BOLT THROWER Guitarist: 'Nothing Stops Us'

Jackie Smit of Chronicles of Chaos recently conducted an interview with BOLT THROWER guitarist Gavin Ward. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Chronicles of Chaos: Other than his history with the band, what prompted you to give [vocalist] Karl [Willets] a call when Dave Ingram left the band?

Gavin Ward: "It was something we were always going to do. It was one of those things. The band got bigger with Karl after he had left — do you know what I mean? But yeah, it was the obvious thing to do. When Martin [van Drunen] left originally and we had Karl come in and do 'Mercenary' we had a real good time with him, but at that point he was still in university doing his degree and he couldn't commit 100%. So when we asked him this time, we asked him to come on board as a full member, not only to join just to do the album. He said yes straight away, and it was as though he'd never been away. It was easier than fucking easy, and that was what we were looking for — something really natural. Before, when we had Dave, he was living in Denmark. Martin was living in Holland. That made us be a bit disjointed for a while, and now it's a more solid line-up, where we can hang out and see each other outside of the band as well."

Chronicles of Chaos: If Karl had turned you down at that point, would we have seen another BOLT THROWER record?

Gavin Ward: "Of course! Nothing stops us. [laughs] Our fans could; if they didn't want to come to the gigs anymore, then I'm sure that would stop us. But so far as firing albums out — no worries. Karl was our second vocalist. We had Allen [West] before that, who did 'In Battle There Is No Law', then it was Karl, then Martin, then Karl again, then Dave, and now it's back to what it was. That all showed me that this band is one of those things that's bigger than the sum of its parts. That said, I don't know what we'd have done. It would have been a tight call. The band refused me my offer. [laughs] I was thinking that I could sell all my gear off, make shitloads of money and have the glory job, but we auditioned me and it wasn't that good. So, I don't know what we would have done. It would have come down to something obvious like grabbing a fan of the band. We've had singers from other bands and it was one of those things where some people have done too many bands, if you know what I mean. So, we'd probably have tried a fan. That's the only way I could think of outside of Karl."

Chronicles of Chaos: Working in the studio with Karl this time around, did it feel to you like BOLT THROWER in a greater sense than it felt when you were with Dave?

Gavin Ward: "Definitely. I mean, the first two months of Karl being back in the band, I spent more time with him than I did with Dave during his entire tenure — and he toured with us! Karl and I just spent more time together, writing, hanging out — it was well easy. In the studio, it's a different situation because it's always going to be more clinical; when you're doing something like recording vocals, you want everything to turn out just right. But I always thought it was going to be easy, and it fucking was. [laughs]

Read the entire interview at this location.