Bullet For My Valentine

01.02.2008 | Cam | 2 Comments

In their short existence, Bullet For My Valentine has achieved a hell of a lot. Sold out headline tours, shows with Iron Maiden and even a public spat with Rob Zombie for good measure.

Vocalist and guitarist (and songwriter as he made painfully clear) Matt Tuck was more than happy to talk about his and his band’s success…

Interview w/ Matt Tuck (Vocals/Guitar) of Bullet For My Valentine

By Cameron Chambers 

 

Thanks for speaking with us today Matt. 

No problem mate. 

Bullet was on the road since “The Poison” was released in 2005 right through until the first part of 2007. Did you have any kind of break or was it straight into the studio to record “Scream, Aim, Fire”? 

Um, we pretty much went straight in. We finished our shows for “The Poison” at the end of December 2006, took some time off for Christmas and New Years and then at the beginning of January we went straight into the studio. 

Given your hectic schedule, do you guys get much of a chance to write while on tour? 

Yes and no. We don’t write songs as they are. It’s more that I come up with most of the ideas on the road, just hanging out in the back of the bus and jamming. 

There’s a lot of time to kill on tour so most of “Scream, Aim, Fire” was arranged on the road. 

Did you enter the studio with all eleven tracks mapped out and ready to go or was there some last minute song writing that made it onto “Scream, Aim, Fire”? 

There were a couple of tracks actually, that came after most of the record was already done. Mostly we’ve got a few of them on the back burner as B-Sides. 

More often than not when you’re in the studio and being creative things pop up that didn’t exist before you went in there.  

“The Poison” was a huge commercial success, clocking in at over one million sales (and still counting) worldwide. Were you feeling the pressure when it came to writing the new record? 

Nah, not really. We’re just writing the music that we have always written as a band. The good thing was that we had 2 years between records and that really gave us time to grow and get better as a band, as well as on our personal instruments. 

It gave us the time to write and make it the best record possible. There was no pressure for us, although the media was making a big hype out of it. 

Having spent the better part of the last 2 years on the road, did you find that the song writing was a more collaborative effort this time round? 

It’s still me writing it all so it’s no more of a collaboration than “The Poison” was. The only difference is that I wasn’t locked up on my own. I didn’t have my whole life to write this album as opposed to before. 

Album number two comes around quicker than you think so you’ve just go to write when you can. 

Colin Richardson has worked on some amazing metal records. How did you enjoy working with him and what did he do differently compared to your previous producers? 

We’ve always worked with Colin since day one. He doesn’t over produce anything and he trusts us as musicians and song writers. Plus, he knows what we want and what we’re trying to achieve. 

We have him on board more for his ear than his production. He’s great though, you don’t want a guy who goes into the studio and rips your songs apart and writes them how he’d like to hear them. 

A lot of producers are happy to sit back and act as an engineer. Is Colin more of a “hands on” guy when it comes to arrangements and ideas? 

He’s not afraid to tell us his opinion… but if there’s a call to be made I’ll make it rather than him. He does take a backseat though, he’s more of an executive engineer who makes sure that you get the best guitar tones and drum sounds.  

“Scream, Aim, Fire” would have to be one of the most anticipated metal records of 2008. What can fans expect from the band this time around? 

It has everything that people love about us but it’s just more aggressive really. It sounds how we’ve always sounded but everything is a lot fresher, more up tempo and flashier.  

The dynamics are more extreme as well. The ballady' stuff is more arena based and the heavier stuff is a lot thrashier.  

The album's title track has more in common with “Ride The Lightning” era Metallica than modern day metal bands. Was it a conscious decision to up the ante so to speak and take things in a heavier direction? 

We just wanted to make the extremes more extreme. “The Poison” was a great album… people loved it and we’ve spent our whole lives subconsciously writing it. It wasn’t written in any particular direction though so we just used the songs we had at the time. 

Now we wanted to show the whole boys to men transformation. 

Were there any influences on the new record that might not have been present during your previous album? 

Nah, not really. We just took all the best bits from what we already do and made them better. There was no outside influence from other bands or artists other than the influence we took from “The Poison”. 

Obviously Metallica and Maiden are an influence but they’ve been there since day one. 

You've already conquered the European market so will you be spending more time in the US on the back of this record? 

Yeah, you know, we’re going to spend more time there anyway just because of the size of it. We definitely made a big, big dent in America… I think we’re up to 400,000 records sold over there so hopefully as soon as the new one is out that’ll drag it out to 500,000 and we’ll have a gold record. 

We’re going to spend a good third of the year over there. 

What have Bullet got planned once you've wrapped up your European tour in February? 

We’re going straight to the US pretty much the day after we finish up in Europe. We’re also going to be doing another video in LA and we’ve got something else really cool planned but I can’t really say what it is. 

Then after that we head straight to the Taste Of Chaos tour with Avenged Sevenfold and Atreyu.  

Your Australian tour in September last year was completely sold out. Were you expecting that kind of reaction from the fans down here? 

Nah, you know. It’s hard to know what to expect when you’ve never been somewhere before. We get a lot of traffic on our website and there’s always a lot of mail from Australia so we knew the fans were screaming for us so we went there. 

All the shows were sold out way in advance so it was great. 

When can we expect a return trip? 

I’d say probably around April or May. Nothing’s confirmed at this point but the dates have definitely been penciled in for us to hit Australia and Japan.  

A lot of bands released a lot of great records last year. What were your top 3 releases? 

To be honest… I didn’t have any. Not because there weren’t any, I just didn’t listen. I was so wrapped up in our album and going through personal hell with my voice. I was just buried in my own world. 

I didn’t buy or listen to any music all year so it was kind of a weird one.  

You've obviously played with a lot of different bands in the last 18 months. Were there any up and coming groups who caught your attention? 

Again, you know, not really. There’s nothing out there that’s properly new so I didn’t see anyone that other people don’t know about that had any potential. 

That's all we have time for Matt, is there anything else you'd like to say? 

No, that’s it mate.