On New Year’s Eve, metalheads from around the nation will descend upon Sydney’s Enmore Theatre for the inaugural Screamfest festival. Touted as the first metal festival of European calibre to hit our shores (minus the mud and lax alcohol laws), Screamfest will see a mix of international and local metallers pummel their way into 2010. BLUNT checked in with some of Screamfest’s main attractions to see what they had to say about bringing in the New Year on the opposite side of the globe. In part two of our series, we catch up with Tobias Exxel of German outfit Edguy.

What attracted you to spending New Year’s Eve in Australia?
It’s gonna be cool to call our families and friends, and wish them a happy New Year when it’s just early afternoon at their place [laughs]! I’ve seen the great fireworks at the Opera House on TV many times, this time I gonna be there personally, that’s just unbelievable!

What is the first thing you want to do when you arrive in Oz?
I don’t know. It’s gonna be a more than 24 hour long journey from Germany. Guess I just wanna breath some fresh air. We’ll arrive in Sydney in the early morning of December 31st, so a cold shower would be great. Then we’ll be preparing for the New Year’s Eve party!

Tell us about your best New Year’s Eve you’ve ever had?
There are just too many, but here I have to mention two of them. First one, when I was fifteen back in 1988. It was a real heavy metal party! Just last year we had our 20th anniversary, and the most important fact is we are still – almost – the same people partying together. Thank God we had a camera there twenty years ago. We copied all those old cassettes to DVD, and watched that old stuff on a big screen. I tell you, I really had tears in my eyes!

…And the worst New Year’s Eve you’ve ever had?
We had been to a public party in the early nineties, and I just found myself in the middle of a fight between two other assholes. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, and I got my nose broken. In that moment, at least, I could see some fireworks inside my head, but unfortunately two hours too early…

What is the most exciting thing about the prospect of playing Screamfest?
It’s almost at the opposite side of the planet, and I’m going to jump around and stomp on the stage floor hoping that my friends at home will feel the vibrations [laughs].

What has been your best experience attending a music festival, either as a performer or a fan?
I went to Monsters Of Rock in 1987 with Deep Purple, Dio, Metallica and many more. I was just fourteen and everything was so impressive. I just wanted to be a rocker one day, and play concerts all over the world as well [laughs].

…And your worst festival experience?
An open air festival in Spain some years ago. It was summer, but the weather felt like winter. It was so cold that we had to keep our jackets on onstage, and we barely could play our instruments. Anyway the place was packed, and I really, really look up to all those fans that were there and spent the two nights in their tents, not giving a fuck about the weather!

List five essential items for your backstage rider?
Five lovely women [laughs]. But I don’t think we have to write that down on such a rider, do we?!

What is the last thing you will do before taking the stage at Screamfest?
There’s no master plan or ritual for this. Just keep talking to some people and joking around, this is what puts me in a good mood, and that’s the most important thing for a successful Edguy show. We’re gonna rock ours and your asses off.

What is the first thing you’ll do when you come offstage?
Hopefully having a shot of Jaegermeister!

Next up is Rachel of Aussie metalheads Universum. Stay tuned…

On New Year’s Eve, metalheads from around the nation will descend upon Sydney’s Enmore Theatre for the inaugural Screamfest festival. Touted as the first metal festival of European calibre to hit our shores (minus the mud and lax alcohol laws), Screamfest will see a mix of international and local metallers pummel their way into 2010. BLUNT checked in with some of Screamfest’s main attractions to see what they had to say about bringing in the New Year on the opposite side of the globe. First up, Henrik Klingenberg of Finnish power metal titans Sonata Arctica.

What attracted you to spending New Year’s Eve in Australia?
I’m always happy to go to places where I haven’t been, and Australia has been on the wish list for all of us for quite some time now, to play there on New Year’s Eve… well that’s just perfect!

What is the first thing you want to do when you finally arrive in Oz?
We’ll probably just crash at the hotel since there’s a shitload of flying to get there from Finland, but a shower and a shave is always nice.

Tell us about the best New Year’s Eve you’ve ever had?
I don’t really remember. I hope the best one is still to come.

…And the worst New Year’s Eve you’ve ever had?
We went to this supposedly rock‘n’roll party, but it was just lame people sitting on the couch… naturally this was a five hour drive away from home so New Year’s was spoiled.

What is the most exciting thing about playing Screamfest?
Visiting Australia for the first time is really exciting and I’m really looking forward to meeting new fans. We’ve heard a lot of cool stuff about Australia.

What has been your best experience attending a music festival, either as a performer or a fan?
Playing at Wacken, Germany in front of 80.000 people a couple of years ago was something that’s really hard to top.

…And your worst festival experience?
A couple of times the equipment didn’t work and that’s always a nightmare, especially in front of thousands of people.

List 5 essential items for your backstage rider?
1.Vodka and/or Jäger
2.Beer
3.Towels
4.Water
5.Something to eat besides candy

What is the best preparation for a performance that melts the audience’s faces off at Screamfest?
A good nights sleep, a couple of beer and a shot of Jäger. If we can fit in a nice dinner two to three hours before the show, that would be perfect. Usually I sleep if I can, and as long as the drinks are there everything else works out.

What is the last thing you will do before taking the stage at Screamfest?
I finish my drink and then take a quick piss. Then, of course, we get into a circle with the band while the intro is playing, and from there it’s ON!

What is the first thing you’ll do when you come offstage?
Get a cigarette and a shot.

What is the best advice you can give to fans planning to attend Screamfest?
Beware of the Finnish invasion!

Check out Sonata Arctica at Screamfest (featuring Edguy, Cynic, Dark Funeral, Ensiferum, Destroyer 666, Defamer, Vanishing Point and more)
Thur Dec 31st to Fri Jan 1st – Enmore Theatre, Sydney

Next up is Tobias Exxel of Edguy. Stay tuned…

After nearly twenty years of beer spilling and swilling, vittles grilling and cold chilling inspiring music, Clutch sure know how to get a groove going. With nine studio albums under their collective belt, the Maryland southern rock overlords have showed fans that they can really do it to you in a myriad of ways – from the raging hardcore of their earlier works through to the swamp bombast of The Elephant Riders and noodling wizard funk of Beale Street To Oblivion, the band has shown a sense of growth that has more often than not of late taken it’s lead from the past, the blues most notably, rather than trying to invent the wheel (or record, as it were). As the weather hots up in Australia and the temperature plummets in the band’s hometown of Germantown, Blunt got up on the good foot with drummer Jean Paul Gaster over a hot bowl of chicken soup.

With the band’s latest album, Strange Cousins From The West being the group’s first release on their own label, Weathermaker, Gaster says that for the first time in a long time he doesn’t have to worry about dealing with people who really couldn’t give a damn about the actual music the band is producing.

“You know, I try to get along with those label guys, but it’s tough,” he laughs. “There’s always some other band out there that is outselling you or getting more radio play than you. That’s all part of the game, but it’s really not in Clutch’s nature to be like that; we started this band to make good records and play good shows – not to sell out stadiums and have gold records on the wall. Now, with our own label, we can really just concentrate on making the records and playing the best shows that we can.”

The live aspect of Clutch has always been important to Gaster and co (and if you haven’t seen the guys live yet, you’ve been wasting your life) and with the band’s return to groove-tastic form (not that there was anything wrong with Beale Street… it was a fantastic experiment that sits very well alongside the group’s more stomping moments), the drummer says that he is having more fun than ever, twenty years on.

“I think that the instrumentation on Strange Cousins is a little more stripped down and lends itself to being played live. Because of that, they just kinda rock a bit more, there’s less layering but more meat and potatoes and that really makes these songs fun to play live. We never set out to make a career out of this, so that’s important. It’s not like that bands that were inspiring us ever could have done what we were doing,” he laughs. “I’m pretty sure that when the Jesus Lizard came home from tour, they all had to go and get jobs!”

Each record and tour cycle is an evolution of sorts for the band, explains Gaster, though the group never sit down and pick out what direction they are going to take their stomping rock in next – for the last few albums leading up to Strange Cousins From The West, Clutch had a keyboardist and now he’s gone – “when you’re a new guy, you’ll always be the new guy and sometimes that just doesn’t work out,” says the drummer. What the band will add to the mix next (or take away) is as much a mystery to the band as to anyone on the outside of their creative process.

“After Australia, we’re going to switch things up a bit, give America a bit of a rest and do a little work in Europe. After that, it’ll be time to get these new tunes seriously together and work on the new record. We don’t sit down at a meeting and say, let’s make this one a bit more punk rock or more blues or anything like that though. There’s some ideas we have on the computer and it’ll just be a representation of where our heads are at. It’s impossible to say what we’ll do next until we actually get in there and start recording.”

Probably the most successful Belgian hardcore band to date, Rise & Fall will be in Australia touring their latest album, Our Circle Is Vicious by the time you read this. With the record having been released on Deathwish Inc (which you probably already know is owned by Converge vocalist Jacob Bannon), the group are well on their way to become a prime export for their country alongside chocolate, waffles and very fast cyclists.

George Baxter caught up with Vince, the band’s bassist, between tours and feeling reflective about the new album and hardcore in general.

How was the writing and recording process?

Writing wasn’t always easy. Sometimes it wasn’t working out at all, due to different reasons. It really took us a long time and a huge effort to get everyone focused and together and to start the actual writing of this album. Things started picking up in the spring of 2008 when we got our own rehearsal room… After that we wrote, jammed and practiced until we had the rough outlines for close to 20 songs. Out of those we finished maybe 12 or 13. Out of those songs, 10 ended up on the record.

So how do you feel about Our Circle Is Vicious now that you’re playing it live?

Actually, we are really stoked on being able to mix up the setlist a lot more than we used to. The new songs off “Our Circle Is Vicious” allow us to have more variation in our set, slow things down here and there, it’s cool. We haven’t played all of the new songs live yet, but we usually play 4/5 “Our Circle Is Vicious” songs and that’s been working out quite well. “Soul Slayer” is becoming our new set opener, we’re going for that “bum rush the show” effect.

What do you think of the crossover success of hardcore/metal acts that have got a lot of pop sensibility – is this a good stepping stone to ‘harder’ music?

It could be. No one’s born with a copy of “The Age Of Quarrel” in their hands. We all have listened to some dumb shit when we were teenagers and most of us got into this type of music after discovering it through the bigger or more accessible bands so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it at all.

What do the terms “Punk” and “Hardcore” mean to you? Are they still relevant?

They’re relevant to me because I am and will always be a hardcore person. It’s the music I grew up and the music that has inspired me in so many ways. It’s not something I think of every day and it doesn’t limit me in any way. Over the years of course both terms have gotten watered down, but I believe that true hardcore and punk rock still has something to offer that a lot of other underground music scenes don’t have. The lack of barriers, the possibility of communication and exchanging of ideas, the raw energy and anger… It’s weird. I don’t want to go on and on about it, but yes those terms are still relevant to me. Musically they might not define all that much anymore, but they define my mind set more than anything else.

Do you know much about Australian music?

Sorry to say so, but I’m afraid I don’t know much. Obviously everyone knows the bigger names: Nick Cave / The Birthday Party / Midnight Oil / INXS etc.  AC/DC and Rose Tattoo. Kylie Minogue. Jason Donovan. Over the past few years we’ve had the chance to play with a bunch of Australian bands, and they all turned out to be cool dudes: Carpathian, Parkway Drive, Miles Away, Blkout, 50 Lions, No Apologies. I also used to love Day Of Contempt. “See Through The Lies” is a total banger of a record.

12/09: Perth, Australia @ Rosemount w/ Blkout
12/10: Perth, Australia @ YMCA HQ w/ Blkout
12/11: Adelaide, Australia @ Enigma Bar w/ Blkout, The Hollow
12/12: Melbourne, Australia @ Ding Dong w/ Blkout, The Hollow
12/13: Melbourne, Australia @ Castle w/ Blkout, The Hollow
12/16: Sydney, Australia @ Bald Faced Stag w/ Blkout, The Hollow
12/17: Byron Bay, Australia @ YAC w/ Blkout, The Hollow
12/18: Brisbane, Australia @ Top Floor w/ Blkout, The Hollow
12/19: Brisbane, Australia @ Rosies w/ Blkout, The Hollow

Check www.resistrecords.com for more info.