PipemanRadio Interviews Thrashest Regime at Bloodstock Open Air 2025

0:04 Hey, you have learned too, Yes, that's true. For see why Crazy Young. This is pipe Man here on the adventureds pipe Man W four c Y Radio and I'm here with My. Name is Joe Johnston and from Thrashist Regime were a Scottish thrash band. We just played on the EMP stage earlier on and it was fantastic. Man, tell us more about what it was like to perform at Bloodstock. It was superb. I mean to be honest, we're we've been going for eighteen years and this is probably the most high profile gig we've ever played. Wow, and it was just amazing. The crowd were fantastic. The tent was absolutely packed out with people. I think we've benefited from there not being quite as much thrash on the bill yet this year, as as in most years, and I think people saw our name and just saw Thrashist Regime and went right, there's no mistake about what that's going to be, right, and people love thrash metal. Everyone loves thrash metal. Metallica the biggest band in the world.

1:06 Yeah. Everyone always wants them to play the old stuff and that's the thrash stuff. So there's always going to be an audience out there for thrash, but I mean, I was really surprised how many people showed up. It was fantastic. I was kind of imagining five people in the dog in the tent, you know what I mean. And we turned up and it's like people all along the barrier, all the way back as far as you can see, and they've all got their hands in the air. They're all giving us the horns. People were so up for it. It was fantastic. I love it. And so I'm an old scoore thrash metal head. Good stuff. I was at the first ever Metallica show, first ever Slayer show. For real, for real amazing. All right, So I have a trivia question for you, and that I will be followed up by a story. Okay, there was no thrash such thing as thrash metow when Metallican Slayers started, the word didn't exist. Yeah, what was Metallica originally considered before thrash metal was coined a term?

2:03 What would they have been called? You mean, well, what even by themselves? What was their genre? Con get? I don't know. Some speed metal close they what there was one first? Then they went to speed, then they went to thrash. I don't know what would you have called motorheads? Do you know what I mean? Those bands that were around before. Yeah, my head. Well, let me just said we're rock and roll. Yeah, I mean he always said that. Okay, so now I'll tell you his story to answer the question. Okay, I go to the first show. There's about twenty five of us there. I'm like thirteen fourteen years old, and at those first shows you would go back to their place after the show and party all night line.

2:45 Yeah, I've read about Willis. Yeah I was there. So anyway, this dude gets off the stage, comes and starts talking to me, hands me it's business card. It said Metallica power metal, Dave Spain power metal. Okay, yeah, can you imagine metallic could be called power now? I know it's ridiculous, right yeah yeah. Yeah, like there was nowhere to put them, so let's just make them power metal. Yeah, I mean, where did the term thrash come from? When did that start being. I'll tell you al came because the slamming at a show was thrashing around yeah yeah, yeah, and look at the song whiplash. Yeah okay, okay, yeah, yeah that song. Yeah, that song's all about the pit of course. Yeah, and headbagging and Thrash and Exodus of course. Yeah.

3:34 Bang your head against the stage exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, learn a lesson in violence. Yeah yeah. So what made you get into thrash? I was always an Iron Maiden fan, a bit softer. I didn't actually really well, I guess I got into Metallica. I was given the Black album on tape. I remember hearing Master of Puppets and thinking, Oh, that's far too heavy for me. I don't think I'll ever like that. And then it was I got had a palcal Jeff, and when I was about sixteen, we'd just go like razing around in his car and he was always just listening to and Justice for All, and I think pretty quickly I was like, oh my god, the rifts on this are absolutely incredible. So that was my real entry point into thrash. And then I got into all the older Metallica and then a bit of Megadeath, but it wasn't really until I was kind of probably about twenty three to twenty four, which is quite old to come to the game, but I really started getting into the kind of this kind of lower tier thrash bands Forbidden.

4:34 I just love Twisted into Form. I think that record is because I quite like tech thrash. I think that's where my that's the sweet spot for me is thrash that's quite technical, not so technical that it's like Mecon Delta or something like that Watchtower. That's fine, but like you've got to have hooks. But Twisted into Form for me is that kind of perfect sweet spot between hooks and like rifts that are real tech craigs. I think Tim Calver as well, those guys. Anyway, someone just gave me a burned CD copy of that and said, oh, I think you might like this, and they were right. And then I got into Heathen and there was a point where on Amazon I was basically ordering a new thrash CD every day. Every day something could turn up in the post, and I was like Fantastic, got into Suicidal Tendencies and at Trophy and Demolition Hammer and all of this kind of more underground thrash really and I just that was it for me. And I was like I'd already been in a band, a more kind of melodic band for about ten years, but I just wanted to form a thrash band. I met another guy in town and he really wanted to form a thrash band.

5:38 And I had this idea for the band name because I used to wear these massive boots and a really long coat. And the guy said, oh, you look like a fascist, and I was like, I'm not a fascist. I was like, thrashist, not a fascist. And then I was like thrashist, and then I was like thrashist regime. That's a great band name. And then I was like, Oh, someone's got to form that band, and it's going to be me. So here we are, years down the line. Wow, it's amazing. Really, it's funny how things work out. So it's funny you mentioned the Black album because me and my original crew of Metallica fans, all twenty five of us, when that album came out, we were like, fuck them, those fucking posers sellouts. Yeah, yeah, of course we all came back later when we matured to get a little older.

6:24 Hang On, that's actually a great record, there's no denying it. It is a great metal Lesson, It's not a thrash metal record, No, it's not. That's what you were expecting. At the time. Then of course you're gonna be like, hang on a second, boy, But I. Think nothing else. Maris is one of the best metallica songs ever, you know. I mean yeah, I mean there's a reason it's a classic. It is it And I'm a pure thrash metal person, so for me to say that's a lot. Yeah, that's something and that was something deep for James, so that's why. But you know, like it's funny this song Seeking Destroy plays at the San Jose Shark hockey games, and James has said in an interview, he goes, I don't know why they played the original version. My voice sucked. Then I like the newer version bear because he learned how saying me personally, I like that original raw.

7:15 Yeah, old boy, so do I there's something about kill them all. Oh, It's like they're obviously quite an undeveloped band at that point. The riffs are fantastic, but there's something about the naivety of that really early thrash that's just incredibly enjoyable, and that's kind of what thrash was about. It was a sort of reaction to the big long, progressive, really very musical, the way the heavy rock had kind of gone, and then Thrash was a lot more like, hey, let's just get in the garage and make a noise, right. You can hear that on Kill Them All. You can hear it Unponded by Blood as well. You can even hear it on Forbidden Evil, even though Forbidden Evil is a little bit more tech, but it's still got that kind of slight naivety to it that's just kind of really enjoyable. And for all I'm saying that, I really like the tech more tech developed Thrash. I absolutely love a lot early stuff as well.

8:02 Well. What's interesting is like seeing the evolution and like you're from further down the road. For me, it's fine. Like I remember watching that Metal Show and Kirk Hammett was on and Eddie Trunk had him rate all the Metallic albums and the one he had last, which makes sense, was Kill Mall. I don't know if the rest of them would play it last, but he wasn't with that same I mean, he wasn't with that. You know. He came in and basically recorded everything almost pretty much the way that Dave Mustain had done it on the original demos, exactly ifn the solos are kind of a I. Even have the original demo from tape Trading. You can't even tell what it is. It was recorded over like fifty times. But that's a slice of history right there, no doubt. But if you took the original thrash bands. Okay, kill Mall's my favorite album. Okay, Show No Mercy is my favorite album. Okay, killing is my business, but Business is Good is my favorite album. Okay, and Anthrax, believe it or not, the first one is my favorite album with Neil. Even though I love Belladonna, I love Joey, I love Beladonna, But it was like, because sometimes I think it's because of nostalgia that week.

9:22 Of course, that's going to be a huge bar of it. And it's the soundtrack to your life, right and you're a kid, and this is your first experience in metal, absolutely and you went I went to like it'saw Metallica and Slayer five hundred times before I was even eighteen. It's like you heard the shit over and over and over again. Yeah, And like I was watching Metallica multiple times before even Kill ma All came out when it was supposed to be metal. Up your fucking ash. Yeah, and it wasn't allowed to be you know. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It is that rawness that and I think a lot of people do that. Even I can take bring Me to Rizin, the true bring me fans, the original ones. They I hate everything after the very beginning because they wanted that true death corn the beginning.

10:05 You always get fans like that. I think of every band as a huge Iron Maiden fan. I meet people all the time. Actually, because Paul Deiano died last year, so many people came out and went, oh, my favorite Maiden albums at the first two they're the two that he was on. Killers. Yeah, I mean I love Killers. I love every Iron Maiden album. Really, I'm just the nerd, an Iron Maiden nerd. I've seen them like fifty five times. I followed them around Europe. But I would never say that the Deiano albums were my favorite ones. But a man, I love Killers. When they brought Martin Birch on boards to produce, that was the moment. Actually he made such a difference to their sound. But the point is that you're always going to get the people that just want the early stuff, play classics. Those guys, I don't want to hear anything you recorded after your first two years.

10:46 As a brand. Now I have the other side of that now that I'm older and mature, more mature. Yeah, I understand the artist side of it. Like you want to evolve, you want to get seater, you want to learn. Of course you do know what the fuck they were doing that. Your songwriting evolves completely as well. And when you're young, you're quite happy to write songs that are just like intro verse chorus, verse chorus, midlight chorus, that's the end. And then after you've done that for a little while, even a couple of years, you're you start expanding and going, hey, let's stick another bit here, let's put a weird time change in there. You end up with songs for seven, eight nine minutes long, And like, I love that. I love progressive thrash. Actually, I like Vector's last album for me was just amazing and amazing pinnacle of music. It's so technical, there are so many riffs in every song. It's just mad. Their conceptual stuff is just incredible. I love that. And that is what I'm saying is like, I just love thrash. So there's a place for the early stuff, and sometimes you just want that raw aggression and sometimes you're in the mood for something that's gonna take you places that are a bit weird that you've never been before. You know.

11:56 Well, look, so two Seasons, that's the longest Mentale song ever. Yeah, I don't love it. I have to say, there's some all right stuff on the album. To me, it's more about to your point, what you're saying is they were, but that's for them to write exactest songs an experiment. That's just an experiment, you know. Yeah, totally, that's it. And you see it with all bands. You see it with Iron Maiden. You know, they went from writing running Free to writing rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and in like five or six years. You know, that's I mean, that's a wild progression in terms of how you write songs. And I think it happens to most artists because you're a musician, you know, and you want to keep on challenging yourself and you just want to do stuff that you haven't done before, because it's boring to do the same thing over and over and over again, no doubt for you.

12:40 Well that's what I was gonna say too. Like your first album, you play those songs on that first album more times than any other song ever, because you've been playing those songs before it was even an album, and you're playing like every night trying to get nuhs, so thousand hours i'd be like, fuck, I don't want to play that song again. Well, that's it. It happens to us. And to be honest, we've got two albums. We're working on the third album at the moment. But for the first album, the songs are all about three minutes long and they're all pretty simple. Then there's a gap of about five years before the second album because we work quite slowly. You know, we're not professed, like, it's not our job to be musicians. We have to fit it in, so it takes us a long time to write a whole album's worth a material and record it. But five years later, by the time the second album came around, the average song length has gone up to like five and a half minutes, maybe even pushing six minutes. We've got a lot of long stuff on it. It goes to a lot of different places that we would have never gone to on the first album, and for me, that's far more interesting.

13:36 I love our second record, it's much better than the first one. But there are people who say, oh, I like your first album much more than the second one, and you just have to go, well, that's fine, that's what you're looking for. But then there's other people that say the opposite. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think here's what you learn. Please yourself as an ours because you're not going to please. But no, exactly. The only reason you do it is for yourself. Right. If you're just in it because you want to please the fans, then you're doing it for the wrong reason. Really are lucky to have fans, I mean, that's fantastic. If you can make a career out of music, then that then you're one of the luckiest people in the world. Because it's very, very difficult to make money off music these days, with the car work, the current model, and it's so much hard work. And that's it, and that's why we'll never be like full time professional musicians. It's too much of a risk. And now we're too old and we've got kids and all that kind of thing.

14:20 So you just fit it in around the rest of your life. But you're still progressing as musicians and pushing yourself all the time. Totally tell everybody they can reach out to you on socials, on the web, buy your merch. They can't listen to my show, and let's they support you. Okay, yeah, I mean we're called thrashist regime. We're from Scotland. Who can get shirts and the albums at Fat Hippie Records, dot co, dot UK, Amazon, Spotify, all the streaming services dz are all those things. We're on all of them. And yeah, just google us and you'll find us. I think hopefully we're the only thrashest regime out there. I would think so. Yeah. Oh I know one other thing too. I had somebody that's dated a Scottish girl and as Scottish friends. Oh really, how come you're the only Scottish person I can understand.

15:07 Because I don't have a Scottish accent because my parents are English from ah, that makes sense for my sins. Somebody has to be there, you go. But I was born in Aberdeen. I am Scottish. The whole bander actually old just from round Aberdeen. Really nice. Yeah, anything else you want to share with the listeners, we haven't covered already that they need to know. Not really, just please check us out of the video for headshots on YouTube. Go and check that out and look out for us. Next year, we'll be releasing a new album, all the materials written. We're recording it right now and it's gonna kick your ass. I'm sure will and you do kick ass. And thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Thanks for speaking to us. Cheers. Michelle Kerr was my press officer for my entire fucking career here in the UK, my entire career with Machina.

15:55 She recently passed away and it was a very, very sad day. And I can tell the other reason that I'm gonna tell this story because she was family. She was Bloodstock family. She was heavy metal UK family. Most of the bears that you. Know and love you probably heard of because of that woman right there. Slip Knots, Slayer, Machinehead, Trivium, Killswitch, Engage, Hey, Breed, you name it. She helped lift everybody up, man, She helped lift everybody up, and in so many ways, she helped make this entire music scene, this incredible, beautiful community that lives here at Bloodstock.

16:42 Man. She helped make it. So, ladies and. Gentlemen, please make some noise from Michelle Kerr. Thank you for listening to the adventures of plate Man. I'm dove U force U I Radio Yeah.