BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE Frontman On 'Gravity' Album: 'We Were Just Trying To Challenge Ourselves'

Heavy magazine conducted an interview with BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE frontman Matt Tuck and bassist Jamie Mathias at this year's Good Things Festival, which was held Sunday, December 9 at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the experimental nature of their latest studio album, "Gravity":

Matt: "We were just trying to challenge ourselves to write different music to what we've done in the past. I think every BULLET album has its moment in time and I think it blends into the other. We've always been very focused on making each album 'in the moment' and focused on making them different from each other and it's quite challenging to do that. But it's very rewarding when you finish it and that's what we kind of wanted to do."

On whether "Gravity" has reinvigorated Tuck's creativity and passion:

Matt: "Yeah, absolutely. It's album number six and we've been doing it for nearly 15 years. To kind of do the same stuff again and again, it just wasn't interesting for me anymore. It was a little bit scary to steer away from formulas that worked so well in the past but I think that's copping out, really. I wanted to be challenged. It opens the door for the next album to do what we want again, which, for me, is brilliant and scary for everyone else. For me, I think."

Jamie: "It just bring something fresh to the live performances."

Matt: "It adds a new dynamic and it makes the set far more eclectic and dynamic. Live, all the songs we've been playing live, it just fits so seamless into the set. For us, it's not really that big of a difference or shift. It's a just an evolution from what we've done in the past. A different way of writing. It was always important to keep the DNA of the band. It was never in question. It's just how we do it differently. What we did was kind of flip things on the head from 'Venom', really, and that was all technical and thrashy and this one is far more simpler and bigger-sounding."

On whether writing "Gravity" for Tuck was "cathartic":

Matt: "It was scary, weird, a bit of a dark point in my life, but as soon as I started writing about it, it was the strongest hooks I've ever written that actually mean something rather than sitting there trying to get inspired by something. It was there all the time. It was good. It was a difficult experience, but looking back now, I'm glad I did it. It made the album a definite thing; it had a theme and had a concept. It was real. That's really important for me that it's real."

On what the members of BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE would tell their younger selves:

Matt: "I don't know. It's not something I really thought about it until I've gotten older over the last couple of years, really. It's been such a whirlwind and you just go with the flow, because you spend half of your life wanting it, then it's given to you, then off you go and you forget about that bit. It's only when I've gotten older is when I've started to really appreciate the importance of that time. I'd tell myself to do what I wanted to do because that's what I did and we did. We just stay true to ourselves and we never gave up when we could have easily like many bands do. You get to a certain level at a certain age and nothing's happening and you get to a crossroads, but we didn't veer off to the left, we kept on the path. I was 23, I was still living at home, I was losing jobs, I didn't have any money in the bank. I dedicated everything toward the band becoming something and I was getting nothing back. It was difficult, but, all of the sudden, it suddenly clicked and off we went and here we are."

On whether they still feel like they're learning lessons this far into their career:

Matt: "Yeah, absolutely. It's become a huge deal. It puts food on all our tables. It's a huge, global business, so we have to make sure we take care when we do things and we make the right decisions for the longevity of the career. It's quite an intense thing behind the scenes, especially for bands at certain levels. But it's all good. We're learning every day. You just never stop being creative and there's always something you can learn if it's something about music, something about the running of the business. It's all good. You're constantly learning."

On the band's 2019 plans:

Jamie: "We're starting in Mexico in January with some touring. Quite a busy schedule."

Matt: "We've got a schedule in the pipeline. Nothing confirmed yet, but it involves a lot of touring between January and the end of August. The first eight months of next year are pretty busy, [and] then we'll knock it on the head for this cycle. We've been out since January of this year, six months before the album came out. It's been a really intense, long year, but it's been really enjoyable."

"Gravity" was issued in June. The effort was made available through BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE's new label home, Search And Destroy, the imprint launched in 2014 by Spinefarm and international artist management company Raw Power Management.