Bullet for My Valentine has set a lofty goal for itself: to become the biggest British metal export since Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.

"I think it's time that a British band broke out worldwide and show that Britain is still the home of heavy metal," said Michael "Moose" Thomas, drummer for the Welsh metal-core upstarts.

The band, which released its debut CD in February, is in prime position to spread its metal to the masses. Since releasing "The Poison" (Trustkill), Bullet for My Valentine has had touring opportunities that most other young bands can only dream about.

The band toured the U.S., opening for Rob Zombie, in the spring and was the sole support act when Guns N' Roses played its first shows in four years at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan in May.

Bullet for My Valentine is on the Vans Warped Tour, which hits Nassau Coliseum on Long Island on Saturday and Raceway Park in Englishtown on Sunday. It will return to the U.S. in the fall, opening for Iron Maiden in arenas.

"This year has been a dream come true for us," Thomas said by phone from Wales during a short break from the road. "Any chance we get to play the States, we're delighted."

The predominantly punk-rock Warped Tour seems like an odd fit for Bullet for My Valentine's hard-core metal, but Thomas isn't concerned about how his band will be received.

"We've heard a lot of good stories about bands doing well" on the Warped Tour, said Thomas, 25. "We'll give it a good shot, and hopefully we'll walk away with a bunch of new fans."

The band, which also includes singer-guitarist Matt Tuck, guitarist Michael Padget and bassist Jason James, stands out from the metal-core pack because of the influence on its sound of British melodic metal giants Maiden and Priest.

While most American metalcore groups incorporate melody in their music only in spurts, Bullet for My Valentine freely employs melodic guitar riffs and guitar solos, an especially rare treat in the genre.

"You can't sing along to most metal songs these days," said Thomas. "We just want to bring that back."

The band's remarkable year has not been without its growing pains.

Bullet for My Valentine was kicked off the Rob Zombie tour a month into the gig after frontman Tuck voiced his frustrations about the band's treatment by the Zombie camp on Bullet for My Valentine's Web site.

Tuck complained about the band's lack of dressing-room space and sound-check time, a common gripe heard from opening acts.

But it was his harsh comments about a policy that requires opening bands to charge the same amount for their merchandise as the headliner -- a procedure that ensures the main act won't be outsold by the support band -- that got Bullet the boot.

"Zombie makes us price-match him so, yup, it's [expletive] $40 for a T-shirt, which is insane," Tuck wrote in April. "I know. Greedy money-grabbing [expletive]."

Bullet for My Valentine took heat for the incident. The band was branded on Internet forums as spoiled, ungrateful and unwilling to pay its dues.

Thomas chalks up the episode as a learning experience. Tuck "said something he probably shouldn't have," the drummer said. But Thomas also defended his band mate.

"We were having a really rough time," he said. "We didn't think we were too big for our boots. We just thought the T-shirt matching policy was really stupid."

E-mail: aberback@northjersey.com