Seriously Piratey

Who would have thought a band could make an international and overnight success of itself just by working the beer guzzling, wench seeking pirate angle? Three albums in and Scottish metal outfit Alestorm have proven this possible.“We're not alcoholics,” says vocalist, keytarist and chief songwriter Christopher Bowes with some humour. “We just enjoy drinking. Maybe Gareth the bass player is an alcoholic... but I think he's better now. Well, he gets the shakes in the morning. There is usually a lot of alcohol involved after our gigs and ridiculous things often happen, but we're not alcoholics.”

Formed under the name Battleheart in 2004, then signed to Austria's Napalm Records in 2007 as Alestorm, the band has a serious following the world over. Fans often turn up to gigs in full pirate get-up, but a piss-take band they are not. “We are not a parody band,” insists Bowes. “There is a pendulous continuum between your super serious and super-jokey bands, and we kind of tip somewhere in the middle. We are aware that what we are doing is completely ridiculous and stupid; songs about drinking and travelling through time with Vikings, and then drinking some more. We are obviously not trying to represent ourselves as creating high art. It's obviously about having stupid good fun. I like to think that the music we create is powerful and that the lyrics, while being stupid, are something great to sing along with.”

Although comparisons have been made between Alestorm and German '80s metal band Running Wild, Bowes says both bands' penchant for all things piratey was an accidental coincidence. “I'd never heard of them when we were first starting out and when we released our first demo people told us that we were a bit like them, but we were like, 'Who the hell is Running Wild?'” This unfamiliarity with the history of pirate metal belies the fast learning curve and literal overnight success that marks the outfit's rise to fame, which came about with a little help from the once ubiquitous MySpace.

“We sent an email to the agent at Napalm Records with a link to our MySpace and then literally within 24 hours they'd sent us a record contract. We were very quickly signed and suddenly we were touring the world,” explains Bowes. “For everyone in the band, it was our first time ever being in a band. Some people don't want to be in a world wide touring band so some members left very quickly. We weren't very good at finding replacements because we didn't know what to look for in a good touring musician so there were a lot of early line up changes.”

Alestorm are about to embark on an Australian and New Zealand tour to be filmed and turned into a DVD by well known metal band director Tommy Jones. When asked what sort of hijinks the band gets up to on tour, Bowes mentions something about a traffic incident and beer bongs. “We ran a woman over with a car once. She was okay, she got up – harmless fun,” he says with tongue in cheek. “Our good friends Lagerstein aren't supporting us on the tour but being good friends they will be flying to most of our Australia gigs to feed us beer bongs on stage, no doubt.”

Alestorm will be playing the following dates:

Friday 18 January - The Hi-Fi, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 19 January - Manning Bar, Sydney NSW
Sunday 20 January - The Hi-Fi, Brisbane QLD
Tuesday 22 January - Capitol & Amplifier Bar, Perth WA