Metal Shock Finland's Alison Booth recently caught up with Firewind guitar virtuoso Gus G. when the band performed in Sheffield, England along with Rage.
 
On his forthcoming Gus G. solo album:
 
“I’m still a baby solo artist. I’m working on my third album now. I was surprised when I did my first solo album that I had offers to go out there and play, then I started thinking about all those things and developing my show. It’s going good – it’s been a little bit stressful because there was touring in between and I had to make some decisions to change members and how I was gonna do it this time. I wasn’t sure about if I was gonna have any guests or not and then I decided not to have any guests, so it’s gonna be more of a power trio set up. It’s Dennis Ward, he’s gonna be handling vocals and bass and Will Hunt of Evanescence is playing drums on the record. It’s coming out in the spring.”

On the subject of missing / lost instruments on tour:

“I think the airlines just need to get it together. When that happens to us, we’re always left in an airport wondering ‘OK, so now what?’ You really need to stay calm about it and hopefully people are going to be nice enough to help you out and track your gear and hopefully it’s not damaged.  It is very frustrating, it’s happened to us quite a few times the last two or three years now. Usually I’ll tweet about those things, I’ll call out the airlines, I don’t like to be that guy who bitches online – I’m usually a very positive guy about those things. But sometimes you have to go at them and hopefully somebody will be like ‘oh we messed up here, we better fix it. It does have an effect on the show. Yesterday (January 21st) we had a lot of delays, we had to cut our set short in the end and we were hoping to do it better with no soundchecks. At the end of the day it’s also rock ‘n’ roll and you have to just go in and do it. That’s the situation and you work with it and get it done.”

Gus G. has signed a worldwide deal with AFM Records for his next solo album

“I'm very excited & happy to confirm that I've signed a worldwide solo record deal with one of Europe's premier record labels, AFM Records! In my opinion, AFM is one of the few labels today that care for artist development, their team is really passionate about what they do and they have fresh and exciting ideas. We briefly worked together on Firewind's Immortals album for the North American territory and now I'm looking forward to the full scale collaboration on my next solo album”, Gus G. states. A brand new studio album is in the making currently and will be released in April 2018.

“Metal fans might know Dennis Ward as the bass player from the bands Unisonic and Pink Cream 69”, says Gus. “What people might not know about him is that he's a multi-talented songwriter, producer AND singer. Since me and Dennis have been working on songs for Firewind's latest album release but also now on my upcoming solo record, I only felt it was natural to invite him to play this music with me on stage. So, obviously forming a power trio is a new setup and we're really looking forward to rocking with my upcoming album tour cycle.”

AFM Records A&R Timo Hoffmann: “After releasing Firewind’s latest studio album Immortals in North America earlier this year, we are beyond excited that Gus decided to make AFM the new label home for his solo career as well. No words needed to praise the man’s qualities - Gus was a household name and highly acclaimed musician/songwriter long before he joined Ozzy’s band. Ever since its inception, he is the driving force behind Firewind and in addition has established a solo career, delivering outstanding up-to-date hard rock with finesse. Fans can look forward to a fantastic new Gus G. album which will see the light of day in April 2018.”