Metal Mayhem UK

Metal Mayhem: Can you introduce yourself and the rest of the band for us?
Melly: I’m Melly, I play lead guitars, then we have Bastad also on lead guitars. There's Tom Henessey on vocals, Matt Caley on bass guitar and Tori on Drums

Metal Mayhem: How and when did you guys get together?
Melly: We got together in 2004, we all knew each other in one way or another from either working together or the pub or being old friends. As we started jamming and just getting our stuff together we realized that we had a good bond as five people and a sound which was fast becoming our own.

Metal Mayhem: For those that are unfamiliar, can you tell us a bit what Kingsize Blues are all about, and what we can expect?
Melly: To us Kingsize Blues is all about playing heavy music, being a no bullshit band, honest to ourselves and our fans, sure we get fucked up on all sorts, drink…drugs but we make no apologies. it may sound cliché if you don’t live like that but there are only a handful of bands that are like us in that respect, can play their asses off and still want to have a good time I mean, too many people worry about their appearance or the way they are perceived where as we don’t give a fuck, we are who we are and we never fail to deliver a punishing live show.. What to expect?? Always expect the unexpected!

Metal Mayhem: It’s good to see a decent, hard British band around. What’s your opinion on the UK metal scene at the moment?
Melly: There are lots of bands doing really well, I think the UK has a healthy scene with regards to the amount of different bands coming out who have their own sound and it will continue to grow I hope .. one in particular is Mendeed, who are good mates of ours, top blokes and a fantastic band, it comes down to how much you want to achieve and how hard you work to get there and they work their asses off, are extremely talented and deserve the success they are getting from it. It really is that simple.

Metal Mayhem: Your first two demos received rave reviews just about everywhere. Are these still about and can we still get a hold of them?
Melly: Well we used to give them away for free to anyone who requested them online or at shows but now the EP is out were concentrating on pushing that. You can download a demo song from our Myspace as well as check out a track from the EP and some live stuff from our BBC maidavale session for Radio 1 ... the address is http://www.myspace.com/kingsizeblues get on it, its good stuff!

Metal Mayhem: Moving onto your debut E.P “Live Fast And Die” which is out now, how happy are you with the finished product?
Melly: We are proud of Live Fast and Die because of the work we had to put in to get it finished, mostly recording from 10pm right through till 9am the next morning, after long days at work too so it really took it out of us because of the timescale involved and the lack of sleep. Chris Daly, the engineer behind it all worked extremely hard with us to achieve sounds that we would be happy with. It also taught us a lot about producing and engineering with other people because previously we had recorded our first 2 demos totally by ourselves so it was a learning curve the whole way too. And it slays!

Metal Mayhem: What has the reaction been like to it so far both fan and press wise?
Melly: It has been received very well in both camps, fans of the band were not disappointed because we showed them that we are able to step up our game with every release and this was no exception and the press seems to have taken a liking to us too, the EP has had very good reviews so far. Of course not everyone is going to like you but the odds are in our favour and you tend just to ignore the shit talkers anyways.

Metal Mayhem: How would you say it compares to your first two demos?
Melly: Production wise its obviously a lot better than our first 2 demos, song wise its more of a coming together of the sounds realized on those first recordings, the natural progression in songwriting and playing ability. There is also a re-recording of one of the demo tracks on the EP and we play old and new songs in the live set so pretty much they all reflect Kingsize Blues as a whole

Metal Mayhem: The E.P. was released on the Anticulture label here in the UK, but I read that you aren’t actually signed to them. Was there any reason for this or was this just the deal?
Melly: Well the EP was originally intended to be given away free like our previous 2 demos but Anticulture offered to put it out for us, a distribution deal rather than a record deal and we thought that would be a good start, having proper distribution means more people can get our music and ultimately get us a bigger audience and it has done just that. Plus Anticulture are good people and extremely hardworking so it was encouraging for us because we put so much into this ourselves.

Metal Mayhem: Are there any plans to release a full-length this year? Would it be on Anticulture as well, or was that just a deal for the E.P only?
Melly: There are plans to release a full length this year, we have written about half an albums worth of new material already and its sounding killer. We haven’t got as far as sorting out the full release details yet like labels or even a name for it as its only half written. One song is called ‘Fast Animals, Slow Children’ but I think that’s only a working title, u never know, its quite a cool name though! One thing I will say is that its gonna be something a little bit special so you’ll have to keep your eyes and ears peeled for it.

Metal Mayhem: In a fairly short career so far, you’ve already played with the likes of God Forbid, Will Haven and Crowbar. What would you say has been the bands greatest moment so far?
Melly: Meeting and touring with the guys from God Forbid was awesome because we all have been fans for a long time but the highlight I think for everyone was touring with Crowbar because we’re all such insanely huge fans of their music and all the bands involved with that scene. Kirk Windstein is like one of our all time heroes, these are people we’ve grown up listening to so it was a real honour to tour with them, it was like being a kid in a toy shop with free reign, it was surreal, what made it even better was that they are all top blokes and they really took us under their wing, many a drunken day and night on that tour!

Metal Mayhem: What would you like to achieve now for the rest of 2006? Any plans/tours/gigs that we should know about?
Melly: Well we just confirmed that we are playing 3 dates with Anthrax on their UK tour in April so we’re very excited about that, there a few more tours and festivals in the pipeline so keep your eyes peeled coz were gonna be everywhere, you will not be able to escape us.

Metal Mayhem: Thanks again, any last comments?
Melly: Thanks very much, I’d also just like to say a big thanks to everyone who has been involved with this band in anyway shape or form so far and if anyone reading this hasn’t already checked out our boys Mendeed then get yourself online and do so. You can check out our music and where we’re playing on http://www.myspace.com/kingsizeblues or http://www.kingsizeblues.com , we hope to see people up the front, headbanging and enjoying themselves... and we’ll see you all at the bar after.