The poison live at Brixton - Bullet For My Valentine - DVD

With their latest studio album "Temper temper", the British fan favorites manage to join the top ranks of their professional peers. The reason for this appeal is an ultra-catchy songwriting and an extravagant and skillful guitar performance. Bullet For My Valentine appear so fantastically tight on this album you almost might mistake them for quadruplets. This release is definitely an important door-opener - and one far beyond the limitations of their trademark genre Emo / Metalcore - for the fast quartet.

Vocalist Matt Tuck is in high spirits on the day of the interview and considers the new album the best release done by his band so far. This may be a notorious cant in the music biz, but the band boss delivers it convincingly and obviously means it. "We have never written such direct and simple songs before - we figured that out soon after the end of the composition process. Of course there is still a lot of Metal flair and pretty complex guitar parts, but altogether, "Temper temper" is very catchy - at least compared to our previous albums." Matt stresses that it was extremely important to Bullet For My Valentine as a band not to lose their identity and not to be typecast as far as musical direction or style are concerned.

"The writing of the tracks took some time - after all, we had started that procedure already in February 2012. And there was no pre-song writing or something similar to it before we entered the studio, we just started after our arrival at the studio. But then, we committed ourselves fully to the task of creating new songs. We didn't want to rush things beforehand. Everything should evolve naturally, in a homogeneous creative flow. And it turned out to be good that way. If you listen to the tracks for the very first time, you will recognize a certain lightness, in spite of all the immanent roughness and power. But exactly this feat was extremely hard work, especially for me as the song writer. This time, I wanted to create the best possible balance of things - no facet of our versatility was to be overrepresented or underrepresented - most of all, the necessary amount of aggressiveness was an important ingredient, too, and in the end, that's why 'Temper temper' sounds so crispy and energetic."

They are one of the top Rock exports the island has to offer. Bullet For My Valentine are part of the confident, young British Metal elite, and they enjoy a successful worldwide career - which is a special feat these days. Their two last albums, "Scream aim fire" and "The poison", let the adrenaline levels rise to remarkable highs among the Metalheads, especially
the younger ones. On "Fever", their third output, the quartet wanted to come across much more mature... Mission accomplished. Drummer Michael "Moose" Thomas tells us why.
"We definitely didn't want to sound like on our last album - we knew that right from the start. Another argument for the change is that we have become more mature within the last two years - we noticed that during the songwriting process. At the time we entered the studio we had enough material - we had gone through some kind of pre-production stretch of almost half a year. While in the studio, we wrote two more songs for the album: ,Your betrayal' and ,Breaking out, breaking down'. I admit it: when
I listen to it today, I think most of the material on ,Scream aim fire' is too fast and monotonous. The new songs epitomise our musical preferences much better. Just listen to ,The last fight' - that's old-school, riff-laden Heavy Metal." How would you call the new sound of BFMV? Some time ago, many people thought you were ,Metalcore'... "I'd say Heavy Rock, influenced by Metal. But maybe that'll change tomorrow. Personally, I don't like this categorisation of bands. The tracks on ,Scream aim fire' were
conceived on the road. We wrote all the songs while being on tour - in hindsight, that turned out to be the wrong way. We didn't spend enough time on the songs, and we wanted to avoid that mistake this time: we sat together more often during the writing process which was much more productive." Shortly after the official release, you'll hit the road again. On the schedule: some big festivals, too - how does a drummer feel there, sitting behind the band and being able to overlook the whole thing, playing in front of a huge audience? "Great, haha. I see all and sundry.
Sometimes, it's very scary, haha. I can see all the mistakes the others make and of course I'm telling them all about it!" Andy Parker, the drummer of UFO, once said in an interview that drummers always get the most awful groupies and girls. Well, how about that? "Uh-oh, that's a tough one. I don't want to say too much about it, but in short: he's not right. I can't complain. Generally, many girls attend our concerts, and the mails we get
are mostly from female fans, too. Well, that's ok. There are worse things than that, haha." Harrrumph - let's get back to business... "Scream aim fire" was a best seller - do you feel the pressure of high expectations? "We felt that pressure - but more on ,Scream aim fire'. We approached this album much more relaxed, more prepared, more conscious. Sure, there has
been some pressure, but we have delivered a confident album." You entered the studio with 20 songs - eleven made it to the album. What about the remaining ones? Bonus material!? "I have really no idea what we'll do with them. But it's always good to have some extra stuff for the fans in stock. It's not like these tracks are weaker than those on the album. It was tough
enough to choose the right ones for it. The remaining songs won't be forgotten, they're too good for that."

There is something going wrong! There are four guys from Wales playing mega-festivals, such as the German-based Rock am Ring, even before their debut album, "The poison", had even been released in autumn 2005, and who afterwards shot seven videos, singles and EPs into the charts and music channels. That is unbelievable! "Yes, unbelievably cool", drummer Michael "Moose" Thomas laughs. The second album of Bullet For My Valentine, "Scream aim fire", is their declaration of independence: "It made us teenagers become men", smiles guitarist and backing-vocalist Michael "Padge" Paget salaciously. They play for high stakes, because with their new course in 2008, Bullet For My Valentine put all their eggs in one basket that is called: Metal!
Matthew Tuck leans against the wall shaking from the rhythm of the eleven new hymns. Swarms of 80s-solos rush by our ears and the Bullets grin brightly. Their new friends are called Cannibal Corpse and Arch Enemy, at least that is what you can read on their T-Shirts. But also Metallica and all sorts of guitarists in tight stretch pants were the godfathers of the new album of the ex-Emocore/Metalcore darlings. "No, no Core anymore. 'Scream aim fire' is pure Metal, nothing else", insists Moose. As sweet, nice boys they showed up in the teen-press only months ago, but that doesn't seem to fit anymore. "Perfect!" is the common judgement of the four. "I hate to see myself on posters encircled by hearts and flowers", growls the drummer. The escape from the children's bedrooms is a surprising one, though. Suddenly you are thirty and your're proud of it, "and that is exactly how it feels. Now we hope that we don't scare away our fans that we convinced with our former sound", Padge considers. "But 'Scream aim fire' finally puts us into the shelf that we want to be in and that does clearly say: Metal on it!" The band spent spring 2007 on the Sonic Ranch in El Paso, Texas. There they again collaborated with producer Colin Richardson (Machine Head, Funeral For A Friend) who also laid hands on the million-selling debut. Padge: "Colin is unbelievably thoroughly and drives you to endless repetitions, a true old school producer". But the new course made the band deliver their top performances as the still frontman, Matt, points out: "beside the classic Bullet cites, like catchy refrains and strong melodies, we have some of the heaviest riffs and really blasting drum salves. The guitar solos finally round off the album for a true Heavy Metal record, catchy but much faster and more brutal than 'The poison' was." "Scream aim fire", the title track, is also the first single; a song that indicates the new direction. "This song was the benchmark for the rest of the album", Tuck declares. "This important moment that made us clear how we should approach the album. Also lyrically, the opener indicates a change of direction: while the former songs were only devoted to interpersonal relations, they now deal with Horror-imaginations, Splatter-fantasies, as well as Mother Nature, like in 'Eye of the storm' - real Metal topics, you see." But don't worry, beside all male Metal heaviness, the freestyle element in old school Metal, the epic ballad, isn't missing, of course. With "Hearts burst into fire" and the even smooching Blues song, "Say goodnight", there are enough soft tunes for hard guys.