Overkill Hit Hard and Stay Rock-Solid, Even as The Electric Age Comes Crackling In (2012)

Location: phone line: Ljubljana – New York
Interview date: 08.02.2012

Who doesn’t know the thrash metal pioneers Overkill these days? One of the longest-running, not to mention toughest, thrash metal bands on the planet, they can boast a rare kind of quality. They’ve never taken a single break in their career. Instead, they’ve kept up a dogged defiance over the years, with non-stop touring and a generous 15 studio albums. And there’s more. Album number 16, “The Electric Age”, is on the horizon, due out on 27.03.2012 via Nuclear Blast Records. With the new release approaching, we had the great honor of chatting with the elemental, primal throat of Overkill. A character of colorful temperament, with a low boiling point and sky-high energy levels. Ladies and gentlemen, just for you: Mr. Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth.

Hey Bobby! It’s a great honor to chat with you. How are you doing?
Bobby: Hey, I just lit a cigarette and got myself a cup of coffee. That’s how it goes when you’re promoting a new album, and this time it’s “The Electric Age.” I get all fired up whenever I dive into promoting any new album of ours. With “The Electric Age” we’re presenting ourselves as a band of the present, not the past. That feels like the most important thing to me. It doesn’t matter what we were, it matters what we are. Right now. Today.

From what I heard on the promo copy of “The Electric Age”, the new songs once again sound exactly the way Overkill should sound. It’s a properly modern-sounding record that once again delivers the thing only you guys can do: a first-class fist of thrash metal dynamite straight to the face. How does it feel, how did the album come together, what’s the story behind it?
Bobby:  When we make a new Overkill album, we always let it develop as naturally as possible. While you’re making it, you start to feel what kind of mood you’re creating, what atmosphere, what character the album has. Pretty soon you figure out which direction it’s taking you. It’s a mix of everyone’s contributions in the band. There’s D.D. Verni as the main songwriter, me as the lyricist and the guy who brings the melody, guitarist Dave, and that’s more or less how an album gets its shape. We were looking for the right title for the new record! We’ve always made albums charged with punch and energy. In fact, that’s stuck with us the whole way through. But you don’t want to just keep repeating yourself, so every new album puts a new challenge in front of you, where you have to come up with something new, something different. The title “The Electric Age” captures how we played the new material in the studio. All of us, as a band. The way we played it now, today. “The Electric Age” is Overkill for 2012! We’re happy that everything turned out great on the sound production side too, especially the final mix, which held on to that punchy energy we built up while playing in the studio.

You’re always out on tour. Workhorses. Not long ago you played the summer festivals in Europe. What are your latest memories of visiting Europe? We caught Overkill at Bang Your Head!!! 2011 in Balingen, for instance.
Bobby: That was a very successful tour for us. In the summer we played a few big festivals in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. We never do full tours in Europe in the summer. We’ll fly in over a weekend, say, for a few one-off festival shows. I remember the Balingen show. It was honestly one of our better shows among the summer festival gigs in Europe. I always enjoy Balingen especially because there’s only one stage. That way people get a real sense of one band, one crowd, and everything flows really smoothly. And I remember the lineup, which was really great. Crimson Glory played too, and I honestly hadn’t seen them on stage in a very long time. On the same day as us, Death Angel also hit the Balingen stage, then Accept after us,… When Accept played, I went out into the crowd to watch their whole show. I think the Balingen festival is always one of the best events for metal bands, because it has a huge energy flux and a truly excellent crowd response.

Given that the new album “The Electric Age” is coming just two years after its predecessor “Ironbound”, I assume the chemistry in the current Overkill lineup is working great. How would you describe the chemical bonds between you guys?
Bobby:  The word chemistry feels very fitting to me. It has a positive meaning, because you need it to reach a high level in the team so you can then use the available energy to the fullest. Drummer Mickey, who joined the band in 2005, brought a whole bag of energy with him. All of that energy came together and showed up on “Ironbound”, so for the new album it was essential that we hold on to that high level of energy, which let us make a new album after just two years, and carry that moment of positive chemistry forward onto the new record. It’s really important that the guys get along and support each other. The point is that they don’t force their egos on anyone, they’re in it for the long haul, they back each other up and feel that they need each other for support. And “The Electric Age” is really a continuation of that state. The vibes in a band that’s driven by this positive chemistry. I can say we’ve reached a higher energy level of functioning than we ever had in the past.

What do you think about the event that recently marked the metal world, called the “Big Four”? Overkill could easily have been in one of those four slots, since you’re a band with pioneering seniority and the pedigree of one of the longest-running thrash metal bands on the planet, one that’s never taken any kind of break in its career.
Bobby: Those guys are clearly the big four. That’s plain. They proved it in the past, mainly through record sales, especially in the US.  Metallica on their own are basically the “big one”, if we focus on just that band. Look, I never measure my success by how others credit me with it, or by how successful others see me. For me, success is having a smile on my face the whole time. And that’s been going on for years. I’ve known D.D. Verni for over 30 years, we’ve been knocking around on tours with Overkill together for 27 years, and we both still enjoy it. When I think about the “big four” thing, I don’t get carried away thinking, “Ah, we should be up there too!” We can be part of the “little four” (laughs). Say Overkill, Exodus, (laughs again)… then Death Angel, and Kreator…  I think there are tons of great bands out there. Take Kreator. They’ve been sticking it out on the scene all these long years and never took a break in their career either, just like us.  And it’s worth pointing out that any band that manages something like that has to accept that fact with pride.

You sing fantastically again on the new album.  Your vocals get better from album to album, like wine maturing over the years. Do you stick to some special recipe so you don’t damage your vocal cords?
Bobby: I take a very, very good drug. No harmful drugs (bursts out laughing). As for my vocals, I have to thank lady luck. I’m just plain lucky there. I don’t get paranoid about it. I drink normally, smoke normally, but of course I also practice. Obviously I’ve managed to find some kind of right balance through life when it comes to looking after my voice. I never get gripped by paranoia about hurting my voice in any way. So that kind of stress that usually plagues other singers, I just don’t know it. There’s one thing I do watch out for, though. Since 1986 I’ve always warmed up my voice. Whether I’m in the studio or on tour before a show. Before I actively use my voice to sing, I take half an hour for myself to make absolutely sure it’s ready for action! I also figure that if you give any muscle in your body the same kind of attention, it’ll reward you with the right response. Say, if I had to move heavy crates and didn’t take some of that weight on both legs, I’d hurt my back. But if I use my legs for it, I can move heavy crates all day.  I think keeping your voice in good shape works on a similar principle. You have to treat it right, and your voice will respond the right way too.

Have you ever thought about this lineup, in its “The Electric Age” form, putting out a live album once the promo cycle is done, meaning after all the touring for it wraps up? The chemistry in the lineup is excellent, after all…
Bobby: I totally agree with you. We’ll kick off the first full tour in the US this April, running into May, then comes the festival season in Europe, and then in September we’ll do a full European tour. What I love most about the whole thing is the live shows, of course. It’s an incredibly exciting part of the whole business, even if it sometimes feels draining and the shows keep coming day after day without a break. I’m the kind of guy who likes to enjoy the moment. I still experience playing live as a kind of danger, because you never know what’s going to happen. Whether it’ll be a success or a total defeat. In a given place, at a given moment, on a given stage. You’ve only got one shot. That kind of feeling keeps me buzzing all the time. As for live material, it’s not the right time yet to be thinking about it. My hands, fingers and voice are still hot from the recording sessions for “The Electric Age”. I was busy singing for the new album until January 11th. When the album was already in the mixing stage, I thought of something else I wanted to change, so I rushed back into the studio and re-did a good chunk of the vocals. Having plenty of time when we make an album is a big luxury for us, and we have to appreciate it so we can give the album the character that’s closest to all of us. But I totally agree with you that the chemistry in this band is exceptional right now, and it’d be a real shame if it faded over time and we couldn’t capture it on some kind of recording in time, like a live release. But right now we’re not planning anything yet.

When you were describing how you feel when you’re on stage… do you ever feel like a warrior who owes it to the wider masses to deliver his message?
Bobby: I’ve never taken it that way, even though plenty of people in the music business work like you described. I see and treat myself as part of a community. My stage presence is totally acceptable to that community and it makes sense, because it ties me to it. I feel like part of that community. Part of the people who actually listen to our music. That feels like a very important point to me. Especially when it comes to the thrash metal movement. It doesn’t matter who we are as Overkill if you single us out, what matters is who we are collectively. If the crowd in front of the stage radiates energy, I’ll take it on like a magnet, and that’ll bring a show to a real explosion. The rest of the guys in our crew react to those stimuli in a similar way. The whole thing has become downright contagious. A kind of positive disease.  I like that we’re part of the community and don’t separate ourselves from it, or put ourselves on some higher level. A very important thing about the thrash metal movement itself is that it’s represented by people who love it and are its fans, which means only one thing: it’s all that much more genuine and honest in thrash metal.  The way I experience my role on tour is very different from the warrior role. My wife says, when she watches me, “I know you’re nervous for the first minute, then the energy moves into you like some kind of drug, you take in all that excess adrenaline, and when the show’s over you’re grinning like a little boy watching a circus act.” On stage I go through a metamorphosis over the full 90 minutes of every show we play.

What are your best memories from the stage, especially when you’ve had the privilege of sharing tours with some of the biggest names in metal? Which moments would you pick out?
Bobby:  I grew up with these names. Even before we were Overkill, we played covers, I sang stuff that Rob Halford wrote the lyrics for, we played covers of Iron Maiden, Motorhead, and when I bought vinyl albums, which I still have at home, some of them even have Lemmy’s signature on them (laughs)…. I never thought I’d one day be playing shows with them on shared tours.  It’s funny, because I’m still a huge fan of those bands. I remember when we toured with Motorhead in 1988. It was the American leg of the tour and it was very successful. We had a blast. We played first, Motorhead after us, and Slayer as the headliners of the night. We became great friends with Motorhead on that tour. We kept running into each other at festivals in later years too. Ten years had passed since that tour when I met Lemmy and Phil again. It was backstage at some festival. I was in the middle of talking to someone from the local promoter’s crew when a familiar voice boomed out of the next room: “Isn’t that my old friend Bobby Blitz standing over there?” You can’t miss that voice. I knew right away whose it was: “Lemmy!?!?” (laughs) He immediately invited me for a drink, saying: “Sit down, kid!” (laughs again). Later came a shared tour, and when we played with Motorhead in Germany at the last show in December 2007 in Berlin, Lemmy invited me up on stage on the last night to sing the song Overkill with him. Of course he’d told me about his plan well ahead of time, but that night I was extremely nervous. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t know how to sing the song. We played Overkill ourselves for fun too, as part of many of our setlists in the past. I even know the lyrics to that song by heart, but because of nerves, just in case I messed something up, I wrote the first verse on a slip of paper that I held against my wrist while Lemmy and I sang the duet. When the guitar solo kicked in, Lemmy leaned over and yelled in my ear: “You cheated. You had a cheat sheet!” (laughs)

One last thing I’d like to ask: how’s your chocolate business doing?
Bobby: …?! Ah, right! Of course. Still going, ha, ha, ha…. My wife runs the main business in the store, and of course she tries to keep me as far from the store as possible, since I never had much of a talent for the money side of things. My wife says I use too vulgar a vocabulary to wait on customers, so she hired a really lovely girl who sells in our store. I mostly take care of the “invisible” parts of the business. More or less it’s the necessary paperwork, and I handle the advertising too. Sometimes, when that girl isn’t around and there’s no one else to fill in and sell in the store, I’ll of course end up behind the counter myself. It happens a lot that someone wanders in wearing an Overkill shirt, and when we meet, they throw a hand in the air and flash the “horns”. Then they buy chocolate from me, and it all cracks me up no end.

Any final message for our readers?
Bobby: Keep an eye out for our new album “The Electric Age”, for Overkill, and for our European tour this September! I hope we’ll meet!

Thanks for your time, Bobby, and all the best on your journey!
Bobby:  My pleasure. Thank you too.

interview conducted, translated and edited by: Aleš Podbrežnik
moral support: Urban Bolta
first photo (left to right) from the Overkill show on 28.11.2007 (Munich, Zenith Halle, Germany): Aleš Podbrežnik
second and third photos (left to right) from the Overkill show on 12.03.2011 (Brno, Klub Fléda, Czech Republic): Urban Bolta

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