British heavy metal legends Blitzkrieg are going to release their 10th studio album simply named after the band this September. That was a good reason to have a chat with vocalist Brian Ross about it more in detail. But because he isn't only engaged in Blitzkrieg but also in Satan, we came across his other band that also releases their new album in September. And everybody who knows about Blitzkrieg, knows the connection to Metallica, another interesting topic was the friendship with the guys from Saxon. Enjoy reading and check the new albums, both by Blitzkrieg and Satan!

Michael

Hi Brain, great to have you here today! How are you doing?

I'm good, thank you!

With "Blitzkrieg" you are going to release your 10th regular studio album – why did you choose such a simple title for the album?

Well, after we finished recording and everything was done, because of the time it took us to record and get everything together, we had the interruption with Covid and everything was against it, we never even thought about the title. We have our own rehearsal studio where we record the album and everything's set up in there, as well as a little lounge area. We sat there and had a coffee and Nick said to me: "Every band in the world seems to have a self-titled album, why hasn't Blitzkrieg ever had one?" I said that I had no idea but that would be a good way to start now, so we decided that this was it. Better late than never, I suppose because most people entitle their first album. I know Metallica didn't nor did the Beatles, but we thought that it was a good title and we go with that.

When I listen to it, I somehow feel thrown back to the 80s when Ozzy Osbourne just had released "Bark At The Moon" in "You Won't Take Me Alive" or Black Sabbath with "Heaven And Hell" in "If I Told You" but also in modern times with songs like "The Spider" that sounds a little bit like Ghost or the farewell album by Sanctuary in "Dragon's Eye" – did you wanted to do an album that does the splits between the past and today?

I think it's important to retain our identity and what we initially set out to do all those years ago. But we also need to bring in new ideas to keep things fresh and that's basically the reason why we worked with that. It would be wrong to forget tradition, history, and everything and just to create an album that's brand new and to try to be as Ghost or whoever. That's not Blitzkrieg and what we're about. We're not like that and when we first started we called ourselves a traditional true British metal band. That was before anybody came up with the idea of New Wave. It was just that's what we were and that's what we still are.

The sound and especially the drums and guitars are very modern and dynamic though, how much influence did the new band members have on that?

They had a big hand in helping to write the new material. Nick, unfortunately he cannot be with us today, he recorded the entire album, mixed and mastered it all and what we finished up with was exactly what we wanted. In the past when we got in a recording studio and you had someone else that doesn't know the band, and do all the recording and put it all together, what you get is their interpretation of what we want. But this time we got exactly what we wanted because we did it ourselves this time. I think that's probably the right thing to do. And probably the way forward for Blitzkrieg as well. Probably also for some other bands, I don't know!

The last album "Judge Not!" is already six years old – why did it take such a long time to release a new album, this is just one year less than Metallica had between their latest ones!

It wasn't the intention, I can assure you! Basically what happened was that we did the album "Judge Not!" and the idea was to put out another one probably about two years after that. But we lost the bass and the guitar player that we had so first of all we had to find new people. Once we'd found them they had to come in and learn stuff from the bands' catalogue and do some gigs. At the same time, we were trying to write the album. Then Covid happened and we could do nothing at all, we weren't allowed to even get together to write. Ideas were banded around but it's not the same as receiving an email with a guitar track on it. You need to be in the same room, really. So all of these things sort of held everything back. Our record company would be tearing their hair out saying "when do we get this new album?" But we just kept on with it, kept on working on it, rehearsing the songs, writing the songs and lyrics, getting everything together. We came up with ideas for the sleeve and so on and eventually, it all came together. That's the reason why it has taken this long. We didn't want it to be that way but that's just the way it went.

Haha, okay, it seems that you are a very traditional band when it comes to songwriting. During the pandemic, a lot of bands told me that they were sending around the files and did the album more digital than anything else.

Yeah, but I don't like that. When it comes to the music you have to be in the room because when you're playing someone would come up spontaneously with "oh, why don't we try this here? why don't we do that?". You can't do that with a recording, you can't say in a recording "stop playing, I want to put this in here!". It doesn't work. But you can stop a musician and say to put in something or to move that a bit. While the guys are doing that, all the time they're messing around and playing with bits and ideas, I'm formulating what the song is about because I listen to what they're playing. And I listen to the mood of the music and I write lyrics to fit that mood. I like everything to work together. Can you imagine going to see a horror movie and you hear a nice eerie, sort of Disney-type piece of music – it doesn't work. If you want a horror movie you gonna have that type of music. So and once we got the entire song written we recorded it in the rehearsal and I took it home and wrote the lyrics to it. Yes, it is a traditional way of doing it but that's the way I like to work.

Your son Alan is part of the band since 2012 – does it sometimes make the situation in the band easier or is it sometimes even trickier to get agreements and whatever because the whole thing is not only on a professional but also family level?

Do you know, it hasn't affected the band at all. To be honest with you, he came in to help us as an additional drummer because nobody knows Blitzkrieg songs better than Alan. He actually knows them better than I do. He can play every one of them. So I asked if he could come to the rehearsal because we had a drummer coming along and I liked to have two guitars to hear better. Alan came along and played absolutely awesome. We hired the drummer but we said to Alan that we don't need to look for another guitar player because he could play the songs perfectly. So that's how Alan came in. And really, it wasn't difficult at all. He just came in and worked so hard and I'm really proud of it, he has done extremely well.

Apropos Metallica – is it a curse or a blessing that the guys did cover you on their "Creeping Death" EP back in 84?

(Laughs) The thing about Metallica's "Blitzkrieg" is it's a bit of both, it's a curse and it's a blessing at the same time. It's a blessing that a band of their status, even back then they were huge, would like to do a cover of one of your songs. When Lars phoned and asked me if they could do it, for me it was just "yeah, no problem, do it!". And it was a blessing from the point of view also that a lot of Metallica fans thought "who is this Blitzkrieg, let's have a listen to that". So they started listening to that. The curse comes with first of all, there are so many people, even at these days who still believe that we're doing a cover version of a Metallica song. And the other side of it is, in interviews I'm still answering questions about it (laughs). It happened, I spent quite a lot of time on the telephone with Lars, going through the chord progressions with him and told him the lyrics over the telephone and they still got it wrong. But the finish part is it's Metallica and they did the wrong thing with it and it's hard to say that it's bad because it isn't. It's really, really good. So you know the whole thing was quite fine. I mean the fact that I'm still answering questions about it, all these years later, proves that it made some kind of impact.

It did for sure. But still, you didn't get the popularity other NWoBHM got…

No. It didn't bring us massive popularity from it. Most of the popularity we got we earned ourselves, which is nice. It would be great to jump on somebody else's bandwagon but that's not what Blitzkrieg is about.

Coming to the lyrics on the album – I guess there isn't a red line between the songs, isn't it? So what do they deal with?

No. The lyrics are what they are. I could write clichés like a lot of other bands do but that's not me. I like to write stories. I see something in a movie or on TV, a series or a book – if I find a subject that I like I write a song about it. All of my lyrics are stories about various different subjects. To me, the cliché would be to write about satanic stuff, as with Satan – let's do albums full of satanic stuff. It'' not gonna happen because that's not where we are. Nor with Satan or with Blitzkrieg have anything to do with satanic stuff. That's not to say that I would write a song about Satan, I have. "All Hell Is Breaking Loose" is about the fall of Satan from heaven. In Satan we've never written songs about the horned one.

One song which I already mentioned before and which lyrics I find quite interesting, probably because I am a mystery freak, is "If I Told You". There you deal with the assassination of JFK; Roswell and the Zodiac Killer – why did you choose these specific topics for the song? And what is the meaning behind it?

All of my life I wanted to write about JFK assassination. I'm very sure that I know who did it but I kind of feel that if you start putting that into songs and make too much noise about it you gonna get yourself into a whole lot of trouble. Hence the chorus "If I told you, I'd have to kill you". I kinda like staying alive so I'm gonna keep it that way. Saxon did "Dallas 1 P.M." many years ago because Biff shares my enthusiasm for this kind of thing. Whenever we meet we always talk about this stuff. When we meet on tour and whenever, we talk about the Roswell incident, JFK, and all that stuff. The Zodiac Killer is something else. It's an unfinished business, really. It's never been solved. The Zodiac killer himself said that everything you need to put a name to him is in the codes that he wrote. To this day they never discovered who it was. So it just simply worked with putting the three things together in one song and as these are the facts, why won't we tell officially about Roswell, who killed Kennedy, we all know who killed him, why don't they come out and say it? What was the reason that he was killed? Who was standing on the grass he knew? All of these things…who was the Zodiac Killer? Where was he from? I just wanted to get all of that into one song and put in the final thing. The reason why I'm not naming these people in this song is because I want to stay alive.

Haha, that sounds really mysterious. I guess I gonna have to pick up the Zodiac movie again, I really love this one!

Haha! It's great! I think it's unlikely that the guy is still alive now but his son could be. Or members of his family could be. It's fascinating, really!

Yeah, just like Roswell!

Yeah, absolutely. We all know what they got in Area 51 but they're not admitting it, not completely. The American government now is saying "yes, we do have something". But they're not saying where.

With Satan you are going to release another album next month – how busy is going to keep you this release politics? And are there maybe some plans to go on tour with both bands together?

It's not the best idea to have two albums released in the same month but two different record companies, both keen to get the album out, so it's just the way it happened. Blitzkrieg's album should have been out technically, if we'd managed to get it all finished off, it would have been released last November. It just didn't happen. Satan had no idea when the album was coming out. We only just finished that about two months ago. Then it was announced that the Blitzkrieg album was coming out, then MetalBlade decided "Oh, we put in Satan album at the same time". I mean, it's great and it's not at the same time. It's fantastic for me with two albums coming out at the same time but from the band's point of view, it creates a problem for Jarvis Leatherby. He gets gigs for Satan and also for Blitzkrieg. It creates a headache for him because he's got to find gigs that make sure that we don't come inside. That's the great thing about having the same guy who does the same job for two different bands. But it makes it hard for him though. He just has to put everything in order.

So I conclude that you don't go with both bands together on tour?

Not at the same time, no (laughs). That's not gonna happen, maybe in the future we may do a gig together at some point but it is a lot of hard work for me. I couldn't even imagine doing a tour of maybe 30, or 40 dates with two bands every night. My voice would be shot after about 5 or 6 gigs (laughs).

Do you have any tour plans with Blitzkrieg planned so far?

We've already done a couple of gigs, Jarvis got us a couple of gigs already and he's working on stuff now. Satan got a European tour in September into October this year. Blitzkrieg is doing a European tour next year but we're not exactly sure when that is. Jarvis is still working on it. The intention is that we get out there and do gigs as soon as possible. We'd obviously like to get on some of the festivals as well, that would be great. We'll start working on that now, like Wacken, Sweden Rock, and so on. I know that Saxon already been chosen for Wacken, so that would be really cool. With Blitzkrieg we've just had a gig with Saxon and Accept, so we all spent a lot of time backstage, that was really cool. And it was nice to see Brian (Tatler; M.) as well, he is doing really well with Saxon now and he is a very good friend of mine. So if we could get Blitzkrieg on Wacken as well, that would be a great thing to get together with Saxon and have a good laugh again.

Next year you're going to turn 35, are there any plans for that?

Whatever comes up. We're keen to do a European tour, we're keen to do as much of a tour in England as we can but we would really like to come across to the States but that probably won't happen until the end of '25 or even early '26. Initially, we wanted to get out into Europe because that's where Blitzkrieg has always been supported. One time years ago there was a period of the band when Blitzkrieg could not get a gig in England at all, anywhere because they were only interested in disco music like Michael Jackson, Spice Girls, and all that. We spent all our time in your homeland and the German people have always been so good to us and we have never forgotten that. So we need to get out there and play some gigs across Europe and Germany as well. That's what we wanna do now.

Last but not least, the last words are yours.

I would just like to say at this point a huge thank you to our fans who have been so loyal to us over the years because without that loyalty, without those fans we wouldn't still be here. I think a lot of bands forget that. It's your fans that put you where you are and you should always remember that. I will never forget that, never forget the fans. They're very important to us and they're family. It's the Blitzkrieg family, that's the way it is and the way it always will be. When we finish playing a gig, I like to go backstage to have a quick drink and then I like to come out and meet people. Ronnie Dio was the same – he would come out and meet people and shake hands with them because that's the way of saying thank you. That is my final word – a massive thank you, Blitzkrieg salute you!

Thank you very much for the interview, Brian! It was a great pleasure talking to you.

Thank you, you're a gentleman. It was great talking to you!