Musician Photo Journal conducted an interview with drummer Michael "Moose" Thomas of Welsh metallers BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE during this year's Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. Watch the four-minute chat below.

Regarding how the new BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE song — which the band has been played at some of its recent shows — compares to the group's previous material, guitarist/vocalist Matt Tuck recently told the German edition of Metal Hammer magazine, "It's kind of completely new. I don't think it's like anything on 'Poison' [2005] or 'Scream Aim Fire' [2008], is it?" Moose concurred, "It's kind of more classic, if you ask me. It's not speedy, it's not thrashy." Tuck added, "It's not thrashy or really intense metal or anything. It's just like a mid-tempo kind of really nice, hard rock song. I don't even class it as metal, really. It's got metal influences and a really cool metal riff, but the song, as a vibe, is more hard rock."

BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE recently entered a Malibu, California studio with producer Don Gilmore (LINKIN PARK, LACUNA COIL) to begin recording the band's third CD for an early 2010 release. According to Tuck, the as-yet-untitled effort will mark a slight departure from the more aggressive sounds of "Scream Aim Fire", which has sold 321,000 copies in the United States since its January 2008 release. "On the last [album], we tried to be a bit more thrashy, and that was cool, but we just wanna go back to more kind of classic sound now," he said. "We want people to [think] it's a good blend of what we've done in the past.

He continued, "It's a lot more mature-sounding. The record, as a whole, is a lot more mature-sounding, it's a lot more classic. It'll stand the test of time [more] than both the previous things we've done.

"I haven't done the vocal session yet, but it's something I'm really gonna put everything I have into. The last record was what it was 'cause I had loads of problems with my throat — I had an operation and all that shit. So that's why it kind of sounds a bit weird compared to the first one — 'cause I wasn't doing good. But this time, the voice is back, it's firing, it sounds like me again, and I'm really gonna make it a great vocal rock/metal album."