Out In The Open

When we get on the phone with Matt Tuck, vocalist/guitarist for Welsh metal sensations Bullet For My Valentine, the band are about to begin a period of intensive rehearsals. The release of new album, and fourth overall, Temper Temper, is a few weeks away at the time of our conversation. It's also the calm before the proverbial storm. Sitting in his living room, Tuck explains that their hectic schedule is already filled up to 2014. After a one-off show in Cardiff, they officially begin worldwide touring in support of the record at Soundwave.

Tuck is asked if he's become accustomed to having his life planned out more than 12 months in advance. “Yeah, it's how the boys and I have lived our lives for the past seven, eight years. It's kinda been mapped out for us behind the scenes, so in a way it's nice to know we're still super relevant and still gonna be super busy. It makes things easier in a way. Like when we come home, we don't have a schedule, and it's just like off time – we're kinda like lost sheep,” he laughs. “It's weird, because we've got nowhere to be… So it's like, 'Okay, I guess I'll just go out for a drive'. So it's become normality for us, but we actually enjoy it because it just makes our life easy. It is so busy that we literally… There's no other way that we'd be able to keep up.”

They almost couldn't. Despite their status as one of metal's biggest names, the quartet struggled to ensure their health and sanity remained intact. A seemingly innocuous, light-hearted question relating to the new album title – namely, what grinds Tuck's gears – eventually reveals far more than anticipated. “Honestly, not very much. I'm a very mellow guy, I've never really once in my life lost my shit to the extent where I've done something stupid or got into a crazy fight or anything. For me Temper Temper is that saying that your mum would say when you were a kid getting angry – 'temper temper'. It's more about almost losing your shit, but always keeping control of the situation. So that's how I've always been and that's why the album is called what it is. It's a very angry album; there's not one moment where it totally loses its fucking mind – it's always on the edge. The songs are more about that situation; anger management, temper, all that kind of shit, but keeping control of that situation. Almost doing it is scarier than actually doing it.”

From what sources did they channel such rage? “Mainly it was stuff going on behind the scenes on the (2010) Fever Tour, between the band members. We went through a bit of a sticky patch for about six months where things started to kind of implode. Even though we'd been around for a while, we were starting to fall into a case of almost not caring anymore. (We were) starting to get into bad habits of drinking and experimenting with certain fucking drugs, just doing stupid shit that everyone in bands kind of does at some point. But for us it wasn't at the start, it was now when we'd become established and things just started to become awkward.

“We weren't talking to each other much, and we just started to resent being in the band. It just all got to us really, because we were riding a wave of success and being busy, which is great. But at the same time we almost started to dislike it, and being away from home. So it took its toll, but thankfully we're such a tight unit that we addressed it and nipped it in the bud. Things are a lot better now and everything's cool. I got that down on paper, almost as therapy, just to get it out of the system and it was nice to write about situations that actually did mean something to me personally. A lot of stuff on this album is real to me and the boys, so it was nice to have that edge.”

When it came time to resolve said differences, there was no Phil Towle in sight. “It was literally doing it as friends,” he continues. “We got into a dressing room – got our tour manager to get it all together – got in there, locked the door and basically spoke to each other. It was almost like a little therapy group. But we weren't speaking to each other, and I think that was the biggest part in almost starting to melt down. We weren't communicating anymore, which is weird because we're friends and have been for many years. It was like, 'Guys, what the fuck's going on? I think we're all in the same boat'. Together we decided, 'Okay, let's just wipe it on the carpet, let's just be cool, let's just get through the tour'. Everyone was feeling the same, so it was good to sit down and talk as friends, rather than just ignoring each other. It was just a simple conversation that we needed to have, which had been brewing for a long time.”

Since the release of 2005 debut album The Poison, they have become media darlings in addition to having legions of devoted fans. While such acclaim and adoration formerly fed into their inner conflict, Tuck now seems better able to reflect on their “tidal wave of fucking success” and the associated responsibilities, some of which extend beyond merely being four guys in the here and now, playing in a metal band.

“We've been through hard times, but mostly we seem to be getting bigger all the time, and believe we've been creating great albums,” he ponders. “So it's been a bit of a whirlwind since day one. The last eight years have flown, so I think in that sense what was so exciting on The Poison has just become normality for us now. So it's hard, but keeping perspective of what we are, where we are and what we've achieved is essential to keep us grounded and to keep everything cool, because it is easy to get lost in what we've achieved… Just trying to come to terms with the fact we've worked so hard for literally half our lives, and sacrificed so much along the way to achieve this; it's like, 'Don't fuck it up now', you know? We're in a dream situation, so just having a perspective of life, what we do as a band and our career was something we needed to discuss. There were definitely some people in the band losing sight of that, so they needed a bit of a reality check. We're just super content at the minute. We made a great album, we love it. Everything seems to still be on the ascendancy to great things, so we're going to just keep riding that wave until we can't anymore, I guess.”

Bullet For My Valentine will be playing the following dates:

Friday 22 February - The Hi-Fi, Brisbane QLD
Saturday 23 February - Soundwave, RNA Showgrounds, Fortitude Valley QLD
Sunday 24 February - Soundwave, Olympic Park, Sydney NSW
Wednesday 27 February - The Hi-Fi, Sydney NSW
Friday 1 March - Soundwave, Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 2 March - Soundwave, Bonython Park, Adelaide SA
Monday 4 March - Soundwave, Claremont Showgrounds, Claremont WA