– First of all, is an honour to interview one of my favourite bands. Explain us, how has been the recording for “Death Machine”?
The recording for Death Machine went very smoothly. We decided this
time to record all the instruments separately at different times. We
were trying to get more definition within the track but as usual we got the same  garage sound we always get no matter what studio we record in. I think  this  is because the sounds of our instruments are very old school. Clammy and I both  play 70’s and 80’s Marshall amps. Our sounds are not processed and saturated so we get this very raw unsophisticated sound. I really like the songs on this album they are very basic and I m sure they will be crowd  pleasers when we play them live!

– Is your second album with Kenny’s vocals, are you happy with his work and how has been his
collaboration for this album?

Kenny is an excellent singer. Even though I write the music and lyrics
(except on this album Clammy wrote the main riff to HellFire) Kenny has the freedom to input his own ideas to hopefully strengthen the songs. In most cases Kenny succeeds with his ideas and in the end everybody is happy.
Also, he is a good frontman and he really gets the crowd going. He is
definitely a great addition to Exciter.

– I have had the chance of listening to the record and writing a review for it. I think is worthy of what the band represents an follows the line of your previous album; was that what you were looking for?
I make sure I follow the exact same formula like the old days when I
write new songs for the band. Yes, I would say this is intentional. I don’t want to experiment to much because of fear to losing the fans. If we start to experimenting  too much with the music then our signature sound will be lost and I just don t want to take this chance. Everything I have worked so hard for to get and original sound will be all lost.

– What about the tour plans to support “Death Machine”? Will you tour and do some festival or isn’t anything planned yet?
Next year in 2011 we do have confirmed dates as per the following,
March 24-27, South America,
April 23, Toronto,Canada
May 7, Madrid,Spain
August 20, Albuquerque,New Mexico,USA
We have many more invites around the world but no confirmations yet.


– How did you come up with the idea of the cover? I believe you wanted to look again for that kind of “EXCITER-cover” after the one for “Thrash, Burn, Speed”, where appeared the four band members. Is it like this or did you already have something in mind?

The theme  of the cover was not necessarily trying to copy the early
albums it was just an idea I had. I m a fan of horror movies so I suggested the chainsaw and girl idea and the other guys in the band liked it. The back cover which I think is equally as good was Rik’s idea and the inside sleevecover was Clammy’s idea. I know these topics have been used over and over by various bands but the themes of violence and torture coincide with Exciter’s aggressive music.

– How’s EXCITER feeling like in 2010? Checking how has been the history and the albums you have released, I see you have kept yourselves faithful to a concrete way of being and playing; do you still keep the same illusion or it’s always best in the past?
We ve always stayed to our roots. We are defenders of metal.Over the
many years that I have been playing music I m the only one who has kept going even before Exciter. All my musicians friends have stopped playing music because I think it is too much of a challenge to persue a career in the music industry so they give up and do something else and just play music as a hobby. As far as I m concerned you cannot put your whole life intosomething you believe in  and then one day give up. You would be robbing yourself of potential success.I n my opinion you have to keep going until you reach your goal. This is why I have kept going with Exciter we haven’t reached our goal yet!

– EXCITER has been a really influential band into the Metal scene, with a so faithful fans. What does it represent to you every time you play and see all those “excited” people?
I would like to talk a bit about the history of the band. As I said, you’re an influence to many bands, one of them (in my opinion) was METALLICA; I have always thought they were a mix between EXCITER, MERCYFUL FATE and the NWOBHM. Are you conscious of what have you represented for a lot of bands and have, anyone of them, ever thanked you?

I do not think we  influenced Metallica in the early days. When they  were first  starting they were creating exciting new music just like we were but they had their own distinctive style. I don’t think Metallica sound like anybody except themselves. All the metal bands form the early 80’s were influenced by the NWOBHM  but it is not evident in our playing only in the spirit. Even if  some of the 80’s bands were influenced by us I do not expect any thankyou.

Sometimes when we are on tour and we meet some younger bands  they tell us how much of a influence we are to them. At this point I’m very humble with their appreciation.

– You are from Canada and I love bands from there, you can hear from EXCITER to ANVIL or HELIX and TRIUMPH or even LEE AARON, SANTERS or WITCHKILLER. What’s going on with Canada? It seems there are a lot of styles and all of them such good. How was out there the scene like in the 80’s?
Canadian metal bands don t sound like each other we all have our own
original styles. I find a lot of European bands borrow the sound and ideas from each other and sometimes it’s difficult to distinquish   one band from  another. The  Canadian bands that you mentioned are still all playing on a smaller scale except for Anvil of course because of their success of their documentary. Generally even in the 80’s the metal scene in Canada was small not like other parts of the world. Canada is a terrible market for heavy metal, there is no support here from record companies, managers or agents. You see,
heavy metal music in Canada is not considered an artistic form of music and furthermore it is not considered  music that has potential commercial success ! In other words the metal scene in Canada is a  horrible!
Today in Canada there are newer metal bands but as usual they have any success abroad in Europe or USA. Nothing has changed!

– How were those concerts of the 80’s? Have you, among others, have played as headliners with bands as MANOWAR, METALLICA or THE RODS?
Concerts in the 80 s were fantastic the same as today. At all our concerts you can expect a lot of headbanging and moshing.
Exciter did play with Manowar I believe in 1986 in Europe (I was not in the band from 1985-90) at some festivals. Before that in 1984 a tour wassupposed to happen in Europe called the Hell On Earth tour featuring The Rods, Metallica and Exciter but it never happened because the tour was cancelled due to poor tickets sales ( can you imagine!).Us and Metallica had just arrived in London to start the tour but at the last minute our record company called our hotel and told us the tour was cancelled.  All the concert promoters decided to cancel
the tour because tickets did not sell well enough and they did not want to take the risk. What happened was our record company decided to have us and Metallica stay in London for 2 weeks
and do interviews and play some one-off shows in the city. Metallica
played their own separate show at the Marquis Club and we played a small english pub called the Royal Standard in east London.

– Do you consider yourself an underground band or a classic band? For me, you are a classic but in the underground “world” you got a privileged place. What are your feelings about that?

We are both a classic and an underground band because we ve stayed at
the same level for 30 years.Probably due because we haven t changed our music. This does not bother me. We are playing the music that we enjoy and at the same time satisfying our fans not to mentioned touring the world!
What else could you ask for!

– Well, coming back to your present; what was your opinion about the show you placed at Atarfe Vega Rock a few years ago? I was there only because of you and and I enjoyed it a lot both because of the show and the pics we took.
The Atarfe fest was fantastic. I was really happy how the promoter
treated us. He was very good and fulfilled the conditions very well. We would play there again if we get invited. The crowd response was over  the top. It was the first time Exciter played Spain and I didn’t realize how many dedicated fans we had there. We even met fans form North Africa that had travelled to see us! I was completely blown away with the response we got!

– What’s after “Death Machine”? Have you thought about something like a live album or DVD?
We are working on a documentary with a local film company here in
Ottawa but I suspect nothing will be finished at least for another 2 years.

– That’s all from me, just thank you taking the time and let you know we, Heavy Metal maniacs from Spain, are waiting for you with arms wide open.
Ok Paco, thankyou for the interview and we might see you at the
Pounding Metal Union fest May 7th in Madrid !
Metal On !!!

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