For those who haven’t heard of Kruger they’d firstly like to point out something quite vital, “We’re not French firstly.” The band started out in 2001 and released their first record in 2002, which leaves nearly seven years between now and previous beginnings so you may be asking yourselves why has it taken Kruger so long to appear in the limelight. The answer it seems lies in two things. Vocalist Reno explains, “Bassists seem to be an issue with Kruger. We’ve changed bassists like 3, 4 maybe 5 times now I think. We ended up with Blaise who is our bassist now but unfortunately isn’t touring with us because he is carrying out his studies and isn’t back till January.” Secondly although Kruger have toured with greats such as Isis, Gojira and Unsane the band still admit that they have stayed very much in the background of the music scene, “We are only this tiny band but with a lot of enthusiasm, but unfortunately its not enough to sell records and to get people involved in the band. We’ve mainly been support bands but we kind of like to remain in that outsider sort of position.”

Thankfully with Listenable Records taking Kruger on, a new lease of life has been given to a band that never once thought they would be as huge as some of the other bands on their label. “In 2005 we signed up on Listenable Records and released ‘Redemption Through Looseness’. It was our first album to be released outside of Switzerland. Listenable Records is great because it’s the first time we actually have some money behind us, some real people working on a professional level in the band with real distribution getting some interviews and that kind of thing, it’s cool.”

“The titles really stupid but its something we all liked. It’s taking the metal cliché, like redemption through pain and all that stuff. It’s, no, come on guys, relax and have a beer.” And as for the name Kruger? “Why not? I really don’t remember why and how we chose that name. At the time we had a decent explanation but every time we’ve been asked since we have a different reason. It’s a short name and it sounds very commanding, it’s KRUGER! It’s like it’s a bit of German stuff in there as well, I suppose, I don’t know.” Admits drummer, Raphael.

‘Redemption Through Looseness’ is Kruger’s third release and it seems a lot has changed since previous records, “the second album had really long twisted songs with a lot of structures. Almost going nowhere somehow. So the current album is a lot more compact. It’s more straightforward. In terms of writing it’s always a bit twisted because we like that and its natural for us, but I think it’s much easier to get into than our other albums. Compared to the last album we wanted to try and avoid the long instrumental songs. We want to get away from the Isis and Pelican clichés because there are so many of these bands about now.” From hearing Redemption Through Looseness and being witness to their incredible, energetic and storming live shows even as a tiny band Kruger seem to have found themselves a solid footing, so what’s in store for the future of Kruger? Vocalist, Reno forecasts,  “In the next ten years I’ll probably be in hospital, I ache! (Laughs) No, hopefully we’ll find sometime on writing some new music because we are a very lazy band and we all have day jobs. When we are not on tour, we are rehearsing for the next tour and we don’t really take the time to focus on new music.” Seven years of band and barely two years into creeping onto the Metal scene Kruger are also confident in estimating their progression further than just the next year or so. “Hopefully in a few years we will be back here with a new album and a few years later some of us will be turning 40 so its going to be time to retire I guess. We’ll do a farewell tour, I don’t know some kind of stupid s**t, call it the ‘We Are Too Old For That S**t Tour’”.

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