STEVE BRIGHT
Let’s face it: in a year where Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold and myriad heavyweights have unveiled new albums, nobody could have predicted Southampton goth-punks Creeper taking Metal Hammer’s Album Of The Year spot with their vampire rock opera, Sanguivore. Least of all the band themselves.
“[Creeper guitarist] Ian Miles’ favourite band is Metallica, so he feels like he’s committed some kind of crime,” admits Creeper frontman Will Gould, grinning like the Cheshire –or perhaps more accurately, Hampshire –cat. “It’s so humbling, especially for the type of record we’ve made, as the reference points we are drawing from aren’t really cool records.”
Within the swirling mix of goth, punk, heavy metal and classic rock’n’roll that is Sanguivore, 1977’s debut Meat Loaf/ Jim Steinman album Bat Out Of Hell casts a delightfully OTT winged shadow.
“Bat… was pretty much always on when I was a kid because my parents loved it, so I honestly can’t say when I first heard it,” Will admits. “But I revisited it when I was around 11. Iknew all the songs from the distant haze of youth, but I just had a different appreciation for how insane they were.”
But then, Will has always been attracted to theatricality. Aselfconfessed “cartoon goth”, he lives in a converted church in Manchester, the shelves lined with pumpkins all year round. When Hammer calls him over Zoom, we even get a jump-scare as we’re greeted by a pair of yellow eyes staring out of a ghostly pale face. No, it’s not Will in dress-up –though we wouldn’t put it past him –but his cat. “Sorry, Tofu loves gatecrashing meetings,” he laughs.