One of the undeniable highlights of Hard Rock Hell Metal, 2018, Ballsdeep offer up a potent fusion of Pantera and Lamb of God groove, with just a pinch of nu-metal churning for good measure. As foolish off-stage as they are focused and brutal on it, interviewing the band (specifically Paul Priestly and Will Harris) is rather like herding cats, their attention frequently caught by whatever event is occurring around them. The last time we met, they were doing their best to enrage the mighty Internal Conflict with their insane interjections, this time they manage to drag the unwary XIII into the discussion just as they were trying to load in whilst I, the hapless interviewer, attempted to lasso them into the discussion for long enough to garner some sense from them. Hugely entertaining, what’s missing from this verbatim account is just how much laughter permeated the discussion, but one thing remains clear – the band may have fun with interviews, but they’re deadly serious about their art, as anyone who has seen them in the flesh can attest. Read on and prepare to go Ballsdeep…
Going back a little bit to the last album, it’s been two years – have you been working on new material because you seem to be the perennial festival band, but have you had a chance to work on new material?
Fucking hell, we toured for so long with the last album… it was like the whole year with the last album. Then we sort of took a break after that; not a proper break, we just chilled out a bit; then we tried to get ahead of the game, but we ended up doing more shows. So, the plan now is that we’ve got this gig, then we’ve got the Hammerfest show next month and then our focus is writing. We’ve already spoken to our producer, Simon, who works down at framework studios, just down the road, and he’s waiting for us to come in with new tracks, so it won’t be long, some new material’s on the way.
We record in a pretty unusual way – we’ll sort of write two tracks and then record them, and then go away and write another two, rather than write an album. We like to not fuck about with the tracks, and we keep them as fresh as we can. Basically record them when we barely know them, so it keeps them sort of… it’s the sound that we’re after. In that way they can grow a little bit on stage and stuff. We listen back to the tunes that we wrote two years ago and they’ve changed completely, they’re not like they are on the album any more. But that’s cool, it’s all about being live. So, yeah, albums are as basic as it gets then, come see us live to fuck them up!
You are extremely heavy and the albums are very brutal, but then the final track on the last album, ‘wake’, is really cool because it almost serves to make everything heavier by comparison. Is that the sort of track you would consider on the next album as well?
Yeah! We did that with the first album, too. We sort of try to make the album as intense as possible. We always look up to ‘the great Southern Trendkill’ (Pantera), we try to make it as intense as possible. That’s the benchmark and then, at the end, we’ll sort of have a rest. I don’t know… it helps the recording process and it’s always the song that we record last as well. It’s the song where we sit down, chill out and don’t write anything beforehand. So we’ll go into the studio with an open slate and just say “right, let’s write a chilled out track…” and then we take whatever it needs to take to sort that out, and that’s what goes on. We’re happy with the way both of those tracks on both albums came out.
It’s important to get that dynamic, just to get that shift, obviously Pantera did that with tracks like ‘Planet Caravan’ and ‘hollow’.
They do ‘floods’ that’s pretty chilled out (but that’s at the end).
You seem to have done everything right in terms of getting a following, getting festival gigs but you’re not signed – is that something you’d like to change, or do you prefer to remain free from outside interference?
We’re independent… we’re proud and independent to be honest. We don’t want a record label – they tie you in and you lose so much. I sort of doubt whether that even exists anymore. You talk to a lot of the bands out there now and a lot of them are driving it themselves, even the levels above us, you know what I mean. I don’t really know… certainly in rock and metal, I don’t really know they exist unless you’re a big, shiny, major label band like Volbeat or something. They used to be very independent, but as soon as you get taken by a major… Even Metallica dropped the labels. SO we’re happy with the set up we’ve got, we’ve got a great management team behind us with FatAngel management. Chris and Angel couldn’t be here today, but Dan’s here with us, looking after us and shit, which is cool. So, those guys have looked after us massively, we’d be fucked without them… we’re lazy musicians! We work full time, so we’ve got those guys to look after us, keep us in line and get shows like this for us. So, I can’t see… with things like Spotify and iTunes and the internet and so on, there’s so much you can distribute yourself, why do you need a record label to do it for you when you can do it yourself when you own more of your material and your rights and not pay these twats in suits. So, we’re happy where we are.
And it helps that you’ve got a strong visual presence – you’ve got cool artwork on both records and a new line of merch out now. How involved are you in the development of that side of things?
It’s us. Definitely. We don’t really send that sort of stuff to management until we’re 100% happy with what we’ve got and we say “this is the one”…
Check out these bunch of cunts that have turned up as well… (XIII) It’s cancer Dan! He’s got hair now! Say hello – say how amazing Ballsdeep are…
[XIII – somewhat nonplussed] They’re alright…
[Ballsdeep] They’re on at the same time as us…
[XIII] Shit… we’re not gonna big them up too much!
[Ballsdeep] These guys are a band called XIII, they are fucking incredible so go and listen to them.
If I go and listen to them, I can’t listen to you…
We’ll send you some stuff!
[XIII] We’ll have a riff off!
[Ballsdeep] You can riff off!
[XIII] We’ll leave you to your interview…
Why is it that every interview that I do that involves you, one way or another, involves trying to transcribe a million people?
We’re not very professional….
I’m going to have to write all this shit up again!
Yeah, sorry about that!
It took forever to untangle that Internal conflict interview!
That’s a thing now. Every time we meet you… even if it’s just a random person on the street, we’re going to pull them in…
XIII are awesome….
Cool… back to the artwork!
Yeah, so we come up with a lot of the ideas ourselves and then management will pick up on the faults that we haven’t noticed and then they pretty much let us get on with it. For us, the artwork is just as important as the music because it is – it’s fucking faultless… it’s part of the art of making music. We grew up with vinyl and all that shit and it’s still part of it.
Generally it seems that with rock and metal, more than other genres, it seems to be a very big thing for fans.
If people are going to pay for a package, it’s gotta look good. It’s no point in being a CD in a plastic sleeve. We like to take pride that, if we’re going to put out something physical, then we’ll put all of our effort into making sure that the people who are going to be buying it get something that makes them think “fucking hell, this is cool!” We don’t want to put out shit. Not to a massive extent, I think it’s starting to come the other way. People have been buying digital files for what, ten years or something, and I think they’re starting to want something physical for their money. You change your phone and all your music’s gone, or you’ve forgotten how to sign in to your accounts. I still like buying CDs and we sort of stick with what we like.
One of the big differences between HRH and a lot of festivals is that it gives bands a really decent time slot – is there a different way you approach a longer slot? Do you have an opportunity to put in some of the quieter tracks?
No, we’re just all guns blazing for longer! We try to make everyone that listen to us, at the end of the year go “fucking hell – that was horrible!” If someone says “that was fucking horrible and I’ve got a headache!” then… job done!
I’ll make sure I put that in the review…
It might not look so good in a written review… So yeah, we just smash it for longer.
Is there ever likely to be a time when you’ll play the quieter songs, or is that just for the recording?
We’ve never thought about it. I don’t think our amps even go clean… we can’t do it! It doesn’t work. We haven’t got the capability! We’re not going to get barstools and be like Boyzone…
I see you more in the Extreme mould than Boyzone… ‘More than words’ cover, maybe?
Fuck no!
Grow your hair out…
Can’t! I’ll get a wig! We’re nowhere near talented enough!
Festivals like this seem to be on the rise as well and it seems that there are more festivals catering to the metal fan – have you noticed that there’s more opportunity to get out and do stuff like this than there was five years ago?
Absolutely! Yeah, that’s a good comment to make to be fair. The guys like Bloodstock, the HRH team, the Amplified team as well – they’re doing all these massive, amazing festivals over the country and they want to book hard working, independent bands. Because they’re hard working and independent themselves. Everyone’s come together to create this… it’s grown on its own. Like Bloodstock – it started out as this small, indoors gig in Derby, and now it’s one of the biggest festivals in the country, but they still keep their roots with Metal 2 the masses – you know gigs around the country to get all the best bands from around the country to get together and play a shitload of metal. It’s the same with the HRH team – we’ve been talking with Sam Webster who booked us for this and he was asking for advice on bands from us. So, that’s just really cool, that people want to discover hard working, independent bands and come and see them at the O2 academy.
Stuff like this – we did the third stage last year then, all of a sudden we’ve jumped up to the main stage and we’re playing Hammerfest – it’s unbelievable. It’s good to be at this point. We’ve worked together for twenty years, so to get to that point and be offered gigs like this… it’s paid off. This is a stage where we paid to see Machine Head… Lamb of God and now we’re playing it. It’s amazing.
Any final words and I’ll set you free!
Thanks for having us, go ballsdeep!
