[IMGLEFT]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v661/brians_barbie/alestorminterview.jpg[/IMGLEFT]By Ellie McGee
Ultimate Metal's resident folk metal obsessive caught up with Alestorm's Chris Bowes at a rather interesting gig in the depths of Wolverhampton's Slade Rooms. Apparently they're getting into time travel, and recruiting Sean Connery for the new album. Curiouser and curiouser.
Chris Bowes; vocals and keytar
So hows the rocknroll lifestyle going?
Aye its alright. Its been a nice tour, Sabaton are all really nice guys, all very professional, but its all so laidback. Everything just happens smoothly and we just do our thing and party all night long.
How different is it to touring with bands like Turisas?
That was a long time ago when we did that! Back then in 2008 we toured with them in the UK and we were just treated like shit. We wouldve considered a room like this [tiny dressing room, with sofa and fridge] to be the lap of luxury.
You were out in the corridor were you?
Yeah! Were actually allowed on the tourbus now, so we get to get some sleep every night, so yeah its been nice. Nice change going up in the world!
Youve done three days of the UK leg so far, but its a rather long tour
Weve been on the road since the 24th of September, and were not gonna go home until the 28th of November, so its a bit of a long tour.
There was a point where you seemed to tour all the time, have you had a break?
Last year we did about a million tours, which was quite good, but this year we kinda did nothing a couple of gigs here and there, and it gets quite boring. People arent supposed to have nine months of the year off, its soul-destroying really. Especially when youre not particularly rich, I mean we live off this band but only just - we can afford to pay our rent, pay the bills and eat something, but when youve got nine months of free time and no money to spend, what the hell do you do? Life gets a bit dull, so its nice to back on the road for a change.
Hows the new album coming along?
Yeah, weve pretty much finished writing it, theres a couple of songs need finishing. Gonna go in the studio starting 3rd of January in Lubeck in Germany, with the same guy who produced our last album because he was good. Then just make a record, have a little
party, then it hopefully comes out at the end of April.
Do you know what its going to be called yet?
Thats the only thing we dont know! Weve got all the song titles, all that nonsense, but we cant actually think of anything to call the album yet. None of the song titles seem right, they just dont jump out at you as album titles like Black Sails At Midnight did; that was just the perfect album title.
Have you got to do voiceovers for this one? [Nuclear Blast insist on putting voiceovers on all their promos, which Chris recorded himself for the last album. Complete with piratical accent.]
I think we might hire someone famous weve got a bit of a budget for this one, so were just going to spend all of it on getting some famous person to do the voiceovers! Sean Connery or something. We had lots of complaints [about the voiceovers] on our first album, because journalists are shit like that - they cant appreciate that you have to do that otherwise your album will leak seven years in advance. So we just did these funny ones, and people appreciate these ones. I think weve sometimes got higher marks in magazines just because of the voiceovers!
Next album: are you going to bring the pirate thing right up to date and write a load of songs about Somalis with machine guns?
We were thinking that. I was going to write a song for this third album about Somalians actually, but I just ran out of songs. You know, you cant have too many songs on an album otherwise itll be too long and too complicated. I think ten songs, forty minutes is all an album should be. Anything else is just boring. So weve saved the song about Somalians for the next (fourth) album along with a song about ninjas and things.
Are you going to do pirates v. ninjas? There got to be a concept album in there surely double album, one disc of pirates, one disc of ninjas?
Of course were going to do pirates v. ninjas - the internet demands that we do it! Dont quite feel like straying into concept album territory yet though were too young and retarded for that.
Talking of new things, hows Pete getting on?
He joined in dramatic circumstances when our old drummer Ian, the day before a really fucking huge gig at Paganfest in Germany, he sent us this email saying fuck you, I quit, youre all assholes and were like ah shit. So Gaz got his old mate Pete from his old band Runecaster, from Ireland and said hey do you wanna be in this band, fly over, well pay you a couple of grand or something and he said ah sure. So he learned all the songs, flew over the next day, we played these five gigs and we got through it, but it couldve been worse. Couldve been a hell of a lot better, but hes settling in fine now. This is his first ever big tour, so hes all like wow, were on a tourbus! and its all very exciting.
Going back to the new album, is there a cover version on this one?
Yes, theres two actually. Oh no, god, theres three! Theres one on the normal album and we saved two silly songs for the digipak, bonus, extended whatever you call it nonsense. I wont say too much, but the one on the album is just some ye olde folk song thing, so I guess its about as trve as well ever get.
No Eurovision covers this time?
No Eurovision. One of the bonus tracks is from some infamous childrens TV show, and the other one is a cover of a song by a certain West Country band.
Your new songs called Rum. Any chance of a swap with Korpiklaani you cover Vodka, they cover Rum?
The chorus of its just rum, rum, rum, rum we thought fuck it, lets write a stupid song. As for Korpiklaani, we actually did a cover of one of Journeyman on our first ever demo. It was dreadful though, because I couldnt sing at the time still cant sing, but I was even worse then.
When youre coming up with songs, do you ever come with any that dont fit the whole pirate theme and have to leave them out?
Well we write a lot of songs that, strictly speaking, shouldnt even be about pirates, but somehow we just squeeze in some random bit of piracy at the end of it. Were kind of getting away from the whole arr-our-songs-are-set-in-the-seventeenth-century-on-ships, its all a bit silly. Were trying to get away from that cliché folk image, so were doing lots of stupid stuff with pirates in it, like theres time-travelling on our next album. Time-travelling to kill Vikings and all that kind of stuff, so all the songs are going to relate to pirates, but not in a clichéd way. I mean, how many songs can you write about going on a quest to steal treasure? Our new stuffs still going to sound like us, its just going to be a bit more interesting, I hope.
If you had a talking parrot on your shoulder, what would you teach it to say?
Id teach it to sing abuse to the singer of Swashbuckle, he deserves it.
Whod win a swordfight out of you and Swashbuckle?
Well him, because hes a big fat bastard hed kick my ass! He gets very stabby on tour, sometimes he gets a bit drunk, and finds a whiskey bottle, and smashes it and starts wielding it. Its a bit scary, but hes a nice guy nonetheless. Maybe.
Ever thought of doing some material with them?
Id love to do a split 7 thing, thatd be really cool, like they sing a song with us, we sing a song with them. But its always like record labels messing, and unfortunately it probably wont happen. Itd be nice though.
After the tour, what are you up to apart from finishing the album?
Well itll be Christmas, so Ill go home and have a Christmas holiday! Thats about it really, just doing nothing for a month. Itll make a change. Then back into the studio in January to record, and all the nonsense that comes with that; with videos, press and shit.
Do you have anything to say to Ultimate Metal readers before we go?
I think we still owe Deron like fifty quid, so I shouldnt say anything bad to him. So no comment.
Official Alestorm Wesite
Official Alestorm Myspace
Official Napalm Records Website
Ultimate Metal's resident folk metal obsessive caught up with Alestorm's Chris Bowes at a rather interesting gig in the depths of Wolverhampton's Slade Rooms. Apparently they're getting into time travel, and recruiting Sean Connery for the new album. Curiouser and curiouser.
Chris Bowes; vocals and keytar
So hows the rocknroll lifestyle going?
Aye its alright. Its been a nice tour, Sabaton are all really nice guys, all very professional, but its all so laidback. Everything just happens smoothly and we just do our thing and party all night long.
How different is it to touring with bands like Turisas?
That was a long time ago when we did that! Back then in 2008 we toured with them in the UK and we were just treated like shit. We wouldve considered a room like this [tiny dressing room, with sofa and fridge] to be the lap of luxury.
You were out in the corridor were you?
Yeah! Were actually allowed on the tourbus now, so we get to get some sleep every night, so yeah its been nice. Nice change going up in the world!
Youve done three days of the UK leg so far, but its a rather long tour
Weve been on the road since the 24th of September, and were not gonna go home until the 28th of November, so its a bit of a long tour.
There was a point where you seemed to tour all the time, have you had a break?
Last year we did about a million tours, which was quite good, but this year we kinda did nothing a couple of gigs here and there, and it gets quite boring. People arent supposed to have nine months of the year off, its soul-destroying really. Especially when youre not particularly rich, I mean we live off this band but only just - we can afford to pay our rent, pay the bills and eat something, but when youve got nine months of free time and no money to spend, what the hell do you do? Life gets a bit dull, so its nice to back on the road for a change.
Hows the new album coming along?
Yeah, weve pretty much finished writing it, theres a couple of songs need finishing. Gonna go in the studio starting 3rd of January in Lubeck in Germany, with the same guy who produced our last album because he was good. Then just make a record, have a little
party, then it hopefully comes out at the end of April.
Do you know what its going to be called yet?
Thats the only thing we dont know! Weve got all the song titles, all that nonsense, but we cant actually think of anything to call the album yet. None of the song titles seem right, they just dont jump out at you as album titles like Black Sails At Midnight did; that was just the perfect album title.
Have you got to do voiceovers for this one? [Nuclear Blast insist on putting voiceovers on all their promos, which Chris recorded himself for the last album. Complete with piratical accent.]
I think we might hire someone famous weve got a bit of a budget for this one, so were just going to spend all of it on getting some famous person to do the voiceovers! Sean Connery or something. We had lots of complaints [about the voiceovers] on our first album, because journalists are shit like that - they cant appreciate that you have to do that otherwise your album will leak seven years in advance. So we just did these funny ones, and people appreciate these ones. I think weve sometimes got higher marks in magazines just because of the voiceovers!
Next album: are you going to bring the pirate thing right up to date and write a load of songs about Somalis with machine guns?
We were thinking that. I was going to write a song for this third album about Somalians actually, but I just ran out of songs. You know, you cant have too many songs on an album otherwise itll be too long and too complicated. I think ten songs, forty minutes is all an album should be. Anything else is just boring. So weve saved the song about Somalians for the next (fourth) album along with a song about ninjas and things.
Are you going to do pirates v. ninjas? There got to be a concept album in there surely double album, one disc of pirates, one disc of ninjas?
Of course were going to do pirates v. ninjas - the internet demands that we do it! Dont quite feel like straying into concept album territory yet though were too young and retarded for that.
Talking of new things, hows Pete getting on?
He joined in dramatic circumstances when our old drummer Ian, the day before a really fucking huge gig at Paganfest in Germany, he sent us this email saying fuck you, I quit, youre all assholes and were like ah shit. So Gaz got his old mate Pete from his old band Runecaster, from Ireland and said hey do you wanna be in this band, fly over, well pay you a couple of grand or something and he said ah sure. So he learned all the songs, flew over the next day, we played these five gigs and we got through it, but it couldve been worse. Couldve been a hell of a lot better, but hes settling in fine now. This is his first ever big tour, so hes all like wow, were on a tourbus! and its all very exciting.
Going back to the new album, is there a cover version on this one?
Yes, theres two actually. Oh no, god, theres three! Theres one on the normal album and we saved two silly songs for the digipak, bonus, extended whatever you call it nonsense. I wont say too much, but the one on the album is just some ye olde folk song thing, so I guess its about as trve as well ever get.
No Eurovision covers this time?
No Eurovision. One of the bonus tracks is from some infamous childrens TV show, and the other one is a cover of a song by a certain West Country band.
Your new songs called Rum. Any chance of a swap with Korpiklaani you cover Vodka, they cover Rum?
The chorus of its just rum, rum, rum, rum we thought fuck it, lets write a stupid song. As for Korpiklaani, we actually did a cover of one of Journeyman on our first ever demo. It was dreadful though, because I couldnt sing at the time still cant sing, but I was even worse then.
When youre coming up with songs, do you ever come with any that dont fit the whole pirate theme and have to leave them out?
Well we write a lot of songs that, strictly speaking, shouldnt even be about pirates, but somehow we just squeeze in some random bit of piracy at the end of it. Were kind of getting away from the whole arr-our-songs-are-set-in-the-seventeenth-century-on-ships, its all a bit silly. Were trying to get away from that cliché folk image, so were doing lots of stupid stuff with pirates in it, like theres time-travelling on our next album. Time-travelling to kill Vikings and all that kind of stuff, so all the songs are going to relate to pirates, but not in a clichéd way. I mean, how many songs can you write about going on a quest to steal treasure? Our new stuffs still going to sound like us, its just going to be a bit more interesting, I hope.
If you had a talking parrot on your shoulder, what would you teach it to say?
Id teach it to sing abuse to the singer of Swashbuckle, he deserves it.
Whod win a swordfight out of you and Swashbuckle?
Well him, because hes a big fat bastard hed kick my ass! He gets very stabby on tour, sometimes he gets a bit drunk, and finds a whiskey bottle, and smashes it and starts wielding it. Its a bit scary, but hes a nice guy nonetheless. Maybe.
Ever thought of doing some material with them?
Id love to do a split 7 thing, thatd be really cool, like they sing a song with us, we sing a song with them. But its always like record labels messing, and unfortunately it probably wont happen. Itd be nice though.
After the tour, what are you up to apart from finishing the album?
Well itll be Christmas, so Ill go home and have a Christmas holiday! Thats about it really, just doing nothing for a month. Itll make a change. Then back into the studio in January to record, and all the nonsense that comes with that; with videos, press and shit.
Do you have anything to say to Ultimate Metal readers before we go?
I think we still owe Deron like fifty quid, so I shouldnt say anything bad to him. So no comment.
Official Alestorm Wesite
Official Alestorm Myspace
Official Napalm Records Website
