OVERKILL Has Begun Writing Material For Follow-Up To 'White Devil Armory'

Metal Wani's editor in chief Owais "Vitek" Nabi recently conducted an interview with vocalist Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth of veteran New Jersey thrashers OVERKILL. You can now listen to the chat below.

Asked if OVERKILL has begun the songwriting process for the follow-up to 2014's "White Devil Armory" album, Blitz said: "We're in a phase right now where we write separately. I get bits of riffs, [OVERKILL bassist D.D. Verni] gets bits of vocal lines, I hear some stuff from [OVERKILL guitarist] Dave Linsk. It's always us going back and forth. And when we're out on the SYMPHONY X tour, there'll be a lot of [sessions in the] back lounge in the bus with a guitar and a little recorder. I mean, that's kind of the way we get it done."

He continued: "I really like writing on the road, because it gives it kind of a great energy — you transfer what happens from the stage right to the tape, to some degree, when you're demoing. So it's a really cool way to look at getting at an immediate type of an energy."

Regarding the musical direction of the new OVERKILL material, Blitz said: "Again not reinventing the wheel. I mean, OVERKILL is what OVERKILL is. And I think that somewhere in there lies the beauty of the band's principles — that we can be comfortable in the fact that we write this type of metal. I think the hardest thing, or the thing I think about the most, is that there's a fine line between repetition and style. So I don't like to necessarily repeat myself, but I don't like to lose my identity either."

OVERKILL's first worldwide release on Nuclear Blast is a special box set comprised of the band's entire back catalog, made available on September 18. Titled "Historikill: 1995 - 2007", it contains 11 OVERKILL albums on 13 CDs and a bonus CD (containing demos, remixes and an unreleased cover song) in digi sleeves.

OVERKILL and SYMPHONY X have joined forces for a North American tour in September/October. The 24-date co-headlining trek launched at The Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts on September 18, hits four Canadian cities, then wraps up with a very special night at Terminal 5 in New York City on October 17 — the first time in the bands' combined histories that they'll play a show together in their own backyard.

OVERKILL's latest album, "White Devil Armory", sold around 8,400 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 31 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD was released on July 22, 2014 in North America via eOne Music and on July 18, 2014 in Europe through Nuclear Blast Records. The effort was tracked at Gear Recording and was mixed by Greg Reely, who also worked on 2012's "The Electric Age".