It's not just because his band Firewind enhanced its U.S. profile with the 2007 album Allegiance and a North American tour that visited prestigious venues like New York's B.B. King's Blues Club and Atlanta's ProgPower USA festival. Or that the March arrival of follow-up record The Premonition reveals an inherently more aggressive approach to Firewind's music in its tempos, attitudes and riffs. At this moment, it's mainly because the Greek guitar slinger is enduring the muggy heat of San Antonio on a Saturday afternoon in June.
"I'm inside the tour bus, actually," Gus says. "It's so hot you just wanna go on the bus straight to the venue and back; that's it."
We commiserate on how wretched the weather is, since New Jersey, where we're calling from, is known for uncomfortably damp summers. Gus sounds groggy from the Texas heat as we start chatting on the phone, discussing the June wrap-up of Firewind's latest U.S. tour. The band is now in Europe, hitting some stops on the festival circuit, and has gained the honor of being the first Greek metal band to play England's Download fest. Firewind is touring until the end of the year, but Gus already has a sense of when the next album will start taking shape.
"Sometime in 2009," he says. "It's not determined yet, you know, because we have this world tour . . . We don't wanna rush the next album, but hopefully sometime within 2009."
Taking his advice about not rushing, we'll turn our attention back to The Premonition. Intro track "Into the Fire" sets off the record on a thrash tip, its jagged rhythm guitar and sweeping leads indicating a step away from the hook-driven cuts that fill "Allegiance." Muscular, frenetic "Remembered" continues that vibe, as does "The Silent Code." Firewind's turbo-charged modern power metal is still in full effect on "Angels Forgive Me," as is its heavy duty balladry, which is exemplified on "My Loneliness." But the biggest surprise The Premonition reveals is a reinterpretation of "Maniac," the mega pop hit by Michael Sembello from 1983 movie Flashdance.
Firewind . . . covering . . . "Maniac"?
The idea is bizarre on paper, yet Firewind's keyboard element helps carry the song—the results are better than you think. Gus says that "Maniac" is the question people ask the most about the album. "We just gave it a hard rock flavor, just tried to [handle] it like how we would play, but I think it's cool. A nice, hard rock song," he says of the band's approach. Read on to see the surprise reaction to the song in Greece.
Blistering.com: This is the second U.S. tour that Firewind has done. How is it compared to the first one you did last year?
Gus G.: It's great. It's different because we are playing to a different kind of audience. We're playing to [a] more crossover audience touring with bands like Arch Enemy and Dark Tranquility. It exposes us to different fans as opposed to the previous tour when we toured with Sonata Arctica; it was more like the power metal audience.
Blistering.com: How do they seem to be receiving your music?
Gus G.: Very good. Very good. Very successful so far. We were kind of worried in the beginning but it works every night everywhere we go so, I think it was a very good move.
Blistering.com: Have you gone and jammed onstage with the Amott brothers? [Gus G. is a former guitarist for Arch Enemy.]
Gus G.: Ah, no, I didn't. They had their show and we had our show, so that was it. It was nice to see them and hang out with them again.
Blistering.com: After the success of Allegiance was it easier to get this tour lineup?
Gus G.: Yeah . . . [The band] was more [noticed] by everybody from the music industry, like agents and other bands like that, you know? That album was kind of like a breakthrough for us. So we worked hard with that album, we toured about 12, 13 months or something, and then that helped us get to the next level, which is, I guess, this one. [laughs]
Blistering.com: Yeah, sitting in a bus in San Antonio. Wanting to go home.
Gus G.: Yeah, exactly.
Blistering.com: What kind of adventures have you had on this tour?
Gus G.: Adventures? Ahhmmm, all kinds, I guess. There's always weird stuff happening.
Blistering.com: Such as?
Gus G.: We've had some nice barbeques on the way, like on our off days, we're sharing the bus with Dark Tranquility; we've done really nice barbeques, and some funny moments, like one day we played Edmonton, I think, in Canada, and our singer missed a show. He got lost in town and couldn't get back.
Blistering.com: When I was looking over some things online to prep to speak with you I was on YouTube. Do you see fans getting into Firewind at all because videogames? It looked like a couple Firewind songs were transcribed for either Guitar Hero or Rock Band
Gus G.: To be honest with you, this kind of music I've been doing since the debut album. I haven't changed and it was way before Guitar Hero was around, I guess, and I just did what I did, but maybe in 2002 guitar solos weren't cool enough. These days they are again, you know? But it is true that a lot of kids at the shows, you know, they get into the band because mainly the guitar thing, and then they discover the band and the songs. This is cool, because we have a different angle as well, which is the whole guitar thing.
