BOLT THROWER

Hello there. Vassilis Mazaris here from the Greek website www.metalzone.gr How are you? First of all, I want you to tell me about the upcoming album. (Release date, title, etc).
\r\nHey Vassilis, how’s it going? I’m good, thanks for asking! Well, the new album is called ’Those Once Loyal’ and it will be released on Metal Blade Records on November 14th.
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\r\nWould you mind giving us a brief description of what Bolt Throwers writing process is like?
\r\nWell, it varies from album to album. But with this album, the writing started about 2 years ago. Baz is the main riff-writer and he writes a bunch of riffs either alone or with myself and Gav and we all go through them to pick the best ones and start work on the song structures. We ended up with over 30 songs and about 80 spare riffs, so it took quite a lot of filtering down to the 10 songs we finally ended up with. The lyrics were co-written by Karl and Gav and then the odd line or placement change was done by the whole band. So, it’s pretty much a team effort, and that’s usually why it takes so long!!
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\r\nDo you have any expectations concerning the new album?

\r\nNot really. It’s just Bolt Thrower album no. 8 to us. Of course, we’ve put our heart and soul into it and to us it’s a great album. But we’ve no expectations sales-wise, and the album still sounds like Bolt Thrower. Basically, if you like BT you’ll probably like the new album, if you don’t then you probably won’t. It’s as simple as that..
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\r\nAs a band, did you reached the expectations you had back then, when you first started?
\r\nI don’t think we ever really had any expectations back then, and we don’t really have any now. We just do our own thing, in our own way. When you’re in a band, nothing is guaranteed, you can’t make people like you, buy your records or come to your shows. We still have the same ideals as when we started out, and it’s very rewarding to know that we’re still here without compromising our sound or beliefs.
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\r\nAs it is known, Warmaster album was the last one using these "Games Workshop" kind of covers. Although, we saw that Honour - Valour - Pride had a cover like these.That means that you want to go back again? What will happen with the artwork of the new album?
\r\nWe’re all big fans of the GW-style artwork and it is a part of the band’s history, but we never wanted it to be on every album, that’s why we had the IVth Crusade and ...For Victory sleeves later on. With HVP, we decided it was time for another battle scene cover, and we asked Jan Meininghaus to do it as he was a big fan of the ’Realm of Chaos’ artwork. I think he did a killer job, and the result was great, but now it’s time to get away from that style again. The new cover is very different, just what we wanted, it’s of a war memorial in London and it’s very epic in it’s own way. Not the usual BT cover, but that was the idea..
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\r\nYou are in the scene almost 20 years. You are a band with character and for sure, you are the leaders of Death Metal. Despite the fact, you remind me an underground band for many reasons and you seem that you don’t care much about the sellings etc. Is that true? If yes, why?
\r\nYes, that is very true. We still see ourselves as an underground band. We all come from a punk background where there are no egos, no desire for fame or fortune and we also do a lot of the business outside the band ourselves. It is also very important to us that we don’t change our sound, many of the bands we grew up listening to changed for the worse to gain a wider audience and that is something we all vowed never to do from day one. A lot of people can’t understand why we don’t try to be bigger, but being around for 20 years is quite an achievement to us already!
\r\n7. If you meet someone who has not heard anything at all of your music, how would you describe it? Which album would you recommend him / her to start with and why?
\r\nI would say it’s just very heavy music, with extreme vocals. I don’t like to catagorise our music, to us it’s just Bolt Thrower, the same music we were playing when we started. And I would probably recommend something like ’IVth Crusade’ or ’...For Victory’, both a bit more easy-listening than say ’Warmaster’ or ’Realm of Chaos’.. ? Or maybe even ’Those Once Loyal’..
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\r\nNow let me ask you a question that haunts my mind for years now.. Why did you choose to tour only in January and why it’s possible to find official Bolt Thrower merchandise only at the shows?
\r\nThe January tour thing started way back in 1990 with the Autopsy, Pestilence tour. It seemed a pretty good time of the year to tour, not too many other tours going on, and it was something to look forward to after the Xmas/New Year holidays. It just worked that way from then on, but nowadays a lot more bands are touring in January. I guess it’s a pretty stupid way of doing things - recording in the summer, touring in the winter! haha.. It would be strange to change it now, it’s kind of tradition.
\r\nWe only sell merchandise at our shows because we like to make sure we keep the prices low and also stop bootleggers. Our shirts are only available at our shows, so we know that if they’re being sold anywhere else then they’re obviously unofficial. Now we have a website, we plan to set up a webstore sometime in the future, then hopefully all the BT fans can get hold of our merchandise.
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\r\nAs I saw, there is a tour for the promotion of the new album. I was dissapointed when I saw that Greece is not in the tour. Is there a chance to see you live here some time?
\r\nWe are in contact with a few Greek promoters, so we hope to do one or two shows early next year. It will be our first visit to Greece so we’re really looking forward to it.
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\r\nThanks a lot for the interview! Best Regards, and the final words belongs to you.

\r\nNo problem at all. Thanks to you and all the Greek Bolt Thrower fans. We hope to see you all soon. Check out the new website http://www.boltthrower.com for all the latest band news. Thanks for your support!
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\r\nVassilis Mazaris\r\n

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