Overkill Frontman Cracks a Heineken, Opens Up About ‘Ironbound’

It has to be fun to be Overkill vocalist Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth. The curly-topped singer cracked a Heineken after 6 PM and sat down for our chat about his next album -- which will be Overkill's first effort for E1, due out Feb. 9. It's titled 'Ironbound,' but it doesn't have too much to do with the neighborhood in Newark, N.J. (which is the band's native state) that it shares its name with!

"The area in Newark definitely brought it to mind," Ellsworth told Noisecreep. "When I was looking over titles, my partner D.D. came up with it. I knew the Ironbound district existed, but I didn't know why it was called that. It comes out of the port of Newark, and it was an immigrant neighborhood of Portuguese and Italians. If you look above the Ironbound, it looks tied down by iron. I never knew that was the reason it was called that. But it's not the reason we named the album as we did, but there was a cool relation. We're bound by iron to do what we do! It works both ways. Being from Jersey, it's a nice little tribute, but it's not direct."

Ellsworth and his Dutch wife reside up in northwestern New Jersey, even though he could probably live anywhere in the world he damn well pleases, since his band is approaching 25 years of thrashtasticness. "I chose this area because I like the Northeast, the pace and people," Blitz said. "There's an honest coldness here. It's probably the best area in the U.S. if you [choose] to be private, you can be. I always liked that. I like being close to the heartbeat of the city. I can feel the heartbeat of the city and always have it at my disposal without being too close to it!"

Ellsworth, an avid Harley enthusiast, and his missus own an import chocolate shop based in Nyack, N.Y. "You know that movie 'In Bruges?' We get all our stuff from there; it's the chocolate capital of the world," Ellsworth said. "We started it just for fun, and it turned out to be super successful. People do a lot of different things off the road. This is my niche. I am the chocolate boy."