More than four decades into VADER, Piotr “Peter” Wiwczarek has found a pretty effective way of avoiding one of the biggest enemies facing any band that survives this long: routine.
When the Polish death metal veterans return to Australia this November for the Reign Forever tour, Litany and Reign Forever World will form a major part of the set, but Peter has no interest in simply dragging out the same collection of VADER classics fans heard the last time the band came Down Under.
He reckons around ninety percent of the set will be different.
There will still be VADER staples. Peter knows perfectly well there are songs people expect to hear, but keeping the set moving matters just as much to the band themselves.
“We do not love all this routine on stage, playing all the same songs all the time,” Peter told me when we caught up ahead of the Australian run.
That attitude goes a long way towards explaining how a band formed in Poland back in 1983 can still be averaging around one hundred shows a year decades later. VADER are more than happy to revisit their history, but they have no interest in getting trapped inside it.
Bringing Reign Forever World Back From The Dead
There is something particularly fitting about Peter wanting to celebrate old VADER records this way because he understands the appeal from the other side of the barricade.
He is still very much a fan himself.
When Judas Priest brought British Steel back to the stage, Peter remembers feeling like a kid again. He had lived with that record for years, collected bootlegs of performances and finally had the chance to experience something deeply embedded in his own musical history coming alive in front of him.
His commitment to that feeling goes considerably further with Slayer. Peter told me he plans to travel to Colombia simply to see one of his favourite bands perform Reign In Blood, another record that has remained important to him for decades.
That excitement is exactly what he wants VADER fans to feel when material that has disappeared from the stage suddenly comes roaring back.
Reign Forever World is particularly significant because some of its songs had not been performed for more than two decades. Rather than anniversary shows becoming museum pieces, they give VADER the chance to reopen sections of the catalogue that even long term fans may never have experienced live.
“I love this, and I love to give this to the VADER fans as well.”
Litany Still Moves Like A Fucking Bullet
Then there is Litany.
Peter has previously described the record as one of the fastest and most brutal albums VADER ever created, and playing it from beginning to end for its anniversary apparently reinforced just how ridiculous its pace actually is.
When VADER performed the full album at Mystic Festival, Peter remembers starting with “Wings,” tearing through the record and reaching “The Final Massacre” with almost no sense that the entire thing had already disappeared behind them.
“It was just like a click,” he recalled. “We didn’t feel where we started and where we finished.”
That speed is not simply something VADER manufactured in hindsight as part of Litany’s reputation. It was embedded into the record by the musicians who made it.
Peter laughed when I brought up the story of the original sessions and Krzysztof “Doc” Raczkowski playing the material so bloody fast that the finished album kept shrinking.
“That was his fault,” Peter joked.
The band had expected something closer to a forty or forty five minute album. Instead, they found themselves staring at a running time somewhere around twenty five minutes. Bringing “The Final Massacre” back into the record helped push Litany closer to the half hour mark.
There is plenty of humour in Peter telling the story now, but underneath it sits something much more important.
Doc’s personality became part of the record.
Peter described him as an engine inside VADER, a drummer who loved playing fast and whose ability behind the kit helped drive the entire band forward. That relationship between VADER and its drummers has continued through different eras, with Peter believing the band pushes its drummers while strong drummers push VADER to cross their own limits.
That is part of what makes Litany difficult to separate into individual performances. The speed, pressure and physicality became part of its character.
Peter Wiwczarek Still Wants Chaos In His Guitar
Returning to Litany also means Peter physically putting his hands back onto guitar parts he wrote more than twenty five years ago.
I wanted to know whether those riffs now felt like the work of a completely different guitarist.
Peter does not think he has changed that dramatically.
He still loves the same music. He still wants brutality, aggression and emotion inside extreme metal, and he has never been particularly interested in turning guitar playing into an endless technical exercise.
That becomes especially obvious when Peter explains the difference between himself and longtime VADER guitarist Marek “Spider” Pająk.
Spider is the technician.
Peter’s role is something else.
“I focus on brutality,” he told me. “I love chaos in guitar.”
Tremolo picking, dive bombs, noise and violence sit naturally inside Peter’s playing. He can move into melody when a song requires it, but that is not the instinct sitting at the centre of his approach.
The contrast with Spider is precisely why the combination works. Peter does not want two guitarists standing beside one another doing exactly the same thing. Their different instincts allow VADER to become something broader than either approach on its own.
That philosophy became even more interesting when Maurycy “Mauser” Stefanowicz found his way back into the VADER camp.
Mauser Came Back And Brought The Good Vibes With Him
Mauser’s return was never some enormous master plan.
Peter initially invited his former bandmate to join VADER for parts of the band’s fortieth anniversary celebrations, performing songs from the period Mauser had originally helped create.
The chemistry came back quickly.
Peter described Mauser as having a naturally optimistic personality, and that energy brought something into the band beyond simply another guitar.
“He brought so much fun and the good vibes.”
That eventually developed into VADER operating as a five piece when circumstances allow it. There is one important detail for Australian fans, though. Peter confirmed Mauser will not be travelling on this particular run because his full time work in London means he cannot join every VADER tour.
Peter nevertheless sounds completely sold on what three guitars can do to this music whenever Mauser is available.
VADER may not technically need three guitars, but when all three are hitting material like Litany together, Peter reckons the difference is enormous. It means more bodies onstage, more weight behind the songs and, perhaps most importantly, more fun.
Reign Forever World Was A Bridge, Not Just A Collection
Before speaking with Peter, I had been looking at Reign Forever World through its mixture of new VADER material, live recordings and covers.
Destruction, Judas Priest and Mayhem sit beside one another on the release, which makes it tempting to read the record as a map of the musical DNA that helped shape VADER.
Peter saw it slightly differently.
The additional material mattered, but when he thinks about Reign Forever World, his attention goes straight towards the new VADER songs. Those tracks caught the band at a particularly interesting point in its evolution.
Litany had pushed speed and blasting to an extreme. What followed began asking whether brutality could come from somewhere other than simply playing faster.
That is where Reign Forever World becomes much more important than a stopgap release sitting between albums.
Peter described it as a bridge between Litany and Revelations. The latter would reveal another side of VADER, introducing slower passages, different sonic ideas and greater variety while remaining unmistakably brutal.
“We wanted to show the brutality in different ways. Not just speed, not just blasting.”
That might be one of the most interesting ways to look at this Australian tour. VADER are not simply putting two old releases beside one another because their anniversaries line up nicely.
Together, Litany and Reign Forever World capture a band reaching one extreme and then beginning to work out where else that aggression could go.
From Communist Poland To The Entire Fucking Planet
Eventually our conversation moved away from individual records and into the much bigger VADER story.
It is easy to look at a band after more than forty years, international tours and a catalogue stretching across decades and forget how improbable the beginning actually was.
Peter started VADER as a teenager in Communist Poland.
For young metal fans, so much of what musicians now take for granted simply did not exist. Records were difficult to find. Proper equipment was difficult to access. There were no established metal stores, infrastructure or industry waiting to support another extreme band.
Peter remembers having to make things themselves: gear, instruments, connections and eventually the beginnings of a scene.
VADER were not alone. Peter remains proud of the Polish underground bands that existed around them through the eighties and nineties, many of which never received the international recognition he believes they deserved. That history became part of the reasoning behind Future Of The Past II, with VADER helping bring attention back towards music from that period.
What separates VADER is that they survived long enough to carry that history around the world.
Peter looked back at everything that changed in Poland between 1983 and today and made an observation that stayed with me.
“The music made this trip smooth and easy for us.”
VADER stayed busy. They travelled constantly, played wherever they could and kept moving while the world around them transformed.
Peter told me that since VADER began touring outside Poland in the early nineties, they have averaged around one hundred shows every year. That is an extraordinary amount of life spent on stages and roads across the planet.
Maybe it also explains his wonderfully simple description of how VADER managed to remain active for more than four decades.
“We had no time to get old.”
The Past Matters Because VADER Are Still Moving Forward
For an interview built around music released twenty five years ago, Peter made it very clear that VADER are not about to spend the next chapter staring backwards.
While discussing the band’s habit of bringing classic albums back to the stage, he dropped a pretty significant piece of news.
2027 is shaping up to be a major year for VADER.
Peter says the band plans to release a new album, their first full length in several years, while also celebrating thirty five years since their debut album, The Ultimate Incantation.
The plan is to bring that first record back into the live set as part of those celebrations.
It creates a fitting snapshot of where VADER stand after more than forty years.
Litany matters. Reign Forever World matters. The brutal Polish underground that created VADER matters, and so do the musicians and experiences that helped shape every era of the band.
Peter simply does not seem interested in history unless VADER can keep doing something with it.
That may ultimately be the reason they have had no time to get old.
There is still too much left to do.
VADER REIGN FOREVER AUSTRALIA 2026
Wednesday November 25
The Croxton, Melbourne
Thursday November 26
Crowbar, Brisbane
Friday November 27
Crowbar, Sydney
VADER will perform material from Reign Forever World and Litany alongside classics and newer material, with Peter promising a substantially refreshed set from the band’s previous Australian visit.
TICKETS & TOUR INFORMATION
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Watch the full Crannk interview with Piotr “Peter” Wiwczarek for our complete conversation on returning Litany and Reign Forever World to the stage, Doc’s impact on one of VADER’s most brutal records, Peter’s love of chaos on guitar, Mauser’s return, the early Polish metal underground and what VADER already have planned for 2027.
