Initially formed back in
1998 as a virtual shop window for guitar wunderkind Gus G Firewind
can legitimately class themselves as one of Europe's top power metal
bands. With the success of previous album Allegiance behind them
Firewind are about to unleash their new opus, The Premonition, on an
unsuspecting public and head back out onto the road for another mad
bout of touring. Darren Brushneen caught up with Gus for a quick
chat before the band played recently in Wolverhampton opening up for
Kamelot..
Your new
album, Premonition, is out on Monday (7th April) and
sounds a bit different to Allegiance, were the changes a natural
progression from the last album?
Gus G:
We don’t really think how to write.
Bob
Katsionis: That’s very true indeed. (laughs)
Gus G:
Yes if the naked man says so, (Katsionis walks past in jeans with a
towel on his head) anyway so we just usually write a bunch of songs
and then we see where the direction is with the new album and then
we start shaping the rest of the material like that. I think that
the Premonition, while it is a natural continuation of the
Allegiance album, it’s definitely much more heavier and it’s a lot
more guitar driven album. For me, when I hear it, it reminds me a
little bit of the rawness and heaviness of the first two albums,
which is kind of cool, but at the same time it combines all the
elements that we’ve done on the past four albums. So I think it is
the next step for Firewind.
With
Allegiance being a hit, and certainly getting you noticed more
in the UK,
did you find difficult to follow?
GG: Of
course it’s always difficult and a lot of people put pressure on
you, like the press or the label and all that. But the thing is
that I try not to stress about these things, I just want to stay
home, write my stuff, you know, write my riffs, my music. When I
feel that it’s good material in my hands I know that it’s something
good, you know. I don’t really worry about how will people accept
that now with the thing after Allegiance, because, for example
there’s not a song like ‘Falling To Pieces’ on this album. But why
should we make another copy, what’s the point, we have other songs
that are possible singles that are catchy in a different way.
Although
all of the band are based in Greece you recorded the new album in
Sweden.
GG: In
Sweden, yeah. We have been working with Fredrik Nordstrom for all
of our albums, he has mixed all of our previous albums, and this
time we just went there and did everything fresh.
So is it
difficult though being based in Greece?
GG: I
like to live in Greece, you know, it’s a nice country everything is
slow there, nice, and good weather. But when it comes to
working…it’s a nice place to be there and focus and create, but not
really work, there’s not much of a music industry there. While
there is a big metal scene there’s still nothing really happening
because a lot of bands, talented bands, they have a very hard time
getting out of the borders, more or less.
Moving
back to The Premonition, with more of a consistent line-up in place
did you find it easier to work on the album than perhaps it had been
in the past?
GG: Yes,
yes, it helps, you know, it gives the band more identity now.
So how
did the writing for Premonition end up being split?
GG: This
one, I mainly wrote the material but the other guys also
contributed. You know, Apollo does the lyrics, Mark helps with the
rhythm side of the music, Apollo wrote a song, Bob writes some
stuff, so it’s like a group effort.
As well
as the original songs you also chose to include an interesting cover
version on the album.
GG: Yes,
Maniac. (from the film Flashdance)
Who's
decision that?
GG: The
naked man that just passed by.
It
actually fits in well with the rest of the material.
GG: I
think so, I mean, to be honest we originally thought of it as a
B-side for the single that we were going to release, but then at the
end it just came out so good that we thought ‘fuck we’ve got to put
that on the album’, and that is what the label thought as well, so
why not?
Talking of singles you
released Mercenary Man first up and it managed to get quite high in
the Greek charts I believe.
GG: It’s
number five this week, it’s our first top five single.
Now that
the album is finished and all but released are you going to be
playing much from it on this tour?
GG: We
do yeah, but we also try, because our set list is kind of limited,
we want to include older songs so that everyone will be happy, more
or less.
The show
in London last night was the first gig of the European tour, how did
it go?
GG: Sold
out. I was a bit stressed, you know, first gig and everything, was
really like a small stage and not much space. But it was good,
people were really into it, and we got a good reception from the
crowd.
Before
that the last time you were in the UK was for Bloodstock.
GG:
Bloodstock, yeah, that was great, were you there?
I was, it
was very good.
GG: It
was a nice show. We didn’t really expect to have such a welcome not
with the band.
I think
that fans were concerned because Apollo wasn’t there.
GG:
Yeah, but Henning (Basse) did a very good job all things considered,
he’s a great frontman.
So are
there plans to return to the UK later in the year to further promote
Premonition?
GG: Yes,
we want to come back in September.
But
before that you're off to America with Arch Enemy I think.
GG:
Right now, in May yeah, after this tour, straight to America, then
back home straight to the festivals, and then a break in the summer
then we can start…yeah a UK tour and European tour.
Will it
be good touring with Arch Enemy, touring with a band you are friends
with?
GG: It’s
going to be good I think. Our music and Arch Enemy music is not
very very different, we have a lot of similarities, I noticed that
when I was learning the material when I was playing with them, I
mean of course if you were to take out the vocals, we have melodic,
they have death metal vocals but the music has a lot of the same
influences, from 70s and 80s hard rock.
Moving
away from the new album, you are also re-releasing Between Heaven
And Hell with some bonus material?
GG:
Between Heaven And Hell, yeah, there'll be three bonus songs,
unreleased demos, stuff like that as well as a new booklet, liner
notes, it’s a nice package.
So are there plans in the
works
to release the other older albums in a similar manner?
GG: I
don’t know, maybe we would like to do the second album, Burning
Earth. But mainly we did the debut now because it’s been out of
print for a couple of years now. The contract expired, we bought
the rights and we sold them to Century Media.
On top of
the new record and the touring you've also managed to upload a
guitar lesson onto the Internet, what's the response to that been
like?
GG: So
far one lesson, and it’s been getting some warm reviews. People are
digging it and in the future we will release more guitar lessons, so
it will be like videos of demos and explanations of riffs, licks,
melodies, all kinds of stuff from the new album that people might be
interested in.
Was it
your idea?
GG: It
was Century Media’s idea. I didn’t really feel comfortable with that
stuff, but I said I would go for it, it is good promotion. A lot of
people usually ask me ‘where’s the tabs for this song? Why don’t
you have like the music sheets?’ All that stuff, so why not put
some videos up there to show them.
So when
you were learning guitar ,who were your influences, who made you
want to play?
GG:
Originally I started playing guitar because of this guy, Peter
Frampton, this 70s guitar player. My father had bought this vinyl
home with this song called ‘Do You Feel Like We Do’, and he had this
improvisation of a talk box effect, meaning the guitar could talk,
and I was like ‘fuck man I want a guitar myself’. But then of
course I was influenced by all the greats, I guess, Tony Iommi,
Michael Schenker, Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Gary Moore, stuff
like that, you know, Uli Jon Roth, big heroes.
At the
start of Firewind you were involved with various other bands, Dream
Evil for one, are there any current side projects on the go or is
all your attention now on Firewind?
GG:
Yeah, for the past 2-3 years, yes.
Is that
because Firewind are getting more successful?
GG: I
wanted to concentrate on Firewind more, you know, and make it bigger
because I was hating the fact that I was putting the band to one
side for the rest of the other bands. I thought that it’s time to
really do something now, otherwise it’s never going to happen.
That’s when things started to happen with Allegiance.
Finally
to wrap things up, is there anything else you would like to add?
GG:
Thanks for the interview and I hope we come back soon and play here
in September. We should get some dates pretty soon.
Firewind's new album, The
Premonition, is out now via Century Media. You can check out the HRH
review via
this link and
to find out more about the band you can visit their official website
@
www.firewind.gr
Darren Brushneen
