Interview By Alison Booth
Greek power metal giants FIREWIND recently unleashed their highly anticipated new album “Immortals”, their first in five years on their longstanding label, Century Media Records. The new material has been going down a storm with fans on the current European tour promoting “Immortals” and Metal Shock Finland Senior Manager Alison Booth had a quick catch up with guitar maestro GUS G. before the band’s performance in Sheffield, on 17th February.
Check out a few excerpts of the chat below, with the full audio on the player (background noise courtesy of a fan heater!):
Discussing “Immortals” and and the fan reaction, Gus stated:
“We’re surprised ‘cos we brought a lot of the new CD’s with us for our merch, but apparently everybody already has the CD and they already know the lyrics and they’ve already been singing along, which is pretty amazing! It’s refreshing you know. I think we came up with the right kind of album. From the feedback I got I think that’s what a lot of our fans have been waiting for, I think this is how the band should be sounding today honestly. It’s pretty clear to me what the sound and direction should be like and the good thing with this album is that it doesn’t only have the right sound, but it also has the right message. I’m just glad it made a lot of our fans happy.“
GUS G. The Corporation, Sheffield
February 2017
Being back on the road with FIREWIND:
“Yeah it’s cool, it’s good! It’s a good vibe with the guys always. We haven’t done this for a while, we did a few gigs last year to warm things up. This is like our first club tour in five years, it’s exciting to do this again.”
On Henning Basse now being permanent vocalist for FIREWIND, Gus enthused:
“He really fits with what we’re doing right now. He’s one of the best of this genre right now in Europe for sure. As you know, you saw my solo band two years ago and he was singing there with me. That’s when we reconnected again and he was still looking for a band to join full time and we were looking for a singer. We started talking about it on that tour and one thing led to another and here we are!”
Talking about future FIREWIND shows, Gus revealed:
“Russia’s a place we always wanted to play, so it finally happens now, we also have some shows in Cyprus and Greece in March. Depending on how it goes we’re looking at doing some other territories – we’d love to go to South America, we’ve never been there. It would be the first time if it happens, so it’s in the talks right now. I’m not sure if it’s gonna happen but we would love to go there.”
Visit the official FIREWIND Facebook page here and the official band website with the rest of the “Immortals” tour dates at this location.
GUS G. FIREWIND
Sheffield 2017
