Interview with Gavin Ward, guitarist. Conducted by Bill Zebub.
PRONUNCIATION KEY: Read the guest's answers in a Cockney accent to capture the feel of the discussion.
Hast thou ever heard of Necropolis Records?
It sounds familiar. But no, not really.
That would nullify the rumor that I heard. The label president is named Paul. But he goes by the infernal name Typhon. They were thinking of picking up Bolt Thrower. But the people in the band referred to him as Thai Food. No. We'd never heard of him. They didn't put in a bid for Bolt Thrower. But I doubt they would've been able to afford it.
And what about Red Stream Records?
Never heard of them.
According to this particular rumor, there was a big event in England... we don't know about any sort of music festivals... for all we know, the metal scene might be dead in England...
Pretty dead.
But Pat, from Red Stream, was visiting, and he is forced to care for this donkey named Pierre. Otherwise, he is cut out of the will. At this festival, one of the members of the band was finished with chewing gum, and threw the chewing gum over his back... And the chewing gum was stuck to the fur of the donkey. It was quite an ordeal to get the gum out of the donkey's coat, which could have destroyed Pat's chances of receiving an inheritance. That is the reason that thou art not on Red Stream. I think that's pretty preposterous, and I do not believe that it is true.
I don't even know what you're on about! To be honest, we haven't played England in four or five years. I have no idea what's happening over here... who's doing what it's not something that's ever concerned us. We don't play England.
Getting back to Necropolis not being able to afford thee... is Bolt Thrower really that great of a commodity for a label?
It depends probably who you are and how you look at it. Necropolis, by the sounds of it... I've never heard of them. So, there's a good chance it's a small label.
Thy album, Realm of Chaos, was based on the Warhammer 40k role-playing system.
I'd say, loosely. And I do mean loosely. What happened is, they sort of wanted a concept album around their stuff. But, at the end of the day, we basically do what we want to. Although it was loosely based around it, it wasn't really, like. With Games Workshop, they probably wanted too many fingers in the pie. They wrote a lot of lyrics for us. Obviously then, none of them ever got used. Basically, in the end, we sort of had to stop going with them because everything was too restrictive. We had to pay again. We paid a lot of money for the Realms of Chaos cover. And, then, licensing fee in every other country, we paid for. So although we were really happy with the cover and everything else, a company like that really doesn't probably know a lot about our music.
Art the members of the band into fantasy role-playing?
No. In the past, we've played. But no, not as an issue, at this point I played some 40k and stuff like that, and I do paint figures now and again, like. But more of a sort of personal satisfaction than actually role-playing.
I know Metal Blade wanted it to be quiet that David Ingram was in the band because people might buy the new album thinking that it's his voice. But it's actually the original Bolt Thrower lineup.
Yep... other than the drummer. He wasn't good enough anymore. What happened with Dave is, we'd been interested in Dave for a long time. But Benediction are personal friends of ours. You don't shit on your friends, basically. So we waited til he left Benediction before we snapped him up. We had to wait for him to come onto the transfer market but we had been interested. And probably a year and a half ago we played a big festival over in Germany with him when we had actually kicked Drunen out and Dave fitted in exceptionally well.
How important is long hair in a performing death metal band?
We don't dress up to go on stage. What we walk on stage is what we've walked around in all day. There is no certain image. You've just got to be 110% dedicated, and totally loyal. That's what we ask for. Not what you look like.
The reason I ask that is...
Because you probably heard that Drunen was kicked out because his hair had fallen out.
Well... (I lose my composure)
Drunen was kicked out because he was a slacker. His hair was falling out. He told us about it. And we told him that we don't really give a shit. Whatever he wants... long hair, short hair, no hair... nobody gives a shit. You just have to be 100% loyal. And we thought, at that time, that he was slacking. And he tried to, basically, pull the two festivals, which made him unreliable. And six months later he wanted to roll in to do Mercenary. We were unsure of what he'd've been like in the studio anyway, as he actually hadn't recorded with us. I know, in the past, probably on the Asphyx albums and Pestilence albums, they're all one-takes specials. He sings them, that’s it. We don't work like that.
I have heard that he was sick and his hair felt out.
It's called Alopecia. Some of our athletes have had it in England. One of our swimmers had it. Sometimes your hair falls out. And sometimes it grows back. And sometimes you lose all your bodily hair. It can grow back completely. He told us about it and was worried of the way he looked, that he didn't have long hair. He didn't want to go on stage, I think the support of Bolt Thrower (ed. Support = fans) are a bit more open-minded than that. To me, it was crap. I appreciate, OK, he's been a metal kid all of his life. He's had long hair. But who gives a shit, like? It's down to music, really.
I guess a swimmer would want to have that disease because, don't they cut their hair anyway, to make themselves more aquadynamic?
Exactly! I'm sure it helped the swimmer, because he was really good. I said, for us, there is no enforced image, There never was. For us, it's quite weird because we’ve been through a few members, and it looks like we're ass-holes... and probably, in some ways, we are... But it's disheartening to see a half-assed member in our band... three of us living It for probably 13-14 years, and see someone slacking or being half-assed about It when you live for it, is disheartening. And if that happens, we purge that member. We have to. For me, having a crappy member is like a cancer. If you don't cut it out, it might spread.
Hast thou ever heard of the band Crematory?
I've heard of the name, but nothing else, like, I haven't really heard any of their music. I've probably seen their name on something. Usually, if it's got a -tory on it, I don't bother listening to it.
For years, people were led to believe that there was a woman playing the keyboards. But with the release of videos, it was determined that it’s actually a very faggy-looking guy.
Who's this, in Crematory?
I don't know the name of the person because it's a fallen musician... no one wants to admit that this is an actual guy--everyone was thinking, "Who is that chick in Crematory?"
He looks good.
For years, people were under the impression that Joe, thy bass player, was a dude. But it's actually a manly chick. How dost thou react to that?
A manly chick?
Yes.
No! For me... she's my girlfriend, like.
That's why I asked.
No, I wouldn't have thought so. But I wouldn't say manly. But I'd say strong. But I think you have to be, to be in the band.
Didn't that cause quite a stir, on a serious note, to have a female in a death metal band?
Not really. You get your sort of thrill value. But in the end, she's basically been accepted for being a good bass player, which is obviously the most important thing. I don’t even think about it male/female. It’s whoever can play the shit good, isn't it?
Is Bolt Thrower what the black metal scene considers to be life metal?
I don't know.
That was their little witticism. :
It was a joke, was it? I don't know. For me, black metal, although I quite like some of the idea of it because it sort of reminds me of punk, underground and stuff like that... a lot of this black metal is just chicken-shit recordings... $10 specials, really. There’s not a lot of good black metal around at all, like. So them thinking it’s (ed - death metal) not extreme.. I don't what they think is extreme. Obviously wearing girly make up is an extreme to us. I prefer girls with make-up on, personally. And Halloween's gone.
Has Bolt Thrower ever played a Scandinavian country?
Yeah, in the past.
And Bolt Thrower was never contacted by the supposed Inner Circle of Norway?
No, we read bits about the black metal scene over there, and one of them stabbing another one 49 times, like.
In his underwear.
We call that sloppy, in England. You only need to stab them once. 49 times... what was it, a toothpick? He probably bled to death.
It was just a silly event. Wasn't Kerrang the magazine that popularized the whole Scandinavian scene in the first place?
I don't know. It's not something we're really interested in. We don't have any association with Kerrang. We call It Kerap. For us, it's more of a mainstream magazine. Really, the only magazine in England, and probably some European countries, is Terrorizer. It’s the only one that really handles the extreme stuff, Kerrang looks at trends, what's coming in, what’s going out. And Metal Hammer... we call it Rubber Mallet in England. As far as mainstream mags go, we usually forget them, like. They're just gonna make you look like dick-heads.
Yeah, the writer writes an entire paragraph about how he feels, and then he only quotes three of your words, totally out of context.
Yeah. True enough. We've had an album review in Kerrang; with a question mark in it as well, where they couldn't work out whether it was killer or if it was shit. That sort of says it all to me.
Hast thou been mis-quoted dangerously, in the past?
Well, you always do. By the end of the day, you just tell them a good yarn, don't you? And it don't matter if anything comes out... you just go, Oh, I got mis-quoted. It's not really sort of what you say. It's how many pages you get.