Hey how's it going at the moment?
Hey! It's going great, new album came out just the other day and apparently some people have bought it so happy days!
Have you seen the new Pirates of the Caribbean film?
I have not actually. The storyline of the last one made me a bit annoyed and confused so its making me really be not arsed to go out and see this one, will probably download it someday if I am truly bored. No Kiera Knightley though?
I have witnessed your new video for 'Shipwrecked', it was rather silly. Did you have fun filming it?
It is rather silly indeed! We had a blast making it. We were flown out to Belgrade in Serbia on a plane which could have happily fallen apart at any moment and spent the entire weekend there just looking around that amazing city and taking advantage of the free bar in the hotel! The video recording itself was a laugh too as you could well imagine. I will never forget being asked 'Your midget... is he ok? We can get you another one if you dont like him!'
I take from it you haven't turned round and become a jazz band, do you think it's going to become harder to squeeze albums out of the pirate concept as time goes on?
I think we shall be able to squeeze out a few more. I mean, we already have a few ideas for future stuff but most of it is going to either be completely silly or insulting somebody we dont like. I guess we have done the semi serious pirate cliches to death on the first two albums!
Could we see an expansion in concept into say, space pirates, vampire pirates, or incorporating more Caribbean calypso/reggae influence into songs to recreate the Spanish main feel?
I like where you are coming from there. The title track off our new album 'Back Through Time' is actually about some pirates who find a time machine and travel back in time to kill the vikings. So yes you may well see even more ridiculous expansions on future albums. If that all fails we will probably just become a skiing metal band.
Whilst in the general area I was wondering; why exactly are you a pirate metal band?
Because babes love pirates... duh!
You don't seem to take yourselves too seriously, have you had any bad reactions to your light-hearted sound and style?
Oh yes of course haha! I know plenty of people who really make it known that they hate any form of holding a guitar and smiling at the same time. I distinctly remember once playing in Albuquerque and there was some Mexican dude in an Abyssic Hate t-shirt who beat his way to the front row just to stand with his middle finger up at us the whole time. Cheer up everyone please!
Spreading out from the swashbuckling grimness of Scotland you've found yourselves on a world tour going as far as New Zealand and Australia; was it a good experience and how well have Alestorm been received worldwide?
It never ceases to amaze me how well we are received worldwide. The Australia thing is madness, we went out there in 2010 to play four shows just to see how they would go, we never thought that much would become of it but we ended up selling out the shows and getting asked back within a year for some even bigger shows! I still get a stupid smile on my face thinking of such things as being mobbed by fans in the street in Milan or Chris saying 'Good evening New York City' on stage for the first time. None of us really expected this in the early days.
Who have you had the most fun touring with and why?
We have toured with some absolutely great bands but the one that stands out for me was the Paganfest in 2009 with Korpiklaani, Unleashed, Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, Ex Deo and Swashbuckle. That was just a none stop party and all the bands and crue were just the best and with those tours being so huge as well its just great, makes me excited for the Heidenfest tour later this year.
Obviously your new album Back Through Time is about pirates; judging solely from the artwork and title is it also about time-travelling pirates?
Aye, as mentioned before it absolutely is.The time travel was just a bit of an excuse to have a dig at all the silly viking bands really, most of alot of whom we are friends with and play alot of shows with so it is just a bit of fun but we are already starting to feel the wrath of spotty American teenagers who believe they share a bloodline with Odin himself sending on the hate mail. Ill say it again, cheer up everyone!
Tell us more about the album, was it a hard record to make and what should seafaring seadogs everywhere be expecting from it?
It is my favourite one for a start. It is a little bit experimental I guess as we have thrown in some extreme metal parts, kids tv themes, a song thats only 6 seconds long and many other bold decisions to say the least but we have received some great feedback from it so far which is great but all in all it's very Alestorm...if you liked the last two you will probably like this one too.
Do you regard your music making as at it's heart all about entertaining or do you view it with pride and still a serious exercise personally?
However silly a song gets or however out of a hand a joke gets I can still be proud of what we play and what we achieve. I know it's hard to stand on stage and play with a tear of pride in your eye while playing a cover song from a Eurovision entry and in that sense it is all about entertaining but it is still hard work in the studio and on tour so you need to be somewhat serious not so much about the music but about being a musician to carry that out.
Were you heavily influenced by folk/battle metal style bands like Turisas and Korpiklaani when starting out as an outfit?
To be honest none of us can really stand those bands haha! I guess at the time though it was kind of new and exciting and we did kinda spawn from bands like that. We have come along way from there though and our influences have changed a lot, you may not have noticed with us still being rather folky and battley but our sound now is probably so ridiculous just because of how all four of our musical inspirations differ so much.
Where do your musical inspirations come from?
Well personally mine comes from just punk, thrash and really shit lo-fi black metal and one of the things that I always love about this band is that even now we just show up to gigs with our gear and plug in and play. A lot of bands in this genre now are all about click tracks and backing tracks and its nearly as bad as a miming pop band so I am glad we have stayed true to our old garage band ways in that sense. We would probably be alot more popular otherwise as our tightness live (a lot of the time due to alcohol abuse) has been criticised alot in the past. But fuck it, it's more rock n roll that way.
In an ideal pirate crew who would you take on your voyage of discovery, rum and ransacking rampage?
I like the ones we have at the moment. There is many a time on tour that the night can be described as all of those things plus we have a vegan tour manager who doesn't drink our booze and makes sure we get to bed safely if things get out of hand! It's the perfect setup for complete debauchery.
How ridiculous have pirate outfits worn to shows been by fans?
Haha! Very! It's great though, I know some people get sad that we don't wear the outfits on stage but it is kinda cool to look out on the crowd and see the amount of effort some people have made. It's also handy when you are supporting another band or playing a festival and you aren't sure if anyone is there to see you but then you see all the pirates on the front row so you know at least a handful there like you! I just dont like it when people get beaten up on the way home from our shows for it, it's happened before...not cool.
Will you ever write a song taking the piss out of Somali pirates for being the nasty bastard muggers in boats that they are?
Oh I imagine so. As said before we are gonna need to delve into the realms of utterly ridiculous to stretch out the pirate theme for another few albums or so. You never know there may be another time travelling epic about us going to fight the Somali pirates at some point. They would win though, they have machine guns and shit.
What's the worst pirate joke you've been subjected to?
Oh they are all completely awful. Why are pirates called pirates? Because they arrrrr!...yeah I'll get my coat.
