BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE Guitarist On New CD: 'We Didn't Want To Change Direction Too Much'

Graham Finney of Planet-Loud.com recently conducted an interview with BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE guitarist Michael "Padge" Paget. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Planet-Loud.com: What did you want to achieve with the album?

Paget: "We didn't want to change direction too much from the last record. I think the label maybe wanted us to just mellow it out a bit more in parts so we could get more radio play but we put our foot as we always wanted to make a metal record anyway. May be we've been kind of limited in the past and we're now better with our instruments so I think we just wanted to put out what came naturally."

Planet-Loud.com: You mentioned improving as players. Does that help touring with the likes of METALLICA, IRON MAIDEN and GUNS N' ROSES?

Paget: "Yeah, touring especially but that's not just with the big bands because getting out and playing to anybody is a totally different to playing your bedroom when you're out on stage and the amps are cranking. Every note matters or you start sounding like a dick."

Planet-Loud.com: What have you learned from touring with the bigger bands?

Paget: "Obviously how to cope with the bigger stages and crowds but, as a band, we kind of go out and treat every gig the same, you know? To be honest, the bigger the gig, the easier they get because you can't see all the people because they go so far back. In smaller gigs the kids are all crushed in and they're right up against you."

Planet-Loud.com: Going back to the last record, did the success it had worldwide affect the way you went about writing "Scream Aim Fire"?

Paget: "I suppose in the sense that we didn't want to change much of the formula — we wanted to stick as true to "The Poison" as we could on this record and not stray too much away from it. I think when bands make a drastic change away from a sound fans know these days, people are really quick to shoot it down. We definitely didn't want to stray too far away from what people knew as BULLET."

Planet-Loud.com: Did much of the old material stay or is it all new material?

Paget: "We were still on tour for the last run of "The Poison" and we wrote a bunch of songs but, when we wrote "Scream Aim Fire" in September, we scrapped those earlier songs and just went with the vibe of "Scream". We kinda found our feet and the road we wanted to go do with the album. Once we'd nailed that, we were away then and we wrote six songs in a week and they all made the album which is a big chunk of it done."

Planet-Loud.com: You mentioned writing a song about the amount of touring you do as a band. Now your profile has grown that is only going to grow isn't it?

Paget: "You know what? This time around I'm finding it really hard because I'm going away in two weeks and I think we're going to be out for like five months straight without coming home. I think we'll only have a couple of days here before we go out for months on end so, yeah, it is tough because you know that, in a year, you're only going to get home for like a week. It's like this is the coolest job in the world but you have to sacrifice everything and that is the hardest mental thing to do."

Planet-Loud.com: You've got a massive profile in the UK by now, what about in the States?

Paget: "The American side of things are really hyping up the new record over there. We haven't been over there since like spring last year but we're going over at the end of February so we'll have to see what happens when we get out there."

Planet-Loud.com: Is it important for you to crack America?

Paget: "As equally as important as anywhere else I think but, as America is so big, it is tough because we have to spend a lot of time there because, unlike the UK, you can't travel around America in a week."

Read the entire interview at Planet-Loud.com.