Interviews

Matt Tuck - Bullet For My Valentine 'We Were Fearless'

Duane James

Dad. Metal Bogan. Duane's World.

Oct 9, 2025

8 min read

It’s been 20 years since Bullet For My Valentine released their landmark album The Poison and the lads are celebrating the milestone by bringing the party to Australia this October. To add weight to this already hefty announcement, they're bringing along While She Sleeps and The Devil Wears Prada for the festivities.

This announcement comes off the back of the end of their coheadlining world tour with Trivium, a tour that was initially intended to take place in Australia, but was instead wrapped up in the United States this past May. Press and fans worldwide have made speculations surrounding the circumstances around the abrupt cancellation of the joint tour, but the truth of the matter remains. BFMV have new music in the works, and they’re coming to Australia to celebrate a huge part of their legacy.

‍Wall Of Sound recently chatted with with iconic guitarist/frontman Matt Tuck to discuss the speculation surrounding the cessation of the co-headlining Trivium tour, two decades of their landmark album The Poison, touring with their heroes, the advice given to them in their early years, when to expect new music, and whether “metalcore” is a dirty word or not.

Watch the full chat or read on...

Looking back to 2004 and the impact that The Poison had on the metal scene at the time, it makes one wonder if a young Matt Tuck thought for a second he’d be playing and celebrating that same album 20 years later.

‍“20 days later was the perspective we were living, back when that stuff was happening. We didn't know what was going on. We were just four dumb boys in the Welsh valley that just had a dream, had a moment. We were given this opportunity, we created it and off we went and there was no looking back. We were just holding on tight for dear life. We weren't actually able to live in the moment just because of how chaotic it was that moment. It was just bananas. We hoped that the UK would blow up a little bit and then it would trickle into Europe and across the planet and eventually, maybe a couple of years later, album number two have that platform. Nope, it was chaos.

We were just holding on for dear life and we went on tours and while we were on tours, we were being offered other tours by Metallica. We were on a Metallica tour. They were like, Iron Maiden’s on the phone, do you want to go to North America? Like, sure, why not? And yeah, that was kind of it for two years.

So yeah, it was wild. Amazing memories though. It was chaos.”

Being in the game for over two decades is no small feat and getting exposed to the metal world with slots supporting both Iron Maiden and Metallica is the stuff that dreams are made of. It is also a very daunting venture taking on the enormous volume of die hard fans that aren’t necessarily there to see you. You’d think that perhaps some of the older, more experienced band members in some of Heavy Metals greatest ever bands would have some sage like advice to offer up that has helped Bullet stay in the game for as long as they have.

‍“There actually wasn't, but I take that almost as a compliment that they were just like, 'they don't need to be told anything. They're just doing their thing and it's organic and they're hungry and they're creating stuff which people are loving'. If anything. Rod Smallwood, he’s Iron Maiden's manager. He was the one that in the early days, we don't have much connection with Rod at all, but I dunno, I think he maybe felt a little bit protective over us. Because when we were supporting Iron Maiden, the worst thing any band can ever do, ever as far as making their soul crawl into a little black hole, is support Iron Maiden. It's an experience. We know so many bands that have had that honour of doing that and everyone has the same experience. It's incredible, but it's terrifying and it's violent, shall we say, and aggressive from the crowd. Which it's almost like a bee sting, you know what I mean? It's like it's part of the process. But I think Rod would always be, "go out there, big chest, look ‘em in the eye, give him the metal (horns). Just absorb it.”

‍“Don't rise to it because it's easy to kind of have shit thrown at you constantly and booed for half an hour on a stage in front of 10,000 people and not let it get under your skin. It's a tough thing not to do. But he was like, "you go out there, you own it. It's your stage". I was like, "fuck yeah". So that's what we would do because we were so young and so fuck off everyone anyways. We didn't really care. I would find it a more terrifying thing to do now with 20 years of miles on the clock than to do it back then.

We were fearless. We didn't give a shit.

But yeah, Rod was very cool to us and very kind to us and it wasn't like a huge tonne of advice, but it was like, own it. It's your stage, not Iron Maidens.”

All these years later and the fellas are now certifiable headliners, as we are about to experience this October when they return to these shores. But the absence of Trivium from this tour has definitely had a few fans talking. Maybe it’s us. Maybe the lads in Bullet don’t want to share Australia with the blokes in Trivium

‍“It's nothing. We want to be there for Australia. What we did with those guys has been done. We're hitting the studio next Friday to start the process of the new album. A lot of people online obviously are not happy about it because they assume something has been said that was taken out of context, but they all become very clear soon when something else is announced. So we're in the vicinity of Australia and we thought, it was the perfect opportunity just to come and hop over and see you guys. So people will connect the dots when that is announced very shortly. This other show was booked whilst we're in the area, we thought it's now or never, let's speak to people like Chris [O'Brien - Destroy All Lines GM] and see if we can get some venue availability while we're there. We did and here we come.”

This will be Bullet’s tenth trip to Australia. While this is their first headliner since 2016, they have been here for several festivals, including two Good Things Festivals, two Soundwaves and the rare honour of having played at the once great Big Day Out.

‍“In my parents' place. My dad, he has his TV room in their house and we have a huge canvas on the wall of the Sydney one, The Big Day Out, the first time we played. It’s in like black and white and it looks like a proper Ross Halfin style shot. Wow, we looked so different. I dunno, just the world looked different. It's just amazing. It looks so old school now, but a beautiful moment. Still remember it. It was mad.”

The other thing Matt mentioned, that is not to be glossed over, is that the lads are in the studio, getting ready to produce their next album. With an Aussie run on incoming, would there be a slim chance that we get a glimpse of what’s to come?

‍“I think it's just going to be too early. We're not going to be starting releasing singles until probably about February, March next year. So I think to kind of leak something out this early, as much as we want to, I just think it's going to be too early and it would annoy some people hahaha. So yeah, we need to hold those cards close to our chest. Unfortunately. That's kind of the annoying part about being in a band and starting that process. You can be sitting on an album finished for six months, you can't talk about it. You can't let anyone hear anything and it's kind of torture, but it's part of the process. So yeah, I don't think it'll happen, but we've got such a back catalogue to select from. I think people will not be disappointed to hear.”

A word that got bandied around at the time that The Poison was released was the word “metalcore”. A genre that was almost the antithesis of the heavily saturated, big money, nu-metal crowd that refused to play a guitar solo at the turn of the century. Metalcore drew heavily on the influence of the guitar-hero driven bands of yesteryear whilst also being seen as a departure from that traditional metal sound. It was a scene championed by the likes of Bullet For My Valentine, Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage, Parkway Drive, All That Remains and Atreyu amongst others. Two decades on and it remains a thriving scene that has produced heavyweights like Architects, Bring Me The Horizon, Of Mice and Men and Bullet’s Aussie tour buddies While She Sleeps and The Devil Wears Prada. Two decades on and, like nu-metal at the time, metalcore has become a heavily saturated, yet highly supported scene. But with no sign of dying, does Matt look upon it all like a proud father, or has “metalcore” become a dirty word?

‍“No, I love metalcore. You can't tar us with that brush solely. But I think if you had to put us under an umbrella or a genre or something, I think metalcore is something that, that’s what we would class ourselves as, especially back in the day. I think we've evolved a lot more and we've got more diverse since then.

I don't think it's a dirty word at all. It was so cool to be part of this new thing. Nu-metal was kind of dying out. We were part of something like Avenged Sevenfold and Killswitch Engage and Parkway and all these bands. It was just, it felt like a thing, like a new movement of metal.

And it was not just about low riffs and that kind of festival bounce. That's all cool. It has its place, but I think showmanship and technicality and showing off just hadn't been there. I don't know, it's just something that we grew up on.

Bands like Megadeth and Testament, Metallica and Slayer and all this stuff. We wanted to kind of do our version of that. Obviously Bullet is very different to all of those bands. But the DNA, we extracted that and we wanted to make it ours, which is what we did.”

Twenty years on and the leap of faith that the lads in Bullet For My Valentine made has paid off. To be able to reflect on your milestones and achievements, not just as a musician, but as a luminary that influenced generations of musicians, is a gift in itself and well worth celebrating.

That celebration is making it’s way here to Australia and y’all are invited.

Interview by Duane James @duanejamestattoo