När Machine Head rullade in i stan med sitt turnépaket "Eighth plague tour" fick jag en kortare pratstund med gitarristen Lee och trummisen Matt.
Hela bandet verkade något avslaget, speciellt sångaren Oliver Sykes som var i ett zombiestadie backstage, men även herrarna Lee och Matt har nog sett piggare ut. När de väl gick på scen verkade alla dock ha ryckt upp sig och slöheten var som bortblåst, till tjejernas stora jubel.
En kul liten historia är att en kille på Live Nation hade mött två småtjejer utanför Arena som beklagade sig över att BMTH inte hade spelat några låtar från senaste plattan. De var tydligt besvikna och var på väg hem. Svaret från killen på Live nation blev att BMTH inte hade spelat än, vilket fick tjejerna att lysa upp och vända om. Ja jisses den ungdomen!
You´ve just played one show so far. How was Oslo?
Matt: It was good. It was the first day so it was a bit crazy, but it went well. I enjoyed it!
No glitches?
Lee: A few technical things, but nothing big.
And you´re gonna be out now for a month…
Matt: Yeah, I think it´s five weeks altogether.
During this time, do you ever go home or is it just gig after gig?
Lee: Yeah, and then we go home at the end of it.
What´s Sheffield like? Is that a happening town when it comes to music? Except for Def Leppard?
Lee: It´s not that bad, is it?
Matt: There are a few bands like Arctic Monkeys, Def Leppard, Pulp and Human League.
Any good clubs to play?
Matt: We´ve got like an O2 Academy now. They have them all over the country now. We didn´t have one for a while and now we just got one of them so that´s descent venue club.
Lee: There´s a place called The Corporation, which is a rock club.
Matt: Yeah, there´s quite a few venues aren´t there?
It´s been a couple of years since your debut album came out. How do you feel about it today? Do you sometimes look back on past recordings and think “Well, I should´ve done this or done that!”?
Lee: It´s like everything when you look back at it now, because you´ve changed, but at the time it´s what we wanted to do, so I wouldn´t change it now.
Matt: I wouldn´t change it! There are things when I listen to it and I go “I don´t know how we got away with that!”. I wouldn´t change anything. It got us to where we are now. I´m ok with that.
Looking back on that album how you recorded it and compare it to your latest one, was anything different recording wise?
Lee: Yeah, because when we wrote that album we didn´t have a clue what we were doing. We didn´t know how to write a song. It was just a bunch of stuff and when it came to recording as well, we had literally no idea what we were doing.
Matt. I´d never played to a drum track or anything. We were just kids thrown off the deep end!
Lee: It was mental! Even the guy who recorded us and stuff, he didn´t really care, so it didn´t help.
Matt: No, he didn´t give a shit!
When you write songs, do you write during a certain period of time or do you constantly come up with stuff?
Lee: Since we tour so much, we can´t really write when we´re touring and we´re away all the time, so last time we had three months off just to write a CD. We got off tour and went straight into writing and just wrote for three months and then recorded the CD. Usually we work like that, but the coming CD is different. After this tour we´ve got nothing planned so we´ll start writing in February or something. We´ll have a few months to do nothing, because we´ve been touring pretty full on the last year. There´s time to just be chillin´ and come February we need to get back into it and start writing.
Do you ever feel pressure from the record company to come up with stuff?
Matt: They try and get you done by a certain time and we always have that in mind, so usually when we get a bit late we get stressed out.
Lee: There are certain months as well when it´s a good time to release a CD and stuff and they´re obviously pushing for you to release it in like summer rather than in the spring. It´s weird!
Especially since no one buys records anymore. Working with Fredrik Nordström, how did that come about? What does he bring to the band?
Lee: Well, we knew about him for years because a lot of bands and CD`s we liked, he recorded. But it was kind of like you never thought you´d have a chance of working with him.
Matt: Yeah, we asked our label and they said no!
Lee: And we wrote to him and he said no, but for some reason Oliver found his e-mail and e-mailed him. But yeah, he just knows exactly what he´s doing to make us sound good. He just makes us sound good and he´s got some ideas and stuff. He´s cool!
Matt: He´s a really cool dude!
I know, I´ve met him!
Lee: And he´s a technician as well and he´s got a guy called Henrik and he´s a genius and a cool guy.
Matt: They´re both spot on with what they do and they know what to do to make us sound good.
Going into the studio recording, do you end up with stuff you don´t use?
Lee: No, we only ever get what we need because we have that little amount of time to write and we just get an album´s worth.
Matt: We don´t write four songs at a time, we write bit by bit, so if something´s a bit shit… we´ll write one part that´s good and then write one part and if it´s not good we´ll scrap that part, so it´s not like we´re scrapping full songs. I mean, we have scrapped full songs before, but that´s usually how we write, bit by bit.
Lee: We don´t really have anything left over.
On a tour like this, though you´ve only played one gig, is there a lot of interacting with the other bands or do you just stick to yourselves?
Matt: The first few days are usually a bit… because nobody knows each other well and we´re not familiar with everyone here, but yeah, there´s lots of talk and everyone´s friendly. Good bands!
This video you did, “Alligator blood”, how much of the story line and so on, is from the band and how much is from the director?
Lee: Well, since the song is about Russian roulette, we had ideas but he had to make them so they would work on the telly.
Matt: We bounced ideas off each other really. Primarily it was our idea because it´s stuff to do with Russian roulette or whatever and we talked to the guy that did it and he´s a cool dude.
Lee: We just like referred films to each other and then he came up with some crazy ideas.
How much does it cost to rent an alligator and where did you get it?
Matt: that video was funded by Jägermeister, so we didn´t pay a penny for it and that´s why my kick drum has the Jägermeister logo, so they paid for it.
Lee: I think it was like 500 pounds or something like that.
Matt: And he´s been in other films. He´s been around.
Lee: Yeah, The Prodigy video!
A famous alligator! (laughs) Finally, have you listened to “Lulu, Lou Reed and Metallica´s album?
Matt: I haven´t no! I saw a review of it and it was a pretty crap review.
Lee: Lou Reed?
Matt: Yeah, Lou Reed! It´s called “Lulu”.
Lee: I didn´t even know about it!
Later on, could you see yourselves do something that is completely different from what you do now?
Lee: Definitely! As we get older… none of us really listens to metal anymore. Everyone´s into way different stuff which helps us write. I don´t know, as you get older you don´t really wanna be jumping about on stage. (laughs)
Matt: We´re surrounded by metal music every day on tour, so the last thing we wanna do is go and sit down and listen to a metal CD.
Makes sense! Ok, thank you guys!
/Niclas
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