BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE Drummer Discusses New Album

Kristen Dunleavy of myYearbook recently conducted an interview with drummer Michael "Moose" Thomas of Welsh metallers BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

myYearbook: You guys are about to embark on a super-long tour. Are you excited to get back on the road?

Moose: Yeah, that's what we love to do. It's a big reason why we started the band, we love touring. We're not really a studio band, although we love doing it. We can't wait to be performing again.

myYearbook: It appears that your new album, "Fever", took a different direction from "Scream Aim Fire". Why did you guys feel compelled to try something new?

Moose: We just wanted to go back to our roots and write music for ourselves. The last album, "Scream Aim Fire", was a great album and we enjoyed doing it, but we had a lot of problems recording that album and we felt pressured in the metal community as far as trying to please other people and not pleasing ourselves. We tried to write a metal album and that's what "Scream Aim Fire" was. But on this album, we just went back to writing music for ourselves and having a good time.

myYearbook: Vocalist Matt Tuck told Metal Hammer, "'Scream Aim Fire' sessions just ripped our hearts out of wanting to be in a band." What do you think he meant by that?

Moose: It's like trying to run with one leg. He had such an issue with his throat, he went into surgery and had his tonsils removed and everything. It took a long time for his throat to recover. It was more frustrating for Matt than anyone. That's probably what he meant by that.

myYearbook: Can you explain the meaning behind the new album's title, "Fever"?

Moose: We just wanted something short, sharp and to the point, really. It was one of our favorite tracks off the album, so we just called it "Fever".

myYearbook: Do you have a personal favorite track off the new album?

Moose: I'm still in the stage where I love all of them. The best time to ask me that question is in 18 months when I get sick and tired of playing them.

myYearbook: Before "Fever", was it typical for the band to always take into account what you knew fans wanted to hear when writing new material?

Moose: On this one, we didn't take that into account at all, we just wrote for ourselves. It sounds kind of selfish but when we wrote "The Poison", we didn't have any fans and we felt that was our best material. We were having a good time on this record, we took most of 2009 off to just hang out with friends and write music that we were happy with.

myYearbook: Where would you place yourselves in terms of genre?

Moose: I don't see any point in these genres in music at all. I just think we're heavy music, especially on this album — heavy rock with more metal influences, I suppose.

myYearbook: How do you handle negative criticism? Do you guys read online message boards?

Moose: We used to in the early days, and they used to really annoy us. Obviously, you can't please everyone and everyone's always got something to say, so now we just don't bother. If a bad comment comes, it's always like one in a hundred anyway.

Read the entire interview from myYearbook.