Small, unsigned bands on the rise are FUN. The sort of band who know they’re good enough to go further than they have done. Past their local pub, metal club, get out of whichever shithole city/town/village they formed in.
The sort of band you catch supporting another band you haven’t heard of either. But you go see because a mates’s heard of the headliner, and you fancy a night out. The sort of band where the songs are tight, the merch is somehow good, and the band all look fucked from three-day hangovers and motorway food.
Or, that’s how it used to be. Now, with this whole Web 2.0 shit, a band like Ipswich’s Echoes Fall can hawk round a killer song or two, show off some wicked artwork, and somehow have fans in their shirts in YOUR town, before they’ve even played there. Or even released an album.
We met up them after their Saturday morning set at Bloodstock. And I’ll be honest with you here – It was a BIG relief to find someone else who was as excited about the VIP/Backstage passes as we were.
In person, they’re as entertaining as their live show. I’d go see it if I were you. I’m not a MASSIVE metalcore fan, but Echoes Fall have their own brutal twist on it that kept me hooked, even at half ten in the morning. This could be because their singer kept climbing on, over and around me, or because, well, they’re actually kinda good.
SonicAbuse – How do you think that went earlier?
Echoes Fall – ‘Really well to be honest with you – I mean wall of death and a circle pit at 11’o’clock in the morning is fairly impressive. Played to about 250-300 people, didn’t see anyone leave, and didn’t see anyone not nodding their heads. AND, it wasn’t raining, so there was no excuse for people to be in there other than to see the bands!
‘Probably my best gig just for the crowd element,’
‘And such a different atmosphere as well – everyone is just out to have a good time.’
‘Instead of thinking ‘what’s this band gonna be like’ they don’t care about it, their dancefloor is just their battlefield, they just don’t care, it’s brutal!
‘Look, just say ‘Yeah’ ok?
‘Yes’
SA – How does it feel to be playing ‘Bloodstock’?
‘Amazing,’
‘Bloody Awesome’
‘Just to think, you know, massive bands have been here, giving interviews and…
‘It’s weird to be on the other side of it’
‘Yeah, it’s nice having your little pass to go where you want – it’s great’
‘I’m in a band – Ha-ha!’
‘I’ve got a fuck-off huge drumkit, right, and usually we all have to set it all up, pack it all away, and do all this stuff our selves – we’re just not used to the help that we’re getting!’
‘And there’s people taking it away FOR us too, and we’re like ‘It’s ok, we’ll do it’
‘Every time they grab something you’re like ‘Heyayay – THAT’S MINE!….Or is it?
SA – Speaking of the ‘Massive bands’ is there anyone you’re looking forward to seeing?
‘Sylosis!’
‘Ah man – tonight’s gonna be fun – Devin Townsend, Fear Factory, Children of Bodom, all awesome bands’
‘For me, it’s Children of Bodom and Cannibal Corpse.
‘Gwar’
‘GWAR!’
‘GWAAAARRRRRRR’
‘GWARRRRRRRRRRR!’
‘Yeah – it’d be nice to meet them!’
‘Hey – we’ve got the VIP thing, we can just walk in!’
‘Wouldn’t be hard to miss would it?
SA – Just wear waterproofs – all I’m saying……
‘Yeah, I’ve got the t-shirt, I’ve got the proof!’
SA – You guys, hail from Ipswich, do you feel you’ve got a supportive base of fans there, or have you had to look further afield?’
‘To be honest with you, it’s really dotted around. We’ve got small pockets of fans all over the place, and a lot of it comes from America: we’ve got a lot people over there that want us to come over there and play.’
‘So, to answer your question, not really, no, not in Ipswich!’
‘Oh alright, I thought I’d tell a story there….’
‘It’s localised around Ipswich, Although, the problem is, Suffolk is such a large area, and the scene’s a bit…lacking, but trying to build it back up y’know, try and get a following,’
‘It’s what THIS is all about..’
‘But, we’ve made a lot of new friends, it’s what it’s all about really.’
‘In Ipswich’
‘Suffolk Lads….’
‘Tratter…’
SA – (Debut EP) Ignite the fury, sounds incredibly polished – how long did you have to work on it for? This where you shatter our illusions isn’t it?
‘Not long, er, a day?’
‘What happened was, when we originally formed the band, we came up with this really bad, BAD song… but we were happy about it, and we thought ‘Ok, we’ve got something to work with here’, and next practice we came in, we played that song, and we were really, really upset with that it. Then I came up with the ‘Ignite the fury’ riff, and we played off that. Two days later: All done!’
‘We’re not the most technical (band)’
‘To actually record it, took us two days – Parlour Studios, good old Neil, did that for us. It’s very polished because he’s not quite a Metal producer – we wanted it a bit more sludgy, but he quite likes his stuff polished, so he gave it quite a good hit of ‘that’’
SA – You’re going straight from an EP to an album now, you’re not messing around with a ‘mini-album’ or anything like that?
‘That’s true – we didn’t do any demo’s either, the EP was our first recording. None of us have ever been in a studio before…’
SA- How are you doing the album – are you funding that yourselves?
‘Yep – any help out there, we’d appreciate it!’
‘PLEASE BUY OUR T-SHIRTS!!!!’
‘Yeah, I’ve got a few broken cymbals that need replacing, by er… anyone, even if there’s an alchemist out there that smashes metals together, get in contact please!’
‘Yeah, we’re funding it ourselves, we’ve got a very good theme, a very strong theme behind the album, which we can’t really tell you about!’
‘Yeah, we’ve mortgaged pretty much everything we own…..so’
‘IT’S COSTING A LOT OF MONEY’
SA – One of the things that grabs you about the Myspace page is the artwork, who did that for you?
‘A guy called Lucas from Argentina did all our artwork, drew it all up for us, although it was expensive, we’re actually getting some free rtwork because he’s got faith in the album going quite big.
‘He did our t-shirt designs’
‘Yeah – that brought him business, as a lot of bands look at our website, and ask ‘who does your artwork’, and we just send them straight onto this guy.’
‘The idea behind it was ‘let’s see what genre we can amalgamate into, something that isn’t too generic, and isn’t…..’
‘Yeah, while we’re not REALLY heavy, we’re quite melodic, and we didn’t want to come over with fairies and stuff on our artwork! You get the same artwork coming over again, and while it CAN be seen as maybe a bit generic, we feel it does emphasise exactly what we stand for. So, yeah, a green girl with a skull, THAT’S US!’
‘I don’t know where, to be honest with you, Lucas came up with that from, but we said ‘yeah, we like that’, and we were in a bit of a rush, and Lucas did a good job with it first time over’
SA – Sorry, just how did you find someone from Argentina?
‘Now, that was Myspace, we basically just went through his artwork and he’s astonishing. He’s got some brilliant stuff. He’s got some ideas for the new album, and they’re really, really good.
http://www.myspace.com/death_core_
SA – Ok, who or what are you musical influences?
‘Mine are Cradle of Filth, and a lot of black metal. So yesterday, when Gorgoroth were playing, I was absolutely loving it. Stuff like Burzum, Immortal, the older stuff, not very modern…’
‘We’ve all got such different influences, I think that’s why we come across as a bit different.’
‘Seems to work,’
‘Yeah – I’m into my tech stuff – ‘roll the dice’ time signatures, that sort of thing. Meshuggah style, Parkway Drive….’
‘I’m more into my casual stuff so…’
(Abruptly cut off)
‘Evanescence, Pet Shop Boys’
SA – What about Lyrical influences?
‘Well, my lyrical influences would be life: things and stuff that I’ve done. ‘Killing Lucy’ for example was an ex-girlfriend of mine, who got beaten by her boyfriend, although I HAVE changed the names.’
‘What was our song – ‘Jamie is a cock’?’
SA – We did wonder….
Jamie – ‘Seb wrote it, because he was pissed off at me for doing something that could have potentially pissed the whole band off a little.’
‘When you read the lyrics, going down the side spells out ‘Jamie is a cock’. He didn’t notice it for moths, and it’s just sort of stuck.’
‘We’ve had loads of names for this song, ‘coming up live onstage we’ve got, er… Troglodyte Tea-party’ and so on. Then we stuck with what it is now, and instead of finding some silly and pretentious name for a song, we’re just sticking with ‘Jamie is a cock’.’
Jamie – ‘Moving on!!! One of the new ones is called ‘Belmont’s Curse’, and it’s based on a video game series called Castlevania, so the lyrics are about that.’
SA – (Singling out Singer Jamie Bennett) do you always go for a bit of a walkabout?
Jamie – ME?
SA – Or was that a new thing for Bloodstock?
‘Nah, he’s always off, everywhere.. he’s barely ON the stage!’
Jamie – ‘To be honest with you, I Like Watching Bands Who Are Fun. Any bands which jump around and go stupid, jump on things and climb on things, I think that’s more entertaining than just watching a band Bang up and down. And I like getting the crowd involved too. Crowd interaction is everything: at the end of the day, we’re entertainment, if people aren’t enjoying themselves, whether they like the music or not, if they’re all standing there bored, you want to get them involved….’
‘And force them to take part’
Jamie – ‘No matter HOW big they are, they WILL fall. Yeah, I always walk about, even at our very first show, at a pub, and I was standing on the bar, at the back. It went down well!’
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