Richard Rutter
Toledo Steel
Yeah Lior, that's right! That was a great festival and it certainly doesn't quite feel like 4 years ago. I'm doing good thanks.
Where do I start… there's differing opinion across the country on how things have been handled throughout and especially so at the beginning of the crisis. Maybe the lockdown could've been imposed a bit sooner but there was a resistance to a lockdown at all from the government and that is now seen as a big error of judgement by a lot of people. I was quite surprised initially at how compliant the British public have been with adhering to the guidelines and there hasn't been much in the way of chaos like I expected in the local communities.
There's definitely been a lot of different reactions with how to deal with the lockdown but everyone's circumstances differ somewhat and that ultimately affects the response of course. Most people have adjusted quite well to the changes but the whole country is eager for the easing of restrictions and gradually returning to normal as much as possible.
I've noticed a lot of bands doing live performance or Q&A videos to keep up band activity and their fans engaged. That's not really something we've thought of doing to be honest, we're still working on finishing up the recording of our next album and once that's done there's all the mixing and artwork etc to sort out so that's the top priority at the moment for us.
The compilation was suggested by our label quite a while back and it's great to finally have it all finished, they've done a really good job with the repackaging of it all. With the much better cover artwork and booklet it definitely looks like a more professional product and to now have all those songs on one disc is great.
We originally had 1000 copies of each EP pressed independently and we managed to sell pretty much all our copies of "Zero Hour" over the years and quite a few of the first EP too. It made no sense for the label to repress each EP without revamping both discs into one release. There was also an error on "Zero Hour" originally where the gap in between each song is too long. That is a mistake we made at the time and because of this, the intro track doesn't run smoothly into "Fallen Empire" like it's supposed to! It's nice to now have this corrected on the compilation.
Now you mention it, that would've been a cool idea! It's not something any of us or the label considered really. We've played a few different covers live over the years though and it would be cool to record some for a future release further down the line. For now, I quite like the fact that the compilation is just highlighting the time in which those first two EP's were written and recorded.
It was hard work at times haha, but great looking back on how it all came together. I think no matter how much more experience you get as time goes by, it's always tough recording because you're trying to put down your absolute best performance and capture something you can be proud of forever. You can analyze every little detail and be your own worst critic. I remember going into the studio to record the first EP, thinking it would be fairly straight forward because we had already played the songs together over and over. I was so wrong haha. The first session threw me off totally and I had to rethink my approach for the following session. By the time of recording "Zero Hour" we were all more focused and clear on what we wanted so it was slightly easier but we all had our moments where we had re-assess parts of the songs to make them flow better etc. I can remember how excited we all felt when we were sat in the studio together at the time of mixing both EP's and hearing it all come together, especially with "Zero Hour".
Yeah I can definitely now hear parts of songs where I could've done something better or maybe even slightly different. I don't have any regrets though because I know I did the best I could at the time and I probably wasn't even thinking of too many other possibilities.
I wouldn't say I miss anything in particular but I look back on it all with great memories. The dynamics were maybe a little disjointed at times and there were a few slight personality clashes which meant not everything went as smoothly as it should've done.
There will no doubt be subtle changes and new influences with each release but we're not planning that orchestral album just yet! I feel there's quite a lot of potential for what we can do in the future without compromising our sound as a heavy metal band. Time will tell in what ways that will happen though.
It feels more focused and we try more than ever to focus on coming up with well-rounded songs. We also work together more now than ever when it comes to writing.
Unfortunately, there's always going to be people who make those kind of comments but I certainly don't worry about that. Rather than coming up with silly tag lines like "Grandad Metal" they should just focus on what they do like instead. We all reach Grandad age eventually (if we're lucky) haha. All those older bands paved the way for heavier music so you can't dismiss or ignore its importance. Anyone with any real knowledge of rock and metal in general should know this.
Matt our drummer came up with the chorus melody and lyrics before any music was written. The music was then written around that chorus idea and then Matt and I subsequently worked together on the rest of the lyrics and melody ideas. I remember thinking we had a strong song at the time but I didn't think too much beyond that. "City Lights" is definitely one of my favorites from those first EP's too though.
At the moment we have no plans to recruit a second guitarist but we're not against becoming a five piece again at some point in the future. There just hasn't been a suitable candidate to fill the role of a second guitarist and tick all the necessary boxes. We don't want to settle for less and rock the boat right now. It would be nice to have the additional guitar player live but also the dynamics within the band with the current lineup feels great and we're all happy remaining as a four piece until the right person comes along.
The next album will be released hopefully around September time. It could possibly be delayed a bit though due to the pandemic. I'm not completely sure as to how it will affect the release date, if at all. If it can be released on time, it's not far off really so I'm not worried about us fading into the background too much because we can't play live again just yet.
The main challenge for us will be that we can hopefully book plenty of shows for next year at the latest. There will no doubt be a backlog of rescheduled shows that were meant to happen this year. I also hope that there's not too much in the way of small venue closures, that would be a nightmare if bands can play live again but there's a serious lack of venues for it.
It's all coming together nicely! There's still more guitars and vocals to record but we're making good progress. It's still going to sound like Toledo Steel but this time around we've focused more on melody than "No Quarter". There's a real mix of songs and a couple of slightly different things thrown in musically this time. It should hopefully be a well-rounded album start to finish without any of the songs sounding too similar.
Cheers Lior, take care man!
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