As the year comes to a close, some of our favourite bands of 2009 sit down and look back over the last twelve months.
What were your most enjoyable moments from 2009?
Amon Amarth – “Receiving the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards ranks pretty high as an enjoyable moment, but there has been plenty of good moments for us such as going to South America for the first time for instance.”
Tesseract – “Playing Hellfire 2 at the NEC. It was Dans debut gig and he fucking nailed it, I just couldnt stop smiling.”
NoMadeSense – “Playing in Europe, releasing an album and reading that some folk dig our shit.”
The Rotted – “We had a really fun 2 week tour with Malefice and Anterior in April, that was a blast, great bunch of guys, good shows. We also did this festival in Portugal where we arrived on the Friday morning, didnt play till Saturday evening and didnt go home till Sunday night so we found a local family run restaurant in the middle of nowhere and just sat in the sun drinking and eating like kings the whole time. Lovely!”
Mia Hope – “Recording our debut album, Robert and Amandas wedding, Mias first day of school, buying a house with my girlfriend.”
Bury Tomorrow – “I think my most enjoyable moment was finally releasing our debut album. Its been a long time coming, and were so excited to finally let people hear the songs wed worked so hard on. The response has been insane to it as well so we are all so happy.”
The Dirty Youth – “Supporting Skindred on their UK tour in Cardiff. Getting to play to a packed out room of 1500 was amazing and to get the reaction we had from some of our peers after the gig was really encouraging. Also selling out Camdem Barfly and signing to the Agency group.”
Malefice – “The October tour with Devildriver/Behemoth/Suicide Silence & Trigger The Bloodshed was a absolute blast and pleasure to be a part of. We played to lot of new and old fans and even gave the Devildriver boys a run for their money with the circle pits we generated, still not quite there yet though! Also, our trip to India at the back end of September was an experience I dont think any of us will ever forget, such an extreme change in culture and lifestyle, but playing to 10,000 metalheads was incredible!”
Any funny stories you can tell us about 2009?
Amon Amarth – “There are many to choose from but when we did the Full Of Hate Festival tour with Obituary in March, the guys in Obituary pulled a pretty cool prank on us during the last song on the last show in Enschede, Holland. They actually came out with a Viking-ship made out of plywood mounted on a trolley of some sort, wearing plastic helmets and swinging plastic swords. I was laughing so hard I could hardly sing, especially since Ralph was so fucking drunk that he instantly fell over. They almost had to carry him off stage as he could hardly stand up!”
Tesseract – “The funniest thing to happen recently is TesseracT being in The Washington Post in the US, and all because of a 6ft tall Subway mascot. Search for Subway loves TesseracT on youtube and youll see what we mean…just awesome!”
NoMadeSense – “Apparently 2009 used to wet the bed up until July…”
The Rotted – “Im in a band with a bunch of total jackasses, everythings a funny moment really. I guess in hindsight, trying to get our bassist Trud through airport security when he was off his tits on GHB was kinda funny, though at the time I was pretty damn pissed off, i didnt think we were gonna get on the plane! He was gurning his jaw off and pulling Robert De Niro faces, it was a nightmare. The plan was just to tell anyone who asked that he was disabled, and we were looking after him for the weekend.”
Mia Hope – “Pingers thinking that being a midget was something you grew out of. Generally most things that come from Pingers mouth are some of the funniest moments in 2009.”
Bury Tomorrow – “Well most of them we couldnt tell you (hahah) but I think the most recent story is; on tour with bless the fall we went out after the so with BTF and Marionette to celebrate Dans 20th birthday. The first bar we went to turned out to be a Hula Themed gay bar, so after a couple of beers we moved on to a rock club, however it was playing host to a US cybergoth band. We literally stuck out so badly , it was an incredible night.”
The Dirty Youth – “I think Tom getting lost on the way to Download this year has to be up there. Long story short, the Sat Nav took him to Castle Donnington (Reading) instead of Donnington Castle (Derby,) which meant after 3 hours of driving he was half an hour further away than when he started, had spent all his booze money on petrol and missed most of the Saturday!”
Malefice – “Funny stuff is forever happening when you’re out and about on the road, but the main thing that sticks in my mind was when we were walking through a suburb in New Delhi, and a local driver was trying to get business from us. We politely said no but that’s when he decided to comment on Dales “drawings” on his arms. Apparently not only is he the frontman of our band, but also WWF wrestler “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Needless to say we all nearly died of laughter.”
What was your favourite metal album of 2009?
Sylosis – “I cant remember what albums came out this year. Mastodon Crack The Skye?”
Amon Amarth – “I mainly bought older albums this year actually, but I did enjoy the new Slayer and the new Megadeth album as well as Witchcrafts The Alchemist.”
Tesseract – “Textures – Silhouettes, technically not released in 2009, although I think the Indian release was this year, so the Indian release of Silhouettes by Textures…an awesome mixture of groove, heavy riffs and melody.”
NoMadeSense – “Neither are really metal, but Thrice and The Mars Volta released great albums this year. If you ask Sam and Joe theyll tell you Crack the Skye too but I just cant quite get into it. We released a bit of a fucking corker too, if you dont mind my saying so.”
The Rotted – “I love the new Mastodon album, its one of the best records Ive heard in years! Theyve really upped their game with this one, theyve always been great, but this is just incredible work!”
Mia Hope – “One of: Between The Buried and Me The Great Misdirect, La Dispute Somewhere At The Bottom Of The River Between Vega and Altair (technically it came out end of 2008 but I was a bit slow on the uptake and didnt hear of it until 2009)”
Bury Tomorrow – “Probably Constellations by August Burns Red. Its a progression from the previous record Messengers, but still maintains this incredible intensity that they achieved on that album. They are without doubt one of the tightest bands we have ever seen live if not the tightest! We were lucky enough to play with them in Poole a while back, everybody should check them out if they havent already!”
The Dirty Youth – “Lamb of God – Wrath – Every member of that band showing again theyre a class apart on their instruments, making music thats ridiculously technical, aggressive yet still has that groove to it.”
Malefice – “Deflorate by The Black Dhalia Murder. Heavy as fuck, enough said.”
What was the most metal thing to happen to the band in 2009?
Sylosis – “I dont know really. Going up a crane at a German fest we were playing to a Jagermeister bar in the sky was awesome…I dont know if that counts as being a metal thing but it ruled.”
Amon Amarth – “Taking the night train from St Petersburg to Moscow was pretty fucking metal. Especially since we spent the most part of the night in the restaurant cart drinking vodka, and the next day being hung over as hell! Im not sure if its the most metal thing, but I think it ranks pretty high.”
Tesseract – “As jay mentioned, we stayed it what can only be described as Fritzels basement when we did a festival in Holland. There was no carpet, the floor was damp and unsealed, so there was brick dust everywhere. We did have a bucket in the corner though to piss in…luxury! The best bit was the steel girder covered in what looked like shit and blood. Good times…the BEST times!”
NoMadeSense – “Herpes.”
The Rotted – “Everything every day is Metal! Were not a band that plays shows at weekends, then go back to 9 to 5 jobs during the week, none of us have particularly conventional lives, none of us have bosses we have to answer to, and we dont have to get up when the alarm goes off in the morning to a life were constantly trying to escape from! Weve all made steps to distance ourselves from normal society as much as we can. We just live our lives our way, on our own terms. Whats more Metal than that!?”
Mia Hope – “Metal things dont happen to me please see my highlights for the reason why.”
Bury Tomorrow – “I think that the most metal thing to happen us was during the video shoot. By the end of the 4 hour shoot the crowd consisted of one dislocated hip, one broken nose, one cracked jaw, 3 broken finger and two dislocated knees ( on the same person). If that aint metal I dont know what is.”
The Dirty Youth – “Fred Durst emailing us telling us he digs the stuff was the most new metal thing that happened to us. We met him in Sonisphere Danni went up to him and said “fucking hell Fred wheres your red hat?” He laughed, asked who we were gave us his email and has been giving us feedback on the album since.”
Malefice – “Having the honour of recording a track for the Dimebag Darrell Tribute CD on MetalHammer, the guy was a guitar god & metal legend, so to be able to show some respect to one of our heros in that format was awesome. R.I.P.”
What was your favourite gig of 2009?
Sylosis – “Probably Sonisphere. We were shocked at how good Download was and didnt think we could top it then Sonisphere was even more insane. Best crowd response weve ever had and so many people packed into the tent.”
Amon Amarth – “That is nearly impossible to say. There have been so many great gigs this year, both festival shows and touring gigs. I guess the Summer Breeze open air was one of the highlights, as well as Wacken Open Air, but also playing in Moscow was brilliant I could go on.”
Tesseract – “To watch? Bloodstock – the festival was great this year. Europe closed the festival on “The Final Countdown”…there will never ever be a better end to a festival.”
NoMadeSense – “Probably the shredyrface Rock Sound tour in april or march or whenever it was, the London date; The Bronx and Fucked Up changed my life. Fucking great gig.”
The Rotted – “Kylesa at the Bristol Croft was wicked, its a tiny venue, maybe 100 people max and they put on a blinding performance! They also bought a band from Wales called Taint with them who were a great discovery for me, they rocked!”
Mia Hope – “I didnt go to that many as I was concentrating on the album so cant think of one at the moment. Im hoping to rectify this in 2010.”
Bury Tomorrow – “Probably the Birmingham show on this current tour, it was insane I really really enjoyed myself, it was the first show we had done since the album was released, and the repose was beyond belief. Amazing!”
The Dirty Youth – “The Cellar in Oxford, the sound is amazing!”
Malefice – “Has to be the New Delhi show in India, pure madness.”);
