BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE Drummer: I Wish IRON MAIDEN Crowds Could Have Been A Bit Nicer To Us

Canada's Dose.ca recently conducted an interview with BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE drummer Michael "Moose" Thomas. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On the group's recent North American tour opening for IRON MAIDEN:

"I wish the crowds could have been a bit nicer to us — especially in Quebec City. They weren't very nice … It's not very nice when you're trying to do a set and, all through it, 15,000 MAIDEN fans are chanting for MAIDEN to come on. [But] you've got to laugh. You can't be upset for a long time."

On the band's incessant touring over the past 18 months:

"I forget where I am a lot of the time. I don't know what day it is. It just all blends into one big blur."

On cancelling a series of dates over the winter after singer Matt Tuck came down with laryngitis brought on by a serious throat infection and exhaustion:

“We used to drink quite a bit, but that's been cut back a lot. Now, we just stay sensible as much as we can, really. We put a lot of vitamin and energy drinks on the rider. Basically, we've been touring non-stop now for 18 months now and it just caught up to Matt. We had to pull him."

On using the forced downtime to focus on recording demos for their sophomore full-length release:

"Because we don't ever like taking time off, and Matt had his vocal thing so we had to cancel shows, we thought, 'OK, we're not going to just sit around at home doing nothing all day.' So, we just started writing new songs and we're going down to a local studio to pound them out and put some new songs down as demos."

On the band's upcoming record, tentatively due this summer:

"It's 100 percent BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE. Within the first few notes, you're going to know it's BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE. It's a little more heavy and hard — it's full-on British heavy metal."