TRUCKFIGHTERS – Im Gespräch mit metal-heads.de

TRUCKFIGHTERS – Das Interview mit Ozo

Ozo von den Truckfighters nahm sich die Zeit, um mit uns über die Monate nach der Veröffentlichung des aktuellen Albums „V“ sowie über das Leben On The Road zu sprechen. metal-heads.de konnte sich im November 2016 von den Live-Qualitäten der Band überzeugen. HIER findet ihr den Bericht zur Show der Jungs mit Deville und Dot Legacy in Köln.

Never running out of gas: The Truckfighters

Hey Ozo, your new record came out in September 2016 and you played in Europe and USA. How is the feedback from the fans about „V“ so far?

Very good. Even though it didn’t get the attention we’ve hoped for in magazines, rockpress etc the fans really seems to dig this album anyway and a lot of new fans find us even though the visibility haven’t been the greatest.

How is the collaboration with Century Media? Are you happy with them? And are they happy with you?

I think it worked out well, we’re on the same level. Our hopes though was that it would mean a bigger push, but I guess we’re not big enough, not selling enough records on our own or something? To be honest the step from Fuzzorama to Century Media isn’t as big as I hoped, with that said, doesn’t necessarily means CM are doing a bad job, might also mean Fuzzorama is doing there shit really good 😉

Do you plan a new video single of „V“?

no, maybe if something pops up, like a good video director with a good idea.

Let’s talk a bit about your shows and tour…

When you did the first leg of the USA tour in January, I saw two things. A lot of live videos on YouTube and always a full house. It seems that Truckfighters getting bigger and bigger in North America, right?

Yes that’s absolutely right, both these two US/CAN tours been really, really good… Packed house or what seems like packed house every night except maybe 1-2 on a total of 6 weeks, so that’s really good.

Can you tell us the major differences between the music market in the USA and Europe?

It’s tougher in US to become something to make a difference and get noticed cause there’s so many bands touring US all year around. In Europe it also seems like there’s more ”regular” music clubs that people attend to no matter what kind of band that is playing so it’s easier for unknown bands to actually get a tour together. Touring in US is much more expensive (VISAS, travelling etc) and also demands more preparations to get things going.

When you have some spear time, do you go out for sightseeing? Which cities or places do like to visit in America and why?

No not really, I usually go to a coffeerostery/cafe and have a really good cup of coffee and work a bit. I think it’s really hard to really relax and enjoy anything of the city while I’m on tour. For an example, we went to Paris first time a few years ago with my fiancee and even though we’ve played there like 8 times, this time was totally different and I really learned to appreciate that city and embrace it in another way than on tour. The same goes for Manchester where I was this year, cool town, didn’t see that when on tour… too busy focusing on the gig I guess.

I saw during the European tour in November last year, that you drove with 2 other bands inside a big nightliner. How do you travel usually outside of Europe? Also in a nightliner? If not, where do you sleep? How do you travel?

I must say usually we go by van since that is the most common thing we’ve done in our career, even though the past bigger tours been in nightliner…, but whenever we do smaller tours we always do van. Then you sleep at whatever hotel you can find or the promoter provide, we’re not picky just as long as we can sleep properly in good beds. We’re so over sleeping at some promoters place that invited all his friends to have an afterparty 😛 We need sleep and food, that’s it. It’s a hard life you know 😉

Who will be drummer for the 2. leg of the North America tour? Will it Aaron (Valley of the Sun) be again?How was the tour with him? How do you manage and choose a drummer for a tour?

Hey, since I’m answering this after Leg2 yes, it was Aaron, it was decided beforehand that he would do both tours. It was awesome touring with Aaron and since we knew him for many years we where sure it would work out well. He’s also such a character on stage, so funny to play with that guy.

Do you met other musicians on tour like Josh Homme who showed up on a show to say „Hi“? In general, do you stay in contact with some bands from „your genre“?

No, not really.. .Sometimes I feel bad that we don’t talk more with the support bands, some of them look up to us and it’s a big honour for them to play with us and we just soundcheck, sleep and eat and play… 😛 But after so many years on the road you don’t really have the energy to be social every night night after night… You just wanna go there, focus on the gig and do that as good as possible with little or no distraction. It’s hard to explain, but we don’t really mean to be any douchbags, we’re actually very kind and friendly guys, it’s just that we don’t really have the energy to start a long talk/discussion with people behind the stage… we save all the energy to our performance and the fans after the show.

Can you tell us a bit about the support bands for the upcoming tour and how can a band get a support slot for a Truckfighters tour or concert?

On this US/CAN legs we asked our booking agency to take care of it and deal with it. He proposed Greenleaf for direct support and then locals as first support. He then picked first support bands, whatever fitted best/good, we simply just don’t have time to handpick support bands for every show. It’s different if we’re going on the road with the same support but on this tours we had different on every show, except some of the Canadian shows where we handpicked We Hunt Buffalo, a Fuzzorama band. And as you might know, Greenleaf cancelled the tours with short notice, so we had to choose whatever band that could jump on board on a short notice, but with that in mind I think we got some decent support, Kings Destroy for Leg1 and I’m especially fond of getting Yawning man onboard for Leg2, was nice to play with those legends, really nice guys.

What do you think about a second part of the Fuzzomentary or a live concert? Or is a dvd with and about a band unnecessary in 2017 because of Vimeo and YouTube ?

We didn’t really plan that. I would love having a Fuzzomentary part2 done, but you see, then we should have started filming stuff many years ago, it’s already 2017 and we have no material, I guess it’s not too late to start it now, but for me it would have been really interesting to follow the years shortly after the fuzzomentary which means from 2010-2011 and see the journey we’ve been on since then. Regarding live material, if you buy our Live album, live in London, you will actually get a high resolution download link for the full concert 😉

 

You are always on tour and it seems that you´ll never run out of fuel and gas. Summer is coming and this means also the big out door festivals will start soon. In July you will play a couple of festivals. Do you plan to focus this summer more on festivals or a mix between festivals and some headliner shows?

Hmm, doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s a good idea, concept whatever, we can play club or festival, or even a festival inside a club 😉

At least, our artists got the last words. Do you want to say anything to your fans and our readers?

Not really, keep supporting the fuzz and Truckfighters. Please also do check out other bands on our label Fuzzorama, you might find something else you really like, except Truckfighters I mean 😛

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You want more Fuzz? Here we go: