Kelliher on new Star Wars: "JJ better have balls the size of Alderaan

The Metal Hammer Radio Show recently took a trip to the States to hang out with Mastodon – you can hear the full interview in an upcoming edition. But we couldn’t sit down with Bill Keliher and not mention Star Wars, could we?

It’s no secret Bill is a fan of Star Wars (just check out our video below to see all of his tattoos devoted to the galaxy far far away) but having seen the trailers is he happy or fearful for what Episode VII is going to bring to the table?

“A little bit of both,” he ponders. “I am an optimistic person – I like to think the glass is half full. Better than no glass, right? I think it’s going to be awesome, I mean, really good. Sure I do have high expectations, but I think JJ Abrams is going to do a good job.”

“I was never a big fan of Star Trek, the TV show, and the Next Generation I wasn’t a fan of at all, but when JJ made the movies I thought, ‘this is pretty awesome!’ There’s a little more going on here than the TV show. I mean, he’s got so much pressure on him from all the nerds in the galaxy, so if you’re going to do it you’d better have some balls the size of Alderaan.”

The final scene of the latest trailer had geeks everywhere (Hammer staff included) nerdgasming all over the place. If you can’t be bothered to spend two minutes of your life watching the trailer for the biggest film of 2015, Han Solo and Chewbacca appear on screen together for the first time since Return To The Jedi and Han smiles to say “We’re home.”

Understandably, Bill is very happy about this…

“I didn’t name name my son Harrison for no reason. Harrison Ford is who I wanted to be as a kid – he was my hero. I loved Raiders Of The Lost Ark, too. I fell in love with that character, that dude. I didn’t want to be Luke, I wanted to be Han. He’s undeniably the coolest character in the galaxy.”

Stay tuned for the full interview on a future edition of the Metal Hammer Radio Show.

Alexander Milas is an erstwhile archaeologist, broadcaster, music journalist and award-winning decade-long ex-editor-in-chief of Metal Hammer magazine. In 2017 he founded Twin V, a creative solutions and production company. In 2019 he launched the World Metal Congress, a celebration of heavy metal’s global impact and an exploration of the issues affecting its community. His other projects include Space Rocks, a festival space exploration in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Heavy Metal Truants, a charity cycle ride which has raised over a million pounds for four children's charities which he co-founded with Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood. He is Eddietor of the official Iron Maiden Fan Club, head of the Heavy Metal Cycling Club, and works closely with Earth Percent, a climate action group. He has a cat named Angus.