Bullet For My Valentine (phoner) by Andrea Leigh
Welsh band Bullet for My Valentine has certainly been making a name for themselves
in the metal scene over the last couple of years. They have been around as their
namesake since 2005 and it didn’t take long for their success to jump
the pond and make it to the states. I was able to catch Padge (guitarist) the
night before BFMV was to play ROTR.
Padge: How’s it going?
Cover: Good. How are you doing?
Padge: Good, thanks.
Cover: Who am I on with this evening?
Padge: It’s Padge.
Cover: Hello Padge! You know, the first time I had heard of
BFMV was a few years ago when the band was nominated for best British band in
Kerrang! magazine, the first time around, so I really wanted to find out more
about you. I listened to a few songs and really thought you were amazing and
you did win in 2008 and 2009 so congratulations!
Padge: Thanks, that’s nice to hear.
Cover: That was with your first two albums because your third
just came out last month, right?
Padge: Yes, that is what we are touring with now.
Cover: As far as the third CD, Fever, a lot of that developed
from Matthew Tuck(singer) and the producer, Don Gilmore, just being holed up
in the studio and really pushing Tuck in a lot of ways, mentally and emotionally,
to make a great album. What kind of effect do you think that had on this album?
Padge: At first it was very strange for us to work like that. Don Gilmore certainly
works differently compared to Colin (Richardson) who has produced everything
up to this album. So getting used to that was kind of strange, but he had a
bigger picture in his head and it all worked out for the best.
Cover: There is definitely a lot of early metal influence in
your music. Is that something you try to do, is to put some of those influences
in your music?
Padge: Yeah, on every album we sort of look towards our influences
and that’s why we sound the way we do. Some of our heavy influences are
Metallica, Iron Maiden, Pantera. We really wanted to make a conscious effort
on this record to take a step back you know, and not go so fast or so hard this
time and let the vocal sessions and the vocals do the speaking, to sort of be
a voice for the album and really I think Don has definitely brought that to
the table on this album.
Cover: Do you think that is the biggest difference between
Fever and then, The Poison and Scream, Aim & Fire?
Padge: Yes, definitely. Vocal sessions made the difference for sure.
Cover: I really like the premise for one of the songs from
Fever, which is The Last Fight. How did you come up with that song?
Padge: That song was written back in the studio, in the U.K., We were all hanging
around one day and Matt sort of came up with these chords so we all just started
jamming together. It was definitely kind of a band song that was written. It
did sound quite different initially, but the songs come alive when we actually
start recording in the studio. There were few changes and it think it worked
out really well. It’s one of my favorites on the album too.
Cover: I think the message of the lyrics is really powerful
because there are so many issues with drugs and that is the background of the
song.
Padge: People can relate to the lyrics and take their own meaning
from it. That’s a great thing with musicians and artists, when people
can relate to the music and the lyrics. That’s great when it really helps
them.
Cover: BFMV was originally named Jeff Killed John when it started,
which was a metal cover band. How did that transformation come about?
Padge: We had been playing together for years. We started to
get bored with playing covers and we really wanted to take ourselves a bit more
seriously so we started writing our own music and we slowly developed our sound.
Then we had a little lineup change. Jay, our bass player, came in and he wasn’t
afraid to experiment which was really cool because it gave us more of a signature
sound. We wrote a bunch more songs and started getting more shows up in London.
We had developed a sort of underground following. Eventually we did a show where
the labels had actually come down and watched us. We had a few deals on the
table, which was great.
Cover: As far as this weekend at ROTR, what can your fans look
forward to?
Padge: We’re all pretty fresh. We’ve taken a lot
of time off and have only been on tour now for…I think this is the third
week so we’re still fresh and full of energy. We hope to put on a slammin’
sort of rock show. Unfortunately we are on kind of early in the day so some
of the production and lighting is going to be at a minimum but that’s
not really going to phase us as long the crowd is with us. We’re going
to put on the best show we possibly can.
Cover: Because you are from the U.K., you have some homegrown
fans of course, but do you think there is a difference between fans back home
versus here in the states?
Padge: Not much of difference, but it’s been kind of
crazy on this tour. There have been some sold-out shows and the other night
some guy jumped off the balcony so that was crazy (laughs). It’s all still
very rock ‘n’ roll and still happenin’. We’re all still
excited and just as hungry as we were before on previous albums.