Bullet For My Valentine frontman Matt Tuck on how hearing Machine Head’s new level of savagery started him on his own path to becoming a metal god.
In 1994, the line that metal was dead, killed by the explosion of grunge at the start of the decade, was given an almighty middle finger. Some of the greatest excesses of the flamboyant ’80s had been knocked out by the rise of Nirvana and Soundgarden, but from Oakland, California, there came a band who took the starting point of thrash, and recalibrated the aggression, heaviness and nose-punch attitude into a devastating new beast.
Formed by Bay Area thrash luminary Robb Flynn, who’d done time in Vio-Lence and Forbidden (while he was still in school), Machine Head were a raw, no-bullshit attack that found a home easily in a world coloured by grunge. Alongside the already established Pantera and Sepultura, it was metal from the street, as Metallica and Exodus had been a decade before, raw, direct, and with dirt under its fingernails. Blood from fighting on its shirt.
Their debut album Burn My Eyes – promoted in the UK via a cassette tape courtesy of Kerrang! – announced the band in a storm of aggro, riffs and red-blooded fury. It established Machine Head as one of metal's dominant forces, key players in a new order of heavy music.
In South Wales, its influence got its hooks into a young Matt Tuck. The Bullet For My Valentine frontman looks back on an album that started him down his own metal path…
“There are many records that changed my life and they all kind of came at the same time when I first started discovering metal. But I’m not going to be boring and say Metallica. I’m going to pick something that was far much feistier; that had a bigger impact, stylistically, on Bullet than Metallica did. That was Machine Head’s Burn My Eyes. That album was fucking crazy.
“I discovered it after seeing the video for Davidian on [legendary late-night MTV show] Headbanger’s Ball. I was like, ‘What is this?!’ We’d just got Sky TV installed, so I got lucky when I was channel-hopping and found something that literally changed my life. It can boggle your mind a bit if you go too deep into things like that, but here we are.
“How that song starts, with that little drum riff, it sounds so aggressive and in-your-face. And when the guitar comes in, it was like, ‘Whoa!’ The tone of it, the tuning of it, I didn’t understand why it sounded like it did then, but I knew I loved it instantly.
“Colin Richardson produced it and that album’s the entire reason we later used Colin on [2005 debut BFMV album] The Poison and [2008 follow-up] Scream Aim Fire. It just blew me away; so much more angsty and violent than what I was getting with Metallica and Megadeth. I fell in love with those songs; the album had a huge impact on my life and on Bullet’s history.
“I was 14 when it came out, and for the next two years it shaped who I was as a musician and as a fan. Going into school, speaking to friends who were all getting into rock through Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard and bands that their dads might be playing in the car or something, I was like, ‘Have you heard of Machine Head?’ Back then it wasn’t as easy as going on Spotify, so I had to make little mix tapes and bring in copies of Kerrang! with Machine Head in. It was a really magical time.
“Being a guitar player, wanting to be in a band, that album helped me discover alternative tunings and learn about amps and stuff. It shaped and moulded the person I am today. I have no idea why. It was just something that my ears just fell in love with. I grew up listening to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, Led Zeppelin and classic rock. So, Burn My Eyes was incredibly personal and mine. There was no influence from anyone. It was instant, though. As soon as I heard it I was like, ‘I want to play and sound like that!’ So, I saved up my birthday money, I washed cars in the neighbourhood, I went to where my dad worked and power-washed the trucks for a pound each until I had accumulated enough money to buy my first guitar.
“From there, I taught myself how to play – I didn’t get lessons – which all added to how much it meant to me at the time and how much it still means to me now. Then I went to see the band on The More Things Change tour in Newport Centre in 1997. They did an in-store signing as well, so I got my album signed, met the band and got to experience the full onslaught of Machine Head in the 1990s. It was fucking wild. They've always been one of the most incredible, ferocious live acts, but catching them in that era… man, it was violent!
“Over the past 20 years we’ve since got to hang out with Robb and shoot the shit. One of my fondest memories is of us being in Japan together at a bar and getting smashed, talking about music and me telling him the story of how he influenced us. He was lovely. He can be quite an intimidating force, Robb. He’s very serious and he looks like a fucking animal, but as soon as you get his guard down, he’s a very sweet guy. They say you should never meet your heroes, but I’ve had great experiences with mine.”
Bullet For My Valentine play Download Festival on June 14. Get your tickets here.
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