AN INTERVIEW WITH: ELIMINATOR (UK)

Originating from Lancaster in the UK, Eliminator have been around for over ten plus years now and are one of the bands still leading strong in UK Nwothm scene! These self proclaimed nerds already have a handful of great releases behind them with their most recent being last years ‘Ancient Light.’ Vocalist Danny was able to give Thenwothm more insight in to the band!

THE NWOTHM: For those who do not know who you are, can you tell us your band name,
who is in the band and where you are from?

ELIMINATOR: We are Eliminator. We have Danny (me) on vocals, Dave on drums, Matt and Jack on the guitars and Jamie on bass. The band is originally from Lancaster.

THE NWOTHM: How did the band form and is there any interesting story surrounding its
formation?

ELIMINATOR: I joined the band just prior to the release of the first album, so I wasn’t there for the formation. I suppose what I can tell you is that Eliminator played my local rock bar when I was 17. After that,
we became mates, and years later they asked me to sing for them!

THE NWOTHM: Since the bands formation what big milestones have you achieved?

ELIMINATOR: I suppose it is just the release of our first album Last Horizon in 2018, and last year’s release
Ancient Light. I think making a full album is pretty good going for us as we’re all fairly busy in our
personal lives (and maybe a tad lazy…)

THE NWOTHM: Can you tell us any fun/ interesting facts about the members of the band?

ELIMINATOR: Me and Matt both have physics backgrounds and now work in materials, by pure coincidence. Jamie is a computer nerd. I think we’re all nerds.

THE NWOTHM: What bands and artists have influenced you and helped you to carve your
sound?

ELIMINATOR: A lot of people tend to cite Iron Maiden when they listen to us, which I suppose is fair, if not a lazy comparison. I mean, what modern trad heavy metal band hasn’t got some Maiden in them? I think
a band that crops up very frequently for us when we write is Sortilege. Anthem from Japan have
been hot on our inspiration playlist recently too.

THE NWOTHM: What do you think of the UK Nwothm/heavy metal scene in comparison to
other countries?

ELIMINATOR: We played in Alicante back in autumn, and I can tell you that the Spanish crowds are nuts
compared to the British- it was excellent. But that doesn’t say much about the scene. I don’t know,
there are up and coming bands in the trad metal movement from all over the place, and everyone
tends to know each other to some degree anyway.

THE NWOTHM: Can you tell us about your most recent release ‘Ancient Light’ and any
background information to the music? How did the songs come about?

ELIMINATOR:Well, it was a covid project, written almost entirely remotely. The songs came about differently. Some started with a single riff, others were driven by a wave of inspiration listening to something
else. We had some pretty eclectic inspiration during the writing of that album actually.

THE NWOTHM: How do you feel the band has evolved since you started over a decade plus
ago?

ELIMINATOR: I think our writing is a little more adventurous these days. The first EP was classic 80s NWOBHM, the first album was played very straight as contemporary traditional metal, and Ancient Light is a
little more “off the wall”.

THE NWOTHM: Where do you get inspiration for the lyrical themes that run through your
music?

ELIMINATOR: Dreams are a big one for sure. Though, Ancient Light followed a story around the end of the universe. I think fundamentally we took inspiration from cosmology, dark surrealism and dreams to
produce the themes presented in Ancient Light.

THE NWOTHM: Can you talk to us about some of your album artworks and the artists
behind them?

ELIMINATOR:Ancient Light’s cover was painted by Velio Josto (https://www.facebook.com/veliojosto/). Velio is insanely talented and has produced cover art for a lot of bands in our scene. I approached him with
a concept idea and some reference pictures of Beksiński paintings and he just absolutely knocked
it out of the park.