Wales’ biggest ever heavy music export Bullet For My Valentine must really love Australia. No doubt there’s just as strong an element of Australia loving Bullet For My Valentine in return.
Wales’ biggest ever heavy music export Bullet For My Valentine must really love Australia. No doubt there’s just as strong an element of Australia loving Bullet For My Valentine in return. They were here in September last year for a series of sold out and critically extremely well-received headline shows. Now, towards the end of February, they’re back, this time as one of the feature acts on the bill of the mighty Soundwave Festival, alongside such luminaries as Iron Maiden (who are massive heroes of theirs), Dimmu Borgir, Sevendust, Slayer, 36 Crazyfists, Slash and many, many more. And indeed, you really would have to seriously love a country that requires approximately 30 hours on a plane to get to.
BFMV’s drummer Michael Thomas agrees whole heartedly about his band’s love affair with our country, from his home in Bridgend in Wales, on some rare time off from their rigorous touring schedule (although the phone line is quite awful).
"Yeah, we love coming down to Australia," he states with conviction, "we’ll go there whenever we get the chance. And Soundwave is the time we’ll get to come down in the summertime. It’s a really nice place to go and the people are great. It’s the place we think the people are closest to our home country. Australian people love their beer and rock music too. It’s great!" he grins.
"I’m really excited about the lineup this year," Thomas enthuses, regarding the festival, "it’s going to be good. We love ‘Maiden and we’re good friends with Slayer. And ‘Maiden are real idols of ours, of course."
Beyond the Australian tour for Soundwave the BFMV touring machine cranks into high gear for 2011, and taking them all over the globe once again, on the back of their highly critically and commercially successful latest album Fever, which has been out for over a year now. "Yeah we’re going to Japan for a few shows after Australia," Thomas explains, "then I think we’re heading over to America, then summer festivals in Europe, and then I think we’re at the end of the album cycle. So we’ll start writing again. There’s no new material as yet, we’ll start on that once we finish the tour.
"I think it’s the best album we’ve done so far," he muses on Fever, "we’ve been playing it non-stop for a year now, and it’s been nice to have a break from it for a while… Then we’ll get back into it in Australia for our first shows of the year."
BFMV’s progress over their 13 years of existence has been such that they’re currently considered one of the biggest heavy bands on the planet, another point that Thomas finds himself enthusiastically acknowledging. "Yeah!" he admits, "we’re really proud to be flying the flag of British metal around the world, and in the next ten years we hope to be one of the absolute front-runners of the scene. But we’re really happy now with where things are at.
"Time just goes so quick," he says, regarding their 13 years together as a band, "but we just want to say a big thank you, really, to all our fans down in Australia. We’re very happy to be coming back again, and we’ll keep coming back as long as you guys keep wanting us down there!"
With the mutual love affair that appears to be going on between band and country at the moment, only the foolhardy would bet against this happening many more times before this great Welsh quartet are done.
BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE play SOUNDWAVE at the Melbourne Showgrounds this Friday March 4 – alongside Iron Maiden, Slayer, Stonesour, Slash, Rob Zombie and heaps more. It’s sold out. Fever is out now through Sony.
