Young Guns interview, Kerrang! February 8, 2012
IF YOU want to fire guns in Pattaya, Thailand, the best way to do it is after a breakneck speedboat ride. We’re talking serious guns too: pump action shotguns, machine guns, a sniper rifle and any handgun you could care to mention – Glocks, Lugers, Magnums, Colt.45s and more.
You speed out to an island bumping, fizzing and screeching across sun-kissed waves, a Thai driver and his wife at the wheel, one of the UK’s most exciting rock bands in the bow of the boat, everyone whooping, cheering and grinning ...
Read the full Young Guns story here
You speed out to an island bumping, fizzing and screeching across sun-kissed waves, a Thai driver and his wife at the wheel, one of the UK’s most exciting rock bands in the bow of the boat, everyone whooping, cheering and grinning ...
Read the full Young Guns story here
Twin Atlantic interview, Kerrang! December 7, 2011
AT ONE end of a big New York board room is Twin Atlantic’s frontman Sam McTrusty. Next to a massive flat screen TV and hulking black stereo, he sits awkwardly on a stool clutching an acoustic guitar. His band lurk uneasily nearby in an untidy group as they wait for their frontman to do what he has to do.
At the other end of the same board room sit the massed ranks of the Scottish band’s American distribution company. All chivvied from their desks and brought in to hear the songs of Twin Atlantic, as played on McTrusty’s acoustic. The gap between singer and staff is almost as gaping as the atmosphere in the room ...
Read the full Twin Atlantic story here
At the other end of the same board room sit the massed ranks of the Scottish band’s American distribution company. All chivvied from their desks and brought in to hear the songs of Twin Atlantic, as played on McTrusty’s acoustic. The gap between singer and staff is almost as gaping as the atmosphere in the room ...
Read the full Twin Atlantic story here
Mastodon interview, Kerrang! October 1, 2011
A PHONE conversation with Mastodon’s wildman guitarist Brent Hinds is like little else.
“Who am I talking with?” he drawls. “What? Sean? John? Tom! Well, hello Tom, how are you Tom, is everything good Tom?”
All of this happens in the blink of an eye, before he’s off and talking about something else. “Plastic leather won’t stop the weather,” he says, apropos of nothing, then adds: “Two titties in a bucket? May as well fuck it.”
By the time you’ve caught up, you realise that not only is he rarely talking about what you’ve asked him, much of the time he’s talking to someone else too ...
Read the full Mastodon story here
“Who am I talking with?” he drawls. “What? Sean? John? Tom! Well, hello Tom, how are you Tom, is everything good Tom?”
All of this happens in the blink of an eye, before he’s off and talking about something else. “Plastic leather won’t stop the weather,” he says, apropos of nothing, then adds: “Two titties in a bucket? May as well fuck it.”
By the time you’ve caught up, you realise that not only is he rarely talking about what you’ve asked him, much of the time he’s talking to someone else too ...
Read the full Mastodon story here
You Me At Six: the story of Sinners Never Sleep | Kerrang! August 20, 2011
AT THE start of 2010, you’d have been hard pushed to find a band who looked like they were enjoying life more than You Me At Six.
Their debut album, Take Off Your Colours had taken them from their Surrey homes to the brink of success. Still teenagers, it earned them a major label record deal. And from every magazine article they adorned, they grinned the grins of those who couldn’t believe their luck.
Read the full You Me At Six story here
Their debut album, Take Off Your Colours had taken them from their Surrey homes to the brink of success. Still teenagers, it earned them a major label record deal. And from every magazine article they adorned, they grinned the grins of those who couldn’t believe their luck.
Read the full You Me At Six story here
Enter Shikari, the making of A Flash Flood Of Colour, Kerrang! July 16, 2011
TO GET to Thailand’s Karma Sound Studios, you pull off a palm-fringed highway frantic with the buzz of mopeds and rumble of lorries. Down a long side road, you take a sharp left at the beach, gazing towards distant islands that dot the horizon. Past a ramshackle bar you turn left again onto a pockmarked, potholed track that seems to lead into a wall of jungle, humidity and sun-beaten heat.
Eventually, down that track and nestled seemingly in its own peaceful stretch of paradise, lies the studio in which Enter Shikari are making their third record. It is, it’s fair to say, stunning ...
Read the full Enter Shikari story here
Eventually, down that track and nestled seemingly in its own peaceful stretch of paradise, lies the studio in which Enter Shikari are making their third record. It is, it’s fair to say, stunning ...
Read the full Enter Shikari story here
Linkin Park, Kerrang!, August 2010
IT’S A curious thing that today, for the first time in the seven or so years that I have been interviewing Linkin Park, they appear to be approaching something like being at ease. We’re in Los Angeles at the impossibly pleasant Sunset Marquis hotel – a luxurious retreat just off the fabled Sunset Strip whose walls groan under the weight of signed black and white photos of the musicians who have trashed rooms there.
The latest rock stars to be enjoying the hotel’s hospitality are Linkin Park’s singer Chester Bennington, bass player Dave ‘Phoenix’ Farrell and the band’s musical lynchpin and other frontman Mike Shinoda. The rest of the band – guitarist Brad Delson, turntablist Joe Hahn and drummer Rob Bourdon – have been spared interview duties for the day, but the three here today are all smiling, making jokes and seem pleased to be present. It makes a nice change.
Read the full Linkin Park interview here...
The latest rock stars to be enjoying the hotel’s hospitality are Linkin Park’s singer Chester Bennington, bass player Dave ‘Phoenix’ Farrell and the band’s musical lynchpin and other frontman Mike Shinoda. The rest of the band – guitarist Brad Delson, turntablist Joe Hahn and drummer Rob Bourdon – have been spared interview duties for the day, but the three here today are all smiling, making jokes and seem pleased to be present. It makes a nice change.
Read the full Linkin Park interview here...
Korn, Kerrang! July 14, 2010
FOR MOST bands there comes a time in their career when, creatively, they more or less call it day. They’ve already racked up vast album sales, they have a loyal fan base in front whom they can tour when the coffers are low, they have hot wives, mansions and fast cars. Frankly, why the hell bother anymore?
A lot of people assumed that Korn had already reached that point. Their last two albums were nothing very special at all. There was sheen in spades, but there was precious little depth, heart or soul. Still, those albums allowed Korn to play some good festivals, put together a few solid tours, earn a few bucks. The nice car fund was intact.
Read the full Korn interview here...
A lot of people assumed that Korn had already reached that point. Their last two albums were nothing very special at all. There was sheen in spades, but there was precious little depth, heart or soul. Still, those albums allowed Korn to play some good festivals, put together a few solid tours, earn a few bucks. The nice car fund was intact.
Read the full Korn interview here...
Deftones, Kerrang! May 1, 2010
WHEN THE news came through, it was devastating. Chi Cheng, Deftones’ bass player, had been seriously injured in a car crash. Not wearing a seatbelt, he had been thrown from the wreckage and across the highway, suffering major head injuries in the process.
He was lucky – if lucky is a word that applies here – that some off-duty medical staff were passing the scene. It was probably the immediate treatment they gave him on the roadside that means he is still alive. However, he is a long way from being present.
Read the full Deftones interview here...
He was lucky – if lucky is a word that applies here – that some off-duty medical staff were passing the scene. It was probably the immediate treatment they gave him on the roadside that means he is still alive. However, he is a long way from being present.
Read the full Deftones interview here...
Deftones, Huck Magazine, June/July 2010
Sacramento, California, summer 1988. Outside a small house, a teenage kid is sitting on his porch, a guitar across his lap. A few metres away, out of a small, locked garage, the most unholy noise is being blasted down the street. Death Angel riffs, Metallica riffs, riffs of the kid’s own invention all come roaring from a wall of amplifiers, connected remotely to the guitarist on the porch.
Click here to read more...
Click here to read more...
Bullet For My Valentine, Kerrang! April 24, 2010
SOMEWHERE, IN a dusty barn just outside the M25 motorway, Bullet For My Valentine’s singer, Matt Tuck, is wrestling his bass player, Jason ‘Jay’ James, into a headlock. As the rest of the band, drummer Michael ‘Moose’ Thomas and Michael ‘Padge’ Padget, egg him on – a Staffordshire bull terrier barking at their feet – Matt shapes to land a punch hard in Jay’s ribs. Matt is newly beefed up, his once wiry body now bulging from the vest he is wearing, and Jay – not scrawny himself – is braced for something painful. They grapple, they twist and the dog strains at its leash. Were you to walk into this dark barn you’d be forgiven for thinking the two rolling around the makeshift ring were trying to cause each other some serious damage.
Read the full Bullet For My Valentine interview here...
Read the full Bullet For My Valentine interview here...
HIM, Kerrang! January 16, 2010
THERE ARE those rock stars who look like rock stars, and there are those who could be anybody. Ville Valo, HIM’s frontman, songwriter and driving force, is of the former camp. Skinny to the point of almost defining the term elegantly wasted, he has a way of sweeping into a room, long coat trailing over a beautifully cut John Varvatos suit jacket, and becoming its focus.
Read the full Ville Valo interview here...
Read the full Ville Valo interview here...
Marilyn Manson, Kerrang! May 23, 2009
TO GET to Marilyn Manson’s house you take a left on Sunset Boulevard and head north on Highland Avenue. You wend your way up a hill behind the famous Hollywood Bowl and, when the road seems to go no further, you drive on for another few yards until you get to the last house on the right.
Read the full Marilyn Manson interview here...
Read the full Marilyn Manson interview here...
Green Day, Kerrang! May 9, 2009
IT’S FIVE years since Green Day last found themselves with a new album to talk about and now they’re back, to paraphrase AC/DC, it would seem they’re back in black. In black shirts, jeans, t-shirts and leather jackets they arrive here at San Francisco’s Mandarin Oriental hotel having driven from their homes across the Bay Bridge.
Read the full Green Day interview here...
Read the full Green Day interview here...
Gallows, Kerrang! May 2, 2009
THERE WAS a time, not so long ago, where Gallows had the horrible fear that they were turning into cartoon characters. They were, in the eyes of many, the Watford hard nuts who hated everything. The one-dimensional punks, spitting and kicking their way through live shows, baring their teeth and tattoos for pictures.
Read the full Gallows interview here...
Read the full Gallows interview here...
Metallica, Kerrang! November 26, 2008
IT’S 6.30AM when the alarm rings on Lars Ulrich’s bedside table. In half an hour the same thing will happen in the bedrooms of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Rob Trujillo. Hetfield will watch his wife rise before rolling over again for more sleep. Trujillo will contemplate the day ahead. Hammett will lie there for a while and, at first, remember the several glasses of champagne he drank last night before, secondly, regretting his hangover. But only Ulrich forces himself out of bed.
Read the full Metallica interview here...
Read the full Metallica interview here...
On the road with Enter Shikari, Kerrang! October 15, 2008
BACKSTAGE, THEY bounce on what seem like spring-heeled feet. In a corridor packed with flight cases and stage crew, they whoop wide-eyed at each other. They bob, they weave, they grin, they smile. They hear the crowd outside, chanting their name and they smile some more. Adrenaline, energy, excitement – it’s all etched into their faces. Seconds to go now, just moments before it’s all released.
And then comes the cue and – blam! – they explode onstage. Arms aloft, grins wider, fists pumping the air. They run from one side of the tiny stage to the other: here one second, there the next ...
Read the full Enter Shikari story here
And then comes the cue and – blam! – they explode onstage. Arms aloft, grins wider, fists pumping the air. They run from one side of the tiny stage to the other: here one second, there the next ...
Read the full Enter Shikari story here
Linkin Park, Kerrang! January 23, 2008
PHOENIX, ARIZONA, 1992. A thin, wiry kid – 115 pounds of sinew and bone – sits in a friend’s house, “the place where we used to crash,” he says now. Around him is the detritus of a normal day: wraps of speed, opium, booze and weed. Suddenly the door bursts open, members of the “Mexican Mafia” swagger into the room, guns at their side. Someone starts to say something; the butt of a gun to the side of his head the reply. Someone else gets pistol-whipped for good measure, the better to keep order.
Read the full Linkin Park interview here...
Read the full Linkin Park interview here...
Foo Fighters, Kerrang! September 12, 2007
TODAY, DAVE Grohl comes in one colour only: black. He’s slumped on a sofa in a large room in London’s swanky Covent Garden Hotel wearing black jeans, black sneakers and black shirt. He’s hidden by long black hair and a large black beard, one that drops nearly an inch below his chin. Around his eyes are a few new wrinkles – the first signs on his ever-youthful appearance to suggest he’s nearly 40.
Read the full Foo Fighters interview here...
Read the full Foo Fighters interview here...
Machine Head, Kerrang! July 4, 2007
MORNING, 1998, somewhere near San Francisco. Robb Flynn has just woken up. The night before was spent taking ketamine, a horse tranquiliser that, among other things, can produce dark and nightmarish hallucinations. He looks in the mirror, breathes out slowly and closes his eyes. Carved across his chest is the word ‘METAL’, scratchy, bloody and violent. He looks down and sees the knife with which he gouged the letters in his flesh, blood drying on its blade. This isn’t the first time he’s cut himself. It’s not even the first sign there’s something wrong.
Read the full Machine Head interview here...
Read the full Machine Head interview here...
Paramore, Kerrang!, May 30, 2007
HAYLEY WILLIAMS is very much in charge. She’s in full flow, strolling around a makeshift photo-studio in a glass-walled meeting room perched high on top of a Times Square hotel.
“Oh I don’t like that one,” she says, a quizzical pout forming on her lips. She’s looking at the shots for which she’s just been posing, dismissing or accepting them as though it’s her choice to make. “Hmm, no not that one either. Do you think you can fiddle with it later to make a bit more of the orange in my hair? That’s a good one for the cover but I think <<that>> one would look nice inside,” she says, jabbing a finger at the computer screen.
Read the full Paramore interview here...
“Oh I don’t like that one,” she says, a quizzical pout forming on her lips. She’s looking at the shots for which she’s just been posing, dismissing or accepting them as though it’s her choice to make. “Hmm, no not that one either. Do you think you can fiddle with it later to make a bit more of the orange in my hair? That’s a good one for the cover but I think <<that>> one would look nice inside,” she says, jabbing a finger at the computer screen.
Read the full Paramore interview here...
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kerrang! May 2006
“YOU LIMEY bitch!” Flea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist, is storming around a suite in Claridges Hotel throwing insults at me.
“Cocksucker! You can suck my fucking dick, Limey bitch.”
He’s just hurled a bottle of water at my head. It narrowly missed and exploded against the wall, careering into a bowl of fruit.
“This is fucking bullshit,” he shouts as I try to speak. “Shut the fuck up! Fuck you!”
Read the full Red Hot Chili Peppers interview here...
“Cocksucker! You can suck my fucking dick, Limey bitch.”
He’s just hurled a bottle of water at my head. It narrowly missed and exploded against the wall, careering into a bowl of fruit.
“This is fucking bullshit,” he shouts as I try to speak. “Shut the fuck up! Fuck you!”
Read the full Red Hot Chili Peppers interview here...
The Mars Volta, Kerrang! July 2, 2005
YOU’D NEVER find El Paso’s Smeltertown Cemetery unless you knew where to look. Its several hundred graves are barren and dry, their coffins not surrounded by soft earth but packed down with rubble, rubbish and rocks. A few have crosses jutting from them at crooked angles, crosses made from bits of fence post or old water pipes. The flowers here aren’t fresh but plastic – anything else would wither under the unbearable sun and heat, not that it looks like anyone has tended to these hostile resting places for a long time.
Read the full Mars Volta interview here...
Read the full Mars Volta interview here...
Velvet Revolver, Kerrang! January 29, 2005
8.45PM. GLASGOW SECC. First comes Slash, closely followed by Dave Kushner, Duff McKagan and then Matt Sorum. Bringing up the rear is Scott Weiland, hollow cheeks and deadly determined eyes. Around them are a few crew members, pointing the way with torches, guiding their charges from the dressing room to the stage. There’s no chat between Velvet Revolver now, no fleeting exchanged glances, no little smiles – this is serious, this is focussed, this is what they do.
Read the full Velvet Revolver interview here...
Read the full Velvet Revolver interview here...