Michelle LaRose from Caustic Truths spoke to OVERKILL frontman Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth recently about a number of topics. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Caustic Truths: Gigantour must open up a new fan base for you. People that come to see MEGADETH or one of the other bands leave being an Overkill fan.

Ellsworth: "That’s the idea of this, exposing ourselves to people who would not normally see us. At the same time, because the band has had a twenty-plus year history there are people that can incite that little riot that we get going when we play. That’s really what the idea is. Overkill is really a word of action not necessarily a word of passiveness. When we get those people that know the band, who have followed us for that twenty years, they can get the people around them moving and banging their heads and saying, “This is a lot different than I expected.” That’s always a great testimony to what we do, is to say, “Hey! We weren’t what you thought… We’re this.” And you had the chance to see us. So hey, it’s good to be on stage."

Caustic Truths: You said the new album is already being worked out. Do you have a barrage of song you need to cut back to twelve or so or do you have a set number of songs ready to track?

Ellsworth: "Our whole career as we’ve done things has always been ten, ten, ten, ten, ten. That’s what we work on. There are other ideas but it gets knocked down to ten prior to recording. The idea for us is about focus. We work a certain way and that’s to keep the focus on making the feel of a record as opposed to lets say ten or twelve individual tracks. It’s really about the record itself."

Caustic Truths: Will you be self-producing the new album as you have done in the past?

Ellsworth: "Yeah, of course. There’s something that also makes it fun. Part of the fun is the risk that you take in this. If there’s risk there’s more at stake. If there’s more at stake, I think you put more into it. So the idea from our perspective, again doing it for two decades, is that you have to learn something along the way. One of those things is learning how to present ourselves even right down to production."

Caustic Truths: You have another project called THE CURSED. Can you tell us about The Cursed?

Ellsworth: "It’s Dan Lorenzo from HADES and myself. Dan also played in a band called NON-FICTION, a big riff monster. I think it’s really about rock and roll. It’s really a side project. There’s metal in there of course. It even goes as far as swing. It is really quite different for me to be involved in after being in Overkill for two decades. I’m having a lot of fun with it. It was just a garage band that actually ended up getting signed."

To read the entire interview head to this location.

(Thanks Phantomphotography.com)