First of all, you guys are labeled as “Pirate” metal. Do you agree?
Absolutely not; these are lies and misinformation spread by those whose agendas are otherwise not so much as to go as far to doing what it is you might have said, but instead. Rather we’d be described as a band, who in playing music, is doing a yes, you know? The genre is a thing that unless upside down Robert Metal notary some might relent to being called Henry Metal but only because of a sometimes.
Tell us about the mix of Celtic sound in your music.
We’re all prods so we prefer Rangers. We like to utilise the authentic celtic instruments such as the Keytar and the ROM-sample-based Workstation Synthesiser. Everyone in Alestorm has been to Scotland at least twice, which is more than can be said for some other bands. Most of our lyrics are written in tradtional Irish Gaelic and Pictish, but we translate them to English for greater popular appeal.
You guys covered a song by Taio Cruz, “Hangover”. What other musical genres except metal are you into? Did you cover that song because of the lyrical content?
No, we covered it because it’s a catchy song that we believed people would enjoy listening to. Metal is just pop music with distorted guitars but marketed to a different audience. It works pretty well. Gazz and Elliot enjoy listening to Broadway musicals (Sunset Boulevard is a favorite of theirs), I am in to Bluegrass, Pete likes Billy Joel, and Mate enjoys listening to the music of his Hungarian homeland in which a lady moans about how her laundry is never dry.
Standing out from other contemporary genres, what were your influences? What made you choose the concept of Pirates?
We actually chose to sing about Pilots, but unfortunately the A&R representative at Napalm Records has a dreadful lisp, and so through some massive miscommunication error their in-house songwriting team accidentally wrote us an album of songs about Pirates instead. So we stuck with it. We are also influenced by some things that people like, and others. Yeah!
The track ” Death Throes Of The Terrorsquid ” has some Dimmu borgir-eshque black metal influence. Are you guys into black metal? If yes, what’s your take on modern day black metal?
Oh absolutely, we are massive Black Metal fans; Slayer and Cannibal Corpse are some of our favorites! I think the genre is getting really do so much of a yes these days! Many have saying it can’t go so far as to doing what you think it might be doing, but it most definitely isn’t. The future is brightest and brighter for black metal!
We’d love it if you suggest your fans some of your favourite Pirate movies/books!
1. “The Shameful Mermaid of the Sargasso Sea” by Thomas W. Pardegeist
2. Pirates!
3. Jolly Roger
4. “Blackbeard Story” by William deAngelis
5. The Legend of Blackbeard the PIrate
The world wide metal scene is becoming wider and larger day by day with the emergence of thousands of new talented musicians and along with them, new genres. What’s your view on the new born genres of the scene?
Oh, you mean like Questing Metal and Heritagecore and Ancestral Death Metal? Yeah there’s some wild stuff going on out there! I wish everyone the best of luck in their futile endeavours.
What are your hobbies outside of music? Tell us about the craziest thing you’ve done onstage.
We collect model aeroplanes. Once we murdered a guy on stage.
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