Phil Campbell and The Bastard Sons are back in town! The Hard Rock powerhouse from Wales are releasing their new album “We’re The Bastards” on November 13th via Nuclear Blast and on our early previews, it’s another fantastic album from the band who have previously released an EP and an album over the last 4 years. We speak to the Motorhead legend himself, Phil Campbell about the new songs and what it’s been like to work with his sons since the band was formed.
Andrew: So I’ll get the obligatory covid question out of the way, how have you been dealing with the pandemic over the last few months?
Phil: I’ve been coping Ok, trying to get back out on the road but it’s not going to happen this year. So at least we haven’t wasted a year entirely as we’ve managed to record this cracking new album so I’m happy about that but just looking forward to doing some shows as soon as it’s safe again.
Andrew: Yeah did you have many tour plans cancelled or postponed because of this?
Phil: Yeah loads, we had our busiest year ever, we had so many festivals like 20 or 30 festivals booked, a couple of tours so what can you do hey?
Andrew: Yeah exactly just deal with the cards you’ve got I guess. But ‘We’re The Bastards’, brand new album, fantastic. I was listening to it today and you’ve gotta be proud of it, it’s absolutely scorching and blazing, fantastic stuff!
Phil: Yeah I am, I can’t wait for it to be released actually, I’m so excited. We’ve got 13 brand new songs on there, amazingly well recorded and produced, the production is massive. Every beat, every chord is huge on it, the melodies, the vocals are top notch, every instrument sounds like it’s meant to sound. So I’m over the moon with it, yeah really excited.
Andrew: Yeah it’s a fantastic album and lots of great stuff on there. You’ve had a couple of releases come out before this so how do you feel about this compared to what you had previously released?
Phil: This is a follow on step from our first album, I think it’s got a better sound and we’ve got more songs on this and I think it’s got a bit more heart and soul, this record. It’s a natural progression and it’s different from my solo record which was out last year, that’s something I wanted to get out of my system, there’s more ballady kind of stuff on that. But this album has it’s highs and lows, when we put together the tracklisting we gotta make sure there’s some breathing instead of it going full on so there’s a fine art in deciding which track goes where so it took a day or two to get that right.
Andrew: So overall from the writing process to the production stuff, how long did it take to put together?
Phil: About 2 months to write it I guess and probably 2 months to record it, approximately. I can’t remember exactly, not too long.
Andrew: Is that something you are very conscious of, you don’t want to spend too much time in the studio?
Phil: If you spend too long you can get sick of it and then your enthusiasm is going to go from it so it’s best just to try and nail it and get it right and then move on to the next thing. You don’t want to spend a year on the same set of riffs and songs, it would drive you nuts!
Andrew: Yeah it would do!
Phil: You would probably never play the album once it’s released after a year or so right.
Andrew: Yeah that’s right! So going through the tracks, every song has it’s own unique and distinctive taste but you start the album off with the title track ‘We’re The Bastards’. Was there a particular idea behind the title and why you decided to name it that?
Phil: We had the track first and Neil (Starr, vocals) did a little lyrics and I think one or two of the boys mentioned having it title of the album and nothing else sort of sprung to mind so we went with that and everyone seems to like it at the moment so yeah why not.
Get “We’re The Bastards” on iTunes
Andrew: It’s a good title and one of my favorite songs but I have to say my favorite song is actually “Born To Roam” which is a really southern bluesy rocker. I love that song, how did that one come together?
Phil: That’s one of Todd’s (Campbell, guitar) songs I think, Todd came in with that 80 percent of that finished, we just did a few bits and pieces added to it. It’s got old school influences brought up with a modern sound and everything because basically we’re not a heavy metal band, we’re a classic rock n’ roll band really. That’s what we all like to play really, they’re all good, all great songs.
Andrew: I do love “Destroyed” as well which is near the end, I feel that song has a bit of a punk rock feel to it which I’m not sure if you would agree with that or not?
Phil: Yeah I wrote that one myself, I just wrote it in the kitchen one day just belting out on the guitar. I wanted to write something in a key that we didn’t have on the album so I chose the key of C and just started thrashing away. We got Harley Flanagan from the Cro-mags doing some backup singing on that for us.
Andrew: Ah there you go, so there’s where the punk rock comes in I guess. It’s also fantastic to see you doing this band with your sons as well, that’s got to be a great feeling to have, to be very family oriented with this band.
Phil: Yeah it’s quite a unique dynamic, I don’t know of anyone else kind of doing it, not with three children in the band. But yes it’s a lot of fun, they’re all fantastic musicians, they all can feed off of each other’s playing. It works well, we have a lot of fun with it.
Andrew: Was that something that you always wanted to do? How did you get your sons involved in this?
Phil: Todd had a 30th birthday, this was about 3 years before we finished Motorhead before Lemmy passed away, and we rented a hall and had a band and we did some songs with a friend Neil the singer and we just did some cover songs and then we booked a few gigs just doing cover songs called Phil Campbell’s All-star Band. Then we played Bloodstock Festival and then right when Motorhead finished and I had more time on my hands, we took it a bit more seriously and we started writing our own material, changed the name to the Bastard Sons and carried on from there basically. Built everything up slowly but surely, we got a good fanbase now, got some great, amazing support slots with Guns N’ Roses and huge stadiums and things like that so it’s looking good! Apart from no gigs everything is fantastic!
Andrew: [laughs] Was there any talks at all over the last couple of years of you guys coming down to Australia?
Phil: Yeah we’d like to, it’s definitely a possibility now when we get all this lot over with. It’s long overdue and we know Australian fans are very into rock music, they love it so it would be really nice to come down and play yeah. It’s definitely written in the book to try and do something down there, it would be lovely. The boys have never been to Australia either so definitely on the cards.
Andrew: Yeah would definitely love to have you down here. Just before I let you go you mentioned earlier your solo album you release last year “Old Lions Still Roar”. We reviewed that album as well and absolutely loved it, what kind of feedback did you end up getting on that album?
Phil: Great actually yeah, was really surprised and shocked. I had like half a dozen 10/10 reviews and every review was really good and super positive, to my memory I actually can’t remember anything bad that was said about it. So I was really pleased with that, got it out of my system and I was honoured I got all these great artists to do me a favour and yeah, worked out great.
Andrew: Yeah it was a great album and huge guests on there like Alice Cooper and Rob Halford…
Phil: [laughs] I know, I was afraid to count the guests, we never counted them as I was afraid!
Andrew: [laughs] Do you think you would do another solo album again?
Phil: Yeah I would like to. I’m sure I wouldn’t have as many guests on the next one. I’d like to but it’s not on the top of my list at the moment, I just want to get back to normal and get back on the road with the Bastard Sons and play some of the new songs, that would be good.
Andrew: Yeah I’m sure you would be itching to play some of these songs because they seem like they are designed for the live stage.
Phil: Yeah got a few on there that are made for live, I can feel it in my bones.
Andrew: Is that something that you think about when you are writing and recording songs, how they would translate to the live stage?
Phil: I think it’s in the back of your mind a little bit but it’s not primarily, you just want to make a good song. It’s always pointless putting an album out if the songs are not good if they work live, if they buy the album nobody is going to come see you live. I think the songs should come first, some songs you can start with an idea and think, ‘Ok yeah this would be great live’ and work the song up, work the idea up with thinking how good it would be live. But a lot of the time you just want to nail the song in the recording, I think there’s plenty on this album which would work live.
Andrew: Yeah definitely. Well congratulations on the new album, as I said I absolutely love it, it’s a cracking album and hopefully everyone else out there will love it and hopefully we will see you down in Australia as well.
Phil: Thanks man and I hope you play the arse off our album!
