Atheist

By Júlio Valada on Jun 30, 2011 in Exclusive Interviews | 0 comments

Interview at Hellfest Open Air 2011

An interview with Steve Flynn from Atheist during Hellfest 2011.

During the third day of concerts at this year’s Hellfest I was lucky enough to meet and interview two of my favourite bands, Atheist and Coroner. I’ve sent a lot of invitations for interviews but only these two were confirmed in the end, no problem at all since they’re both legendary bands that I happen to love! This article covers the first of the two, which was with Atheist.

There’s a funny story behind this interview actually. I was only counting on doing the interview with Coroner as it was already the 13th of June (two days before my departure to France) and no word from Rose Vignat, their booking manager, had arrived. But when you least expect it good things happen, and that same day I received an email from her confirming that I had an interview booked with Atheist. After recovering from the initial shock I realized that I needed to make a draft of the interview very quickly as I was only two days away from leaving to the festival. No harm no foul as I rapidly took care of it and drafted a good set of questions to ask the band.

Fast-forward to the third day of concerts on Hellfest and there I was, waiting for my idols to appear at the place reserved for interviews. When I sighted Kelly and Steve I really started trembling a bit, but I was able to pull myself together and greet them. They were pretty cool and kind to me, I ended up interviewing just Steve as Kelly was doing another interview at the same time. I immediately warned Steve that I was new to this kind of things, but we was very cool about it and told me to “take my time”. After setting up my recording equipment I began the said interview. I’m going to apologize for two things; first, I appear a bit on the recording because the focus wasn’t exactly as it was supposed to be (plus I was a nervous wreck!), and second, my accent! I’m not a native English speaker and I’m on a bit of a middle ground between American and British English, so my accent is a bit awkward sometimes.

Steve was very generous during the interview as he provided me with long and detailed answers and explanations to each and every question I did to him. We talked about the early stages of the band’s career, including the making and reception of the first albums, the comeback of the band and also the reception to their latest album, the future of the band, all sorts of things. I even asked him his opinion on the reactions to the new Morbid Angel album and he gave me a really straight and honest answer. So if you want to know a bit more about Atheist just watch the recorded interview below. Thanks Steve and Kelly for this opportunity to chat with you guys, as I’ve said at the time you’re always welcome here in Portugal. And thanks a lot Rose for this opportunity!

As for you, enjoy the interview!

Interview: Júlio Valada

Camera: Júlio Valada

Video-Editing: Francisco Monteiro

By: Júlio Valada