Bullet For My Valentine interview: "What separates good bands from great bands is being brave and stepping out of your comfort zone"

In some cases numbers just tell the truth. 7 million fans on Bullet For My Valentine's Facebook can't all be wrong. And before anyone dares to make snarky comments about selling out etc, I dare them to find a handful of modern metal bands with better riffs and solos than these guys. In their fourth album, "Temper Temper", they mix things up a little and refuse to play it safe. Singer/guitarist Matt Tuck, in a good mood and cool as ever, talked to us about their new album, the live shows and the overall mentality of the band.

Hi Matt. It’s great speaking to you. Congratulations for what you’ve achieved as a band and for your new album.
Thank you very much.

How are things these days in the camp of BFMV?
Things are wicked man, things are super good. It has been kind of a year off for everybody as far as touring goes, so we’re all supercharged. Everyone loves the record, so everything is sorted and everyone is ready to get back on the road for the next couple of years for, hopefully, some really successful touring.

Your fourth album is one of the most anticipated metal albums of 2013. I had the chance to listen to it a couple of times and I think it’s easily going to please your fans, as it sounds as good as a BFMV album should be. How do you feel about it as it is about to be released?
Really good, you know. As with previous albums, we kindah feel the same, be believe that it’s the best Bullet record to date. We have tried to change things up a little bit, so we can sound a bit more fresh, bigger riffs, a little less predictable. We think that people will be pleasantly surprised. Like, with the first couple of songs people have got to hear already, we got a bit of a mixed opinion about them. I mean, obviously they are a bit different to anything that we have released in the past, but I think if people give the album a shot, they will see that they fit in perfectly. There are definitely traditional 'Bullet' songs in there. People shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, even if they are not too keen about the single. If they love it, they will by absolutely freaked out with the record.

You once again had Don Gilmore on production, which means you’ve been totally satisfied with his work on "Fever". Anyway, was something different this time around? How was the album formed?
It was great. It was a lot different this time around. Making "Fever" was quite a demanding process, because obviously we didn’t really know each other, we didn’t know how each other worked, and we didn’t know each other’s personality, sense of humor... These things are important when you are stuck in the room with someone for a few months. Having done that with him on "Fever", this time around it was a far more enjoyable, relaxed, fun, album process. It was really, really good. Cracking jokes, hanging around, it was a really good atmosphere, completely different to the last one, which definitely helped the process.

My first impression is that the album has the trademark sound of BFMV all over it, but at the same time you can find new elements, for example I found the same titled track very refreshing. Was your goal to make an album that balances between your trademark sound and something fresher?
Most definitely. That was always the intention. I think when you get at the level we are at, and you get to album four, it’s super important that you don’t become stale and you still sound fresh, new, and you still take people by surprise. Even on your fourth record, it is easy to become predictable and it is easy to play it safe, but I don’t think we want to do that. We don’t want to become stagnant and stale and simply regurgitate standard old formulas. I mean, it would work, but we don’t want to do that. We wanna mix things up, keep it interesting. At the end, we never want to change our sound, but I mean, what separates good bands from great bands is being brave and stepping out of your comfort zone for a few tracks and trying something different.

The question that everybody must be asking is why is there a second part of "Tears Don’t Fall"? It’s maybe your biggest hit, but why make a second part? What’s the story behind it?
Basically the idea came when we were making the record and I had a conversation with Moose about making a part two of something. We really weren’t 100% sure, so we took to Facebook and asked our fans, and literally tens of thousands replied pretty much instantly. It was like 'Fuck yeah, you should do "Tears Don’t Fall Part Two" or "4 Words Part Two"'. So, our fanbase was screaming out for us to do it, so we were like 'Okay'. It seemed like we weren’t going to piss anyone off by doing it, and the majority of the people requested "Tears Don’t Fall Part Two", so the next morning we went into the studio and started writing it.

Another track that I really enjoyed was "Truth Hurts". It is probably one of the next singles if I’m not mistaken, right?
Umm, honestly I don’t know which is the next one, but for me, I adore that song. It is a lot more signature 'Bullet', so I think that it is the sort of song that should come out next. Yeah, for me it would be an obvious next single.

I always loved the guitars on your albums and whenever you shred in this album it’s totally awesome, but I think the solos are a bit limited. Am I right or is it just my impression? If yes, what led you to this decision?
It comes down to the fact that we wanted to make all the elements that comprise our songs shorter. I mean being in a metal band, it is easy to get carried away with the music part of it and overshadow the rest of the elements and being considered the most important bit of a song, when really it is not. We wanted to focus on the vocal hooks, the lyrical content and the overall vibe of the songs. One of the intentions, as well as making a traditional, yet fresher album, was to re-evaluate our writing process by making everything sharper and shorter. So I think that we get more concentrated power that way. Yes, it is shorter, but for me a lot more enjoyable and a lot more powerful. It doesn’t drag on as much you know, it was a conscious effort to make things a lot more concentrated.

Would you agree with my opinion that the new album is the most 'American oriented' album in comparison to your previous works?
I don’t really know. We have never really thought of appealing to anyone really apart from ourselves. I mean, the way we write our albums is different. If we are happy, that is the only indication we go on for if things are right or wrong. There is no way of knowing what an audience will like. If we feel comfortable that what we have is what we want on the record, regardless if it would appeal to an American of European audience, then it’s in. 'Is it cool?', 'Yeah, it’s cool'. 'Do you love it?', 'Yeah, I think it's amazing'. That’s the only thing you can actually go on you know. In that sense, I’m not sure it would appeal to an American audience or not. Some of the times you think that people are going to love something and they turn around and say that it’s shit. So, you have to go off your gut instinct really. We love it and we hope others do too, but we really have no control over them, you know.

I have to admit that in the beginning I was wrong about "Fever". I thought it was an album of compromise after "Scream, Aim, Fire" that I adored, but in fact it was a more balanced album and I like it better now. In retrospect, what do you think about the album now?
I really love that album. I still think that it is more relevant to the rock scene, as it was three years ago. It was an album that defined the future of our band really. We made a great debut record, we kind of, I don’t know, mixed things up with "Scream, Aim, Fire" -some people loved it, some people didn’t- and then I think that "Fever" cemented what we are as a band and what we should do. I agree with you, I think as an album as a whole, it is far more balanced. There are no crazy surprises like there were in "Scream, Aim, Fire", because to me that was far too unbalanced. There were songs like "Waking The Demon" and songs like "Hearts Burst Into Fire", that were on the same record, which I think they shouldn’t. It was only our second record and we were still learning, but I think that "Fever" cemented our identity and what we needed to do. In that sense, I love the record because it set the path of the future for our band really. The first two records did as well, but for me, "Fever" really encapsulates what we should sound like.

In Download 2011 I had the chance to witness how big you’re in the U.K. Is the second slot on the main stage and playing in front of all these people one of the highlights in your career so far? Needless to say, you nailed it...
Being invited to do a heavy festival of that kind of magnitude... There is huge history there with Download and Donnington park, so being a British band and being so high on the bill and having such a great show... It really is a massive highlight, you know what I mean? We have been fortunate enough to play the main stage, I think, four times now. We headlined the second stage in 2010... It’s getting a bit crazy for us in the UK, it’s amazing. You aren’t always given the opportunity to play in festivals like that.

Even more you nailed it in Greece. Man, the show you gave here was in my opinion more solid that the three out of four of the Big 4. Traditional metal fans here a little narrow minded but everyone admitted you ruled that noon. What do you remember from that day and when should we expect you back?
Oh man, I remember everything from that day. From driving to the gig, being backstage, the show itself… I remember a lot. It is always exciting and memorable when you play somewhere for the first time, which doesn’t happen a lot for us these days, cause we’ve pretty much been everywhere. So, a couple of years ago when we played there it was a very memorable experience. We remember the crowd very well, cause we were told that it could not go down very well, that people don’t really like you here and that kind of shit. So we were like 'Alright, let’s see what happens when we’re on the stage', you know what I mean? And like you said, when we hit the stage and started playing, everyone who wasn’t convinced, maybe they still don’t like our band, but we gained a bit of respect from them that day, cause we showed that we can hold our own in a case when we are playing with the biggest bands in the world. If you wanna be hostile, bring it on, it is only gonna make us better. But I think that the show in general, the vibe... everyone had a good time. We definitely did on stage.

Do you think that the fact they told you that people here are a bit narrow-minded fueled you in any way?
I don’t know. When you play a bill like that, having the Big Four up there, the legendary acts from like 25 years ago, its really hard to compete when you are a newish band and playing shows with those guys. But, I think that as long as you go out there and do your thing, that’s the opportunity to get people, who still might not like you, to gain the respect. 'You know what, they fucking did well. Respect'. That’s it, that’s all we need. As long as we get that, we’re fine. We don’t expect everybody on the planet to love our band, that’s just not going to happen. I just think that as long as we get on stage and do what we do, I’m pretty convinced that people will be impressed by us.

I’ve seen you live a couple of times now, how come you’ve never included "Suffocated Under Words Of Sorrow". Its my favorite (laughter).
(Laughter) It’s hard man. We’re on our fourth record now and it’s really hard to juggle the setlists. There is always someone whose favorite song you never get to play. That’s why we don’t include that one anymore. We pretty much played it on every show for the first couple of years of our career, but as you go on you get more material. Like we said previously, albums need to be balanced, setlists even more so, because when playing live you need fuel in the tank till the end of the show. It’s just, finding the balance between picking the songs we think represent us best live and or more relevant and the ones the fans want to hear is really hard. But next time you’re about, let me know, and we’ll play it, just for you (laughter).

What about AxeWound? What led to the formation of this band and what should we expect from them?
It was just something that we put together in my down-time between the end of the “Fever” tour and the start of the making of the new record. It was a great opportunity for doing something that I wanted to for a while, so I phoned up Jay (Bowld, drums - Pitchshifter) who I’ve known for a long time and we decided, cause we knew it was a now-or-never situation, to book the studio in Whales and made that AxeWound record. Once everything was recorded musically, that’s when we built the band around it, and caught up with Joe (Copcutt, bass - ex-Rise to Remain), Mike (Kingswood, guitar - Glamour Of The Kill) and Liam (Cormier, vocals -Cancer Bat). Obviously we had to fly Liam over, cause once we agreed he wanted to be a part of it, he had to sing on it. So, we flew him over, kindah co-wrote the lyrics together and we did what we did. It was a really quick, exciting and spontaneous project, and over here (UK) especially it has gone really well. It’s got some airplay on the radio, we did a few videos, had a sold-out UK tour in September, its been really good. It was bit of a whirlwind really but overall really successful.

That’s it Matt. Hope to see BFMV playing live soon. Take care.
I’m pretty sure there is something lined up, we’ll see. See you soon brother, thanks.