 Back to the metal voice. All the way. Hey, Jimmy. Firewind guitarist, Gus G, solo artist. Guitarist extraordinaire. We'll show you some. Okay, Gus, where are you right now? I am in France right now. We are playing in a city called Savignilet Temple, which is right outside Paris. And I'm sitting on the tour bus. I'm at the front lounge of the bus, finished soundcheck, and the show is in a few hours from now. Do you speak a little French? Do you not? No, I don't. I can only say merci. Well, that's good. It's good. That's good to do right after the show, right? Merci beaucoup. Merci beaucoup, that's all. That's good. All right, so also the new album, Hasbro released two great reviews. The Firewind Stand United, it was out on March the 1st, just released a lot of good, positive critique about it. Maybe you want to just quickly give your feedback on what you've been hearing so far. Sure, yeah, the album came out last Friday, March 1st. You're right, the reviews and feedback so far is incredible. Honestly, I mean, we've been doing it for quite a while now, it's the 10th studio album. So I don't know what to expect anymore. And I don't know what it means if you have better or worse reviews, but it's an indication, but the feedback from both from press and our fans so far is incredible. And we're playing a lot of new songs on the set and all the new songs go down so well. So I'm happy, you know? We put a lot of work into it. Yeah, I'm happy for you guys too. So right now you're in France and just tell me a few more dates that are coming up. Any other countries in Europe? Right, yeah, we're doing, we'll be all over Europe until March 24th. You know, we just did Germany and Holland. We are gonna do, oh, where else? Austria, Slovakia, we're gonna go to Spain and then Scandinavia a little bit. We're gonna play four shows in Sweden, two in Norway. And then we're, you know, crossing the pond. We're going over to North America. That's nice. We have the US tour, yeah. So it's gonna be a tour that's gonna take us all the way to the end of May. After America, we go to Japan. So everything is lined up very nicely. You know, it's just a little bit of a nightmare to get all the visas together, but we're getting there. I remember last time in North America there was some issues, but. Oh yeah. We did it. So Firewind's doing Europe and we're in North America and all the dates, you could find it on what Firewind website. Firewind.gr or on our bandintown.com page, you know, bandintown.com slash Firewind. All, because I'm mentioning this because that's where all the dates and all the direct ticket links are there. So people that wanna come out and see us, they can go there. So yeah. All right, cool. Also the big news, like actually for me, it's big news, right? I texted you. For me too. Maybe like 10 minutes ago, I texted you. Yes. No way. So you posted on social media that you revealed on social media to the masses, we'll say, that you played lead guitar on Eternity Has Failed on Bruce Dickinson's new solo album, The Mandrake Project. So I'll talk to you a little. I go, Gus, we gotta talk about this. So I go. Yes. Van, just call me, okay? So here we are. So I mean, how did it come about? Like now that you can talk about it. Yeah, sure, sure. You know, this came through my friend, Roy Zee, who's Bruce's right-hand man for many, many years. And, you know, he's his producer and they co-write together and everybody knows who Roy Zee is and how important he has been to heavy metal world. But yeah, you know, I've known Roy for a long time. I've known him for 20 years. I worked with Roy before on Rob Rock's album. Anyway, so we've kept in touch. We actually toured together before as well. He was in Halford's band and they were out on tour with Ozzy when I was in Ozzy. So we toured together. Anyways, so. No, it's good to have some background. That's cool. Yeah, just to give the background that, you know, because me and Roy are friends and go way back and I knew he was working on this Bruce album for a long time. And at one point he reached out and said, dude, I have this, you know, we're doing a song and I would love to have you on there to do like a guest thing. And we can like trade leads. And I'm like, hell yeah, hell yeah. And actually I recorded this solo about a year ago. Wow. Actually. So it's been a while, you know, that I did the tracking and I was actually on tour at the same, at that time as well. I wasn't like here now on a bus, you know. It was a day out. We were on tour with Beast in Black at this time last year. Yeah. And it was during a day off that I went into a hotel room and set up a small home studio and Roy sent the track over and I just did my lead guitars there and I sent them the tracks back. And then I didn't hear anything for months. That's how usually goes. You do a session and then you don't hear anything for months. I should plug this. I should plug this as we're talking. There we go. Roy Z, Bruce Dickinson and yes, the parents like us. Go ahead. So yeah, man. It's a great album. I didn't, the thing is I didn't hear the final thing until it came out a couple of days ago as well. Were you pleased? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, the production is incredible. It's a great album. We love the production. Love, there's like so many layers, so many things to it. Bruce's singing is man, top notch. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, that song and I heard it and it's like all these, it's a long solo part. It's about two minutes long. And you know, we trade leads with Roy and I'm playing a lot of the backing melodies as well during the solo section. And there's like a keyboard lead by Mysteria. So it's cool. It's epic. It's an epic track. I'm honored to be part of it. You know, Gus, I think this track is actual. So for everybody who doesn't know, this was written for Bruce's solo album originally, then Iron Maiden sort of made it their own little version. And now it's back as a solo piece for Bruce. Did you listen to the original and saying, you know, I want to keep this or like, did you listen to the original solo and say I want to preserve a little bit of this or I want to make it my own? Or what did Roy Z tell you? What's the direction he gave you on this? Yeah, yeah. Well, he told me about, he just wanted me to be me. I guess. And I just did a, I sent him a bunch of stuff and I said to him kind of like, keep what you like and then replace what you don't like or what maybe I overstepped in somebody else's parts because he did not specify who was going to play what. I think he just wanted me to lay the foundation on the whole thing. And I did keep the original melody that it's even on the Maiden track. There's like this melody when the beat changes and stuff. And I did all that, that I kept as Maiden did it. And then I went off and I added my own parts. You know, there's like some ad-libs here and there and then I did my thing, you know? And then Roy basically added leads over that kind of melody foundation. So, you know, there was no specific stuff. He just wanted me to just do a lot of stuff. And then he went and did his production magic, you know? Well, I'm going to tell you, I like this version a lot better than me. Not to say I don't like the Maiden version, but I just like this one a lot better. And when I found out that you played on it, I go, makes sense. It's slower. The tempo is slower and the heavier. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. And I think, yeah, that was the original way they had it. And then of course Maiden did it the Maiden way. So, yeah. It's a great track. The thing is a good song is a good song no matter how you can do many versions of it, you know? And if it's a good composition, that's all there is to it. Well, you know what? Congratulations, I'm really happy for you. You know, I think you deserve more of this stuff, like the epic stuff, right? Not to say what you're doing is not great. It's great. I'm just saying I love when you do kind of stuff like this. Okay. All right, on tour, Firewind's on tour in Europe, then going to North America. Everything is on firewind.gr, right? The website for all the dates and the tickets. The new album, Stand United is out now. It was released just a few days ago. Excellent album. I love it. Thank you. And congratulations on everything once again. And you know what? Enjoy your show tonight in France. What city? In France, Avonilla Temple. All right, guys. Have yourself a wonderful day. All right, thanks, Gus. Thank you, Jimmy. Have a good one.