You have been touring with Kamelot in North America since August. So… how are North Americans treating you?It’s been absolutely wonderful since the beginning. At the start there were a few fuck-ups with the hurricanes from the East Coast, but then it was fine. We went out to Canada and now we are doing the West Coast a bit. Now [September 15th], we are nearly done. We have about a week left. It’s been awesome.
Did you guys feel the earthquake in the East Coast?
No, we arrived the day after it happened. We were lucky because they closed the airport in Newark. That was the airport we flew into the next day. So we were actually pretty close...
Has this been your best tour in North America so far?
This is our third tour here. They have all been different, for different reasons. I really enjoyed this one but obviously I really enjoyed the first one because it was my first time. It was like being a kid on holiday, you know? I was so excited.
Alestorm has released Back Through Time a few months ago. What were your inspirations for this album?
For this album we’ve kind of gone a little bit more “experimental”. We all have different music tastes and basically threw in all ridiculous ideas. We didn’t want to do what people expected us to do. We just wanted to do what we wanted, even if it was considered a bit silly. I like it. It is my favorite album. Hopefully everybody else likes it too…
How has the fan reception been to this new record?
Well, it got into the charts in Europe and into the hit seekers charts in US. And we had some nice reviews, some bad ones. It is always that way isn’t it? It doesn’t make me worry you know? I’m happy with the album. I don’t really mind what everybody else thinks (laughs). But, it is nice when people do like it. It feels good.
So… this is your 3rd album. How do y
ou guys feel? You have already toured all over the world, you are pretty popular and everything, it’s happening quite fast. How did this all happened?I don’t know! It happens sometimes with bands. Maybe there was like, a hole in the market for, you know… pirates, I guess? We never thought: “Ohh let’s do a song about pirates and we will get famous over night”, we never thought that once. We just did whatever we wanted but, I guess that there must have been some kind of gap in the market for it and it just worked out well. We were obviously surprised of how much we’ve achieved. These last 3 years even, it’s just completely insane. And, it doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon so, it’s great!
What are the plans for the rest of the year?
This is our “World Tour’ at the moment. Yeah, if you play more than 2 continents it is a world tour, I think. We have just been to Australia, then we did all the European festivals and we are in America now [September, 15th 2011].
As soon as this tour finishes, like… the day this tour finishes, we fly home and then another tour starts in Europe (Deep breath out and laughs).
Basically, that takes up to about November. Then, we will have one show just before Christmas and that’s it for the rest of year. Next year it is probably just going to be crazy.
Anywhere you are still hoping to go soon?
Yeah. We are going to Mexico on Saturday [September 17th 2011]. I’ve never been to Mexico before and it is my birthday on Saturday!
Happy Birthday!
Party! And everyone told me: “If you go to Mexico don’t drink the tap water”. So I’m just going to drink Tequila all day!
Good idea!
Great! Awesome! (laughs)
So, what about your free time? What do you do then?
I forgot what free time is. See, when we are not on tour we don’t actually do very much. It’s pretty bad
… we just rehearse and wait for a new tour. Obviously we all write music, we all have different styles that we do and we all have our different bands. We do different things and I guess that’s going to be one of the main things we’ll do whenever this tour finishes. We are all going to start focusing on our other bands for a little while, releasing stuff with [our] other bands. Yeah we have such different musical tastes, all four of us.
How different is your tastes? Can you explain a little?
I like a lot of really nasty punk, black metal, trash metal and stuff. But Chris for example, he listens to kind of symphonic stuff, big keyboards, songs about out of space. Yeah… that different (laughs).
Any new bands that you have added to the “favorites” list this year?
I’ve been really impressed with Blackguard and The Agonist since this tour started, because I’ve never listen to either band before this. And I don’t think it is because they are friends now, they are good guys or whatever. Actually I’ve been genuinely impressed every night about how good they are. They are my two new favorite bands at the minute.
So, about Alestorm: do you think that folk/ pirate metal is something that will last? Did it come to stay?
It’s a good question because it’s incredibly popular at the moment and for the last few years. I don’t think it is a long lasting thing, but who am I to say? I just have a feeling that people will grow out of it. But then again, everything someone grows out of, there are people getting into it. So maybe it is a long lasting thing. I don’t know. Maybe… I hope so! We are kind of considered folk metal so, I would like to be around a little bit longer (laughs).
Anything you would like to say to the SOM readers?
Oh yeah! Thanks for staying interested in us. Enjoy the rest of the tour, wherever you are. I hope you enjoyed the new album, as much as we liked it!
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Interview done by Deesse_de_la_nuit
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