BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE



“For those people who don’t know who we are, we’re just four boys from Brigend that have worked hard to get where we are and we have no shame in say that we want to be the biggest band in the world by this time next year!” Declares Matt Tuck, Vocalist and Guitarist for the very loud and fast Bullet For My Valentine. Being no stranger to bold statements, the front man has already been quoted as saying that he wants to be the ‘Metal John Lennon’ and sure, it’d sound pretty wanky if he didn’t have the goods to back it up but with three Metal Hammer Golden God award nominations, an album that has sold through the roof and over 95,000 Myspace fans, it seems that Tuck may well be on his way. So it only seems inevitable to ask, when did Metal become boring?

“The last ten years, from the mid ninties to a few years ago, have been pretty miserable for Metal world. There’s really been nobody breaking through or setting the world on fire. The last 18 months to two years has been looking really promising with bands like God Forbid and Trivium making me like Metal again which is awesome…it’s making me really happy.”

It seems that people don’t take the Metal scene as a serious threat anymore and it’s rappers with the censored videos and songs. Where’s all the controversy gone?

“Because Metal has died away a bit and he older generation who were bitching about it have gone away. That’s probably got something to do with it. Hip Hop and Rap have got such a worldwide influence and some of the lyrical content is really explicit and harsh so I guess that’s why it’s getting so much attention. I think lyrical content for Metal bands has changed from what people stereotypically think it is to stuff like what we’re writing about which are love songs basically…just portrayed in an aggressive manner with heavy guitars.”

Is that how you’d describe your music?

“Well…the best way to describe it at the moment is Melodic Metal. It’s got everything a Metal fan would require with raging kick drums, ranting, screaming, heavy and harmonic riffs but at the same time I like to make it catchy and melodic so it has that aspect as well. It really works.”

How are you dealing with all the success you’ve had so far?

“We’re still kind of gob smacked at how everything’s gone in the UK and Europe. It’s all happened so quick that we haven’t had time to reflect but the time we knew we were on to something is when we recorded the mini album and released it. It just started going ballistic. It was just a five track mini album but it started flying out. We started placing a few copies at show trying to promote it and we were doing a sell out UK tour before we even knew it, which was weird. After that we went and recorded the album and it’s just gone mental.”

The only other Welsh musos I can think of are Super Furry Animals. What’s the music scene like there and was it hard to break out of it?

“Yeah…it was totally difficult and I sympathize with bands who are still in the country trying to make something of themselves. We struggled for seven years have shelled literally thousands upon thousands of pounds during that time, drove thousands of miles ourselves, playing to nobodies just trying to get somewhere. You have to get out and make the effort if you want to succeed because it very rarely happens overnight. As far as the music scene in Wales, I can only speak for the South Wales area and its very Rock orientated which surprises a lot of people. There’s quite a few Indie bands as well but the majority of it is Hard Rock and Metal.”

What have your touring experiences been like so far?

“We’ve been to the US twice so far…we just got back last Sunday and we’re heading back in three weeks which is going to be a proper test but the two tours that we’ve done so far haven’t been the best kind of tours for us. Firstly we were over there last November with a band and the crowed that they pulled were very much of the Hardcore variety. They had very little musical appreciation and were more interested in beating each other up. Saying that though, the people that were there for the music were totally into it. We just got back from touring with Rob Zombie and again that was a very weird tour for us.”

What was it like Hanging out with Rob Zombie?

“He really kept to himself and didn’t mingle with us at all. His band did though. They were awesome. They were really sweet but Rob was very quiet and never really mingled with anyone apart from the band.”

Any plans to tour Australia?

“Yeah. I believe it’s either gonna be September or October. They’re looking at adding Australian dates after we go to Japan. We’ve been to Japan a couple of times and the audiences there are mental. They actually recorded one of our Osaka shows for MTV Japan and the kids were going off. It was just like playing in the UK.”

Who are your three biggest Metal influences?

“James Hetfield, Bruce Dickinson and Kurt Cobain.”

Kurt Cobain?

“Just because he was very mysterious and some of their stuff doesn’t really make sense but it did to him. It’s pretty much a Beatles vibe. Some of that stuff was so wacky and out there yet people just loved the songs. It didn’t matter what he were singing about. He was an icon for a generation because of it.”

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