Alestorm Interview

Quick, name a metal band from Scotland. Hard to do, right? Well, Alestorm is out to change that. They play a rousing brand of metal that they dub “Scottish Pirate Metal.” Their debut release, Captain Morgan’s Revenge was just released and produced by Lasse Lammert. Christopher Bowes is Alestorm’s vocalist, and also plays the keytar. Some of the Scottish terms he uses in the interview were unfamiliar to me, but after a quick trip to the dictionary I know now that “numpties” means fools or idiots.

Chad Bowar: Give us a brief history of Alestorm.
Christopher Bowes: We formed back in 2004 under the name of Battleheart. Had a couple of rehearsals, then disappeared for a bit. Then in 2006, Gavin (guitars) and I got our act together and recorded our first demo. People liked it. So we recruited a new live lineup, and played a couple of gigs in Dundee, Scotland. We did another demo, and left it at that for a while. Then in 2007 we tried to see if we could get signed… and it worked.

What are your expectations for the CD?
I just hope it doesn’t bomb! Napalm Records threw quite a lot of money at the recording and promotion of it, hopefully their investment will pay off. Maybe we’ll reach the heady heights of getting to number 97 in the charts in Austria or some such. But bands rarely get big off their first album. Hopefully we’ll be something big by the 3rd or 4th albums.

What are your upcoming tour plans?
We have a UK tour with Turisas and Norther in March, which is gonna be utterly crazy. We’ve never gigged on a scale that big before. After that, there’s a bunch of festival appearances throughout Europe, the highlight of which being Metal Camp in Slovenia. It’s an absolutely fantastic festival, and I can’t wait to play it!

Do you wear the pirate costumes on stage?
Oh aye, absolutely, though they might be toned down a bit for the purposes of not sweating like a pig too much. But we’re definitely up for dressing up like a bunch of numpties on stage.

Read the complete Alestorm Interview

(photo courtesy Napalm Records)