An awe-inspiring trop of international metal bands are about to be let loose on the unsuspecting Town Hall, writes Scott Kara
KEY POINTS:
Like that other Welsh music superstar, Tom Jones, metal band Bullet For My Valentine get knickers thrown at them.
"Yeah we do,' chuckles singer and screamer Matt Tuck shyly. That's all he's saying about it too.
As mainstream metal goes Bullet are big. Watch for the shower of panties when the quartet from Bridgend in south Wales, and Orange County nasties, Avenged Sevenfold and Atreyu play a triple bill at the Auckland Town Hall next Wednesday.
You really have to feel for the poor old Town Hall. Three of the world's biggest mainstream metal bands, hundreds of their devoted fans, and one night of carnage.
Bullet have been around since 1997 and were originally known as Jeff Killed John - a name they thought better of in 2003, thank goodness.
They grew up listening to the 80s and early 90s thrash bands like Metallica, Pantera, Testament and Machine Head, but in the band's formative years of the late 90s nu metal was still the craze.
"It exploded when we were just getting good at playing and we fell into that trap a little,' admits Tuck with a laugh. "But we've always been a bit more old-school than Korn and all that.'
In 2005 they released their debut album, The Poison, a crunching and heavy but ultimately predictable beast.
On latest, Scream, Aim, Fire, what comes through is a mix of their old-school influences with a newer, more modern and metallic metal sound.
At times, like on the frantic Eye of the Storm and Waking the Demon, it's brutal and uppity thrash. However, songs like the sad Say Goodbye and Hearts Burst Into Fire, a bogan drama queen epic if ever there was one, show there is a sensitive side to the hard as nails exterior bands like Bullet exude.
"We're more interested in writing good songs than how heavy metal we can sound,' says Tuck. "Yes, we are a metal band but at the end of the day what's the most important thing for us, and the biggest thing for us to achieve is write great songs, no matter how soft or heavy they are.'
And then there's Atreyu. Guitarist Dan Jacobs would just like you to know he's looking forward to "rocking everyone's faces off' at the Town Hall next week.
That shouldn't be too hard to do since the band's latest album, the grandly titled Lead Sails Paper Anchor, is made of highfalutin stuff. It's as if Jacobs and his cronies decamped to their bedrooms, flailed their heads around and reminisced about being kids of the 80s before recording it.
"I'm a big fan of classic rock and I think the rest of the world, especially the younger generation, is not that familiar with that, and I think they would be really into it if it was presented to them properly. So I figured, why not take the influence of the old-school amazing metal and pop it in with a modern day twist and represent it in a new modernised form?'
The veterans have released four albums with quite distinct sounds on each: Lead Sails is the most accessible yet.
"We've always been like a chameleon with our music and able to slip through the cracks and play with pretty much anyone, and especially with our new record it's allowed us to work the mainstream market a little more and get to play in front of a few more people who would never have heard of Atreyu before.
"It exposes them to our new music but also it's a gateway to our old music.'
Jacobs says the best way to stand out is to be yourself. When they first started they did the "singing and screaming thing' but had roots in hardcore, punk and metal. "It was just a hybrid of lots of different things and we didn't really fit into one genre.'
These days they're playing headlining shows on the Taste of Chaos Tour and opening for Linkin Park. They started touring when they were 18 - they're in their late 20s now - and he admits he wanted to be in a band for "attention factor'.
"You know, it's something to strive for the fact you know you can make a living out of having people thinking you are cool and listening to your music and something you created.
"Even from day one we've always wanted to take over the world; we didn't know to what extent, we just knew we wanted to do that, and here we are still trying to do it.'
LOWDOWN
Who: Bullet For My Valentine/Atreyu/Avenged Sevenfold
What: Mainstream metal mayhem
Where & when: Town Hall, Auckland, May 14
Latest albums: Scream Aim Fire - Bullet For My Valentine; Lead Sails Paper Anchor - Atreyu; Avenged Sevenfold - Avenged Sevenfold
