“When I first joined the band I had never heard of Metallica“, laughed Eric Knutson, vocalist and original member of thrashers Flotsam and Jetsam. “I think they had only just put out their first record so it was a completely different world. You didn’t have to be heavy to be the heaviest thing out there. Back then – and still today – we just do what we feel and we don’t worry about whether it’s heavy or too heavy or too light – we just play what we feel and hope that somebody likes it”.
Despite being a mainstay of the thrash metal scene for nearly four decades, Flotsam and Jetsam have somehow never managed to reach the heights of some of their contemporaries, a fact which is not lost on Knutson.
“We were on M.C.A for three records and they were grooming us to be their Metallica, basically”, he explained. “They were grooming us to be their version of the big metal thing in the scene and we got to a certain point where they were ready to launch us on the world and then they got bought out by a bigger corporation and all the bands that they had never heard of before they just got rid of and we were one of those bands”.
In the full interview Eric discusses the bands feelings towards these setbacks, as well as new album The End of Chaos which is released January 19, the creative process, what the title refers to, feeling pressure still after a long career, their early history and the impact of debut album Doomsday For The Deceiver, their place in thrash metal and more.
