Band survives booing of tough metal fans

The band is likely to attain its lofty goals.
By JOHN BENSON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Who says metal doesn't eat its young?
A recent stateside Guns N' Roses concert found the audience booing opener Eagles of Death Metal with Axl Rose asking later that same evening if they enjoyed the "pigeons of [expletive] metal?" The supporting band was subsequently kicked off the remaining tour dates.
Not only is this incident not isolated but it seems to be happening more frequently with fledgling Welsh act Bullet for My Valentine experiencing a rough few dates last year when it opened for Guns N' Roses and then Iron Maiden.
Mind you, Bullet for My Valentine is one of the more important metal acts to emerge from the U.K. in the past few decades. Add in the fact that the band members look up to both Guns N' Roses and Maiden and, well, it made for an interesting few weeks.
"When we got offered those [gigs], we didn't even think, we were just like, 'Yeah, we'll do it' because it was such an honor," said drummer Michael "Moose" Thomas, calling from his home in Bridgend, South Wales.
"But as a band, you just see the first six to 10 rows and they're all giving you the finger. It was quite distracting, and they were shouting and abusive."
Lofty goals
Though Thomas has no answer as to why metal turns on its own, he's confident Bullet for My Valentine will come out victorious as it vies for control over the metal universe.
Not only are these goals lofty, but they're definitely attainable with the act's 2006 debut album, "The Poison," twisting heavy riffs and guttural screaming into a new millennium din that has increasingly attracted a larger audience.
The planets seem to be truly lining up for this band with the upcoming release of its highly anticipated sophomore effort later this year. While early on the press pigeonholed the quartet as a metalcore act -- which is just a backhanded way of bestowing the dreaded emo tag -- Thomas believes in-your-face metal is the only label that fits the upcoming untitled album. Fans can expect to hear new tracks "Wake the Demon" and "Scream, Aim and Fire" when the band returns to Cleveland for an April 24 date at the House of Blues.
"I think the heavier songs are heavier but (singer Matthew) Tuck's vocals are more melodic," Thomas said. "On the last record, you had 'Tears Don't Fall' and 'All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me),' so there are a couple of tracks on there like that. We just want to take a step up, and there will be like screaming vocals on the record but we're going to try to make it more of a classic record than the last one."
How he feels
The notion of making a classic album in the vein of Iron Maiden's "Somewhere in Time" or Judas Priest's "British Steel" is something the members of Bullet for My Valentine take very seriously. In fact, Thomas feels as though it's his birthright.
Considering three decades have passed since the emergence of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene, which brought Maiden and Priest to the masses, Thomas feels as though it's about time a new U.K. metal band was taken seriously.
"There's no one flying the flag for British metal at the moment, and we need to keep this thing alive," Thomas said. "Other countries are into metal, but this is where it came from, so it's like we need to keep this torch burning. It's about time a new British heavy metal [act] took the world by storm."
The only question remaining is whether Bullet for My Valentine is up to the task.