Issue 231 February 2009www.tbc.co.ukUK: £3.55 Aus: $9.95The Strings of Metal

the big cheese

42000 06200

Alternative Music Mayhem

The metal and the hip hop go against the core of music industry where many bands of rock and hip hop artists go ahead to launching the Hip Hop Rock Festival in 2009

B lu le ta l ent in efor M y

The Hardcore and Emo Rock used by the Band cries out to millions of

fans around the world

the big cheeseAlternative Music Mayhem

v

Issue 231 Febuary 2009

LostProphetsCould you ever get away from this band, Terry Walters talks about how the band have complete overtone with the world This band is one of the most popular rock bands of the 21st century and have made complete different outcomes to their music. The band have had many fans over the years with their albums The fake sound of progress, Start Something and Liberation Transmission. These albums contain the benchmark for the bands popularity and prosperity and to give them the achievements they want to achieve.

The band had first started and rose to international fame as part of the welsh scene in the 1990s with bands Super Furry Animals, Stereo phonics and the Manic Street Preachers and this is one of the most successful Welsh music acts of the New Millennium. Their most successful top ten hits in the UK Singles chart was Last Train Home and Rooftops which was one number one single on the Modern Rock charts along with Kerrang awards and nominations. The band are now creating their new album which is due out in 2010.

Written by Terry Walters

The Mix.23A Disturbed exclusive to John Moyer, David Draiman,Dan Donegan and Mike Wrengran

Bullet for my valentine talk about there New Latest Album

The Towers of London

Exclusive preview into the rebranding of the Legendary band

Reaching Out.26

Addictive.28

Senses Fail.28

Killswitch Engage.34

Underoath.38

Funeral for a Friend.42

INME.45

The Specials.48

the big cheese

23

the big cheese

24

s one of the greatest Rock Stars of all time, David Draiman, John Moyer, Dan Donegan and Mike Wren-

gran have taken metal by storm creat-ing new mixes that are thrilling to us all. They have had albums Indestructible, Ten Thousand Fists, Believe and The Sickness. Nearly after a decade of their ground breaking album, The Sickness, Disturbed have been one of the most passionate and well respected bands in the hard rock universe, dependable source not only of plummeling riffs and jackhammer beats, but of personal and political insights into our troubled times.

Yet Success hasn’t been dwelling this Chicago based foursomes taste of adventure, Disturbed’s loyal fan base has pushed the band to newer heights of self expression. So really it makes sense that on the occasion of their fourth album. Indestructible, that front man David Draiman, Guitarist Dan Donegan and drummer Wrengren decided to take the reins and produce their songs in the studio. Here all four members of the band talk about their experiences, their passion for their music, their fame and misfortunes they have had with family. They also talk about what they believe about how Hip Hop critics are always discounting metal as being totally freaky and scorn-ing to the listener and will talk about their idea of hip hop in general.

Steven: So how is the band going with the new release?

David: The Band is going just fine, the album has been selling very well and we are pleased that are fans are amazed by the new sound of our music

Continued on next page

Steven: What does your new album feature?

Dan: Well, the new album features our new song Inside the Fire, it has Indestructible, Forgiven, Deceiver, The Night, Perfect Insanity, Haunted, Enough, The Curse, Torn, Criminal, Di-vide and Facade with the lyrics inside the little booklet inside with the album.

Steven: So your manager Johnny K has helped you along your way throughout the years, How do you feel he has helped you?

David: Doing the last three re-cords with Johnny K taught us a tremendous amount, he has been our influence to what we do in our music.

Dan: That’s true, Johnny has always been there for us since the band had first started, he’s a decent guy who has been in the music industry for quite some time so he has been a pioneer to us, yeah he’s a great manager.

Steven: I’ve been listening to some of your music in the past and I always find that your music seems to change every single album come out, how is this done?

Dan: When we’re in the studio, we always spend a lot of time writing lyrics, playing the instruments and testing things out, that is what we do, we’re always trying to evolve and try new things and experiment so this time with our newest and latest album, we wanted to do things a little bit differently giving it that edge to the album.

Steven: So how did you make your new album?

Mike: We recorded our material at Groove master recordings in Chicago and spent at least three months doing it. It was quite an experience because it gave us the opportunity to prove to ourselves and to everyone else that we could do it.

David: This has to be one of our dark-est and angriest outings yet. We were very inspired by the two and a half years of challenging experiences, I had told the band that I was in the mood

to try something different and to purge things on a little, Fortunately though, they were right there with me.

Steven: So what do you think of vocal-ist David Draiman?

Dan: We wanted to get back into some of the elements that were maybe lack-ing in the last two records and I think that David has taken this new album by storm. David has got the great ability to sing really melodically, but we wanted him to get back to the rhythmic, animal-istic and rapid fire delivery he’s known for. He’s very hard to touch when he does that and we wanted to give him music to provoke that.

Steven: I know you have a really big fan base, have you had any really good moments with your fans?

We’re always trying to evolve and try new

things and experiment

Disturbed talk about fame,misfortune and their comparisons to

hip hop and metal

Interviewed and Written by Steven Roberts

A

the big cheese

25

Dan: Yeah, I think the best moments have been at Download and the NEC in Birmingham, we’ve had a real large audience and playing some of our songs were exciting to them. You have to give that to your audience, a thriving and an exciting blend of fire that gets them moving. If you don’t have that then your audience won’t receive any of the impact.

Stephen: So David you have a wife and kids back in America, what is it like touring and leaving them behind?

David: I have to say it can be very hard, I love my wife and two kids so moving away from home can get dif-ficult but I know that they love me and they are proud in what I do.

Stephen: So John talking to you about your baseline music behind the band, how is it that gets you into the spirit of making the music?

John: Well its all to do with the timing and the concept of the music. Working in the studio with the gang is very im-

portant because we need to make sure everything is right otherwise we would be making a pile of s**t. I also have an influence with wolves, I just find them very cool and somehow I express their ways into the music.

Stephen: So how is it that you are so fond of wolves?

John: Well.... I first encountered them when I was hiking with my friends when I was a teenager. They were in a pack and my friends were moving on, I stopped to look at them and saw how they behaved, it was so thrilling to me. I loved the way they hunt, their pride and their dignity for themselves, its so fascinating. That’s why I explore this influence into the music.

David’s got a great ability to sing really melodically, but we wanted him to get back to a rhythmic, ani-

malistic, rapid fire delivery he’s known for

the big cheese

26

Stephen: So after talking about your new album, I want to talk about hip hop and metal, what do you think about hip hop yourselves?

David: Yeah its OK, I find that it has more soul in it than anything else just like our music, it isn’t too fast but it is just right. Our music generally has more soul and is more passionate but I think there can be so many differences to hip hop and metal.

Dan: I agree, Hip hop is generally based on actual words and does con-vey a lot of rhythmic lyrics. I don’t think its just how fast paced and energetic the beat is but how hip hop rappers convey ideas. You had 2 PAC who rapped with soul but generally I just think he was a load of c**p.

Stephen: So what makes metal so dif-ferent to fans out there?

Dan: Again its a personal preference, however there are areas where hip hop exceeds metal. There are areas where metal exceeds hip hop. It all depends on what you look for in music.

Stephen: Do you like hip hop?

Dan: Ha Ha are you crazy, hip hop is generally not my thing but there are many fans out there that like that sort of thing, in my opinion its s**t. Metal has culture and passion and has a Gothic feel to it where hip hop has none of that.

Mike: It’s just like metal, you and your friend may not know the correct titles or genres of the band you are compar-ing, which is good because those titles mean nothing and they corrupt to confirm people. There are some hard-core, death metal, punk, metalcore, thrashcore and just the plain chugalug stuff that I think is amazing and if you read the lyrics they can blow you away with the creativity, purpose and virtue.

David: There is old hip hop (like Whodini, Funky four, Fab 5, Melle Mel, etc..), thug ish( like CNN, Mobb Deep, The Alkaholiks, Nas, ODB, etc..), lyri-cal ish(like Thirstin Howl, MF Doom, Wordsworth, Heiroglyphics, Kool Keith and Pop ish( like Kanye, Lil John, Fat Joe, 50 cent, Remy Ma, Game, Ice Cube, Young Jock,etc..). They all differ too much to label.

Stephen: Do you think that hip hop kills metal in some ways?

David: not necessarily, but at times it does. Rock really hasn’t been solid music for quite some time now, you have pop rock but that stuff is like rock without any soul and it is sort of cold and baseless. I think that metal can overtake hip hop any day because as a pile of garbage as it is, I think that Metal is number one.

Stephen: So what bands do you listen to then?

David: I fondly love any kinds of rock and metal widespread. I love the way my ears ring after listening to Marilyn Manson scream nonsense into them. And the eyeliner and super tight leg-gings that they wear are just to die for. I think not having bathed in two weeks thing is not healthy man but the music is great.

Dan: I love the music what we do and love enjoying working in the studio. Apart from that I like listening to Slayer, Metallica, Dragon force and much more. It all depends on what kind of rock music it is. It varies.

Stephen: One last question, what do you think the band will do in the future?

David: I often get these kind of ques-tions coming up quite often and I think that it is basically open for us, we’ve done at least 4 albums which have taken the world by storm. I think that we will make some better material and achieve greater heights in our music. We’ve been thinking about making another album sometime in 2010 so make sure you don’t miss it.

Dan: Yeah I think we will make new material that is snazzy and appeal-ing to our fans who will be even more excited about our music. I mean we have toured around New York, LA, California, Europe and Australia and I think that we will tour possibly to other places across the world but I think for now we would like to travel home and see our family and friends.

Mike: We hope to make some excel-lent gigs in the future and to get tucked into some pure metal madness!!!!! Stay tuned for more of us soon!

the big cheese

41

41

The Welsh metal-core band Bullet for my Valentine have spent most of the past two years taking over the world with massive UK, European, US and worldwide tours, sharing the stage with Guns N Roses, Metallica and Iron Maiden, Playing the Main Stage at just about every rock festival on the planet and seeing their 2006 debut album The Poison which was an album of London’s Daily The Sun “One of the finest debut albums in Rock History.” Selling more than one million copies worldwide, 350,000 in the US alone which is a very rare achievement for an emerging band.

Back home, Bullet for my Valentine has graced the covers of the UKs Kerrang! Rock Sound, and Metal Hammer. They won the Metal Ham-mer’s 2006 “Golden God Award” for best British band and the 2006 Kerrang! Award for “Best UK Single” for their track “Tears don’t Fall”. In America, Revolver Magazine her-alded the Band “British import of the year” and The Poison generated the hit singles “Tears don’t Fall” and “All these thing’s I hate (Revolve around me). With the video for “All things I hate” going to the number one spot on MTV 2. The band have toured North America three times, and in early 2007, they sold out their first headline trek.

On January 29th 2008, the band was set to return with Scream of Fire, Matthew Tuck who is the front man of the band had explained to me about the album “ We had the 11th track as-sault written and produced by Colin Richardson (Machine Head, Funeral for a Friend) and was recorded at Sonic Ranch just outside of El Paso, Texas in early 2007. It is really me-lodic heavy metal.... Catchy, hooky

choruses and full on vocals with the music being very in your face and heavy. It’s a lot more up-tempo than The Poison and a lot more aggressive.

Scream Aim Fire, featuring the distinctive and powerful six string dexterity of Micheal Padge Padget, the unwavering instrumental groove of bassist Jason Jay James and the relentless thundering rhythms of Michael Moose Thomas, the musical backbone of Bullet is an intimidat-ing force. With a complete classic of lifetime Metal inspiration behind him, vocalist and guitarist Tuck is a formi-dable and powerful voice for the ever

energetic, young Metal generation.

“We have stepped up a gear” says front man Mike Tuck “This album is chock full of classic Bullet ingredi-ents. Metal Ruffs, pounding rhythms, shredding solos and great melodies. We took everything that we learnt from The Poison and took up tenfold. Better, Fresher, harder, sadder and more real.”

Opening with the Aural assault of the title track and first single “Scream

aim fire” to the hard hitting riff slam-mer of “Waking the demon” and the arena ballad epic “Hearts Burst into Fire” this album will definitely catapult Bullet into a world wide spotlight.

“The track Scream aim fire set the benchmark for the rest of the album” Says Tuck “ It was the moment we realized the direction of where we wanted the record to go. Lyrically, it’s not a saying that anyone can relate anything else to. It’s ours and the meaning is ours alone. Kill or be killed that’s what this game is like.

Raising through Emo Rock to Screamo, the band tell all

about their latest album and talk about fans and fame

Written by Susan Johnson

We are motivated and Ambitious. We know where we want to be.

Continued on next page

the big cheese

42

the big cheese

43

You’re either on top of the game, or you are out, and we are very much still in. Our Quality of song writing, our structures, our timing, the songs are intense and accessible, whilst still keeping our metal roots.”

Tuck believes that the band’s unique accessibility lies in the fact that fans, regardless of age, gender or nation-ality can relate to the subjects and issues within their tracks.

“It’s important to us that fans can make a connection with our songs” Says Tuck “ For example Waking the demon is about being bullied at

school which is something that me and most of the boys went through. The track is about one day, just turn-ing around and deciding to not take it anymore. I’d hope that our fans can relate to that”

And despite the fact that these four musicians are now considered prominent players in the UK/Euro-pean metal world, as well as serious up and comers here in the US. The lads remain grounded (all still living in their native Welsh homeland) and eternally grateful for the position that they now find themselves in.

“If it wasn’t for the fans, we would never even have been able to make this second album” says Tuck “We are so thankful to them, and we will always try to deliver the goods. i know we had to cancel a load of shows last year (Tuck was hospital-ized in the winter of 2006 and forced to undergo surgery on his tonsils)

but it hurt us so much to do so. We really hated to let anyone down, but it was an unavoidable evil, and now I am confident that this record and this band are stronger than ever.”

To support the release of Scream aim fire, Bullet for my Valentine will set off on what will to be more than two solid, worldwide touring, starting in the UK and Europe in January 2009 and then touring through America beginning in late February.

“ We are still hungry for this” States Tuck “We are motivated and ambi-tious. We know where we want to be. We have played with legends and if we get to that level, it would be amazing. But you know what? If it

the big cheese

44

Kill or be killed, thats what this game is like

ended tomorrow, we would still be happy. We are amazingly proud of what we have achieved and what we have done. We are having the time of our lives. The world is our oyster....”

In November and December the band will tour Europe with main support Lacuna Coil, with Bleeding Through and Black Tide also support-ing.

During the November 15th gig of the Scream Aim Fire tour, at the Alexandra Palace, London, the band announced the gig was being filmed for their next live DVD, supporting Scream Aim Fire.

It’s also been announced that they will be performing at Big Day Out in Australia and New Zealand early 2009 in January and February. The album’s title track “Scream Aim Fire” is featured in the video game Guitar Hero World Tour.

A new EP called “Road to Nowhere” was released December 9th, includ-ing 3 new tracks and 1 rare track (Ashes of the Innocent). The same tracks were also released on the De-luxe Edition of “Scream Aim Fire”

On January 28, 2009, Bullet for My Valentine announced on their website that they would be performing on the Rockstar Mayhem Festival, alongside Marilyn Manson, Slayer, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Cannibal Corpse, All That Remains, as well as others.

Bullet For My Valentine are headlin-ing a concert at The Royal Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust, alongside Fightstar and The Blackout.

Bullet For My Valentine have also announced that they will be playing at Sonisphere, a new festival to 2009 headlined by Linkin Park and Metal-lica.

Scream Aim Fire, the bullets are being launched. You have been warned.