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Interview by Arto Lehtinen
Transcription by Gemma Ellis (Thanks!)
Last year, the long time British death metal war mongers Bolt Thrower released a brilliant album called THOSE ONCE LOYAL. The band kicked off a long European tour that for the first time ever saw Bolt Thrower finally visit Finland. It was a plesant suprise to have the opportunity to talk to both Karl and Barry before they unleashed one hell of a gig at Nosturi in front of over 500 maniacs.
ON THE CRUSADE THRU EUROPE
Yeah. Actually this is your second leg of the European tour and you started a couple of months ago with the metal phase and coming on over to Europe how was it?
Barry : It was amazing wasnt it?
Karl: Absolutely amazing, yeah.
Barry : Throughout Central Europe most nights were sold out, it was better than we ever could have imagined really, and it was a pleasure.
You seemed to have toured a lot this year because you have had a few years break before going out right now and so you toured in 2002 with Benediction and Fleshcrawl. Was the reason you took this break because Karl wasnt part of the band and you had a problem with David Ingram?
B: Well we dont like to rush albums anyway, yeah we never rush albums, and its ready when its ready. We were due to record it the year before but we didnt feel that it was of good enough quality to record and that coincided with Dave Ingram becoming, well, he decided he wasnt fit enough to do the album and had his own personal issues so it was good that we were able to get Karl back in because its been fantastic for the band it really has.
People and fans have been expecting to see you on the road once again
B: Yeah the fans have been absolutely brilliant to us; every single date has been fantastic hasnt it?
K: Yeah, its every night is like a special kind of occasion, its like the reception weve got you know throughout Europes been so, you know warm and welcoming, its been something special, every nights been something special really yeah.
 Whenever you have been on the tour, you have focused mostly on playing in Europe, you have visited The States twice and Australia once. Do you think touring in Europe is less risky money wise or is the audience more fanatical for the style of what Bolt Thrower represent?
B: A touch of both I suppose. Weve been to America twice and havent really had a great time. The first tour wasnt too bad but I mean the last time we went over it was Karl was with us and Karl decided to leave you know, after that things fell through so it hasnt got great memories for us put it that way. Australia was good, I wouldnt mind going back there again. But you never say never to anything, theres not anything weve said were never going there, were never going to do it, its just Europe for us just seems to be a place we find very easy to tour as America is a lot harder.
K: So just logistically America is such a big territory to cover and the expenses involved, you know, you loose money most times touring America and the people, theres a lot of pressure on bands
But when you are touring Europe do you find it is easier for the bookings to be placed?
B: Exactly we book direct.
K: Weve got an established network throughout Europe which weve used since we started so we kind of maintain that so, yeah its easy for us to tour Europe. As I say we havent really written off touring America were just waiting for the right options to tour in our eyes.
When you used to tour in the early 90s and nowadays you always have a good package of bands. I was like damn thinking they have a good package of bands and are not coming to Finland. Now you have Kataklysm. Do you always pick up the bands personally and how do you pick up those bands for your tours as your supporting act?
B: Well we never have any buy-ons its always bands we want to play with and sure we will ask a few and we will ask who else would like to tour with us and we can see which bands we think would fit the bill best, you know its not just manufactured, its not thrown together because of money, you know so it works out really well on all our tours. With benediction we used to tour with them quite a lot because we enjoyed their company but now were experimenting a bit more from different nations, and I think that every one of our bills has you know 3 or 4 different nationalities on it so its good, its good for the scene, its good for us and up to now touch wood; if I find some (laughing) I cant touch wood oh no! (Laughing) yeah touch wood itll be good in the future as well.
K: We try also to try and mix it up a little bit with the styles of bands that we have playing with us as well so its not just all Death Metal bands and we had like Nightrage on the last tour as well, so yeah we try and make it a bit more interesting for the people coming to the gigs as well.
I cant help asking, what went wrong with Gorefest?
K: Logistics at the end of the day.
B: They just couldnt, were not just going to change the way we want to do things because somebody else wants to do something, thats, dont get me wrong thats entirely their decision but we couldnt accommodate what they wanted to do with our constraints that we have. We wont change the way we do things for another band basically, so theres no problems its just that you know, they wanted to do things one way and we have another way so we just said well okay its probably best if you do yours and we do ours.
K: They basically wanted to do like a headlining tour supporting us; you know they wanted to bring their own merchandisers, their own tour manager. Theres no need for it, its not their tour so we decided the best thing was for them to do their own headline tour if thats what they wanted to do. So theres no hard feelings were hanging out and Im still friends with Jan, Chris and the band so its not a, its just a management thing at the end of the day.
Yes, they hadnt been popular with the previous tour as the tour with Master got cancelled.
K: It does say something if theyve had 2 cut tours pulled in a short space of time. I think they have a problem with their management really.
This is your first time here in Finland finally, and so you are heading out to the Oulu tomorrow
B: Yeah were doing a funny drive round, yeah looking forward to it
Do you know anything about Oulu?
K: Nope. Moose?
Well elk, heh..
K: Elk (laughing)
You know Sentenced?
B: Sentenced, yeah, yeah
They are from Oulu
K: Oh right
You used to tour with them
B: Oh right yeah
They have disbanded you know
B: Thats right. They finished in the last gig I think this year wasnt it?
In the same place where you are playing
B: Yeah Ive heard its quite a big venue isnt it?
Its a very big venue yes
B: Should be interesting
And I guess your bass player Jo is a very huge ice hockey fan, right she follows the game?
B: Yeah thats right yeah
Well its owned by the one Finnish ice hockey player who plays in North America.
K: Right got you yeah (laughing) oh right so it was owned by him thats interesting. Yeah were looking forward to it, we often get accused of like you know not going to places so were firmly making a point of going to as many different places as we can on this tour so we cant be accused of not including people and places anymore
B: Well people say we should go to these places lets go and if people turn out then well go again and if they dont well its no problem were not bothered (laughing)
I took a rapid glance at your touring schedule and I noticed that you have no festival dates booked yet.
B: Dont like festivals
K: Weve just done Inferno and weve just done Close Up festival in Stockholm and weve got Rock Hard in June so thats 3 and thats enough
B: Basically we can play a lot of festivals, we get asked all the time to play the big ones its just not for us. We never say we wont do it, its just we dont really like them and it has to be something special if it was to get us out. Rock had has been supporting us from since we first started and we thought well lets do that this time see how it goes.
K: You know we cant limit what we do with festivals because theyre almost like a conveyor belt of bands, theyre just like, merges in to one big thing but well do one of 2 a year possibly.
AND THOSE LOYAL
Speaking of your new album THOSE ONCE LOYAL, this is  your 8th album?
B: 8th album yeah
So I cant help but ask why did you decide to call this album Those Once Loyal? I guess it has a practical meaning but..
K: It often gets confused doesnt it how people think its like a negative thing, but we really mean it as a positive thing towards as a kind of tribute to all the people who have helped us on our 20 year career really, that kind of includes individuals like people like John Peel who helped us on the way, includes people like yourself magazines that helped and pushed us along, but most importantly its really aimed at the fans that have been there throughout the 20 years and are still there and have kept loyal to us, so its kind of like a tribute, a nod of reference to them for without them we wouldnt be here.
In my opinion the front cover and the title fits together very well ?
B: I think the title and the cover do fit together well, everyone in the band takes different things from the titles of the songs, from the lyrics and from the music and everybodys views on what the title is slightly differ as well. I probably along with Karl hear exactly what he said but then also reference to people who have fallen in past wars
K: I think its more of a First World War feel to the cover than.
B: Yeah Those Once Loyal and then the tour title is THOSE STILL LOYAL, so still coming to the shows and showing their respect
 This front cover on MERCENARY has more of a World War feeling
B: Its basically that cover is about royal signals, just about somebody who located the enemy and just locating where they are and directing sort of fire and so forth
K: Its kind of like a who dares wins kind of thing I think
B: Sort of like a lonesome bloke on his own, what will he do for it? And its good I enjoy all of our covers and its nice, an interesting time getting it all together. Its probably the longest part of the album, forget the songs, forget anything like that, the title and the cover takes longer than anything and thats the truth, thats the truth they never throw them together, well 5 people have to agree on it which is hard enough.
K: No it isnt (laughing)
B: Yes it is (laughing)
Do these artists who create the front covers have a free hand or do you have an idea, a vision of what you want it to look like?
B: No we have an idea of what we want. We let them know an idea of what we want then we see a rough sketch, and then we come back, we send it back and then we say can you change this, yes, we want this put in and so they are free hand but we are directing that hand. And then we find things in there where the artist has put their name in, its like we go take that out, take that out, whos that, that face is too modern for the picture, and then he says hes put his girlfriend in on the cover or something like that and you go take that out.
Both Valour and Those Once Loyal have been recorded in  the same studio with the same producer, engineer and programmer (Andy Faulkner) was it an easy choice for you to go to the same place and have a familiar studio where you could focus on the recording and playing?
B: Yeah well Andys here with us now he comes out on tour with us, hes another 6th member of Bolt Thrower, theres quite a few members of Bolt Thrower, people think theres 5 but theres probably 11 or 12 members of Bolt Thrower, without those people it doesnt move. Theres a lot of cogs that need, you know wheels, every one of those wheels needs to be on or it doesnt function properly and Andy has become one of those wheels now and it was an easy choice for us to go back there you know, very easy. Its local to us all and we could have a lot of time in there because he gives us beneficial rates you know (laughing), and we gave Andy a bit more of an input into this album and it certainly showed, so theres a lot more to come out of Bolt Thrower with the sound weve got on this one, its opened a few more doors for us with people listening to it because its a lot more accessible production.
How do the working methods of Richardsson and Andy differ?
B: Its hard to say because I havent worked with Colin Richardsson for a long time now
K: It costs about 6 times more
B: Yeah (laughing)
B: You know I think its very hard to say
K: I think hes overrated personally I think at the time he did a pretty good job with uhh Valour and stuff
B: For Victory
K: Yeah
 B: For Victory, but if you left Colin Richardsson to do Bolt Thrower it wont come out sounding like Bolt Thrower and that was the thing we noticed, was that, for Victory we wanted to say it was a collaboration all our albums have been collaborations except for the first couple really where we let the producers have more input and then we thought that we could probably do a lot better putting our own thoughts in and for VICTORY I though it was the best production that we did up until this one, and that was done with Colin Richardsson but we needed to have the input there or else it wouldnt have come out like that and we said yeah okay Colin well come back in a day and see how youre getting on and it wasnt happening at all.
Do you enjoy working in the studio, or do you want to get rid of the whole studio and get everything finished as soon as possible?
B: Well I do want to start and then 3 months later were going fucking hell whens it going to finish
K: Thats another reason why we use Andy as well because we feel so relaxed there as well and it makes us feel at home because at the end of the three months
B: Theres no financial pressure to finish it by that date if we dont feel up to it we just go no it isnt happening, were going home
K: You dont operate under pressure very well
B: Im too chilled out to operate under pressure
When you were working on the new tracks and new  material for the new album did you think there was pressure because people were expecting another great Bolt Thrower album? Each previous album had gotten really massive reviews everywhere and do you think its getting harder for you to top the previous material?
B: Yes (laughing) To put it simply yeah. Yeah but thats a good pressure you know because if we release a really poor album the pressure would be even more because you really have to really, really do a top album to bring it back because youve lost a lot of fans so yeah its a pressure but its a good pressure
K: We kind of almost, well we knew really with the new album that it had to be something special otherwise it would just sink and we would go unnoticed so we had to make some impact with the new album so you know we took all the elements of the good parts of the essential Bolt Thrower sounds from the previous albums and kind of like, we knew what to do really, we knew what we had to achieve and we worked hard on it, we were quite strict in the process of recording the album we kind of made sure that everything went down like really precise and I kind of think its paid off.
Did you start writing this album by jamming together or how did you start?
B: Yeah pretty much, pretty much just like any other band really we just get a few ideas together and play and then you drop some the you say well Ill use that bit with that bit, just like any other band does it Im sure and then we start making it a bit more serious and start to put it on to the computer and start to try and put a few guitars down and leads, but its a long, long process and most of the songs have been written 3 or 4 times and stripped apart and bits thrown out, even going in to the studio the day, even recording the songs went back and re-recorded little bits, I didnt like the riff, changed it, so, no, no but thats good because if you end up satisfied you may as well pack in. I could have re-recorded it again you know, but at some point its got to be released so
When Karl rejoined Bolt Thrower, you re-recorded HONOUR VALOUR, PRIDE. What was the purpose of re-recording the album with Karl, cos in my opinion Ingram did an absolute killer job on that album anyway? I guess that re-recorded version hasnt seen the light of day yet?
K: Honour, Valour, Pride really when I rejoined the band it had been such a long time since I had performed vocally so we didnt really want to be in a position where we were in the studio recording Those Once Loyal and my throat didnt work so we needed something to rehearse my throat to make it, you know see if it was still there still working and we knew that we were going to play three songs off Honour, Valour, Pride live so it was the perfect opportunity to test my voice so yeah as we went through and we just demoed them put one or two even on the website as downloads we have no intentions of releasing any of that material no see that would be an injustice to Dave and the work he did back then and its I mean retrospective were always on about looking forward as a band rather than using stuff weve previously used
 As I said in the earlier question this is the 8th album of yours, do you think that it is important to find the right balance between the older stuff and the new material for the set list? People want to hear the old stuff and then you have to play the new stuff so choosing a setlist must be getting difficult?
B: Well theres always a battle when we come down to getting the set list together for tours because everybody likes different songs, thats the good thing about having so many good songs which I think we have, I think we have a good selection, theres not just the ones you have to go well we have to play this, this, this, this and this because theyre our best songs we have 8 albums worth so
K: How many songs in total is that, about?
B: Well even if you chose the title track of every album, that would be 8 and plus youd want to play songs from the new album that would be it that would be your whole set promoting an album so well take time in thinking well what will sound good rather than just what to play, what is going to flow good, what is going to make the gig sound right
K: What do we enjoy playing as well?
B: Yeah exactly
K: Its down to what we enjoy playing at the bottom line
B: If we enjoying what were playing its going to come to the people who are enjoying it
You dont let people vote on your website for whats the best ?
B: No we do, we do like to gage what people like because if it gets to a point where I might say I want to play no guts and he goes no I dont want to play that I want to play inside the wire then we can take, we can look on the website and say well people prefer that one to that one so well play
K: We do take notice of what people want us to play so it does have an input into our decision making definitely. Youve got to take notice of them thats why were here
WAR THEMES
The war theme is always your main inspiration, is it like an endless subject to write about?
B: Karl can answer that one but for me its a never ending story theres always going to be battles
Whos the biggest collector in the band?
K: I think Gav, Gavs the one mainly in to war
Collecting books and finding inspiration for your lyrics?
K: Yeah. I am myself as well yeah; I spend quite a lot of time. On the last album I spent sometime going around different places trying to get a bit of a feel for the place you know to get a feeling so I could actually write with experience of the place I think it helps totally to immerse yourself into the environment that youre writing about, not that Ive been in the middle of a battlefield, but yeah as Baz said its an eternal story, its been with us its part of mankinds legacy really and it could be with us forever its part of our in-built nature is war we dont say its a good thing, we dont say its a bad thing we dont judge or moralise about it we just you know
B: As some people write about politics its a fact of life so is war Im afraid
K: We kind of just maybe hope theres a discourse to how people will feel about it themselves and make them think about how their opinions are towards the subject matter
But have you ever thought about writing about the Finnish war?
B: No we kind of generally tend to write about what we tend to experience in our own well let Finnish bands write about the Finnish war (laughing) Im sure they have
Little Finland against Big Russia
B: Its never specific we dont write about specifics
K: No weve never said this, this. Weve wrote it from a third party point of view rather than a you know
B: Its kind of like an entirely kind of subjective really, our viewpoint on it is and we dont write about specific battles
Does it bother you that other bands have brought up this war theme in their own lyrics? Bands like Marduk, Impaled Nazarene etc. Do you think it is getting harder for you to write about it because other bands are doing it?
B: No weve been doing it, its been twenty years weve been doing it so no I dont it doesnt bother us
K: I mean war; how you view war is kind of like how do you interpret war? For some people its life you know the general struggle of every day life could be seen as a form of war so, yeah its how you view the subject matter at the end of the day
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT FORMER MEMBERS
Can I ask something about your former members? Are you still in contact with Dave Ingram?
B: Yeah we saw him just the other day
He opened for you in Denmark with his own band
K: Yeah theyre doing three gigs with us arent they?
B: Yeah thats right theyve played two already and have got one left
K: I mean he left for pretty much the same reason I left he couldnt commit himself 100% to the band and you have to be able to commit yourself 100% to do Bolt Thrower and he was open with it and he left under good circumstances and he had a lot of problems, a lot of personal problems which he had to deal with and hes come through that and he was great seeing him the other day, you know he looks well hes happy, hes back hes focussed so were able to give him some support you know and get him to play with us its kind of a bit of again you know hes one of those Once Loyal and hes part of that
I used to be in contact by letters
B: Oh before email (laughs)
Before email in the early 90s when he played with Benediction or something like that..
B: Hes a nice guy and its great to see that hes back on track again and getting himself together you know thats
How about Martin Van Drunen?
K: I havent seen Martin for a long time not since he left the band
B: But yeah were still good mates, I used to write to him as well before he was in Pestilence, exactly that was our first European tour we did with Pestilence, Ive got good memories of Martin hes a good guy, Id like to see him again I wish him well
K: Well I mean you never going to hear any bad things about ex-members of Bolt Thrower from us because as far as were concerned theyre part of our history part of us and we dont slag anyone off
FROM TANK CRUISING TO METAL
When I wrote these questions down I always thought Id bring into the conversation, when I saw the TV clip on the  German music channel Viva, where you cruised around with a huge tank and played with paintball guns in the forest, is this a normal way to promote a new album? It was around MERCENARY right?
B: Yeah thats right. Yeah it was good, we enjoyed that day it was great and uhh
K: Held the press hostage
B: No that was another one that was another one
K: Was it?
B: Yeah that was another one, no we took Viva to a paintball day and yeah it was good fun, got to drive around in tanks
K: And shoot journalists
B: Gav was doing that on a daily basis anyway, he loves it so he was going to those sorts of sites in his own tanks and stuff so yeah and it looked good on telly as well
I still have it somewhere.
B: You should send it and then well put it on the website
You have been involved in the death metal scene for over 20 years now and are you kind of surprised the death metal scene is still so strong and doing great here and how new bands are coming through?
B: There was a point going back maybe 12 years ago where it dipped, you know death metal did take a dip and crowds were going down
K: That was the 90s, around when I left
B: Yeah and the crowds were going down, we managed to escape that because we had a three year gap or three or four year gap between our releases and by the time we came out with Mercenary it was starting to have a resurgence again but, for us weve never really called ourselves death metal thats a strange thing you know, it didnt exist when we started out, Im happy to be tagged along with it, its not a problem but, weve never really considered ourselves death metal at all its always been just well we play what we play at the end of the day
K: We were kind of like when we first started out we were classed as a grindcore band, but I dont think weve ever really sat comfortably in any kind of pigeon hole or you havent been able to put a label on us and I think thats why we work so well is because you cant, you know were not a square peg we cant fit into that hole easily youve got to cross it all really
I remember when I read in a magazine that this band from England they were immediately Grindcore...
K: Well theyre just terms that record labels for selling records at the end of the day arent they?
B: Everyone loves to put a pigeon hole on you, even our record label put a sticker on saying Britains best death metal band and when we saw that we were like fucking hell you know
 What do you think about the band reunions? Like Onslaught?
B: No problems, no problems why would we? Its good because we used to listen to Onslaught so yeah Id say we even took influence from Onslaught
K: Yeah definitely
B: And the second album, which was THE FORCE was a good album
Theyve got a lot of gigs this summer
K: Yeah so I see
B: I think we should have played with them
K: Id like to have played with
B: We were supposed to have played with them
The drummer and I email each other and we did an interview some time ago..
B: Well they came along from a similar scene from what we came from you know because they were on the Children Of The Revolution record, I think when the first one came out, and there was those, there was Axegrinder, Sacrilege, they would do the experimenting with punk going towards metal and this is what influenced us, all these types of bands
I assume that my time is up so I will for one thank you for this interview. Thank you guys
B: No problem
K: No problem
The official BOLT THROWER site
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