Michael “Moose” Thomas, founding drummer of Bullet For My Valentine, has lifted the lid on his reasons for leaving the band and reignited his passion with his new project, Kill The Lights. In a recent interview with Graham Finney of V13, Thomas shed light on the stark contrast between the creative environments of the two bands.

“It’s just fun. There’s no, ‘You can’t do this. You can’t do that.’ You’re expected to act this way. I don’t know. It got a bit… I don’t wanna badmouth them at all. That was a big part of my life. I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for my time in Bullet.”

While tight-lipped about any personal animosity, Thomas described Bullet For My Valentine in its later stages as a stifling experience: “But I don’t know, man. It just ran its course, I think, and it was time to go — I think on both sides of the fence. I definitely know I wouldn’t be enjoying playing the music they’re writing now and I would have been vocal about that. I would have been, like, ‘I’m not playing that music.’ I just thought they were just following a trend which is popular now. And, to me, I think they’ve kind of lost their way a bit.”

This lack of creative freedom seems to be a recurring theme for Thomas, who also seems to feel a different creative freedom with Kill The Lights:  “It’s kind of like it was in the early days of Bullet. It’s just, like, there’s no pressure, there’s nothing to prove. It’s all about having fun, and that comes through in the music. Bullet got so big at one point, it was just like a machine… I don’t know, man. It was fun, but looking back on it now, I couldn’t go back there now. It would just be too… nah.”

Thomas drummed for Bullet For My Valentine between 1998 and 2016. Thomas was replaced by Jason Bowld in 2017.