DESTRUCTION
Biography and discography of Destruction, the German thrash metal band from Weil am Rhein, with pages for its records from the Sentence of Death EP to Birth of Malice and its two Thrash Anthems re-recordings: running orders, CD details, liner notes, official videos and the band's concerts in Japan.
Biography
DESTRUCTION
Biography
Destruction is a thrash metal band from Weil am Rhein, a town in the corner where Germany, France and Switzerland meet, and the band dates its beginnings to 1982. Schmier on bass and vocals, Mike Sifringer on guitar and Tommy Sandmann on drums signed to SPV and made the Sentence of Death EP (1984), Infernal Overkill (1985) and Eternal Devastation (1986), and in 1985 the trio left Europe for the first time to play the World War III festival in Montreal. Schmier left in 1989; through the 1990s Sifringer and others kept the name going, but the band does not count the records of those years in its official discography. Since Schmier and Sifringer reformed the band in 1999 it has been on Nuclear Blast, AFM Records, Nuclear Blast again and, from 2021, Napalm Records. Sifringer left in 2021, and the band today is Schmier, the guitarists Damir Eskić and Martin Furia, and the drummer Randy Black. Birth of Malice (2025) entered the official German chart at No. 10, the highest position of the band's career. With Kreator and Sodom, Destruction is counted among the defining bands of German thrash metal.
Beginnings and the SPV deal (1982-1984)
The band's home ground is Weil am Rhein, in the border triangle of Germany, France and Switzerland. Destruction counts 1982 as its starting year: Spiritual Genocide was released in 2012 as its 30th-anniversary album (Blabbermouth, 2012), and in 2022 the band wrote that its story had begun in that region forty years earlier (official site, 2022). The chronology the band published on its website around 2000, on the other hand, gave 1983 as the year in which Tommy Sandmann (drums), Mike Sifringer (guitars) and Schmier (bass and vocals) founded the band in Weil am Rhein (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001). According to laut.de, the three first went by the name Knight of Demon.
In 1984 the trio recorded the demo Bestial Invasion from Hell, six songs: "Mad Butcher", "Total Desaster", "Antichrist", "Frontbeast", "Satan's Vengeance" and "Tormentor" (official site). The same year brought a first contract with SPV Records and the first mini-LP, Sentence of Death (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001). AFM Records' biography of the band notes that it soon moved on from the fantasy of that EP, with songs such as "Black Mass", "Mad Butcher" and "Satan's Vengeance", towards anti-clerical subjects and social and political criticism (AFM Records).
Infernal Overkill, Eternal Devastation and the first North American show (1985-1986)
In 1985 the band toured Europe with Slayer and had its first real success in the international metal underground, and that year it released its first full-length album, Infernal Overkill (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001; laut.de).
On 30 November 1985 Destruction played World War III, a festival at The Palladium in Montreal put together by Maurice Richard, the manager of the local band Voivod, to raise money for Voivod's second album. Destruction and Celtic Frost were flown in from Europe for what were both bands' first North American shows, and it was the first time Destruction had played outside Europe; for Possessed it was the first show away from California (Hellbound.ca, 2010). Bobby Ellsworth of Overkill later remembered driving up from New Jersey with D.D. Verni and two friends to see it (Blabbermouth, 2019). Schmier, for his part, has described one sold-out night with Overkill at L'Amour in Brooklyn in the mid-1980s as the only time the two bands ever shared an American stage (official site, 2025).
On the second album, Eternal Devastation (1986), songs about hell gave way to more pointed subjects, among them the anti-religious "Curse the Gods" and "Life Without Sense", written from the point of view of a severely disabled child (AFM Records). The band's chronology presents 1986 as the year in which it established itself as Europe's leading thrash metal band, and it headlined a European tour with Kreator and Rage in support (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001; laut.de).
Four members and Release from Agony (1987-1989)
Over the turn of 1986 into 1987 the drummer Tommy Sandmann left. laut.de reports that the official reason was musical differences but that he had in fact chosen a career in the police. Oliver Kaiser took over the drums and Harry Wilkens joined as a second guitarist, making the band a four-piece, and the mini-LP Mad Butcher followed in 1987 (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001; laut.de). In 1987 and 1988 the band toured the United States, South America and southern Europe (the band's former website, 2001).
The band's own page for the third album, Release from Agony, dates its release to November 1987 (official site). Looking back, the band's chronology describes it as the record on which the new members' influence took Destruction away from its original style, and says it left fans and press divided (the band's former website, 2001). In 1988 and 1989 the band toured Europe with Motörhead and played a number of festivals (the band's former website, 2001); Schmier later named the Lisbon show of that tour among the best of his career (the band's former website, 2012). The live album Live Without Sense came out in the same period, followed by a three-month tour of the United States (the band's former website, 2001), and laut.de also mentions a tour with Celtic Frost.
Schmier's exit and Cracked Brain (1989-1990)
In 1989, partway through the recording of the fourth album, Cracked Brain, the band and its frontman Schmier parted company (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001). The album was finished with André Grieder of Poltergeist as guest singer and came out in June 1990 (official site). Mike Sifringer and Harry Wilkens shared the guitars and the bass, with Oliver Kaiser on drums (official site). In Germany it came out on Steamhammer (SPV), in the United States and Britain on Noise (MusicBrainz). The band's chronology records that the album was poorly received around the world (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001).
Schmier went on to form Headhunter with the guitarist Schmuddel and the drummer Jörg Michael, who played with Mekong Delta, Running Wild and Stratovarius; the band never matched the success of Destruction (laut.de).
The 1990s without Schmier: "Neo-Destruction" (1991-1998)
From 1991 Mike Sifringer and Oliver Kaiser carried on under the name Destruction with new members (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001). In those years the EPs Destruction (1994) and Them Not Me (1995) and the album The Least Successful Human Cannonball (1998) came out on Brain Butcher Compact (MusicBrainz). The band's discography page of 2009 listed the three separately as the work of "Neo-Destruction", meaning Destruction without Schmier, and stated that they do not belong to the official discography (the band's former website, 2009). They appear neither in the band's discography of 2001 nor in the list of releases on its website today (the band's former website, 2001; official site).
The reunion and Nuclear Blast (1999-2004)
In 1999 Schmier and Mike Sifringer reformed Destruction as a trio with a new drummer, Sven Vormann; the band's chronology puts the reunion down to overwhelming demand from the press and the fans (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001). laut.de writes that Schmier was by then running a successful bistro and that the idea of a reunion came to him from fans and from the German magazine Rock Hard. The demo that brought the band back together was released in 2022 as The Butcher Strikes Back, on CD, vinyl and cassette from the Dutch label VIC Records (official site, 2022). The comeback was staged at Germany's big open-air festivals, Bang Your Head, With Full Force and Wacken Open Air (the band's former website, 2000 and 2001), and Schmier has named the 1999 Wacken comeback among the best shows of his career (the band's former website, 2012).
The first album after the reunion, All Hell Breaks Loose, came out on Nuclear Blast in 2000 (the band's former website, 2001; official site, 2010). It was produced by Peter Tägtgren of Hypocrisy and Pain, and the band went out on Nuclear Blast's festival roadshow with Hypocrisy, Kataklysm, Crematory and Raise Hell (laut.de). The album reached No. 67 on the official German chart (Offizielle Deutsche Charts). A world tour in 2000 and 2001 was followed by The Antichrist in 2001 (the band's former website, 2002).
In October 2001 Sven Vormann left, overwhelmed by the touring schedule and needing more time for his family, and Marc Reign soon took his place (laut.de). Early in 2002 the band was out on the Hell Comes to Your Town tour of Europe with Kreator and Sodom, which added two shows in Greece for February (Blabbermouth, 2002); Nuclear Blast later called that tour a huge success (official site, 2010). In September and October of the same year Destruction joined Kreator's North American Hell Comes to Your Town tour along with Cephalic Carnage and December (Blabbermouth, 2002), and it also went with Kreator to South America (laut.de). At a show in the United States Schmier lost his bass and suffered a comminuted fracture of his right hand; a planned UK tour was called off, though the Australian dates went ahead (laut.de).
Metal Discharge (2003) was recorded at the Little Creek Studio in Switzerland, run by Schmier's old friend V.O. Pulver of Gurd (laut.de). The stage shows of those years were documented on the live album Alive Devastation and on the live DVD Live Discharge (2004), which includes footage from behind the scenes at Wacken Open Air (official site). The band then left Nuclear Blast for AFM Records (laut.de).
The AFM Records years (2005-2010)
Inventor of Evil, the first album for AFM Records, was released in August 2005 (AFM Records; laut.de). Peter Tägtgren produced again, and "The Alliance of Hellhoundz" brought in singers from Saxon, Dimmu Borgir, Soilwork, Candlemass, Death Angel and Rage, together with the former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di'Anno and Doro (laut.de). The album reached No. 68 in Germany (Offizielle Deutsche Charts), and in November the band toured Europe with Candlemass among others (laut.de).
In January 2007 AFM Records released Thrash Anthems, on which the band re-recorded songs from the 1980s with V.O. Pulver (AFM Records; laut.de). Straight afterwards it toured the United States with Into Eternity, Municipal Waste and Hirax (laut.de).
D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N., which Schmier saw as the celebration of the band's 25 years, came out on AFM Records in August 2008. It brought in a new producer, Jacob Hansen, and guest solos from Vinnie Moore of UFO on "D.evolution" and Jeff Waters of Annihilator on "U.rge (The Greed of Gain)". That year Destruction also headlined the closing night of the Inferno Festival in Norway (AFM Records). The album reached No. 65 in Germany (Offizielle Deutsche Charts). Before it, laut.de writes, Schmier had used a break in Stratovarius's schedule to bring his old friend Jörg Michael back and revive Headhunter, with a new album.
The live album The Curse of the Antichrist – Live in Agony followed in 2009 (AFM Records). In September that year, with Mike Sifringer out after breaking bones in Belgium, Ol Drake of Evile played guitar in his place at the Caos Emergente Festival in Portugal (AFM Records). In January 2010 came the DVD A Savage Symphony – The History of Annihilation, on which nearly every past and present member tells the band's story (AFM Records; laut.de). It was the drummer Marc Reign's farewell: he left in March 2010. The label's announcement explained that the stress of touring had led to personal and musical differences and that both sides had chosen to go their own ways; Reign was to concentrate on his rock project Volcano (AFM Records).
Back on Nuclear Blast: the Vaaver years (2010-2018)
The Poland-based drummer Vaaver, real name Wawrzyniec Dramowicz, joined in 2010 (Blabbermouth, 2018); he had also played with Indukti, Unsun and Lunatic Soul (laut.de). That year Destruction announced its return to Nuclear Blast. Schmier spoke of coming home and said he hoped it would be the last label change in the band's history, and Nuclear Blast welcomed the band back by recalling that it had launched the reunion with All Hell Breaks Loose and the tour with Kreator and Sodom that followed it (official site, 2010).
The comeback record on Nuclear Blast, Day of Reckoning, came out in Europe in February 2011 (official site) and reached No. 95 in Germany (Offizielle Deutsche Charts). Spiritual Genocide, released by Nuclear Blast in November 2012, was presented as the band's 30th-anniversary album. It was recorded at Gernhart Studios in Troisdorf with the engineer Martin Buchwalter and mixed by Andy Classen; Tom Angelripper of Sodom, Gerre of Tankard and Ol Drake of Evile appear as guests, and the line-up of the Mad Butcher and Release from Agony days plays on one song (Blabbermouth, 2012).
Under Attack followed on Nuclear Blast in 2016 (MusicBrainz) and reached No. 68 in Germany (Offizielle Deutsche Charts). Thrash Anthems II (2017) was a second set of re-recorded songs from the 1980s, this time chosen together with the fans. As Schmier told it, Nuclear Blast at first did not want the album, so the band raised the money for the production through a PledgeMusic campaign, and the label then released the finished record in November (official site, 2017).
In 2015 Vaaver took time off the road after the birth of his second child, and Randy Black, formerly of Primal Fear and Annihilator, stood in for him (Blabbermouth, 2018); according to Schmier, the tour on which Black took Vaaver's place, when Vaaver had become a father again, was an American tour with Sepultura (official site, 2018). In January 2018 the band announced that Vaaver was leaving for family reasons and would play on until March, and Schmier made clear that Destruction would neither split up nor play a farewell tour (Blabbermouth, 2018). After a long tour that served as his trial, Randy Black was welcomed as the band's drummer on 19 July 2018 and played his first show as a full member at Wacken Open Air on 3 August 2018 (official site, 2018).
Two guitars and Born to Perish (2019-2020)
On 28 February 2019 the band welcomed the Swiss guitarist Damir Eskić as a second guitarist alongside Mike Sifringer. A guitar teacher by profession, Eskić had himself studied with Tommy Vetterli of Coroner, and he also plays in Gomorra. The band said it had been proud to be a trio for many years, but that the time had come to bring back the second guitar of its earlier four-piece days, and that the new album had already been written and recorded with two guitars (official site, 2019).
Born to Perish was recorded with V.O. Pulver at Little Creek Studios in Switzerland in January and February 2019. It was the first album with Randy Black and Damir Eskić, and Black had a hand in the songwriting. Nuclear Blast released it in August 2019 (official site, 2019), and it reached No. 26 in Germany (Offizielle Deutsche Charts).
The live album Born to Thrash – Live in Germany, recorded at the Party.San Metal Open Air in 2019, was released in July 2020, its first pressing with a world-map poster printed with the names of thousands of fans who had taken part in an interactive campaign (official site, 2020). It reached No. 50 in Germany (Offizielle Deutsche Charts).
Mike Sifringer's departure and Napalm Records (2021-2022)
On 1 January 2021 the band played a streamed concert, the Live Stream Attack, from its favourite Swiss club, the Z7. Filmed in the middle of the pandemic, it became Live Attack, a Blu-ray with two CDs released in August 2021, the band's first release for Napalm Records, whose worldwide deal with the band had been announced on 14 April that year (official site, 2021). Live Attack reached No. 70 in Germany (Offizielle Deutsche Charts).
On 19 August 2021 the band revealed that Mike Sifringer had left in March. Sifringer, a member for 39 years, wrote that the decision had been painful but that the band no longer felt right to him. His successor was Martin Furia, the band's front-of-house engineer and tour manager since 2016 and a producer in his own right. The same day brought a new song, "State of Apathy", as a single and a video, which Schmier said pointed to a new album that would go back to the roots, with more guitars (official site, 2021); it was also released as a limited 12-inch single that September (official site, 2021).
Diabolical came out on Napalm Records in April 2022 and entered the official German chart at No. 12, which the band celebrated as the highest position in its history (official site, 2022; Offizielle Deutsche Charts). In this, its 40th-anniversary year, the band made its show at the Baden in Blut open-air festival, close to home, on 22 July its only anniversary concert of the year (official site, 2022). A box set limited to 666 copies, Bullets Loading – 40 Years of Total Destruction, was prepared with High Roller Records, combining the first demo and EP, a previously unreleased complete early concert and the "HELL demo" (official site, 2022).
Birth of Malice and the present (2023-)
On 31 July 2023 Destruction announced that it would play the Klash of the Ruhrpott at the Amphitheater in Gelsenkirchen on 20 July 2024, together with Kreator, Sodom and Tankard (official site, 2023), a bill Blabbermouth reported as the union of Germany's "Teutonic Big Four" (Blabbermouth, 2023). On the night, the show was stopped during Kreator's set because of a storm (Rock Hard).
Birth of Malice, released by Napalm Records in March 2025, entered the official German chart at No. 10, higher than Diabolical and the best position of the band's career (official site, 2025; Offizielle Deutsche Charts). On 6 March 2025 the band's documentary film The Art of Destruction had its premiere at the Cinestar Cubix cinema on Alexanderplatz in Berlin (official site, 2025).
In October 2025 the band joined Testament, Obituary and Goatwhore on the Thrash of the Titans tour of Europe, playing a packed show in Munich and a sold-out one in Utrecht in the Netherlands (official site, 2025). A North American version was announced in December, and from 13 March 2026 in Seattle to 10 April 2026 in San Francisco the band toured the United States with Testament and Overkill; four of the dates, Seattle among them, were played without Testament, and Overkill sat out the last show in San Francisco (official site, 2025 and 2026). The tour meant pulling out of the Hell's Heroes festival in Texas (official site, 2025). In December 2025 the band also announced three shows in China and a return to Bangkok, Thailand, for February 2026 (official site, 2025).
In May 2026 the band announced its summer dates: a special Infernal Overkill set at Maryland Deathfest in Baltimore on 23 May, then festivals across Europe through to Vienna on 6 September (official site, 2026). The European run opened in June with festivals in the Netherlands and Hungary (official site, 2026).
Standing
AFM Records' biography of 2008 introduced Destruction as one of the three classic names of German thrash, alongside Sodom and Kreator (AFM Records). The German magazine Rock Hard counts the band among the "Big 4" of German thrash metal together with Tankard, Sodom and Kreator (Rock Hard). Tom Angelripper of Sodom has said that Destruction is more of a thrash metal band than Sodom and that it created a style of its own (Blabbermouth, 2023).
Members
The band today is these four (official site).
| Member | Role | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Schmier (Marcel Schirmer) | Vocals, bass | 1982-1989, 1999- |
| Damir Eskić | Guitar, backing vocals | 2019- |
| Martin Furia | Guitar, backing vocals | 2021- |
| Randy Black | Drums | 2018- |
Former members (official site; the band's former website; AFM Records; Blabbermouth; laut.de):
| Member | Role | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Mike Sifringer | Guitar | 1982-2021 (kept the name going without Schmier in the 1990s) |
| Tommy Sandmann | Drums | 1982-1986/87 |
| Oliver Kaiser | Drums | 1986/87 to the 1990s |
| Harry Wilkens | Guitar | From Mad Butcher to Cracked Brain |
| André Grieder | Vocals | Guest singer on Cracked Brain (1990) |
| Sven Vormann | Drums | 1999-2001 |
| Marc Reign | Drums | 2001-2010 |
| Vaaver (Wawrzyniec Dramowicz) | Drums | 2010-2018 |
Discography
| Year | Title | Type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | Sentence of Death | EP | Steamhammer (SPV) |
| 1985 | Infernal Overkill | Studio album | Steamhammer (SPV) |
| 1986 | Eternal Devastation | Studio album | Steamhammer (SPV) |
| 1987 | Mad Butcher | EP | Steamhammer (SPV) |
| 1987 | Release from Agony | Studio album | Steamhammer (SPV) |
| 1990 | Cracked Brain | Studio album | Steamhammer (SPV) |
| 2000 | All Hell Breaks Loose | Studio album | Nuclear Blast |
| 2001 | The Antichrist | Studio album | Nuclear Blast |
| 2003 | Metal Discharge | Studio album | Nuclear Blast |
| 2005 | Inventor of Evil | Studio album | AFM Records |
| 2007 | Thrash Anthems | Re-recording album | AFM Records |
| 2008 | D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. | Studio album | AFM Records |
| 2011 | Day of Reckoning | Studio album | Nuclear Blast |
| 2012 | Spiritual Genocide | Studio album | Nuclear Blast |
| 2016 | Under Attack | Studio album | Nuclear Blast |
| 2017 | Thrash Anthems II | Re-recording album | Nuclear Blast |
| 2019 | Born to Perish | Studio album | Nuclear Blast |
| 2022 | Diabolical | Studio album | Napalm Records |
| 2025 | Birth of Malice | Studio album | Napalm Records |
Besides these there are the demo Bestial Invasion from Hell (1984); the live albums Live Without Sense (1989), Alive Devastation (2002), The Curse of the Antichrist – Live in Agony (2009) and Born to Thrash – Live in Germany (2020); the live films Live Discharge (2004) and Live Attack (2021, a Blu-ray with two CDs); the DVD A Savage Symphony – The History of Annihilation (2010), in which the band's members tell its story; The Butcher Strikes Back (2022), the 1999 reunion demo with some rare tracks; and the single "State of Apathy" (2021) (official site; the band's former website, 2009; AFM Records). The EPs Destruction (1994) and Them Not Me (1995) and the album The Least Successful Human Cannonball (1998), made while Schmier was away, are not included: the band itself sets them apart as the work of "Neo-Destruction" and leaves them out of its official discography (the band's former website, 2009).
Concerts in Japan
Destruction played two nights at Shibuya Club Quattro in Tokyo on 27 and 28 May 2003, which the concert page of the band's website at the time listed under the heading "Alive Devastation" in Nippon (the band's website). On 17 and 18 September 2005 the band was on both days of Thrash Domination 05, the thrash festival at Club Citta' in Kawasaki, alongside Testament, Laaz Rockit and Kreator (Club Citta'; the Thrash Domination website), and on 22 and 23 September 2007 it played both days of Thrash Domination 07 with Nuclear Assault, Annihilator and Nevermore (Club Citta'; Blabbermouth).
In May 2009 the band joined Cephalic Carnage and Into Eternity on Extreme The Dojo Vol.21, a series promoted by SMASH, playing Shinsaibashi Club Quattro in Osaka on the 12th, Nagoya Club Quattro on the 13th and Shibuya Club Quattro in Tokyo on the 14th. Doors opened at 18:00 and the shows began at 19:00; advance tickets were 7,300 yen with one drink. SMASH announced Destruction as the next veteran to join the series after Sodom and Exodus (SMASH).
The third Thrash Domination appearance came on 9 and 10 March 2013 at Thrash Domination 2013, subtitled "Anastasis", the festival's first edition since 2010, with Testament and Death Angel. It was again held at Club Citta', with doors at 15:00, music from 16:00 and advance tickets at 9,500 yen, and signing sessions with all three bands were arranged for each day (Club Citta'; the Thrash Domination website). During the visit, guitarist Mike Sifringer gave an interview to HMV (HMV).
At Thrash Domination 2016, on 9 and 10 January 2016, the band shared the bill with the headliners Kreator and with Dark Angel. The festival used one timetable for both days, and Destruction's slot ran for 80 minutes, from 17:25 to 18:45, between Dark Angel and Kreator. On the 11th the band played its own show at Umeda Shangri-La in Osaka, billed as a related concert, for which the organiser promised a set of more than two hours. Doors opened at 16:00 and the show began at 17:00; a ticket cost 6,800 yen in advance, and a limited ticket at 10,800 yen also covered Kreator's show at Umeda Club Quattro the next night (the Thrash Domination website).
The Asian tour the band announced in February 2018 included a show at Rockmaykan in Meguro, Tokyo, on 16 April (Bandwagon); the two Chinese dates of that tour were called off just before it began (the band's website).
East Asia Thrash Attack 2026 Japan was sold as the band's return to Japan after eight years: three shows, at Yokohama ReNY beta on 30 January, at Shinjuku club SCIENCE in Tokyo on 31 January and at PANHEAD GROOVE in Osaka on 1 February 2026, each with doors at 18:30 and a start at 19:00, and tickets at 9,000 yen, or 5,000 yen for under-24s. Tickets were sold through EVP4U, the ticket site of Evoken de Valhall Production (EVP4U). According to the band, the pre-sale on 30 November 2025 sold out the Tokyo show within minutes and the Osaka show within hours (the band's website). From Japan the band went on to Thailand and China (the band's website).
| Date | Venue | Show |
|---|---|---|
| 27 May 2003 | Shibuya Club Quattro (Tokyo) | Headline show ("Alive Devastation" in Nippon) |
| 28 May 2003 | Shibuya Club Quattro (Tokyo) | Headline show ("Alive Devastation" in Nippon) |
| 17 and 18 September 2005 | Club Citta' (Kawasaki) | Thrash Domination 05 |
| 22 and 23 September 2007 | Club Citta' (Kawasaki) | Thrash Domination 07 |
| 12 May 2009 | Shinsaibashi Club Quattro (Osaka) | Extreme The Dojo Vol.21 |
| 13 May 2009 | Nagoya Club Quattro (Nagoya) | Extreme The Dojo Vol.21 |
| 14 May 2009 | Shibuya Club Quattro (Tokyo) | Extreme The Dojo Vol.21 |
| 9 and 10 March 2013 | Club Citta' (Kawasaki) | Thrash Domination 2013 |
| 9 and 10 January 2016 | Club Citta' (Kawasaki) | Thrash Domination 2016 |
| 11 January 2016 | Umeda Shangri-La (Osaka) | Headline show, related to Thrash Domination 2016 |
| 16 April 2018 | Rockmaykan (Meguro, Tokyo) | Tokyo date of the Asian tour |
| 30 January 2026 | Yokohama ReNY beta (Yokohama) | East Asia Thrash Attack 2026 Japan |
| 31 January 2026 | Shinjuku club SCIENCE (Tokyo) | East Asia Thrash Attack 2026 Japan |
| 1 February 2026 | PANHEAD GROOVE (Osaka) | East Asia Thrash Attack 2026 Japan |
About the sources
The sources are Destruction's official website (destruction.de), its release pages and news; the band's former website as preserved by the Internet Archive, with its chronology (2000, 2001 and 2002), its discography (2001 and 2009), its member profiles (2012) and its news (2010 to 2021); AFM Records' artist page and news, also from the Internet Archive; the Offizielle Deutsche Charts; Blabbermouth.net; laut.de; the German magazine Rock Hard; and the Canadian webzine Hellbound.ca. The labels of the three records of the 1990s, of Cracked Brain and of Under Attack were checked against MusicBrainz.
Trivia
Destruction were on the bill of Thrash Domination, the thrash festival held at Club Citta' in Kawasaki, four times between 2005 and 2016. The organiser's own records show them at Thrash Domination 05 on 17 and 18 September 2005 with Testament, Laaz Rockit and Kreator, and at 07 on 22 and 23 September 2007 with Nuclear Assault, Annihilator and Nevermore. The 2013 edition on 9 and 10 March, billed as "ANASTASIS", was a three-band event with Testament and Death Angel. For Thrash Domination 2016 in January they were billed with Kreator and Dark Angel, and a related headline show of their own was booked in Osaka, at Umeda Shangri-La, on 11 January.
In 2018 Destruction opened a tour of Asia and Australia in Tokyo. The Tokyo rock website Roppongi Rocks reported that the day before the show the band played a full rehearsal in a Tokyo studio for a small group of devoted fans, and that the venue in Meguro was sold out; backstage, Schmier reflected that without this job he would probably never have seen Japan. The return eight years later was East Asia Thrash Attack 2026 Japan, announced by the band on 25 November 2025, with dates at Yokohama ReNY beta on 30 January 2026, Shinjuku club SCIENCE in Tokyo on the 31st and PANHEAD GROOVE in Osaka on 1 February. By the band's account Tokyo sold out within minutes of the presale opening and Osaka within hours. The event page of Evoken de Valhall Production. introduced them as one of the three German thrash bands that Japanese fans group together with Sodom and Kreator.
Destruction grew out of Knight of Demon, a band Mike Sifringer and Tommy Sandmann were already playing in. Schmier remembers that there were only a handful of headbangers around Weil am Rhein, and that the band, short of a bass player, picked him out at a party on the strength of his long hair and a denim vest covered in patches. He had never played bass; the next day they went and bought him one. As the music grew heavier and faster, the name began to feel wrong. "Sonic Destruction" had a ring they liked, Schmier says, and a vote settled on Destruction. Around the same time their second guitarist left and they lost their rehearsal room, and in a 2000 interview Schmier added that the members who wanted something more melodic had walked away.
When the demo went out to labels, Noise Records wrote back that they did not sign punk bands — a story the band tells as a joke in the notes to High Roller's reissue. Of the labels that were interested they chose SPV/Steamhammer, the biggest at the time, and by their own account signed, inexperienced as they were, a deal that tied them down for years. According to Schmier the label did not start them off with an album: the Sentence of Death EP was a test, and a proper contract would follow if the fans took to it. The photographs have their own stories. The first session, for the demo, was shot between a cemetery and an old Nazi bunker in a member's home village, and the label signed them, the band says, because the three looked like brothers. The EP's photo was taken in a cemetery in Hanover, SPV's home base. The American edition used a different frame from the same 1984 shoot, and Tommy Sandmann says nobody ever asked the band about it; he still does not know whose decision it was, or why.
The Sentence of Death EP was recorded and mixed in September 1984 at Caet Studio in Berlin, in a session the label set up. Horst Müller did the mixing and mastering; the producer was Wolfgang Eichholz, guitarist of S.A.D.O., though Schmier laughs that the producer never showed his face and Müller did everything. Müller did well enough that the band kept him for Infernal Overkill. For Tommy Sandmann it was a step into the unknown: none of them had ever been to Berlin, they drove up in a truck along the transit route through East Germany, and at the border the guards eyed the band with as much suspicion as the band eyed them. Schmier remembers getting chills on the corridor road into West Berlin.
The lyric to "Mad Butcher" is Mike Sifringer's, written back in 1983 and drawn, as Schmier tells it, from the story of Jack the Ripper; it was one of the first songs the band ever wrote. It appeared on the 1984 Sentence of Death EP and was cut again in 1987, with new members and new twin solos, as the title track of the Mad Butcher EP. Looking back, the band put its status as their signature song down to a riff that sticks and a lyric soaked in splatter.
The Mad Butcher first took visible shape on the cover of the 1987 Mad Butcher EP, painted by the German artist Sebastian Krüger, who had also done the sleeve of Eternal Devastation the year before. How the character came about depends on who you ask. Schmier says there was no real-life model: remaking the old song was what the label wanted, because they saw potential in it, and he credits Krüger's painting with turning "the dude" into the band's mascot and a cult figure. Mike Sifringer remembers it differently: the butcher, he says, was their former manager's idea. By 2010 Schmier himself was calling the butcher the band's "classical" theme.
The Mad Butcher EP was recorded at the end of 1986 in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, with Kalle Trapp, formerly of Wonderland, producing. Its title song was a remake of the Sentence of Death track from barely two years before; new drummer Oliver Kaiser says it was one of the first songs the others jammed with him while he was being tried out. The Pink Panther theme at the end was a joke that stuck: Harry Wilkens started playing it as a lark and Kaiser, kidding around, put a hard-rock beat under it. After the sessions the label rang to say there was not enough material for what was then called a mini-LP, so Wilkens and Mike Sifringer went back into the studio and put "The Last Judgement" together in no time; Sifringer calls it more or less a jam and an experiment.
Current Members
Current line-up as published by the band's official site, verified on 2026-10-20.
Albums
Destruction's album with Martin Furia and Damir Eskić on guitars, out in Japan on 5 March 2025 and in Europe on 7 March, ending with an Accept cover.
Destruction's first album after founding guitarist Mike Sifringer left, made with Martin Furia and released by Napalm Records on 8 April 2022.
Destruction became a four-piece again with Randy Black and Damir Eskić for this album, recorded in Switzerland and released on 9 August 2019.
Second album of re-recorded 1980s Destruction songs, picked with fans and crowdfunded on PledgeMusic; Nuclear Blast released it on 10 November 2017.
Recorded in several sessions between tours from September 2015 to January 2016, the album Nuclear Blast released on 13 May 2016.
Destruction's 30th-anniversary album, released by Nuclear Blast on 23 November 2012, with Gerre of Tankard and Tom Angelripper of Sodom as guests.
The first Destruction album with drummer Vaaver, released by Nuclear Blast on 18 February 2011 and mixed and mastered by Jacob Hansen.
Released by AFM Records on 29 August 2008, an album whose ten song titles spell out its name, with guest solos from Gary Holt and Jeff Waters.
Destruction's re-recording album, thirteen songs from 1984 to 1990 played anew plus two new ones, released by AFM Records in January 2007.
The 2005 album on AFM Records, with nine guest singers, among them Biff Byford, Doro Pesch and Paul Di'Anno, on "The Alliance of Hellhoundz".
The first album with drummer Marc Reign, released in September 2003 and co-produced by the band and V.O. Pulver at Little Creek Studio in Switzerland.
The second album after the reunion, recorded again at Peter Tägtgren's Abyss Studios in 2001 and the last with Sven Vormann on drums.
The 2000 comeback album, recorded with Peter Tägtgren at Abyss Studios in Sweden after Schmier rejoined Mike Sifringer as a three-piece.
Destruction's fourth album, from 1990, sung by André Grieder of Poltergeist after the band split with Schmier mid-sessions, with a "My Sharona" cover.
Destruction's third album, the first by the four-piece, released by Steamhammer in 1987 with Kreator's Mille Petrozza and Ventor on backing vocals.
A four-song EP released by Steamhammer in 1987, the first record by the four-piece with Harry Wilkens and Oliver Kaiser.
Destruction's second album, recorded in Hilpoltstein, Bavaria, in April 1986 and released by Steamhammer that July, the original trio's last record.
Destruction's first full-length album, recorded at Caet Studio in Berlin and released by Steamhammer on 24 May 1985, the first with the band's logo.
Destruction's first record, a six-song EP recorded at Caet Studio in Berlin in September 1984 and released by Steamhammer that November.