Interview with PETE WADESON (Trojan/Talion)
Welcome to the FILTHY DOGS OF METAL Webzine.
Hello Pete. First of all, congratulations on your appearance at the KEEP IT TRUE Festival. You had a great performance!! Tell us how that experience was & were you satisfied with the organization &, generally, at the whole festival.
“Thanks for that Stavros, glad you enjoyed the show and judging by feedback through our socials and official band email (metallicsavage@gmail.com) plus early online reviews it seemed a lot also did. But yeah, it was a blast, from arriving to playing the show the KIT organization are amazingly efficient and that sure helped us play to the best of our ability. And we definitely couldn’t have wished for a better crowd reaction; they were with us from the very first chord I hit. For us, an amazing experience, and for those who couldn’t be there, I hope they’ll check it out on You Tube.”
Your setlist was based on the Taliön & Tröjan albums (''Bring on the Night'' was a big surprise for me!!!) plus ''Thrill Of The Chase'' (from your first solo demo, back in 1987). How do you feel after many years seeing metal fans headbanging, rising fists in the air & singing your songs?
“That was phenomenal, because it wasn’t on the original release of the debut album ‘Chasing The Storm.’ In fact we never thought we’d play ‘Bring On The Night’ again but after the lyric video that was made for it to promote the album reissues it reminded us what a great song it is, so we had to play it.
You’ve certainly got a good knowledge of us as yes; we used part of ‘Thrill Of The Chase’ as an intro into ‘Bring On The Night.’ It just seemed right to use it especially as my solo album is to be released by Sonic Age Records/Cult Metal Classics in May. As for seeing the fan reaction – it was incredible. If you watch the show, you can see many at the front singing along word for word and what a superb crowd they were. Obviously, a lot of our long-time supporters were there for which were always grateful.”
Your line-up is you, Pete on the guitar & Graeme on vocals from the old days. Please introduce the other two band members, Ste Anks (Bass) & Dave Edwards (Drums) to our readers.
“When reforming we needed a new bass player and drummer so Ste the bassist had been in many local bands and had loads of experience, Graeme already knew him and knew he was good enough for the job. As for Dave. Well he’s a long history in metal. And some will know he played on the Metal Of Muthas ’92 compilation album with me for the instrumental track ‘Thrill Of The Chase’. But afterwards he went on to play for Shadowkeep for a while and toured quite extensively in Europe with them. But now he’s back – you could say things have gone full circle.”
How do you see today's metal fans at a live show in comparison to the glorious days of the past? Do you see any differences?
“Good question. I’d say their generally older than in the past because a lot of people coming to the shows like KIT remember the bands who are on from first time around and in the type of metal music, we play I think in general the age demographic is lower who get into the music as well! Just take a look at any rock gig and I think you’ll notice there aren’t that many – if any – young kids in the crowd.”
As an artist, do you prefer to play live shows in small clubs or your preferred big venues like the K.I.T. Festival?
“Some like clubs because of the closeness to the audience and you can definitely get a better atmosphere as in some cases you’re almost stood at the same height as the crowd so yeah in that sense it can be more intimate, and you feel more connected to the people watching. But on some shows – the KIT in particular - if you get the crowd going its fantastic as they go crazy. All you need to do is watch some of the better bands who’ve played KIT streamed on You Tube and they are fanatical. We had people who’d come to see us from as far away as Japan, America, India, Brazil! We met as many people as we could at the signing before the show and that was a blast in itself to know they’d come all that way. Some had original albums for us to sign and just as many had the reissues. Some had both. Amazing!”
Is there any funny or weird story that you would like to share with us from your experience at the K.I.T Festival?
“Ha yeah, this woman came over and we’d already had lots of people coming over to get their picture taken with us then one lady came over on her own and said, ‘could I take a picture of her with Graeme.’ So I did and she just went ‘thanks bye you were amazing Graeme’ and walked off! Seemed she either didn’t know I’d played or decided a pic with me wasn’t worth it. (Laughs) I got ribbed about that for days after by Graeme and the rest of the band.”
The compilation album ''Metallic Savage'' from your solo project is going to be released in the next few days via Cult Metal Classics. It seems that you have been satisfied with the collaboration with them. Tell us a few things about this album and is it going to release on vinyl too?
“Yeah, it’s out May 8th. There’s a few promo videos on You Tube and a lot of tracks can be found on various YT channels. Yeah, for me it was a superb achievement as they wanted to release material I’d done on a couple of demos in the past. So I helped arrange the track listing and there’s special booklet with rare photos and press cuttings so it’s a very nice package. I’m hoping it’ll go down well and amazingly it’s the only metal guitar instrumental album to be released on an established European label by a UK guitarist. So yeah, you could say I’m very proud of that. Very proud indeed.”
What should we expect from your live shows in the near future (I know that something is going to be at the end of May!)?
“Your spies must be out and about. (laughs) because our next show is another Biggy for us and will be a surprise to many as were playing the Muskelrock Festival in Sweden on the 3rd of June. Again, we’re so thankful to be asked.”
I have a personal question here, Pete. Why on the dead wax on ''Chasing The Storm'' album is written: Side A: NO WATER IN BATH and on Side B: BE CAREFUL GRAEME! Is there any funny story behind that? A story about Graeme and an empty bath (hahaha!!)?
“Well some producers like to put in - should we say ‘a personal touch’ - on what’s known as the ‘runout’ part of the vinyl that connects them with the band or is an in-band joke. The bath thing was because the producer Guy Bidmead took the mick a bit out our accents because we’re Northerners and Southerners (from the South of England) don’t talk in such a broad British accent as we do. Also, there used to be a social gap of Northerners having no money as all the rich people lived down South. I know a daft joke so in other words we couldn’t even afford to put water in the bath which basically means that we can’t afford anything up North. I know that must be very confusing, but it’s a British thing. However, now nobody can afford anything with the way things are.
Now ‘Be Careful Graeme’ was definitely an in-band joke as he can tended at times to be known for leaning on something and next thing it’d be falling over. It happened in pre-production with Guy, and he noticed it and a few times, especially mic stands would go flying over in the studio.” (laughs) So yeah, that was Guy’s contribution, and it just personalises the album a bit more.
In fact, well spotted Stavros as I’ve never been asked that question before and had forgotten it was on there.”
Thank you very much for your time, Pete. It was a pleasure to have you again! The closure is yours.
“Thanks again for the interest my friend and I would like to say things are going better than we could have ever hoped for. We’ll soon be recording new material and watch out because we’ll be uploading some teasers. But we’ll soon have a new track uploaded to all media with video so the next step apart from playing superb shows anywhere we’re offered will be to get with a new label. Also our fb page is up and running at last so people can check in at:
https://www.facebook.com/TrojanTalion-UK-Metal-107267975433376
And as always, we thank everybody who’s ever helped us, continued supporting us and any metalhead who still flies the True Metal flag…”
By Steve the Filthy Dog.
Photo Credit: Jens Dille.
