Ellie and Alan caught up with Steelwing back stage at Bloodstock to talk about their first ever trip to the UK, playing Bloodstock and much more.

First off can you please introduce yourselves?
Hey I'm Oskar from Steelwing.
I'm Scurc from Steelwing.
Hey I'm Robby Rockbag from Steelwing.

How did Steelwing begin their journey?
(Oskar)From the very very first beginning it was me Robby and Alex who wanted to form a band within the heavy metal genre. We had some ideas and a couple of songs for the sound of how we wanted things. Then we decided that Scurc was going to play bass guitar and we record a two song demo without the vocals, then we found Riley and we forced him to join the band because we thought it would be a great line up with his vocals and our songs.

Who are your major musical influences?
(Oskar) All the great metal bands from the 80's like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Dio and Saxon.

What made you want to be in band or pick up your first instrument?
For me personally Iron Maiden was the band they kind of changed my life, Nicko McBrian has always been a huge inspiration towards me. I saw live videos of Iron Maiden and when I saw Nicko play I just wanted to play along.
(Robby) I saw a Rock in Rio live DVD and I thought playing guitar seems like a cool thing to do, so it went from there.
(Scurc) I love playing music, I first started playing drums but when I joined Steelwing I started playing the bass.

How has your album Lord Of The Wasteland been received?
(Oskar) I don't think we have had more than two bad reviews, there was one Swedish review that was really bad but he did not know what he was talking about. Over all we have have received very good reviews. It only came out in April of this year so it has still not been out that long.

What are your favourite songs of the record?
(Oskar) I really like The Nightwatcher, its a cool track and its fun to play live.

What can we expect from your live show?
(Oskar) 110% heavy metal madness to the bone, blood,sweat and maybe a tear or two. A really good heavy metal show, everything you could expect and more.

Are you looking forward to playing Bloodstock?
(Oskar) Absolutely this is our first time in the UK, it will be really fun. We are expecting a good crowd tonight.

Will you be watching any bands at Bloodstock over the weekend?
No we flew in only a couple of hours ago and will be flying out again early in the morning.

Where do you see Steelwing in the future?
I dont know really, its not like we have any big master plan or anything but we want to write good albums and play kick ass shows and we want each album to be better than the album before that, just to keep on touring and playing to lots of people.

Have you any funny tour stories?
(Oskar) We did a tour in May which was a two week tour of Europe, the first night Alex one of the guitarists got very drunk and he had not eaten for the whole day, he went to bed really drunk I was downstairs and he upstairs sleeping in his bunk and I heard him screaming and he kept on screaming that he wanted paper and he wanted help. I got upstairs and he had pucked in his hands, leaning his face out of his bunk

Out of a giraffe or zebra?
(Oskar) I would be a giraffe and they are really cute, as a little kid I went to this zoo and I had this little toy which I kind of gave to a giraffe and he ate the whole thing which was plastic, If I were a giraffe I could get my vengeance on little boys with toys.

Thanks for your time, do you have a message for the people reading this?
Keep on rocking, keep on listening to heavy metal, keep on beers or wine or whatever you drink .

Interview By Ellie Pockley