Interview with Toledo Steel
Interview with Toledo Steel
Interview by Dawn “The Metal Priestess” King
Toledo Steel are one the leading forces in the NWOTHM wave. Recently, I had the chance to do an email interview with Richard from the band.
Hi! I’m Dawn from Ever Metal. Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions for us. I hope you are all ok?
Hey! Yeah we’re all doing great cheers. Glad we can be doing this interview with you!
Ok, for those who haven’t heard of Toledo Steel before, can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
The band officially formed back in late 2011, myself and Matt Dobson (our drummer) are the only two original members from that first lineup though. We both wanted to form this kind of band for a few years prior to actually meeting each other but we didn’t have much luck finding likeminded people. This soon changed though after we put our heads together and it wasn’t long before we had our first lineup and were busy writing songs in preparation to get out there and play live.
Since our formation we released a bunch of demo tracks and followed it up with two self financed independently released E.P’s. We love playing live of course and have always tried to play as many shows as possible! Not just within the U.K but venturing over to Europe fairly frequently too.
Your debut album “No Quarter” was released through Dissonance Productions on the 18th May 2018. How is being received, both by the critics and reviewers and by the public? And, more importantly, how did the album release party go?
So far the feedback we’ve been receiving has been great! You only have one chance to make a statement with the first album and you don’t wanna drop the ball and undo the good work you’ve done in the years prior with the building up of the bands name and profile. We couldn’t have asked for a better album release show either, it was tied in with the Frost and Fire festival which took place in Camden and we played the official after party. The festival was totally sold out and everyone in attendance was already on a high from the whole thing so it only contributed even more so to a great atmosphere when we played.
You have been doing a lot of gigs with Seven Sisters, how has that been? How was the British Steel 2 festival at the end of May? I was gutted I missed that!
The shows with Seven Sisters have been awesome. They’re a great bunch of guys that we get along with really well so teaming up with them as much as we can makes total sense. The British Steel 2 event was cool also, that was also Primitai’s album release show who are also signed to Dissonance Productions so it was great to see that.
With festival season now in full swing, what would be your favourite festival to play and why?
There’s so many great festivals so that’s a tough question to answer but something like Sweden Rock or Hellfest would be great exposure to a bigger audience. There’s so many cool smaller festivals too that we want to play, Keep it True in Germany for example.
You are a favourite with Dean Archer at The Rock Den in Hatfield. What do you think of guys like him and what they are doing for the rock/metal scene?
I think that people like Dean are essential to the music scene and the future of Rock and Metal music. He makes a real effort to bring different bands to the Rock Den and play alongside some of the more established older bands. If every city had promoters and venues like this, there’s no doubt that the scene within the U.K could begin to thrive even more so.
Your website describes you as “one of the UK’s leading forces in the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal!” Is this just the new name for NWOBHM?
I guess so! The NWOTHM tagline just makes it clear that it’s a new wave of bands coming through with the NWOBHM inspired sound. The term NWOBHM is specific to that era so it makes sense to alter it slightly.
With venues closing down all the time and people seemingly preferring to watch cover bands and tribute bands, where do you see the future of metal lies? Some of the “older” metal heads are saying there is nothing new coming through. Do you think this is the case?
People who say that there’s nothing new coming through need to open their eyes and ears a bit more! Haha. There’s plenty of new rock and metal bands emerging the world over. Sure, it’s not all gold and you gotta scratch beneath the surface a bit to discover these bands but there most definitely is a lot of new stuff worth listening to.
How do you all cope with being in a band, with rehearsals and gigs etc as well as jobs and family life? You must all be knackered all the time!
None of us have kids so that simplifies things and we work it around our day jobs fairly easy enough. We’re not robots, so yeah there are days where we’re a little tired but I personally feel like I’ve always got energy. I like to be as active as possible really, I can’t sit down for hours on end in front of the T.V for instance. Having something to constantly look forward to or do band wise outside of day to day life suits us down to the ground really.
Who is the driving force behind the band? You know, the guy that organises rehearsals, gets you all together when you need to be, that sort of thing?
Matt is great with all the organisation of things and the finer details. He is essentially the band manager and he’s done a fantastic job. We tend to always rehearse on the same day each week so we all know the score with that, but the booking of shows and networking side of things is handled primarily by him.
So, what’s next on the horizon for Toledo Steel?
Next up we plan to continue getting out there playing live and promoting the new album of course! We’re also gonna start working on ideas for album number two fairly soon as well. A music video for one of the album tracks is well under way too and it won’t be long before we’ll be able to release that! We’re really excited to get that finished off and up online, it’s looking pretty cool so far.
Thank you very much for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add yourselves?
No worries and cheers to everyone that’s supported us so far and continues to do so. “No Quarter” can be streamed online via Spotify or physical copies bought from us directly or via Amazon, HMV Stores or ITunes etc. Keep supporting emerging bands and spread the word to keep the music and scene alive!
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Disclaimer: This interview is solely the property of Dawn “The Metal Priestess” King and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this interview, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to do adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.