Jay Dawson caught up with Asking Alexandria before their headline show at Newcastle Academy to talk about whats next for the band?

You have just started a pretty much sold out UK tour, how was the first show last night in Glasgow?
It’s been pretty nuts man, last year we played Academy 2 here, so it’s been a massive jump to a sold out gig, so I’m pretty excited.

What can we expect from your show tonight?
A different accent haha. I think it’ll be a better gig as this is a bigger venue. I think last night there were 1,500, tonight’s there’s 2,000. I remember last time we were here, the kids were pretty nutty, so tonight should be a crazy show.

Blessthefall, Chelsea Grin and One Last Breath are supporting you on the tour were this bands handpicked by you? And how have you found touring with them so far?
Bless the fall are really good friends of ours, we’ve known them for a very long time; we’ve toured with them in America and Australia so we’ve seen the world together. Chelsea grin are a tight solid good band. We have With one last breath on tour with us as our support as a favour ‘cos our old bassist Joe is in that band now, and the front man was in James’ and Cameron’s old local band, so it’s a small world and it’s snuck in nicely.

Are there any shows on the tour that you are looking forward to playing more than others?
I’m really looking forward to London, because it’s where I’m from, and we all spend a lot of time up north where a lot of them are from, I just get a lot of shit for being from down south. LANDAN. It’s always the biggest show on the tour, and out record managers and labels are all coming down to the show. If I’m honest, I’m looking forward to this UK tour, more than I’ve looked forward to one in a very long time. It’s friendlier here too; the bus was swarmed with people earlier. When we first started out, we had a lot of girl fans, but since we’ve toured with A7X, and other bands, our fan base has developed. In America, the fan base has developed a lot, we see parents bring their kids to the shows. We have five year olds to the show, all the way up to 55 year olds.

What do you have planned once this tour comes to an end at the end of January?
We’re in Europe for all of February, and then a show in Port Rico, which is technically in the Caribbean which is nice, and after that we have a full US headline run with Trivium and I see stars, and then after that we’re in the studio bringing out a new album which I can’t wait for, I love being in the studio. We’ve sat down, and basically realised that we don’t want to be like everyone else who goes softer and more radio friendly and more commercial, which is a slap in the face to heavy music. I mean, we’re a heavy band, but we do want to appeal to a broader audience to expand and develop but we don’t want to be rounded off. So this time we’re going for a big finger in the air and we’re gonna be heavy as fuck, and we’re still gonna do what we always has. This is going to be the heaviest album we’ve released. We’re staying true with us – but we’re not being stagnant. We’re the same as we always were, but with a bit more balls.

I understand that you worked alongside ex WWF superstar the Ultimate Warrior for a TV show, can you tell us a little more about this?
He’s nuts, he’s a crazy man, but he’s a lovely down to earth guy….behind closed doors cos he’s a family man. He’s a chilled out nice guy….he’s fucking HUGE, scary to look at, and then the cameras came on, an nothing was scripted so we didn’t know what to expect, then we did a nice intimate session, and he got to know us, and then we thought this is gonna be fun, but then he came on and said ‘you ready to work out’ and then the switch flipped and he was a crazy fucking arsehole, screaming in our face, spitting in our eyes. We’re hoping to film some more episodes with him and it’s quite entertaining because we drink a lot and seeing our bodies being pushed into that new realm of physical activity is pretty funny. James vomited, I’m more of a god, and he’s more of a peasant.

You put out a remix album ‘Stepped Up And Scratched’ back in November, how did this idea come about?
We wanted to switch it around, so rather than being metal with a little bit of techno, we wanted techno with a little bit of metal. At the time, no-one had done anything like that, but at the time, we ran out of time, being on tour and we kind of pushed it onto the backburner, and then loads of other bands started doing it with dub step and everything got bigger, so we decided to leave it for a little while to settle. We wanted ours to be better than everyone else’s. It’s not just a dub stepalbum; it’s got a lot of the drums and original guitars and stuff in it.

What has the general response been to ‘Stepped up and Scratched’ from the fans and the press?
People seem to like it. I was a little bit hesitant that people would think its gay and not asking Alexandria. But originally it was just for a bit of fun, like another project. It was like a ‘listen to this, and see if you like it, if not, we have an actual album coming out soon’. It’s been positive; no-one’s been throwing rocks at us.

Where do you hope to see Asking Alexandria in a year’s time?
We want to push this new album. When slipknot came out in 2001, they were the heaviest thing around, and people just thought, ‘what the fuck is this’ but they still got massive and made people realise that heavy music isn’t dead, it’s very much alive. People seem to assume DJ’s ad Dub step is taking over, and we’re giving another ‘fuck you’ to all of that. We wanted to be a massive identity, and a force to be fucked with. We want to resurrect it

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a zebra or Giraffe which one would you be and why?
A giraffe, because…then it’d be so much easier to peer down girls tops and get a few cleavage shots. They wouldn’t even know what I was doing chilling up there. Our guitarist Cameron looks a lot like a giraffe, almost like Melmin from Madagascar.

Interview by Jay Dawson