little bit faster and more aggressively. I actually don’t know why that happened. Maybe it was just a “sign of the times” to try to be faster and more intense than everything else that was out on the market. And yes: it was the speed and aggression of Napalm Death and Carcass that inspired us to do superbrutal and fast songs like “Spacecake” and “Molotow Cocktail”.

PROTECTOR, live in 1992

FOAD- How do you feel about this huge new wave of bands emulating the 80s Thrash sound and imagery?
I think it’s cool. They show that 80’s Thrash still inspires musicians from today to write (retro-)music, and thanks to these new bands Thrash Metal will survive for at least another 15-20 years. Most of the new Thrash bands I’ve heard are cool and if they would use a time machine to go back to the 80’s, nobody could guess that they come from the future.
FOAD- Did you enjoy playing in Italy this year? How was the Italian audience like?
Yes, my bandmates and I enjoyed the Padova’s gig very much. We met a lot of cool people and the crowd was totally crazy when we played our gig. After the gig we spent some days in Venice and enjoyed the weather, the food and the sights.

FOAD- I’m sure you have already been asked this same question many times before… Can you explain why you added an S to the monicker of today’s PROTECTOR, changing it to THE PROTECTORS?  Is it because of the different line-up or for pending copyright issues?
Mainly it was because it is only me who is left from the original PROTECTOR in the band. Therefore it didn’t feel right to call ourselves PROTECTOR at that time, so we called ourselves THE PROTECTORS and did the whole thing as a “coverband”. But now we’ve played together for more than 5 years, so who knows, there may be a name change in the future…? We’ll see.

PROTECTOR Live 1990

Anything else to say?