Lunatic's Serenade

Nige Rockett Interview
at The Hard Luck Bar

Toronto, Canada Friday November 7, 2014

We are coming to the end of the 2014 and it's great to find longtime thrash bands like Onslaught and Artillery still raging on all these years later. Both bands began life in 1985 and were quickly looked upon as stalwarts in the Euro thrash scene during the heydays of the first wave of thrash metal. Ironically, both groups disbanded in 1991, but you can't keep quality thrash bands like these two down for long - Artillery reunited in 1999 and Onslaught followed in 2005.

It's safe to say that both bands are on a roll, what with the number of recent albums being churned out and now Onslaught and Artillery are joining forces on the Thrash Invasion tour - which already saw a multitude of dates throughout Europe. Now they are taking this killer show to North America and Canada for a short fall jaunt and coming along for the ride are Eclipse Prophecy and VX36, giving this tour some potent support for longtime thrash fans.

The tour stormed into the Hard Luck Club in downtown Toronto this past Friday night, and HMS was given the opportunity to sit down with Onslaught's sole remaining founder Nige Rockett to get the straight dope on the show. The guitarist talked candidly about the progress of the tour and of the current situation involving vocalist Sy Keeler - who was forced to leave the tour to take care of some family matters. Stepping in to replace him is original Anthrax vocalist Neil Turbin, so Nige discusses how he was able to get a such a distinguished fill-in to come in and take over the lead vocal reigns.

"I never want to release a substandard album..."
Nige Rockett

We were able to capture this on video backstage before the show, so check out everything Nige had to say down below. We would also like to thank Dustin Hardman of AFM Records for setting this up for us.

Kenneth Gallant, Editor HMS

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