BW&BK; had CARCASS axemen Michael Amott and Bill Steer over to headquarters for beers, tunes and news, with Bill firing off the first nuggets of wisdom, his pertaining to the band FIREBIRD, a fine retro rock act that has Steer mellowing out, at least in comparison to his current role, i.e. trying to keep the lid on the mayhem that is a sold-out Carcass reunion tour.

Steer says there’s a new finished Firebird album, but label deal for it yet.

“Yeah, this year we started off doing a few bits and pieces. We have kind of a following in Italy, so we played there, started off there, did an Irish tour, and then before this Carcass stuff kicked off, I realized that the next six months were going to be very tricky, so we booked a studio and recorded an album just before we started the festivals. I’m very happy with it, actually. There’s a couple of tracks that are way heavier than the stuff from the last two records. But I mean, we threw three cover versions on there, all from really different sources. Most people won’t even know they’re covers, because they’re quite obscure.”
“We did a JAMES TAYLOR song, because there’s one record of his that I’m almost obsessed with, and that’s One Man Dog. It’s not one of his better known records, but it’s a really good album, and some of it is almost actually rock music, softer playing, but it is a band feel, not just a guy with his acoustic guitar. So we took one of those tracks, I’ve been trying to do it for years, and I thought this would be the place to try it and it worked out really nicely. Then we did DUSTER BENNETT, a song of his called ‘Worried Mind’, and he’s a really obscure English harmonica player from the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. I mean, he doesn’t get any credit, as far as I can tell, and he’s a very significant guy. And he once put an album out where he played all the instruments himself, simultaneously. So he did bass drum, hi-hat, electric guitar, his harmonica is in a neck brace, and vocals, all in one take. Killer.”

Quips Amott: “I could do that if I wanted to. I just don’t want to (laughs).”

“And then we did a HUMBLE PIE cover,” continues the team’s straight man. “We played it live but we never considered recording it, but then we thought just for a laugh, let’s do a little one take job on this in the studio, as a bonus cut for Japan. But in the end it was too good, so we put it on the record and we used something else for the bonus. So yeah, early next year, I think, Carcass won’t be busy, and Mike will be back in the ARCH ENEMY machine, then I guess Firebird will do some dates.”

See www.myspace.com/firebirdpage for more.