Nick Holmes – Bloodbath

Bloodbath are one of those bands that I hold the highest regard for with their mind-numbingly heavy brand of metal. September this year, the band announced the replacement of the brilliant Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth fame with their new vocalist who was none other than Nick Holmes, front man of the awesome Paradise Lost. I caught up with Nick to talk about Bloodbath’s brand new album ‘Grand Morbid Funeral’, his new venture with the band, Paradise Lost, zombies, metal being like pop music and more!

Nick is a friendly chap and got straight into the interview after the initial round of greetings, telling me how it was when he was announced as the band’s new vocalist in September this year. “It’s been fine, I was aware of it before, and got asked if I wanted to do it in 2011, so I had quite a long time to consider it. We started the songs together in the last few months before recording and then I did the album in a week and that’s it really. It happened really fast in the last six months!”

Nick replaced the one and only Mikael Akerfeldt as the vocalist of the band and I asked how the band approached him initially. “We (Paradise Lost) were touring in the US with Devin Townsend and Katatonia and they asked me then if I fancied doing it so obviously Mikael (Akerfeldt) had already left at that point, I didn’t take them seriously at first but eventually I realized they were serious and I thought why not! It’s pretty different to what I’ve done in the last 15 years and it has been a good laugh you know, it’s been a lot of fun working on this album!”

Mikael Akerfeldt left the band in 2010 and stepping in to replace him was definitely no small feat. So did the mighty Nick Holmes feel any pressure doing the job and becoming Bloodbath’s newest member? “I just dont like being told I can’t do something because if someone tells me that then I’ll do the exact opposite! Because f*** you! The kind of thing would happen where someone would say “ you don’t sound like Mike!”, why would I sound like Mike? I’m not Mike!’ I’m not gonna copy Mike, i’d probably get more shit if I did!’ It was kind of an uphill struggle initially to be honest but the music is great, it’s as good as anything Bloodbath has done and I’m really stoked to be involved with it!’ I’ve got big shoes to step in and fill. Part of the reason I was hesitant initially was that I was instantly going to be compared to Mike and that’s fine you know because Mike’s a great death metal vocalist but again, it’s like when you have a dog you don’t like the new dog but eventually you get used to it”

On asking Nick whether the album title hold any significance – “Anders told me the title, even from working PL when you come up with a title and no one likes it then you kind of grow into the title. At first I thought, ‘really? That’s the title?’ but then it grew on me and now I think it’s a great title! And the song ‘Grand Morbid Funeral’ is a really good title track as well. I think it’s just about a big funeral you know!” [bursts out laughing] Mate that’s helpful!

Paradise Lost are famous and loved for their very distinct style of doom/gothic metal and I asked Holmes whether, after 20 odd years, if he brought any PL elements into the new Bloodbath record. “Beyond my own way of doing death metal vocals, nothing apart from that. The thing with growling vocals is, when I was a teenager, you could distinguish between different singers and I really liked that but nowadays everyone just wants to sound like their favourite singer. I’ve never been like that. You can still have brutal vocals without it sounding like everyone else. That’s probably what turned me off about death metal when it became more mainstream. In every walk of life, when everyone starts to copy everyone else, it just becomes f***ing boring you know.”

We then got to talking about the concept behind ‘Grand Morbid Funeral’ and the writing process. “Not at all. Anders, Jonas, they all wrote three songs each once you get past the noise of the album, there’s a fair bit of variation in it, the song writing is very differentand I can kind of tell who has written which track. That’s pretty much how it came together, I got involved in a couple of songs but most of it was already written by the time I came in, I worked on the vocal lines for a couple of songs like ‘Unite in Pain’ and ‘Beyond Cremation’ – the lyrics the singing lines but apart from them everything else was done by the rest of the guys.”

So what lyrical themes did Nick have in mind when writing? Read on, this part is bloody hilarious! “ Well I just wanted to out go everybody else really – trying to make it as horrible as possible, we were singing about gore and graveyards and zombies, Unite In Pain was just about the thought of a painful death instead of a peaceful death. Beyond Cremation (this part is a riot, both of us were in splits laughing) how worse could it get when you’re cremated, how else could you torture someone when they’re dust! So we imagined someone jumping up and down on dust on the ground trying to get revenge. You’ve gotta have a bit of humour of course!The music can be super brutal and miserable but you can still have a bit of fun with it, I mean you’re snging about Zombie’s how serious can it get, there’s also a lot of Satanism going on in there so it’s cool!”

I have this thing during interviews where I pick up on something the person I’m interviewing said and I get all curious – at this point I told him how I loved his approach and the way he talked about ‘Satanism’. “ I’m an athiest, I can talk about Satanism like I talk about Christianity you know? It’s all bullshit to me, none of it makes an ounce of sense! I don’t even know what it is really, any kind of belief system really, it’s all lost on me. I’m happy to sing about it if it’s kind of deemed as nasty or negative!”

I really liked how straightforward he was and wanted to hear more about what he had to say on the music scene today, especially with regard to metal. “About 1993 is when I started to feel like that because I was listening to death metal in the mid 80’s when it started – it was a new thing there was bands like Venom who kind of started it in a way. In the mid 90’s I just found once people were releasing albums and they became mainstream I started to find it getting very similar. These days, I like what I like and I don’t care what happens. I’ve seen so many scenes come and gone but as individual as metal wants to be, there’s still trends in it, it’s sort of like pop music that way. When I first got into metal there weren’t any trends. It was just groups of people with a similar mindset – but once bands became huge it became just like pop music you know. Everything is about hype but usually there’s not much substance behind the hype, most bands are pretty shit really (found that hilarious). There’s millions of bands but  only a few really good bands. You can hype it but it still won’t be good. The internet is mainly responsible for that more than anything really.”

The band has also been confirmed for a number of festivals next year including Inferno and Maryland Death Fest! “It’s going to be really cool yeah! There’s Katatonia, Opeth and Paradise Lost, so we’re just going to fit it around all those schedules. It should be fun! It’s a style of music I haven’t we were very heavy in the early 90’s but not after that but what we do in Bloodbath is extreme and I’m really looking forward to doing it live!”

So will Australia see Bloodbath obliterate as they are known to? “ I love Australia and I love coming there and tours in Australia aren’t usually that extensive, they’re just a few days so we don’t have to worry about being away for too long! But yeah I’m sure i could speak for everyone else when I say it’ll be great to come there so hopefully something works out!”

Given the vocal delivery on this album, I asked Nick if he saw himself as a permanant member of the band in the future. “I dunno! It’s very much Jonas and Anders band, and ultimately they call the shots. They asked me to sing for them on the album and I was happy to do that, I did it! We’ll see what happens, if it works out and everyones happy, obviously they’ve got Katatonia and I’ve got PL those are our day jobs. We’re very happy with the album though so let’s see what happens!”

Nick’s last message to all us Bloodbath fans?
“Its really excellent I think but I’m biased! Hopefully we can get over to Australia and India, that would be fantastic but for now, listen to the album and check it out! Cheers for the support!”

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