9evnts.com
Everyone predicted it. The metal press, the music industry and especially the gig going kids, they 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 was 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 and the Kerrang! Day Of Rock and thats before we even mention rocking Reading festival, video shoots in Slovenian caves, making a splash in Japan and preparing for their first US tour. 2006 has allowed that progress to continue with the band headlining the sold-out UK Kerrang! XXV tour, seen a second Kerrang cover, a second Metal Hammer cover, a Rock Sound cover AND a Big Cheese cover, all in the space of 4 months. This is before we even start with the MTV2 A-listed track and top 30 hit All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me), sold out tours in Germany and Japan and a two month US stint with Rob Zombie and Lacuna Coil. 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, 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. Its keeping our metal roots; keeping all of the aggressiveness and brutality that weve 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 cant fail! The debut album The Poison, released October 3rd 2005, obviously met the demands of the fans, going straight to number one in the rock charts, with four Bullets. It has not left the rock top ten since. 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. Wed 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 Paget. If we dont watch Matt, adds Manga haired bass monster Jason Jay James, thats what the new album will end up being called.
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