Interview mit E, Chewy, Carlos von Bludgeon

Ein Interview von Odin vom 18.12.2002 (14683 mal gelesen)
Nat met Bludgeon on tour with Manowar and chatted with E (bass, vocals), Chewy (drums) and Carlos (lead guitar, vocals) about the tour and their first album.

 (while waiting for the arrival of Chewy and Carlos) So you are the man called 'a monster on the bass' by Joey DeMaio?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Yeah, that's right, big compliment for me!

 You did a lot of interviews during the tour?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Well, in some cities there wasn't any, but in some there was like... five.

 Have you ever been to Germany before? Do you like it?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   It's our first time, yes, I love it! It's cool. The crowds have been very cool, too.

 That's one question already; how have you been received by the fans?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Pretty good, believe it or not! Because it's our first album, I was kind of sceptical. It was nothing like we expected it, I thought they would be screaming 'Manowar!' the whole time and 'buhing' us, but hell no, that didn't happen. Almost every night we got a nice pit in the front going on. The only time we really didn't have a pit was in France... I don't know, but I think everybody in that crowd there was older... Chewy and Carlos finally drop in. Some fun is made of my nickname 'Nat': 'That's Carlos - Nat' - 'Hi!' - 'Nat?' - 'Nat.' - 'met Nat' - 'Natnat' - 'This is Chewy, drummer' - 'Hi' - 'Natnatnatnat...'. ;-) (Chewy) Did you guys start already? (Eric) Oh, we're just bullshitin'. (Chewy) I think Mark (Duca, guitar and vocals) is not coming, so we can just start off.

 Okay. Most of the fans didn't know you before, but they liked your live appearance.

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Yeah, they did. At first they had no idea who we were, all they came to see Manowar and wondered 'what the hell is that band?', but so far it's been really good and they like it. We sold a lot of CDs and merchandise so...

 How long have you been in the business before you did your fist record now?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Well, we've been a band for 10 years. But Carlos has just been in the band for two and a half, maybe three years. But this is our first album, it took a long time, you know, to get a record out for us.

 You did a lot of demos and sent them out to record companies?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   We did demos before, but we never sent them out. (laughs) We just gave them out to our friends and stuff, we never really sent them to record companies or anything like that.

 So how have you been discovered then as a cool band?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Joey was out in Chicago and heard us on a radio station. He knew the discjokey of the radio station, who then gave him our CD and he called me up and said that he loved our music and he wanted us to be the first band to be signed on his record label. Two weeks after that phonecall he came down to our house and watched us playing in our living room and well, the rest is history, here we are! (laughs)

 Do you still live together in one house?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   At the particular time we moved out from where we were, but when we get back, we go back to one house, jam together...

 Eric already told me it's the first time for you to be in Germany - do you like it as well?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Yeah, it's real good. The people like music like Joey was telling us 'when we go out, we go over to Europe, because there the people really appreciate music a lot, not like in the US, where people like suck music. In Europe they listen to everything so that's the crowd you want!'. And when we get out here in front of 6000 Manowar fans they scream for you and beat each other up - that's great!

 What about touring itself, do you like it? Is it hard for you to be on tour?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   We heard before that it would be hard, but coming out with Joey especially being our producer, he makes things pretty easy for us, but I mean we still have to get up there and get ready for the soundcheck and do all that stuff. We have problems just like anybody else with gear going out and stuff like that. It's a pretty good experience playing some days in a row, much better with all the crowds and so on.

 But you don't see much of the countries during the tour, I believe.

E, Chewy, Carlos:   We had some days off here and there. When we get a day off, we look around and check the place out, but we do a lot of traveling. Besides getting off, we don't speak any 'Deutsch' or any of the languages where we came through. It's really hard for us, you can't even go to McDonalds and get a BigMac with no onions, because they don't know what onions are... (laughing) So it's good to get out and look around, but it's really hard for us to communicate.

 Do you think your musical style may change due to the influence of the tour or at all?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Oh, it's not like our next record will sound like Manowar, you know. It's going to be fucking heavy as fuck just like our other one, probably even heavier than that.

 So you have new songs already for the next album?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Yeah.

 Plans for the recording?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Yeah, soon. Early next year, maybe in spring. April or so. Hopefully for a summer release. We'll actually be coming back on another tour in March here, but a club tour. And when we're done with that, we'll record the next album.

 And maybe play the summer festivals?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Oh yeah, we want to play all the summer festivals.

 Do you have any political or social intensions with your music or is it just for the fun of it?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   (lot of impossible to understand uttering) Well, we don't 'crucify the priest', it's just like all for, you know, metal. Heavy Metal. Lot of times we only write music, we write the music and then come back with lyrics and just the style of music that we play - got to write lyrics that fit on that, I mean morbid and whether it's about political death or dying and satan or whatever it is, basically you're singing about morbid stuff everytime. We just write music which is so fast that it is most likely not to be a love song... Crucify the priest is just a single song, you know, and they decided to name the album after it.

 What are your musical influences, what do you listen to?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   We listen to a lot of different styles of music. From metal like Slayer, early Metallica, Manowar and stuff like that - we all like the good old stuff.

 So you don't have sharp named idols like Slayer or so?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Well, Slayer would be one of the biggest. Sepultura and others, but to name one it would be probably Slayer for the whole band.

 Did you see a lot of girls during the tour or are they all booked by Manowar?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   (laughing ... Carlos reveales about having his first something on this tour - too much laughter to get it, sorry.) Well, almost in any place we went to we met a lot of girls in the locker room - Carlos and Joey are very close! (laughing)

 How did Manowar treat you on tour?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Oh, they treat us like musicians, really respectful. Especially with Joey who makes us feel like home. And Scott, Scott was very nice, too. He helped us with the drums for the album already. We triggered and he showed me how to use everything and while we were recording he and Joey and some of their sound guys stayed in town and in our house helping us throughout the recordings. Scott and Joey are very close to us. And Eric - I talked to him more than ever on this tour, really nice guy. Karl is nice too, but he doesn't say much, he's the quiet guy.

 In Cologne there was that German comedian (Stefan Raab) coming up on the stage ... (interruption by a guy looking for a room to use for upcoming TV-interviews) ... did you see that? What do you think about it?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Oh yeah, we've seen the whole thing. It's cool. I mean the guy has enough balls to put Manowar on his show a lot of people going to see that so that guy cannot be that bad. At first it did seem like a lot of people didn't like him, but by the time he ended that show - 'cause he played that song with Manowar - the people loved it! The place was going crazy, was one of the best shows there in Cologne.

 Are there any shows in the United States where metal bands appear on television?

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Yeah, some like Jay Leno, which is probably the best one. Jan Stuart (?) had Slayer on. Sometimes people have some really heavy surprising acts and you see Slipknot or Slayer that's kind of weird.

 Well, I'm done with my questions by now. If you have anything else to tell us, go ahead.

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Oh, no, just thank you for your time.

 No problem, it was fun indeed.

E, Chewy, Carlos:   Thanks!

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