Everyone predicted it. The metal press, the music industry and especially the gig going kids all knew that there was something special about Bridgend based Welsh metallers, Bullet for My Valentine and now it looks like everyone else is going to know it as well.
2005 has been a momentous year for the four piece; selling out their first ever headline tour of the UK, performing bone shaking sets at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards Ceremony and the Kerrang! Day Of Rock and that?s before we even mention rocking Reading, video shoots in Slovenian cave systems, making a splash in Japan and preparing for their first US tour.
Of course if there is one group of people who are not surprised by their upward velocity this year it is the band themselves. Matt Tuck, poster boy vocalist and guitarist, is more matter of fact than arrogant when he says: ?I know what it is that separates us from most other bands. It?s keeping our metal roots; keeping all of the aggressiveness and brutality that we?ve grown up on, but at the same time writing good songs. You need good melody, good tunes.? Then his tongue slips firmly into his cheek as he adds: And when you put it all together in one good looking, young, 21st Century rock band, you can't fail!
The debut album "The Poison", which was released on October 3, obviously met the demands of the fans, going straight to number one in the rock charts: with four Bullets.
As well as turning in a blistering set at the Kerrang! Day of Rock, where there was almost a riot, they played another foundation rattling gig at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods, which was all the more surprising because less than 24 hours earlier Matt had been in hospital suffering from exhaustion.
We'd just been doing too much, says Matt. My body just said "No more" and packed in. But the same protestant work ethic has taken its toll on the rest of the band as well. During a hectic and insanely well received tour of Japan, affable drummer, Michael Moose Thomas contracted a potentially fatal strain of bird flu! It was horrible, says Moose I was on a drip for a fortnight. They said it was avian flu but I reckon I picked it up in those caves.
Those caves were the Postojna Caves in Slovenia where they filmed the epic video to their last top 40 single Suffocating Under The Words Of Sorrow (What Can I Do). It was the most heavy metal place you can imagine, underground with all these stalactites. But I thought they were going to snap off and spear me while I was playing, adds the drummer. It had Enter Traveller In To This Immensity carved in big letters in Latin over the entrance, it was mad, adds laidback guitar man Michael Padge Padget. If we don't watch Matt, adds Manga haired bass monster Jason Jay James, that's what the new album will end up being called.
Their hectic schedule has still allowed time for a Kerrang! cover feature and getting a future Metal Hammer cover in the bag. Most importantly, however, is their first ever UK headline tour, which has completely sold out within weeks of tickets going on sale. The UK jaunt kicks off in their native Cardiff on the 18th and winds up in Nottingham Rock City on the 25th after a night at the UK's rock Mecca, The Astoria. Given the nature of what they're embarking on, though surely it would be fair to say that they are, in technical terminology, shitting their pants? But this just elicits an emphatic No from Matt and the boys. We're going to destroy everything, adds Jay simply. Of course, the band have had recent experience of playing in front of gigantic crowds after a volcanic set at this year's Reading and Leeds festivals. Matt adds: It was our first main stage performance at Reading and we fucking killed it man. Jay chips in, indicating the amount of sphincter dilating stress you have to deal with playing the main stage of a festival: I had a dry mouth! But it was fucking cool, you don't look too hard at how many people there are and just get on with it. Given that they have just been picked to do a joint Kerrang! tour with Avenged Sevenfold and they have an upcoming tour with It Dies Today in America, you would think that the band don?t have time to think about the long term but they have solid plans for the future. Moose starts listing the reasons why he knows they're still going to be on people's lips in ten years time: First classic album. Second classic album. Third classic album then a fourth. We're just gonna keep on going.? Matt agrees adding: ?It?s like I said, classic song writing is going to ensure that people will still want to listen to us. I want to be a metal John Lennon!? But for the band one of their personal highlights of the years was the first of many annual parties to celebrate their namesake saint's day: The Valentine's Day Massacre. Matt concludes: ?It was our party at the Mean Fiddler and it was immense, the crowd was just like one big wave and I had to take two seconds to take it all in before we started. It was like . . . wow! And if we've got one piece of advice for the UK's hottest fresh metal act (to paraphrase Roy Scheider in Jaws): you?re gonna need a bigger venue.
