2025 has been a banner year for classic Teutonic power metal acts! Grave Digger started the year strong with their strongest album in recent memory, Bone Collector. Helloween followed their brilliant eponymous reunion album with the equally brilliant Giants & Monsters. Now, beloved power trio, Rage, returns with yet another album in A New World Rising. The title is fitting, as even by Rage standards, this album is quite the curveball. Nevertheless, I’m confident that Rage fans young and old will be uplifted by their signature brand of unrelenting euro power, even if there are a few deviations along the way. So is founding frontman Peavy Wagner, who sat down with us to discuss the upcoming album, the ’80s metal scene, and that little ol’ band from Texas, ZZ Top.
Greetings Peavey and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Peavey Wagner: I’m very fine!
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. Rage are on the brink of releasing a brand new album, A New World Rising. How soon after the release of 2024’s double album, Afterlifelines, did work start coming together on this one?
PW: We didn’t really plan to release a new album that quickly. We just have the opportunity that we have our own recording studio that we can use 24/7. We have a really creative, really good, positive situation in the band right now. We constantly work on ideas without really knowing what for. We just did it because we had the ideas *laughs*. In Spring of this year, we realized that we had already a full album together, just by the way *laughs*. There really wasn’t a plan behind it. When we talked with our record label, SPV Steamhammer, they suggested, “Let’s just put it out.”
At the same time, we got asked for a remake version, a pimped up version of “Straight to Hell”, one of the old songs for a German movie that’s just out in the last 2 weeks or so in Germany. It’s massively successful, kind of a wild west parody movie, so SPV suggested, “Let’s use this synergetic effect we have of the promotion from the movie to also bring the album at the same time.” They put it a little earlier out than we would’ve planned. That’s why we are so quick *laughs*.
How long have you guys had your own studio now?
PW: 2 or 3 years, around that time.
Off the heels of the dystopian Afterlifelines, A New World Rising seems like a much more positive and, pun fully intended, powerful album from a lyrical perspective. Was this an intentional move on your behalf?
PW: Yes, first of all, I see the last three albums like a trilogy, starting from Resurrection Day on. I describe the history of mankind from 10,000 years ago, the neolithic age, when we stopped being hunters and collectors. Resurrection Day goes from this point to the day now, judgement day. We see the world in a disruption situation. Geopolitically, everything is newly set up. There’s new players going in the game: China, India, Russia getting more powerful. You know the situation *laughs*. On the album after this, Afterlifelines from last year, I describe a post-apocalyptical situation in the near future, in a couple of years from now, when especially here in Europe, everything is going down at the moment. Everything is pretty much down at the bottom line.
I just thought, “What can we do on the new album? What’s the point from when you’re really down at the bottom line? It shall go up again!” This is a natural cycle. What goes down comes up again, so I tried to write a bit more positive ideas, more positive inspirations for a bit further future after this point, how to inspire people to get together again to find a new connection with everybody in the world. It’s a positive view of the future *laughs*. Plus, this was also inspired by my personal situation.
Last year, we had the 40th anniversary of the band and I had released a book. Soundchaser is the title of the book. It took me a couple of years to go through all the memories of my life, of the band’s history. With releasing the book, it felt for me like letting all the past go, being rid of the balance from history. The future now, beginning of this year, felt to me like jumping in the future without balance, being free from all the days of yesterday. This all brought this inspiration.
This futuristic inspiration seems to guide the album, not just philosophically, but musically. The last few Rage albums have boasted modern metal and rock influences. A New World Rising takes these influences and doubles down on them. Many of the songs see the band fusing their classic euro power metal sound with soaring twin guitars, slamming breakdowns, and even growling vocals straight out of metalcore. What led to this new direction?
PW: Actually, if you follow on the last albums, I was using growls already a couple of times. Like I already said, we have a real good creative situation in the band. This lineup now is together since 5 years or so. Especially between me and Jean (Bormann), our guitar player, we really grew together as a songwriting team. He’s absolutely creative with his output, same like me. We bomb each other with ideas *laughs*. This is a very inspiring situation, so we constantly have new ideas. Just today, he sent me 2 new song ideas. We already have around 3 or 4 new tracks for the future! We don’t even know when we will use these. Similar like it was on Afterlifelines *laughs*, we’re constantly throwing ideas among each other. This situation, I think, also reflects in the sound of the new record. It sounds all very pure and fresh. We used no orchestration this time because the songs didn’t demand this. This felt more like being real, being fresh from the heart *laughs*.
A New World Rising is the third Rage album to feature the lineup of yourself on bass and vocals, Lucky on drums, and Jean on guitars. In what ways does this lineup compare or contrast to past incarnations of Rage?
PW: *laughs* I don’t know if you could compare the different lineups of the band. What I can definitely say is the fact that we’re all coming from the same area in Germany, the rural area, the middle west. For people who might be a little bit familiar with Germany, it’s the middle west, around Cologne, Düsseldorf, these kinds of cities. We have pretty much the same mentality. It’s a special mentality. It’s an industrial area here. We have the same common slang over here. Maybe this leads us to understand each other even better than any other lineup before. A little bit comparable was the lineup we had at the end of the ’80s with (guitarist) Manni Schmidt and (drummer) Chris Efthimiadis. In between, I had all kinds of different lineups. There was one lineup when I had an American drummer, Mike Terrana, and a Russian guitar player. This was a bit more difficult because very different mentalities. It’s quite easy with this lineup now. Maybe this also helps with understanding musically.
There’s no shortage of hard thrashing riffs and headbanging rhythms on this album, the likes of which seem to serve as a mediator between these new metalcore leanings and that classic power metal style. In hindsight, Rage seemed to adopt thrash into their sound around Trapped!, and have incorporated it ever since. Being from a country known for iconic thrash, were you inspired by your peers to pursue this vein? Furthermore, who is your favorite German thrash band?
PW: We have good thrash bands on both sides of the sea *laughs*, your country and mine. Here in Germany, I’m a long time friend, of course, with the old classic thrash bands like Kreator, Destruction, Sodom. These are friends of mine. We come all from pretty much the same area, besides Destruction. They are from the south of Germany. American thrash bands, I could say they are a bit of an influence also, not only on me, but on Jean, our guitar player. For example, Testament, I would mention. Pantera, of course. This is all influencing and inspiring.
You mentioned earlier this album doubled as a vehicle to highlight the rerecording of “Straight to Hell”. What year did you guys originally do that one again? 2000 or 2001?
PW: 2001 on Welcome to the Other Side, it was, yeah.
That song has always stuck out to me. It’s a great heavy rocker. Had you wanted to revisit that song prior to this new soundtrack, and what was the inspiration behind the song?
PW: Back then, it was a song that stuck out. Actually at that time, when we recorded it, we were not sure if we would use it in any way because it sounded a bit different, more of this twangy guitar thing. A bit more…I don’t know. How do you say this? *laughs* What kind of style is this? I don’t really know *laughs*. Stylistically, a bit uncertain. We didn’t really know if this would fit with the band, so we put it somewhere in the back of the album.
Then, it was picked up by this German film director that did, back then already, a movie, a wild west parody movie. He picked it for a certain scene when the bandit, the gangster boss appears into the scenery. For later movies he did, he always used this song for this kind of scene when the bad guy comes in *laughs*. Maybe he thought it had a kind of wild west feeling *laughs*. Now, he made a new one in this direction, another wild west parody, and he called at the end of last year if we could do the same song: A pimped up, modern version with a modern sound, because he wanted to use it again, so we did this. Like I already mentioned, SPV thought this might be a good combination if we use this as promotion for the new album.
That song always reminded me of ZZ Top.
PW: ZZ Top, yeah, there is a bit of wild west feel, right? ZZ Top, when I was young, often influenced me. I love ZZ Top *laughs*, especially the old stuff. You know, “Tush” was the very first song I ever played with my very first band *laughs*!
No kidding!
PW: Really!
Talk about bringing it full circle!
PW: *laughs* Yeah, in a way it is!
You mentioned that last year marked the 40th anniversary of the band. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Rage’s debut album, Prayers of Steel. What memories stand out from the making of that album and what lessons did you learn from those early days?
PW: Wow, yeah, the very first album. Of course, it was a completely new experience for me to appear in the studio, to record in the studio. I remember that the producer sent me home after the first day I tried to record my bass stuff. He just sent me home. I was playing with a metal pick back then. He said, “This is just making some noise. It just sounds like *makes crunching noises*.” He gave me a non-iron pick and said, “Practice on this one. Tomorrow, you’ll be able to play on this one without all the noises.” So I had to practice the whole night with this new thing *laughs*. I just remember this. It was a hard lesson for me *laughs*. Recording our very first album back then, of course, the technique was completely different. We had to play most of the stuff live because there was only a couple of tracks for overdubs. In the long run, after so many years, I think the album aged pretty good. You still can listen to it without being ashamed. That’s my feelings about the very first album.
What bands were you performing alongside in ’85?
PW: We had a lot of shows together with Destruction, actually. We were friends already at this time. We knew each other from demo trading. Whenever they had shows or gigs in their area, they’d invite us to join them or the other way around. If we had something, we invited them, so it was already exchanging.
Whereas the ’80s metal scene in America seemed divided by subgenres and fans, in Germany, it seemed bands like yourselves, Helloween, Running Wild, and the other power metal bands got on very well with the thrash bands. Did the audience react in the same manner, or was there ever a rift between the power and thrash bands?
PW: Actually, it’s hard to imagine nowadays. Back then, we didn’t really make such a big difference if it was thrash or whatever it was called. We didn’t have all these genres. In these days, it was all heavy metal, from Bon Jovi to Venom. We all called it heavy metal. Some bands were a bit more heavy, playing a bit more heavy, rude vocals. Some had more of this Bruce Dickinson style *laughs*, those kinds of vocals. In the end, it was, for us, in our eyes, all just heavy metal. We didn’t really make such a big difference and we didn’t think about, “Does Destruction and Rage fit together?” I think the fans had it similar. For the fans, it was just metalheads, all long hair, this kind of vibe, this kind of mindset. It was not really separated in genres like it is today.
Rage have had classic albums and eras with multiple lineups. Could you ever see the band going the Helloween route with an all-star lineup featuring members past and present, even if for a one-off show?
PW: With old members from old lineups?
And the current lineup, yes.
PW: Yeah, of course we’re definitely open for that. We did this already sometimes in the past, trying to bring everybody who still was around or was willing to call it Rage. I don’t know if you heard, I did a new album under the name Refuge with Manni Schmidt and Chris Efthimiadis together. We were bringing this old classic lineup for a while onstage also, and we always tried to combine this together with Rage, playing a couple of songs with this lineup, playing some with the new lineup. I also tried to bring people from other lineups also onstage, which worked sometimes. To some of the guys, there’s not close contact anymore. Some are dead already, so it was not possible to bring everybody again *laughs*, but if there’s an opportunity and if people are willing to call it Rage, of course we can do this.
Is Refuge still active?
PW: At the moment, it’s on ice, but we can just revive it anytime as we want.
The first and only time Rage ever stepped foot on American soil was for the 2003 edition of the ProgPower Festival. Realistically, could you ever see Rage performing here in the States again?
PW: Yeah, we would love to! At the moment, it’s really very expensive. We just checked it out. Just for working permissions, we would have to pay, for all of us and including crew, at least $30,000 just up front before coming over *laughs*. And we wouldn’t have made any dollars to get it back. We’re in close contact with several booking agencies, so we might get a support job for a bigger band to get a foot in the door, but it’s really hard for a European band. The market is really hard. It’s not so easy. We’re trying, of course, since forever, to do something about it. You never give up the hope *laughs*!
In closing, what does the rest of the year and looking forward into 2026 have in store for Rage?
PW: We are planning lots of touring whenever possible. We have for now, around the release, on the 20th of this month, we start with the cruise here in Europe, and we play the first leg of a headlining tour. It’s in Germany, a bit of east Europe. Then, a short break, and we will come again in 2026. Next year, it’s February in Japan, another European leg, south Europe, in March. I know we have already set up a full South American tour, but it’s unannounced. All of this stuff next year is not announced so far. We are working on UK dates, whatever’s possible, so there’s gonna be plenty of more stuff. All next year is planned for touring.
The new Rage album, A New World Rising, comes out Friday, September 26th on Steamhammer. For more information on Rage, click here.