“I don’t think I’ve ever really heard this one,” he says. “Everybody talks about Slade Alive!, but with Slade On Stage they were really on fire.” He reaches into the nearest rack and pulls out a copy of Dio’s overlooked 1990 album Lock Up The Wolves. “ Slade On Stage,” he says, referring to their 1981 live album. “I get more excited when I hear there’s a re-release of an old Slade album,” he says.Īnd which Slade album would he recommend to someone who only knows the singles? “Those bands just stuck with me.” These days he’s more interested in old music than anything new. “When I was a kid I was introduced to The Beatles, then the Stones, The Who, The Kinks,” he says. The drummer is Volbeat’s classic rock wing. “No, they’re from after 1985,” replies Jon. “Weezer,” Kaspar says after a few seconds thought. It turns out that, beyond their idols and friends Metallica, there are few groups who unite the members of Volbeat. “This is an album with Matt Skiba from Alkaline Trio singing, who are one of my favourite bands,” he says apologetically. “The attitude, the energy, the music – it was all really primitive,” he says, only to promptly smash his underground credibility into tiny pieces by pulling out Blink-182’s most recent album, Nine. The bassist grew up listening to first-wave hardcore bands such as Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat. It felt like starting over again.”Ī few racks over, Kaspar is revisting his own younger years, and pulls out the debut LP by 80s punk provocateurs MDC (aka Millions Of Dead Cops, aka Millions Of Damn Christians). “And when we were in the rehearsal room with no shows, it was like being seventeen or eighteen years old again what was coming out again was really heavy. “I did all these interviews while I was at home, and they made me think about our career and look back on it all,” he says. Written in three months and recorded in three weeks, Servant Of The Mind largely dispenses with the arena-sized hard rock of its two predecessors, in favour of something heavier yet still anthemic – partly a product of recent events. “And they went: ‘Perfect!’ Then I thought: ‘Oh my god, what did I just do?’ But then I picked up the guitar and it was, like…. “When management told us that all these tours had been cancelled, I said: ‘Okay, I’m gonna write a new album,’” says Michael. Like so many albums of the past few months, Servant Of The Mind was an unplanned arrival. Volbeat and the British grindcore pioneers go way back: Napalm frontman Barney Greenway appeared on the Volbeat song Evelyn on 2010’s Beyond Hell/Above Heaven album, while Napalm cover artist Frode Sundbø Sylthe created artwork – a striking, Hipgnosis-style image of a person removing his own mannequin-esque face – for the Danes’ new album Servant Of The Mind. “One of the great bands,” he says admiringly. Michael has already hit the Sex Beat racks, alighting on the ‘N’ section, from where he pulls out Napalm Death’s paint-stripping turn-of-the-millennium album Enemy Of The Music Business. I don’t listen to music made after 1985,” he adds, looking like he’s not joking. “The big Beatles Let It Be box set, the new reissue of the Stones’ Tattoo You and the vinyl box of The Kinks In Mono. “I’ve got some stuff behind the counter already,” says the lugubrious drummer. “I don‘t think they’ve made a bad record.”īy contrast, Jon Larsen is gravitating towards something more vintage. “I loved their other albums,” says Michael. Both Michael and Kaspar have their eye on Crawler, the brand new record from Bristol postpunk rabble-rousers Idles. There’s already a low-level power struggle brewing. “Wait – you’re paying us to go record shopping?” Kaspar Boye Larsen asks disbelievingly. Today, Poulsen and bandmates Jon Larsen (drums) and Kaspar Boye Larsen (no relation, bass) are just regular record shop customers once more, albeit ones with 400 Danish krone (around £50) of Classic Rock’s money to spend on albums as part of our Record Store Challenge.