Bolt Thrower
Wywiad przeprowadził Andrzej Papież & Aleksander Krzeczkowski
Bolt Thrower is a sheer institution. This is the band which is allowed to record albums which are in the same style all the time and there is no death metal fan who would ever have any objections. Right before Those Still Loyal tour, and while their latest, eight album "Those once loyal" is still on the air, we managed to ask Karl Willets a few questions about a couple of things. Some of them are their military inspirations and all othershit we always wanted to know.
Hi Karl. Are you ready for the battle? If you were a soldier, who would you like to be? A private on a front line or a general creating a strategy? By the way why haven't you been enlisted to the British military service?
Ha, an interesting question, good start, congratulations! I think that I would much prefer to be as far away from the actual battlefield as possible, I have always been interested in military strategy so I could see myself hunkered down in a bunker directing the traffic as they say. I could never have enlisted in the army, I was a punk when I was younger, and I still find it difficult to be given orders or to be told what to do and when. I believe in the ethos that you should always question the authority.
Recently (bloody bastards from) Earache reissued your "Realm of chaos" album without your permition. Are you in conflict with this label? And what was the main reason for signing with Metal Blade for "Those once loyal" release?
At the moment I'd rather not talk about the scum at Earache, needless to say we are not too impressed with the way they have been regarding non payment of royalties etc...The band signed to Metal Blade back in 1998 for the Mercenary album, Those Once loyal Will be the 3rd on this label, so far we have developed good working relations with this label.
How far was the material for a new LP advanced when you rejoined the band? What effect did you have on writing it besides writing the lyrics?
The new songs that feature on the new album had been written, deconstructed and reworked many times before I rejoined the band in November 2004 the songs where still in the rough demo stage, but the main structure of the songs where complete. My part is primarily concerned with the lyric writing process.
How different are final, studio results of your songs from previous rehearsal versions? And how does the process of your studio works looks like?
The final songs are usually very different from the initial conception. Baz usually writes the riffs (Gav has come up with some killer ones in the past also!) We then sit and listen to theses rough recordings and decide which bits we like and what to scrap, we are quite strict in this process and usually 80% will not be used. Once the Riffs are decided then the songs are structured around them in the home recording studio. Again once these are complete we listen and they then get changed around and altered many times until we are all completely happy with the flow and structure. At this point I will write the initial time structure of the vocal, which evolves as the song becomes more concrete and finalized.
"The killchain" begins with the same fade-in effect and very similar riff as "Embers" ("The IVth Crusade" '93), "Powder burns" ("Mercenary" '98) and "What dwells within" or "Cenotaph" ("Warmaster" '91). The influence never ends - right?
Yep that's right...we love that World Eater riff and whenever we write a song that it will fit to we have to use it. It is trademark BT. It works killer live where we link all the songs together to form the Killchain (get it!). We may use it again in the future, nice to keep our options open, never say never and all that.
"Through the ages" is the track with a very rare idea, where the most important military events of our civilisation are read out. What would you add to the list if "Through the ages" were recorded nowadays?
I tried to make a list of all the important wars that the nation that I live in has been involved in throughout the ages, If I was from another country that list would be very different. There are a few more that would have to be added today including the war in former Yugoslavia - peacekeeping where there is no peace to be kept, Afghanistan - where freedom and democracy face fundamentalism head on, the war in Iraq- a war that seems to have no end...the list will continue.
The Chaos Eye motive was included in a few of your earlier albums. What was the idea behind it? How many tattoos with this symbol painted on have you seen while touring the world?
To me it is a symbolic representation of our times where no argument or viewpoint can be counted as more valid as an opposing one. It's a kind of postmodern discourse with the idea of power disseminating from a central point in all directions in equal strength. We saw it in the Games Workshop artwork and thought we have just got to have that symbol. It's not totally original; I think that Hawkwind used it back in the 70's. I have seen loads of BT tattoos, in fact we include a section on these on our website www.boltthrower.com I always think it is kind of special when someone has marked their skin with a connection to BT.
Another tradition in Bolt Thrower you're still running on is the idea of putting a number in the title of one track on each album...
That idea started around the 4th Crusade, which was our 4th album, the next album was originally going to be called V...For victory, but we dropped the V as it was too obvious. 6th album contained a song called the sixth chapter, 7th album - 7th Offensive, the new one has 2 references, there is a bonus track called Symbol Of Eight (which is a reference to the chaos symbol)...first line out of when cannons fade is Into the Eight offensive. It kind of ties the albums together and maintains the thread of continuity. There will be a 9 on the next album, you can be sure of that!
Was Gav responsible for spreading the idea of warlike image among all the members of Bolt Thrower?
Gav is interested a lot in the theme of war; he watches a lot of films and documentaries and reads a lot of books on the subject. But I am also into Warfare. I ‘ve always been interested in military history and the individual stories that arise from it. When I was younger I was into WWII war gaming and then Games workshop. Now I like to visit places of historical military history.
Two stand-in vocalists in the band - Martin Van Drunen and David Ingram. And now comes Peruvian magazine amateur question - are they still your brothers in war? ;) OK, seriously, do you know what are they doing now and do you think they were an appropriate replacement for your throat? BTW, why did Andy Whale leave the band? He was perfect cannonier for Bolt thrower...
They are both top blokes and I regard them as good friends, I am not sure what Martin is up to these days but I hope to see him out in Holland when we go on tour in January. He was an ideal replacement for me in BT, essentially he had toured with Bt in Pestilence and Asphx, so the band knew him personally already which helped. Also with Dave, he had known the band from his days with Benediction, this is why they both slotted in so well. I emailed Dave the other week and his is back on track with a new band called DownLord. Whale left in 1994 when I did because we had been doing BT for 8 years, we'd just done a terrible US tour and had enough.
Wondering what questions concerning Joe Bench you are guys forbidden to answer? Almost every journalist has a bag of stupid questions concerning female band members... What was the most stupid one?
Actually we don't often get asked that many questions regarding Jo being a woman, I think most journalists simply know not to bother asking, its fairly irrelevant to the music that we create. Strange really, in the band she is just viewed as the bass player, her femininity is not view as an issue.
There have been and still are many bands copying your style. We've got Mutilation in Poland, which are strongly influenced by your music. Have you ever heard them? What's the best Bolt Thrower tribute band you have ever heard?
Yes I have heard of Mutilation any many other bands that have been influenced by the BT sound, this is fantastic to hear. I think that Heaven Shall Burn are a good example of a bandthat has been inspired by BT. I have heard some good versions of Cenotaph by quite a few bands.
'Those Still Loyal' is the name of your upcoming Europe tour. Did you mean 'those still loyal to death metal'? It suits great to Malevolent Creation as well as to Bolt Thrower. Do you feel a pressure to be loyal to your roots, fans and your genre? And another question in this topic - do you have any impact on the process of choosing support bands for your tours?
We meant those still loyal to Bolt Thrower in particular. We do feel the need to remain loyal to our followers many of whom have grown up over 20 years listening to our music. It is these people and there support thathave made it able for the band to continue since 1986. We are all actively involved in the selection process when choosing bands to tour with. We are really pleased that malevolent creation is doing this tour with us, fellow veterans.
I always wanted to watch official Bolt thrower DVD. Do you plan to release it in the near future? What would it contain? Looks like you're not hard fans of new technologies - I guess you where the last active legendary death metal band with no official website a year back? And how about a live album finally? (Excluding "(Live) War" - bonus CD added to special limited edition of "...For Victory")
We intend to shoot some live footage that may be used for a DVD release when we go on tour in January and also in April. It was a good move for us to eventually go online; we wanted to sort it out when we had something to say and some things going on. As for a live album, we'll just have to see how the tour goes, we may record some and see what happens
Thank you for your time. What's your final order sergeant Willets?
It was a pleasure my friend, thanks for your interest and continued most loyal support of BT. We look forward to seeing you all at our shows in Poland in January. Till then Grind On! For further info on BT check out our website.
www.boltthrower.com
