BOLT THROWER Working On New Material

Kevin Page of MetalReview.com recently conducted an interview with BOLT THROWER singer Karl Willetts. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

MetalReview.com: Are you working on new material yet?

Karl Willetts: Well, yeah, it's a good job you called and it looks like we are going to be pretty much writing the album now. Baz already has a few riffs ready to go. We bandied a few ideas around last night, so hopefully we'll have a new album out by the end of the year to follow up the success we had with the last album and push on from there.

MetalReview.com: Have you decided on where to record and who will produce?

Karl Willetts: We are definitely going to go back to Sable Rose Studios where we recorded our last album. It's like a second home to us really, we feel quite comfortable there. Andy Faulkner (producer) is pretty much part of the band really.

MetalReview.com: What made you want to rejoin the band after leaving for so many years?

Karl Willetts: After a pretty disastrous U.S. tour in 1994-95, I wanted to go back to the university for three years. Got my degree in Cultural Studies, which is very nice, but absolutely useless for getting a job. Then I got married, mortgage, blah, blah, blah. Had a normal job for about 4-5 years, that didn't suite me whatsoever. I was working in insurance and kinda resented it. I came back in 1998 to do the 'Mercenary' album because they asked me to. They asked me to rejoin the band, but my head was in a different place and I couldn't commit 100 percent to doing it. I'm always going to be the first choice for the vocalist of BOLT THROWER. It's kinda my job really. So with that thought, it really didn't take me much thinking to grab it and be welcomed back with open arms. It's rare in life to get two chances to do something that you enjoy.

MetalReview.com: So you were an insurance adjuster?

Karl Willetts: Yeah, a Total Loss Adjuster for about three years, writing estimates on cars, all day, every day. Whenever the engineers went out to look at the cars and determined the damage was more than the value, we then researched the value.

MetalReview.com: I've done that myself in my earlier years as well.

Karl Willetts: It wasn't what I wanted to do with myself, so when Baz called it was great.

MetalReview.com: Since Metal Blade is not giving you any tour support for the U.S., was this something they promised when you signed on with them?

Karl Willetts: Yes, it's all there in black and white. We were to get tour support for any territory which was "new" for us. We were quite surprised and felt it was shortsighted that they pulled tour support for America. America we consider a new territory since we haven't been there in twelve years. So we're dealing with that at the moment. The next album might be with another label but I won't say anything more than that (smiles).

Read the entire interview at MetalReview.com.