Bullet For My Valentine: Carnage Comes to Fargo

By Jeannette Madden
Staff Writer

The Welsh metalcore group Bullet For My Valentine (BFMV) are bringing their muscular riffs and lacerating vocals to the Venue at the Hub on Thursday, October 14, in support of their third full length release ‘Fever’. According to Outburn Magazine, “Critics be damned” is what the BFMV boys stress when talking about Fever, and when I talked to Padge [Michael Paget], guitarist for the band, he was confident that Fever is their best album yet.

High Plains Reader: Where are you?

Padge: We’re at Kansas at the moment. We arrived yesterday for our American tour so it should be fun.

HPR: Shall we talk about your new album ‘Fever’?

Padge: Yeah, yeah, no worries.

HPR: Can you tell me how it was different than ‘Scream Aim Fire,’ your second album?

Padge: I think this whole album has a better collection of songs on there. We just wanted to write good songs and I think on this album we’ve written our best selection so far so for our fans the easier the song is to get the better, you know.

HPR: How was it working with Don Gilmore (Linkin Park, Good Charlotte)?

Padge: It was really cool. It was very different for us initially because we’re used to working with Colin [Richardson] as our producer up until this album and to find some guy that we liked and kind of stuck with him and put out an EP and two albums. But then we wanted to try something different so it’s been a little out of our comfort zone, I guess. But then we got Don and he helped us create one of our best albums to date, so…

HPR: Was it your choice to go with a different producer or did that just kind of happen.

Padge: There were a few things. We had suggestions from the label and Don actually came forward to do the record. He volunteered to do it and then there was a meeting held and we looked at his resume and we gave it a go. We’d give it a try and see how it goes and fortunately it went really well.

HPR: Can you give me a history of Bullet For My Valentine?

Padge: Let’s see. We’re all pretty much school friends and we’ve known each other since young ages. We were in the playroom together when we were three years old. We’re all from the same area, we all went to school together. We’ve been in this band together for well over ten years now so we’re just like four brothers on the road together.

HPR: How about a rundown of everyone in the band.

Padge: Well, Moose [Michael Thomas] is our drummer. He started drumming years ago after finally realizing that he wasn’t a singer. I sold my drum kit to him so he started drums and I picked up the guitar. Back then, the band was called Jeff Killed John and the guys asked me to join them and it’s been twelve, thirteen years in that band now, which turned in to Bullet For My Valentine when we brought Jay [Jason James] in on the bass.
Yes, it’s been a long time together.

HPR: What’s your writing process?

Padge: There has to be some sort of ideas or riffs kicking about. And then we normally go into like a rehearsal room and put the riffs together as a band and then we try to perfect it in the studio. Matt [Matthew Tuck] has to sing over the top of them and you know, he works the way it suits the way he works, which is intangible.

HPR: And you recorded Fever both in Los Angeles and Europe – is that correct?

Padge: Yeah, we went to a studio in Malibu and recorded there and then we went back home to Wales and finished recording the album back in Wales. It’s always nice to get out of the country and start working with no sorts of distractions and stuff and then it’s always nice to come back home and finish off.

HPR: Does the band have a favorite place to play?

Padge: No, but there was a studio that we keep going back to in North England. It’s called Chapel Studios and that’s where we recorded Poison and our EP so we went back up there to see if that could inspire anything and it did. We came away from there with about fie or six tracks so it was a good session up there. That was pretty cool.

HPR: Do you have a favorite song on Fever?

Padge: I don’t really know. I like a lot of them. They’ve all got something different, which sounds good to have on an album. When playing them at the moment it’s got to be Fever because I think that that has a lot of action going and we just finished shooting the video. It’s a pretty cool song.

HPR: Tell me about your live show.

Padge: There’s always a lot of energy at a Bullet show. We always encourage some sort of carnage from the fans as well, get a pit going as much as you can, you know. There have been a few things creeping in from our previous Australian shows which were slightly bigger scale than the ones that we’re going to do in America but we’ll see how it goes. We will wait and see how much time we have.

HPR: Anything you want to tell Fargo about the show or about you?

Padge: Just come out and see us, you know? We’ll be playing a lot of songs off of our new album and normally, everyone has a good time, including us on stage. It’s a good tour, there’re a lot of good bands and that’s it!

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If You Go

What: BFMV, Escape The Fate, Black Tide, Drive A
Where: The Venue at The Hub
When: Thurs, Oct 14, 5:30pm
How Much: $33.50, all ages.
Info: 701.232.6767, 701.205.3182