In a recent interview with Rock Rebel Magazine, VOLBEAT drummer Jon Larsen talked about the band’s recent North American tour with SLIPKNOT, BEHEMOTH, and GOJIRA.
He said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth.net): “We were when we got the offer, we were like, ‘Oh, is this going to work?’ You have SLIPKNOT, obviously, the headliner, then you had GOJIRA, which is another extreme metal band, then BEHEMOTH, which is even more extreme, and here we are, playing our more rock ‘n’ roll-type of songs.
“We were like ‘Uh, is this going to work?’ But our management said, ‘Yeah, it’s going to totally work. You got two really extreme bands, then you guys come in completely different, then SLIPKNOT will tear everything apart.’ We were, like, ‘Alright, sure. It might work.’ Actually, it did.
“There’s no doubt people were there to see SLIPKNOT, which is fair,” Larsen continued. That’s how it is when you’re headlining, but overall, we actually did pretty well. The heat was a completely different matter. It’s so hot when we played some of those shows; we were struggling with that. Apart from that, it did turn out pretty well.
He added: “Every night you will see some people in the audience flipping the bird and shaking their heads, like, ‘What is this?’ That’s how it is when you’re supporting. I’m pretty sure the bands who are supporting us, there are people as well shaking their heads and flipping the bird, and that’s how it is. I think, overall, it actually went pretty well. I think we gained, hopefully, a bunch of new fans during that tour.”
