Bullet For My Valentine frontman Matt Tuck has named the song that he believes “encapsulates” their sound.
Talking exclusively to Metal Hammer before Bullet’s set at Download festival earlier this month, the singer/guitarist names Waking The Demon, from 2008 album Scream Aim Fire, as one of the songs that he thinks defines the band.
He explains: “It’s one of those songs that, when we were writing it, I knew we had something cool, something special. It encapsulates what Bullet is: it’s heavy, it’s melodic, it’s anthemic, it’s intricate, it has a weird structure.”
He adds: “[It’s] one of the songs that never left the setlist ever since it was written.”
Waking The Demon was first heard as part of Scream Aim Fire when the album came out in January 2008, but it got its own single release the following April. It reached number 39 on the US Mainstream Rock chart.
It’s since become one of the band’s most-played tracks, having been performed 877 times at time of publication. This makes it their second-most common song live, after Tears Don’t Fall from 2005 debut album The Poison, which has been brought out 930 times.
Bullet are currently playing the European festival circuit and plan to enter the studio in August so they can finish recording their eighth album. Guitarist Michael “Padge” Paget recently told TotalRock about what to expect musically.
“All of the usual Bullet trademarks are there,” he said. “It’s in our DNA, so hooks, the vocal melodies, the huge choruses, big guitars, all the standard stuff’s gonna be there, but definitely different to what we’ve ever done before.”
Last month, Bullet cited the production of their new album as the reason why their 2025 co-headlining tour with Trivium controversially finished earlier than planned.
The bands were only two legs into their joint Poisoned Ascendancy run, which was previously set to last for all of this year and hit several markets around the world, when it was abruptly announced that it was ending, with only Europe and North America getting shows.
Via social media, Trivium bassist Paolo Gregoletto blamed Tuck for the tour’s premature conclusion. In the fallout, frontman Matt Heafy urged dejected fans to “calm down” and Bullet issued a statement reading, “The four of us collectively feel that the time is right for us to divert our full attention towards the next chapter of Bullet For My Valentine.”
Bullet currently do not have any shows scheduled for after July, but they intend to tour heavily in 2026 and 2027.
