Interview: Girder (UK)
18 minutes
The Nwothm
Forged in the seaside grit of Bournemouth and tempered by Brazilian fire, Girder are dragging true heavy metal back to the frontline. With their self-titled debut roaring loud and proud, the quartet channel chaos, camaraderie, and classic NWOBHM spirit into pure sonic steel. We caught up with them to talk origins, mayhem, and keeping metal true.
Interview
heNwothm: For those just discovering you, who or what is Girder—and what should they expect when they hit play?
Metal Matt: We’re a family of old school heavy metal maniacs; half English and half Brazillian! Our band is made up of 4 unique characters; Metal Dress on lead vocals, (myself) Metal Matt bass and vocals, Iron Paul on guitar and vocals and Hordak II on drums. If people like 80’s heavy metal, then they will love us!
Hordak II: When someone hit play they’ll listen to a range of heavy music, from hard rock to thrash metal, eventually melodic, but mostly old school metal. Just don’t expect anything close to nu metal. If they want modern metal, don’t listen to us.
TheNwothm: How did Girder form and what stories can you share from your early days?
Hordak II: Since when me and Metal Dress first met with Metal Matt at one of our gigs we started bumping into each other at other gigs and concerts very often, what showed is that we all had similar tastes in music. As soon as we joined ourselves to make music together we felt a really powerful connection that worked really well as a band.
Metal Matt: We formed the band three years ago, after my previous progressive rock band Crimson Creatures ended. I sang lead vocals and played bass in that band.
I met the Brazilian couple (now my best friends) Hordak II and Metal Dress a year or so before whilst watching their gothic, funeral project Morbus Fatalis. Like Hordak said, we bonded over our mutual love for heavy metal, and Metal Dress urged me to form a band with them on multiple occasions, but I declined since I was busy in two bands.The moment Crimson Creatures ended, I instantly phoned Hordak II to immediately form a heavy metal band whilst they were moving house!
We had a big meeting as Hordak II, Metal Dress and Metal Matt. We started writing ideas for our clothes, style and lyrics. We all agreed that we will never play Nu-Metal- and we would play Old/True heavy metal! I started writing the lyrics for Killers of the Night and 6:30 late at night round Metal Dress’ house, and in the morning, a boy got murdered down the street. As if my pen was writing about what was happening there and then! We agreed that we wanted a fourth member to play guitar. I met Iron Paul in a pub a week or so later, and thus we had the Girder lineup after several pints!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytZ9mDWHUAA&list=RDytZ9mDWHUAA&start_radio=1
TheNwothm: Bournemouth isn’t the first place people associate with dragons, slugs, and metal mayhem. How has your hometown shaped your sound or attitude?
Hordak II: Girder was basically forged in Boscombe, Bournemouth, a place that has one of the highest crime rates in the UK. Me and Metal Dress come from a big town in South America with lots of violence and crime too. So these were the subject of our first songs. But our music is not only about mayhem and crimes, as we also make music about fun and boozing at the beach, as that’s a big thing in Bournemouth too.
Metal Matt: We are all fans (especially Metal Dress) of going to the beach and having parties and BBQ’s, so that sunny, positive attitude blends naturally into our music. Being into progressive rock as much as I am into metal, I love that our area of Dorset has had famous names in the music scene like Lee Kerslake, Robert Fripp, Greg Lake and John Wetton to name a few. Tolkien even lived down here!
TheNwothm: What’s the story behind the name “Girder”? Was it a eureka moment or a pub-fuelled accident?
Metal Matt: Knowing us, probably the latter. I remember Iron Paul and I talking about song ideas and band names down the pub several times. I’m sure Iron Paul brought up the name, as we were looking for something unmistakingly metal. A girder? Brilliant! I’ll buy another round…
Hordak II: We wanted a name that expressed what our music is, so Girder fit perfectly either to the music we make, as well as to what we listen to and love watching.
TheNwothm: Dorset’s got beaches, fossils, and now a heavy metal band singing about murder and parties. How does the local culture feed into your themes?
Hordak II: Local culture has always much to add to our music, as it is part of our everyday life in the streets. We have the police around all the time. Last year a body was found in pieces at Boscombe beach cliff. At our free time we enjoy boozing and having fun around, so thats all in our music.
Metal Matt: As the main songwriter in the band, I tend to get inspired by Iron Paul’s experiences then Hordak II and Metal Dress’ experiences in Brazil. Whenever I’m not recording and writing song ideas about fantasy dragons or slugs, I’m taking inspiration from local murders and Brazilian drug crime. Unfortunately, we have a lot of local murders and it inspired me to write our songs ‘Killers of the Night’, ‘6:30’ and ‘Rekindle the Flame’.
TheNwothm: Do you feel connected to the wider UK metal scene, or is Girder more of a rogue unit doing its own thing?
Metal Matt: Kind of both. Hordak and Metal Dress will feel connected to their music scene in Curitriba back in Brazil, and Iron Paul would feel more connected to the local grassroots music scene. I’m friends with several London, Somerset and Southampton bands like Toldeo Steel and Sanguis Mortem, so it does feel like we have that dual connection with Curitriba and the Southern UK metal scene.
Hordak II: As Metal Matt says, we feel connected to our local scene and have already started to get connected to a wider scene, but there is much more still to be achieved, considering we have just over two years as a band and we are still quite new to the UK wider scene.
TheNwothm: What’s your take on the current state of British heavy metal? Any scenes or bands you’re watching closely? Do you think Nwothm is still relatively underground in the UK?
Hordak II: British heavy metal scene has always been one of the most influential in the world and it will probably always be. As a South American I can tell the scene over there is quite big too, but we don’t hear about those bands over here, whilst the British bands are known worldwide. Nwothm is underground in the UK and everywhere, as mainstream music industry has no room for true metal music anymore. However, it will always be a strong underground movement with worldwide connections, as true metal culture is widely spread all around the globe.
Metal Matt: I’m friends with a lot of Southern UK metal bands and I go to a lot of local gigs, and it feels alive and strong. It will never go away at this point- especially in the underground. I’m only watching what my friend’s bands are doing like Seven Sisters, Tailgunner, Sanguis Mortem, Desolator or Toldeo Steel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5Y-kPqkSdU
TheNwothm: Let’s talk about the debut. “Girder” dropped in March 2025 so what was the first track you wrote for it, and did it set the tone for the rest?
Metal Matt: Girder, from the onset, was my chance to finally write metal music in a band, and the others wanted me to start writing songs quickly, so we had songs to practice.
At one point I was recording and pitching a new song idea every other week. I wrote and recorded demos for Headbanger’s Ball, Killers of the Night and 6:30 in a week and in that order. For the Girder demos, I play all the guitars, bass, programmed drums and vocal parts, as I prefer delivering finished song ideas that the band can twist and turn into our own, as opposed to just delivering a riff with no song structure or lyrics.
Hordak II: To my point of view we’ve got a few different styles in the album. Although all songs may be classified as “old school metal”, they vary on rhythms, speed and melody, so I would not say the first compositions set the tone for the others.
TheNwothm: “Headbanger’s Ball” kicks things off with a bang. Was that always meant to be the opener?
Hordak II: Yes! I’m glad you also felt it “kicks things off with a bang”! Good way to start an album!
Metal Matt: It was always meant to be the opener in my eyes, as it was the first song I wrote. We only properly started talking about the album sequence in recording. I convinced the others that the first three songs should be in the order we learnt and played them.
TheNwothm: “Killers of the Night” and “City Dealer” both sound like they could soundtrack a neon-lit brawl. Are there stories behind those tracks?
Metal Matt: A Girder brawl would be insane! Killers of the Night is about the local murders, rapes and stabbings in Bournemouth, and the message of looking out for each other and staying safe. Beware the killers of the night!
Hordak II: As Metal Matt says, Killers of the night was inspired by the sad reality of youngsters stabbing each other for stupid reasons, and at the same night we wrote it a 18 year old guy was stabbed to death less than a mile from us. By the way, there is a music video coming out soon for this one!
City dealer is about drug dealer gangs controlling communities at the outskirts of big towns in Brazil. Believe me, these gangsters can do more benefits for the local communities than than the government would ever do, and so they get the local residents to use fire weapons such as guns, rifles and machine guns to protect the drug business, including drug buyers and sellers, like an army that not even the police dare to tackle. Metal Dress has lived her childhood near one of these communities, where the sound of gun shots are a common thing to be heard daily.
TheNwothm: “Rekindle the Flame” stretches over five minutes. Was that your epic moment or a spontaneous jam that got out of hand?
Hordak II : It was indeed and epic moment.
Metal Matt: That’s my favourite song that I wrote for the album. I thought the others would hate the song when I presented the demo I had made, since this song is closer to my more progressive rock leaning solo music with some complex chords, funkier bits, genre-bending and a longer length that I thought would be a big ‘no-no’ in Girder land.
Fortunately, Iron Paul, Metal Dress and Hordak II loved this song! The concept I created, with the song telling the story of divorced couple reconciling and falling in love again by mutually murdering people and doing other horrible things, was very compelling. I wanted a song where Metal Dress and I sung as two different characters.
What I love about this first album of ours is that has proven that we can go in different directions with our songs: injecting more NWOBHM, glam, thrash, doom, prog, punk or death/black, and dare I say funk and jazz without angering the Hordak and Iron Paul!
Our second album is going to be pushing in multiple directions from shorter thrashier songs to radio hits to more experimental leaning arrangements.
TheNwothm: “Metal Changed, Not Me” feels like a statement. What inspired that track, and who were you aiming it at?
Metal Matt: Iron Paul, being the oldest and wisest member of Girder, once told us three how he fell out of touch with Metal for a while (probably the ambiguity of the 90s), and how it was like Metal changed style, but not him- he still wanted to hear stuff in the style of Motorhead and Judas Priest.
With this concept in mind, I wanted to write a really heavy song- almost a hate song! Which is funny as we tell people that this is our love ballad to metal, which it is, but it is also talking about the styles of music and metal that we do not like.
The song is also about going insane and having fun to heavy metal!
Once we started practicing the song, Hordak II mentioned how we have to mention that modern moshpits are kindergarten compared to moshpits he was in when he was younger!
Hordak II: Moshpit is one of the 80’s and 90’s heavy music trademarks. It was an expression of anarchy and chaos, with no patterns or organised movements and at the same time peaceful. The new metal generation twisted this culture to the opposite of what it used to be. Now moshpit became a circlepit and everyone follows the same direction, like everyone has to move and look to the same side. Now the peaceful chaos is gone. So it makes no more sense as an expression of freedom.
TheNwothm: The album closes with “Girder.” Was that a mission statement, a self-roast, or something else entirely?
Hordak II: It expresses how the four of us engaged at a band project and ended up like a family, where despite of the differences we love each other like siblings.
Metal Matt: We loved the idea of closing the album with a bang, and having our self titled song felt perfect! It ends the album like the ending to a big party. I wanted the self titled song to be about how the band formed in a semi-realistic way minus the dragons!
TheNwothm: What can you share about each of the band members?
Metal Matt: I’m Metal Matt. I’m the youngest member and I love women! I started playing bass, guitar and singing 7 years ago. I’m releasing my twelfth solo album (under my real name Matthew Cornes) very soon where I play all the instruments and sing, and I go from black metal to jazz to prog rock to 80s balladry. I also drew our Girder album cover and I do the artwork for my solo albums too. I am also in another rock band called Rhinefield and we are recording our first album in the next few weeks!
Hordak II and Metal Dress are the Brazillians. They came over to the UK to be closer to the music they love, and to form a metal band with some British blokes like Iron Paul and myself. Metal Dress loves the beach, and is like having an older sister. She loves putting on new outfits for our shows. Hordak II killed Hordak I, because he was jealous of Hordak I having Metal Dress to himself.
Iron Paul is the oldest member and has played guitar for longer than I have been alive! He loves a Les Paul, and he was forged in the fires of Hades!!! Iron Paul eats his own guitar strings and has beef with microphones and they end up falling down! He plays in a local covers band called Oktober Rust, but has played in many more!
Hordak II: I’m Hordak II. I started playing at the punk rock scene in Brazil in 1996 as a teenager. Soon after started playing also at thrash and death metal bands. Always very involved in the music scene of Curitiba, have produced festivals and played gigs all around South Brazil and Paraguay. Metal Dress also has a punk background having sung at punk, post punk and grunge bands in Brazil. Metal Dress and me have a duo project of funeral gothic music caller Morbus Fatalis, and we have just released our second album.
TheNwothm: What’s your go-to post-gig ritual: pub crawl, kebab run, or straight to the sea?
Metal Matt: Unpack, have a beer and chat to our fans, then straight to bed and sleep!
Hordak II: At summer time we’re definitely straight to the sea, but we also love to sit at a pub and watch a good rock’n’roll band performing. We’re very keen to watching local bands, even if they are of different styles. It is very important to support the local scene.
TheNwothm: What’s the dream tour setup for Girder? Any bands you’d love to share a stage with—or avoid at all costs?
Metal Matt: The dream tour setup would be pairing up with like minded fellow metalheads. We would love to go on tour with our friends Sanguis Mortem or Toledo Steel. I know Metal Dress and Iron Paul would want to tour with Seven Sisters, a London Nwothm band that we supported in Portsmouth this year. Great metal music!
We missed out on supporting Tailgunner a year or so ago in Bournemouth, which frustrated me, as I really enjoy their music, and I’m glad that they have been getting attention in the last few years. I know Hordak II and the other two would say this too- as Girder we want to keep playing new gigs with different styles of metal and music in general. We think it is important to be respectful of other artists even if we don’t like them.
Hordak II: We’re still working our way to play around the UK, as a first step. But we certainly intend to strike Europe within the next few of years, before we start looking at South America, where I’ve played most of my life. Touring around the world might feel like a distant dream for a band thats barely two years old, but the time is passing and when the right moment comes we’ll be ready. Anywhere we go we’ll be happy to play with local bands, to show them our support just like we enjoy playing with touring bands that come over here.
TheNwothm: Thinking ahead are there any shows or tours planned for the rest of 2025/2026?
Metal Matt: We are supporting London thrash metal band Thrasherwolf, who are playing on November 14th in Bournemouth with our friends Sanguis Mortem. Tickets can be found on SeeTickets or through our links attached to this interview. Apart from that, we are busy writing new songs for the second album. Even Hordak II has been writing songs this time, and Metal Dress and Iron Paul have had more input into my song ideas as well!
TheNwothm: Are you already penning ideas for your next release?
Hordak II: We already have two new songs at our current gigs, but we’re working on another few ones. We shall soon have the songs ready for the next album.
Metal Matt: We are expanding on the foundations we have made on our first album. We want to continue the mix of styles. Our songs will be covering themes such as beach parties, slugs, prostitutes, teaching metal (I’m a guitar/bass teacher too), dragons and death!
TheNwothm: How can our readers buy your music and merch?
Metal Matt: Come to our shows, we sell our merch there. For the time being, you can get our album digitally on Bandcamp!
TheNwothm: Where can fans follow you online?
Metal Matt: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Bandcamp!
TheNwothm: Anything else you would like to mention?
Metal Matt: As Hordak said earlier, we have a music video for ‘Killers of the Night’ coming out soon. You can check out the music video for our song ‘Fire to the Realm’ on our Girder YouTube channel right now! Thank you guys for interviewing us. Girder will continue to bring metal mayhem to the world!
Hordak II: GIRDERRR!!!!!
Metal Matt: GIRDERRRR!!!
Bandcamp: https://girder.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551896919110
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girderband
Other: https://linktr.ee/girderband
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GirderHeavyMetal
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