Interview with Bill Hudson, guitarist for Cellador. It was conducted backstage in the dressing room for Cellador at the House of Blues in Orlando, FL on October 1, 2006. Interview conducted by Nick Zimmer.
First off can you state your name and what you
do in the band?
Bill Hudson and I play lead guitar in Cellador.
A few of you guys are from different countries,
how did you all hook up in Nebraska?
Actually I am the only one who grew up outside of the States. Val, he is
Russian but he moved here when he was nine. I mean, what kind of Russian is
that? I had found a band online looking for a guitar player while I was
still in Brazil. What I did was send them a bunch of demo’s and said “Hey
can I try out for you guys”. I figured because I was from Brazil they would
be like “Oh fuck the guy is going to bring snakes” or whatever. (Interrupted
by vocalist Michael) Tell them the anecdote that we sent you a demo and you
recorded over it and learned the demo in three hours. That’s how it
happened.
How did you guys hook up with Metal Blade?
That happened before I joined. What happened is the Black Dahlia Murder, who
are on Metal Blade played in Omaha where we live and Cellador opened the
show, without me, and they were so impressed that they asked for a demo.
They didn’t have any demo’s so they had to go back to Chris’ house while The
Black Dahlia Murder were playing to get a copy of the demo. 12 days later
the owner of Metal Blade Records called them. So to make it short, opening
up for The Black Dahlia Murder.
Where does the name Cellador come from?
J.R. Tolkien. He is a South African author. He write The Lord of the Rings.
He said the words cellar and door together are the most beautiful sound you
can make in English. So Chris, when he was starting the band, he had read
that and said that it did sound good. So starting a power metal band, why
not call it Cellar Door, which he then shortened. But it comes from the
words cellar and door.
Most power metal bands sing about dragons and
wizards but your lyrics are much more personal than that. How does the band
approach their writing?
Well we are all very young people. So is our audience. We all have the same
types of issues. The whole changing who you are, being something different
trend, we are against that. So basically what we do is write about how we
live our lives. What we think about everything. On the other hand we are not
preachers. Basically don’t give a shit. We dress how we want, we have our
hair how we feel like. We do whatever the fuck we feel like and we write
about it. I think if we tried to write about like dragons, for one,
everything is already known and then I’m not from here so I don’t think I am
proficient enough with English to write about it.
You were able to play the New England Hardcore
and Metalfest. How was that?
That was awesome. It was incredible. It was perfect. We played with Erik
Rutan, he is our producer. His band Hate Eternal played there. It wasn’t
like working. It was awesome.
What was it like working with Erik Rutan?
It was incredible. I couldn’t say enough great things about him. He’s a kind
dude, he’s friendly and understanding, he’s very professional. He got the
best performance he could out of us. He is the shit.
Who did you work with on the video for Leaving
All Behind?
His name is Dan Dolby. I don’t think he has done too many other bands. He
did Cannibal Corpse. He did Unearth and I think that’s it. The good thing is
that he’s one or two years older than us and would listen to everything. We
spent nine hours head banging. The head and neck pain are something that we
will remember forever. That was incredible. He’s another person that I
wouldn’t know what to say bad about.
Do you have any plans to do any more videos?
Yeah. We were just talking to our label about doing another video. I don’t
know the song yet.
What are your plans for after this tour?
After this tour we are going to go back to writing mode. The first album was
totally written by Chris. This album will be a little different. We already
have a demo of two songs. We’re going to be home on the tenth and start
recording on the eleventh. I know there are some other things lined up but I
don’t know any dates.
I’m sure that there’s no other bands in
Nebraska like you, so what’s the scene like there?
Surprisingly enough it’s fitting. You can literally go to a show everyday.
There are bands everywhere. From my point of view they all sound the same.
They all want to sound like what’s big. They want to sound like Killswitch
Engage or Unearth or Trivium. They want to sound like that. There are many
bands out there.
What can someone who’s never seen you live
expect at one of your shows?
Five guys going insane on stage and playing the music that they like. Having
some technical problems like we saw tonight. If your into metal at all you
should check us out whenever we come to your town. We try to stick to the
professional side but we just want to rock out on stage. If you come to a
Cellador show you are going to have a lot of energy on stage.
Do you guys have any pre show rituals?
Me and Chris play scales for about a half hour before the show to warm up
our fingers. Five minutes before we go on stage I like to sit down and
forget about everything. It’s sort of like meditating but I don’t really
know how to meditate. I just sit on the couch, I don’t sleep but I go
somewhere else.
If you could play a show with any three
artists, past or present, who would they be?
That’s kind of tough because me three favorite bands would not fit with
Cellador. Let me make two lists. With my idols it would be Guns n Roses,
Skid Row, and Danger Danger. If I could choose something that was good for
Cellador I would choose Helloween, Gamma Ray, and Iron Maiden.
That’s all. Do you have any last words for the
fans and readers?
Alright people, if you don’t know Cellador you should definitely check us
out. Thank you for this interview. If you have not heard Cellador, go pick
up Enter Deception and you will not be disappointed. Fucking go. You will
like it, it is power metal. Rock on.
