First things first I suppose, introduce yourselves to our readers and tell us who is in the band and who does what.

Hurtlocker is Grant Belcher(vocals), Tim Moe (guitars), Pete Manzella(guitar), Dan Manzella(bass) and Tim Vallaro(drums). The band started back in 1998 when Grant and myself were tired of what the Chicago scene was pumping out. We have had many line up changes through out the years and a few periods of inactivity but we managed to record 4 demos over the last 2 years with the later leading to our deal with Napalm Records.

My first question is, and I'm sure you guys get this alot, but what exactly does the name Hurtlocker mean?

Yes we do get that a lot . Grant grew up in Texas, and whiles he was in middle school he had a gym teacher that used to say this all the time. I guess it’s a way of saying I’m gonna kick your ass. I had never heard that saying before and when Grant brought it up as a name for the band I was like what the hell does that mean. It has had many people from Europe just baffled because those words just don’t go together over there.

You recorded your album at Planet Z Studios with Zeuss handling the production. Why was he chosen and what was that experience like working with such an established name right out of the gate?

We actually recorded the album here in Chicago at Engine studios and just brought it out to Zuess to have it mixed. When we were looking into studios to record at Napalm had recommended we try mixing with Zuess and are we glad that they did. He is an amazing producer and he knows his shit. When we left the studio here in Chicago we were worried about some of the songs and Zuess fixed all of them. He gave the album a huge shot in the arm and basically brought it to life.

To me Hurtlocker's sound encompasses a few genres, from Slayer-like thrash to death metal to hardcore. When you first started the band, was the aim to meld all these elements together there from the beginning or did the sound develop over time?

I don’t think that it is something that has ever been really thought about . When we started we would just play whatever we felt like and listening to our older material I would say that the song writing has just gotten better. We have grown as musicians and as people. The older stuff is more raw and stripped down, almost more hardcore and we would have songs that would breakdown and change tempo drastically. For the album we wanted to have this here’s what we play attitude if you don’t like it theres the door and that’s how we wrote it.

The record has been out for a couple of months now, are you guys going to tour heavily in support of it?

I think that is the plan if everything goes according to plans, I know we are ready to hit the road in Europe in late January with Cryptopsy for 30 some dates and we are really looking forward to that. It will be our fist time out of the country and it’s a cool tour. After that the plan is to come home and hit the road here in the states but we don’t have anything set in stone. The album just dropped here in the states January 10th so it has been out in Europe since November and just came out here.I guess it’s up to wether we can find the right tours to get on that makes sense to us and the label.

Being that you have such a diverse musical palette happening, what are your main influences?

It all depends on who you ask. The music was all written by me and Grant wrote all his lyrics. I am , believe it or not into bands like Slayer and Exodus and earily florida deathmetal like Malevolent Creation and Obituary. Grant’s influence comes from all over the place he is much more open minded than I am. He got into singing because of Ozzy and draws his influence from singers like Mike Patton and Corey Taylor.

What can we expect from Hurtlocker's next record?

To be honest with you we don’t even know yet. It will be heavy and that’s about all I can tell you right now. That to us is down the road a little ways . I have already stated piecing together riffs that will use for songs but who knows how they will come together. I think the one thing we will try to do is stay away from whatever everybody else is trying to do.

How important has the internet been in promoting the band and realistically, in your opinion, can a band get it's name out there as well nowadays without it?

The internet wasn’t that big of a promotion tool for us. We have for whatever reason always picked the wrong people to do our websites, probably because they are cheap, but we are the band that has news on there webpage from like a year ago. We just recently joined myspace in September , which a lot of bands are doing right now. I think that stuff like myspace is totally changing the way bands promote themselves. If we had to rely on the internet we would have not gotten too far. We have always done the record a demo and mail it to labels, and the stand outside a concert and pass out demos as kids are leaving the venue kind of band

Most Memorable show?

I think there are two shows that come to mind. We played a show with Anthrax that was just a blast, the crowd was great , the sound was great and the party after the show was great. The other show was with Dying Fetus, they came through town and just crushed, but we got some great feedback from them after the show and things like that go along way with bands that are just coming up.

Is there a theme behind the albums title? And if so, what is that theme?

The title of the album came from a line in a poem by T.S. Elliot called the wastelands. I guess there have been hundreds of books and poems that have spun off of just that one line. We used to have a song called fear in a handful of dust but that was a long time ago. I think it is something that Grant has always liked and it stuck in his head. He has told me he wanted to call the album that for years.

Lastly, what trend in metal should die a slow and painful death?

That’s an easy one, the hot topic kids I call them, these bands that work on there crappy image more than there songs. You can see them a mile away. I don’t even have to hear these bands to know it’s nu metal crap.

Parting words, shout outs, social commentaries, insults?

Thanks for the time, pick up fear in a handful of dust and check us out on tour if you get a chance, hang out and have a beer with us.