Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles
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Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles

Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles (BW&BK) is a Canadian heavy metal website and former magazine. Although based in Toronto, Canada, BW&BK features writers from the US, Germany and the UK, allowing the magazine to represent metal music from an international prospective.

Covering many facets of extreme music, BW&BK features a reviews section which reports on current records circulating through the underground metal world, a Metal Forecast section which tracks the release date of upcoming recordings, and a website (named just BraveWords) which reports current metal news. Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles was founded by former M.E.A.T. magazine staffer Tim Henderson and author Martin Popoff in 1994. The magazine published its last issue in January 2009, but continues online as the BraveWords website, which was launched in 2000.

Henderson, who had published several photocopied issues of a newsletter called Metal Tim Bits (the title a play on the Tim Bit donut served at the popular Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons), encountered Popoff in the Toronto HMV's metal section and Popoff began discussing his first metal book, Riff Kills Man. The two subsequently plotted a magazine creation based on Metal Tim Bits; the Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles title was based on Agony Column's 1990 album of the same name.

200 copies of BW&BK #1 were originally printed, and its cover price was $1.95. HMV stocked the magazine and other record stores followed suit. Issue #1 was 16 pages, and featured interviews with Pantera, Entombed, Gwar, Cannibal Corpse and Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath. No ads appeared in the inaugural issue.

BW&BK continued to grow, reaching 48 pages by October 1997. In the interim, the magazine had interviewed Slayer, Alex Lifeson of Rush (an interview conducted in Lifeson's living room), Metallica's Jason Newsted and Lars Ulrich, Megadeth, Mercyful Fate, Iron Maiden, Fear Factory, Cradle of Filth, Venom, Annihilator and others. By this time, current writers Carl Begai, Chris Bruni, Mark Gromen, Allan Grusie and Aaron Small had joined the team.

BW&BK #21 was the first issue of the magazine to feature a colour cover. Inside the issue, interviews with Ozzy Osbourne and AC/DC were featured, while Metallica's ReLoad was chastised in BW&BK's Cross-Fire review section.

A new layout team, Hugues Laflamme and Angie Aue, joined the magazine. Events in this period include interviews with Slayer, Sepultura, Gene Simmons of KISS, Death, Morbid Angel, Emperor, In Flames (in celebration of Gothenburg, Sweden's then-rising scene), Rhapsody, Hypocrisy, Witchery and a chat with Janie Hendrix (administrator of the Jimi Hendrix vaults).

A large piece focusing on Canadian metal bands was also printed, a reflection of BW&BK's Canadian roots. A Top Metal Albums of the '80s feature also surfaced around this time. The magazine also included a CD, Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles Proudly Presents Blood Tracks II, with the February 1999 edition.

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