Tell us a bit about your band – how long have you been going, why you do what you do, what you want to achieve.
We’ve been going almost 4 years in total now. The band started as a result of 2 local bands splitting up (both of which Al was in at one point) and we’ve always made it our mission to write original, creative music and enjoy the shit out of playing it live. Although we put a lot of effort and as much capital as we can into recording, live is where we feel we shine, our gigs are full of energy, sweat, blood, and many other fluids.
You have a new release coming out soon – without giving too much away tell us what listeners can expect from it.
We always try to ensure no two tracks on one of our releases sound the same. With that being said however we felt our lead single “SevenThreeOne” just about managed to represent all the elements we feel make up most of the music, that is: Frenetic techy sections, epic/large sections, lots of time signatures, lots of key changes, and some quiet bits so you don’t get too much of a headache.
Plans for the next 12 months.
After recently signing on with Possessive Management for management and booking, we plan to tour the shit out of “We Build Mountains”. We’d love to make a progression from the toilet circuit gigging wise, although we realise it’s going to take time. Maybe in 12 months we could progress to the sink circuit. (It’s not the toilet, but adjacent to it. Same room though)
Tell us a bit about what it’s like to experience your live show.
Its loud, energetic, depending on what sort of mood Dave’s in you might experience any number of things you probably wouldn’t expect to experience when you thought to yourself “hey theres a gig on tonight, I’ll go to that why not”.
We DO get described as “tight” but honestly, it doesn’t feel like that on stage, it feels like chaos. We generally take “tight” to mean: “I’m surprised you guys managed to still make a noise that sounded like a band whilst behaving like you did on stage, well done”.
How does the band prepare for a gig?
Sacrifice a virgin. Just kidding. Anyone who looks at a member of TSE instantly loses their virginity. And if you’ve lost it already it grows back, and then you lose it again. What was the question again. Oh yeah, usually what happens is Al attempts to organise everyone, Jamie attempts to unorganise everyone, Dave panics a bit, Mike and Alex play it cool.
Name 3 bands you would love to tour with and why
Oh shiiiiiit this is hard. Let’s start with:
Arcane Roots, we played with them a year or so when they were on the up, they’re creating some ace original music and they’re spot on guys. Also their engineer Chris Coulter mixed our album and did a fucking excellent job of it.
TesseracT. Because James might read this…Also they are exceptionally good and would teach us a thing or two.
Andrew WK. Because he likes to party hard.
Name a band you’d love to give a shout out to and think people should listen to (not your own band)
Our friends from Blackburn called “Falter”. If you see that name on a poster, give the doorman whatever amount of sterlings he wants and we guarantee you’ll have a good time.
How much has the internet and technology helped your band to get to the point it is today.
It’s difficult to say, the internet/social media has been ubiquitous pretty much since the inception of the band. So it’s difficult to imagine life without it, all I can really say is it’s definitely part of our daily lives and part of the routine in terms of promotion. It’s certainly very easy to get yourself “out there” these days, but as a result of this, there is a veritable sea of mediocrity “out there”. So in order to get noticed you still have to be captaining a very big and shiny ship. These aquatic metaphors doing anything for ya?
What’s in your cd player right now?
Honestly we all listen to such different stuff it’s a really hard question. (And by hard, I mean, its 8 o clock in the morning and none of the others are out of bed yet and won’t be for hours). Some of us are really digging Mallory Knox’s new album, we love what Aliases are doing, Queen greatest hits never leaves the CD player, debut album from our friends in 22, amazing.
Ok you have a few lines to tell us why people should listen to your band. GO.
If you made it to the end of my shit interview then you surely have time to click a YouTube link and find out if we’re shit or not?! Honestly as long as your favourite band doesn’t have “bieber” or “brides” in the name you should be fine…
For press opportunities, interviews or muffins contactlisa@HoldTight!PR
Tell us a bit about your band – how long have you been going, why you do what you do, what you want to achieve.
We got together in 2008. All we’ve wanted to do is simply tour loads, and create a ‘less is more’ type vibe live as we’re a 3 piece. People have been blown away by how big we sound for just 3 of us. Also people have always struggled to lump us in any one specific category, just because we incorporate many different sub genres in our sound. The most important thing is that we’re very humble guys, and are just very happy and grateful to be in a position to be recording, and playing music - as its the coolest thing in the world. So because of this we try to have as much fun as possible, and appreciate every minute of it.
You have a new release coming out soon – without giving too much away tell us what listeners can expect from it.
We have our debut album out soon called ‘Eyes’. When people listen to it I think they’ll love it, and be blown away at the production, the tones, and because of the fact that there are a handful of different sub genres within the music. The album has all kinds of influences in it it from Grunge, to Punk, to Metal, to Pop Rock, to Southern Rock, to Doom. What we really want to achieve on this album is not to be pigeon holed into one genre, because I don’t think people can :D
Plans for the next 12 months.
For the next 12 months we just want to be in a good position where a lot of people have heard our record, and we can do good tours etc. We want to have had good reviews, and good radio play, and we hope that in the next 12 months a lot of people are enjoying our album :D
Tell us a bit about what it’s like to experience your live show.
In our live shows we want to create a ‘less is more’ feel to it all. We’ve done our homework with tones and things because it’s vital in a 3 piece that your tones are on the money. People who’ve seen us live have always said how huge we sound for just 3 of us.
Name 3 bands you would love to tour with and why
3 bands we’d love to tour with would be:
KING’S X - because they’re our 3 piece piers, they’ve done 15 albums, and just keep plugging away through thick and thin - and we find that very inspiring….also they have heaps of groove - and we’re groove guys.
SEVENDUST - because very imply put - they were one of our main metal influences growing up.
ALICE IN CHAINS - because we love their desert rock/evil sounding grunge, as we feel that we have a strong influence there. We feel we’d go down really well with them!
Name a band you’d love to give a shout out to and think people should listen to (not your own band)
One band we’d love to give a shout out to would be SWORN TO OATH. They’re good friends of ours, work unbelievably hard, and are absolutely incredible live.
How much has the internet and technology helped your band to get to the point it is today.
The internet has been everything to us to be honest! Without it we’d be stuffed.
What’s in your cd player right now?
In my CD player right now its ‘16 Stone’ by BUSH.
Ok you have a few lines to tell us why people should listen to your band. GO.
To summarise: People should listen to our band because we’re not just one genre, we’re a huge sounding 3 piece, we have heaps of groove, and evil riffs! ;)
For press opportunities, interviews or muffins contactlisa@HoldTight!PR
Tuesday 16th April, 2013
Band name: Sleepers Awake
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Genre: Prog/Sludge/Melodic Doom… dunno… Metal works…
Tell us a bit about your band – how long have you been going, why you do what you do, what you want to achieve.
Rob and Chris (Thompson) started Sleepers Awake years ago, with roots going back near a decade. The current permutation started in 2008 with the addition of Chris (Burnsides), on drums (also referred to as Ambrose for sake of avoiding the two Chris issue). The first album, Priests of the Fire was released in November 2009. After brief regional touring, our then bassist left the band. Ambrose having played in other musical projects with Kedar asked him to join at bass and from there we spent the next 2 years performing regionally and working on Transcension in one stage or another.
Our music has been an effort to merge many of our different influences into a unified sound. We’ve sought to create a wholly new amalgam of rock and metal stylings, taking nods at Opeth, Mastodon, Queen, QOTSA, and Tool. Lately our writing has leaned a little more towards a variety of technical metal bands, from Uneven Structure and Meshuggah to Intronaut, while also incorporating more of the dramatic, doomy atmospheres of bands like Katatonia. Basically we’re all huge metal wonks and doing our best to fuse together a new and interesting sound.
As far as why we do it, well, we can’t really imagine not doing it. That would be horrible. It’s a multifaceted answer. We do it for all the reasons above but I suppose from a personal perspective it’s just a pure love of performing, creating, and sharing and performing those creations with other people that understand us. We’d be mentally unhealthy without that pursuit. One of the feelings that we live for is that feeling when we hear from someone on the other side of the planet who loves the record. So as far as what we want to achieve it’s a simple extension of why we’re doing it: to communicate our art with others.
You have a new release coming out soon – without giving too much away tell us what listeners can expect from it.
A highly crafted metal epic meant to be played from start to finish that is, at its core, a nod to the grand tradition of concept records. It may be commercially foolish to write “an album” anymore in the age of the single but this is really what we’ve all been fed on and we sought to write a record whose full weight is appreciated when listened to as a whole.
Plans for the next 12 months.
Right now we’re planning a music video for one of the songs on Transcension, setting up Spring tour dates in the US, and continuing to write new material and perform regionally. And then of course world domination shortly thereafter… just as soon as our death ray arrives from Sky Mall Magazine.
Tell us a bit about what it’s like to experience your live show.
Four sweaty meat golems demolishing your favorite club
How does the band prepare for a gig?
Well the first step is practice, practice, practice! After that the next most important element in show preparation is not getting shitfaced before going on the stage. We don’t have any magical incantations or anything awesome along those lines unfortunately. Ambrose seems to have to pee every five seconds right before going on stage, so there is that too.
Name 3 bands you would love to tour with and why
1.) Opeth: Mikael Akerfeldt is fairly high on our list of idols and at the same time he doesn’t seem like he’d be a complete dick to a smaller band. He’s been hilarious and seems pretty down to earth every time we’ve seen them play but at the same time he is probably one of the most musically intimidating people I can imagine meeting. They’re respectable on a lot of levels I think.
2.) Intronaut: They have a really awesome blend of intricate musicianship and raw organic emotionality which, over the course of their career, they’ve found how to do in a way that is wholly their own, and I suppose that is in essence what we’re really aiming for with Sleepers Awake.
3.) Castle: We just played with them the other week when they came through town and they were awesome musicians and awesome people to boot. They have this really cool sort of doom/thrash hybrid with these fantastic image inducing lyrics and Liz has this really haunting voice and stage presence. I think the latent motif here is that we really respect metal bands that have unique structures and musical identities. We like to see devotion to authenticity and experimentation in full stride.
Name a band you’d love to give a shout out to and think people should listen to (not your own band)
Ohio is literally overflowing with talent across the board but as far as metal and rock bands I’d highly suggest people check out Neon Warship, Bringers of Disease, The Black Antler, Red Sun, and Megachurch. As far as we’re concerned these guys have all absolutely achieved what they’re going for and deliver an awesome show every time.
How much has the internet and technology helped your band to get to the point it is today.
A lot of the motivation we have comes from all the support we’ve gotten from around the world. We once had two guys from Florida fly up to see us play a show in a dingy little rock club in Columbus, just for the hell of it. Things like that are all but impossible without the internet and while we love the home town support it really is a crucial factor in our motivation for share our music with a wider audience. After all, the internet is how we met you lovely people at Hold Tight!
What’s in your cd player right now?
Right now I am spinning Castle’s latest album Blacklands. Heavy drums, spooky vocals, sweet riffs. Just a fantastic metal record start to finish.
Ok you have a few lines to tell us why people should listen to your band. GO.
Why should you listen to our band? To paraphrase some famous dead guy “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to see it, then they’ll probably miss out on a really fucking sweet metal band.”
For press opportunities, interviews or muffins contactlisa@HoldTight!PR
Tell us a bit about your band – how long have you been going, why you do what you do, what you want to achieve.
Greetings and salutations, thanks for this little chance to chat about the band and the mechanics of it.
We formed in late 2004 as a 4 piece, recording our debut E.P (A Monument To The Death Of An Idea) with that line up before ‘shedding skin’ and slimming down to a lean, mean rock trio and we haven’t looked back. I’d hazard things really started moving forward after we lost said member of the band in December 2007 as things really weren’t moving forward for the previous couple of years. We wrote and recorded our debut record (Evolution: Creatio Ex Nihilio) within the following 5 months of this upheaval happening and that secured attention from various record labels…but being as the industry is, they took their own sweet time and we didn’t want to wait about for them to pull their fingers out…so we released the record ourselves on our own label (Anomalousz Music Records) and kept complete control, securing some great press and feedback, including radio play.
This got it noticed once more and eventually Mascot Records signed the band up for a few albums and this is where you find us right now in 2013, promoting our second record, ‘Life…And All It Entails’…which you should all listen to…you may like it.
You have a new release coming out soon – without giving too much away tell us what listeners can expect from it.
Well, without giving too much away…it’s certainly a ‘progression’ (har har) from our debut record and I’d like to think we’ve evolved within our own sphere of writing music.
I’m not big on explaining what, when , how and why with our music and simply suggest that people keep an eye out for the ‘Inversions’ video and the single…or go straight for listening to the new album.
Plans for the next 12 months.
What do we do for a living, gentlemen?
TOUR, TOUR, TOUR!
We’ve had some great tours already this year, starting with dates across Europe with Nuclear Blast records act, Threshold.
We were out in Europe with them in March, and we’ve just played a festival slot at Hard Rock Hell: Prog, alongside some truly great bands.
The odd single show here and there in Southampton and Cardiff, before heading out for some dates with 70’s symphonic rock band, The Enid in April and May and then back out again for more dates in may with TesseracT!
We’re simply looking to really get on the road this year and do what we couldn’t quite do last year…and that was get damn shows that are good!
During any ‘downtime’ we have in-between shows, we’ll continue to write music for the 3rd album and that will all slowly come together as and when it does.
Tell us a bit about what it’s like to experience your live show.
Well, I wouldn’t know personally as I’m usually onstage playing and thus wouldn’t know what it was like to watch us! haha
But I’ve been informed by many people that it’s a good show and the records translate well live, as we tend to play them very close to the originals, but only with a little bit of ad-libbing and ‘jazz’ just to make it more interesting for us onstage.
We love playing live, as it’s a chance to simply rock out…and everyone needs to let things go once in a while…it’s where we truly come alive…
How does the band prepare for a gig?
We prepare by gathering in the shape of a triumvirate, sacrificing some small metal-core inclined teenager and then summoning the absolute power of Shub-Neggurath and other ‘ancients’ as part of rituals to fuel our beings…
Nah…not really.
We warm up on our instruments, ensure the plethora of equipment we have to set-up is working correctly and getting ourselves in the right frame of mind to perform for people.
As I said earlier, we love playing and try to ensure that our live show is a heartfelt and entertaining performance.
I guess for us, it’s as much about being entertaining as it is being technically precise…we like to have fun onstage…usually at the crowd or ourselves expense!
Name 3 bands you would love to tour with and why
Oooo…a tough one.
I guess I would have to stick to the same 3 acts I’ve always wanted to tour with…3 acts that have shaped my own music journey and thus shaped the bands music in it’s own way.
Mr Devin Townsend would be a top chap to tour with, been a fan since…well…before ‘Ocean Machine’ came out and his work has continued to move forward.
Had the pleasure of opening for Strapping Young Lad once in Portsmouth with my old band…that was amazing…but not enough!
American Grammy slamming ‘prog’ band, Tool would be another band we’d like to play with, as we’re big fans of their material throughout their career.
As for the third band, I’d love to hit the road with Meshuggah…they are perhaps my favourite band of all time…to date.
Their music taught me so much about music generally and namely the wonder that is rhythm.
But in summation, we’d tour with anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
Name a band you’d love to give a shout out to and think people should listen to (not your own band)
Shout outs, ay?
Bands we like, ay?
Simpson, ay?
☺
Well, I like bands/acts that work hard and try their best to be better…coming through adversity all the much better for it.
We’ve come across some good bands on the road or through friends.
I’ll simply say, have a listen to these acts…they all work hard:
How much has the internet and technology helped your band to get to the point it is today.
It’s certainly given many bands a voice where they’d never have had a snowballs chance in hell before.
Getting any audio recorded used to mean having to go to an expensive studio where they had the ability to use large desks and reel-to-reel equipment…but now, it’s the age of the ‘bedroom producer’.
Powerful home computers with cheap or free DAW’s installed on them ensure that anybody with a modest budget can get music recorded…and I think it’s great that this has become available to pretty much everyone.
For us, we use a lot of the social media networks to promote the band…I’d hazard that it’s practically a modern day from of ‘word of mouth’.
Some guy in U.K shares a link, someone in U.S who is a friend of that person hears it and passes it on…and so on and so forth.
For the cost of a large PR campaign via magazines and such, you can take out a targeted advert on sites and really spread your music to people who perhaps would like it.
We embrace technology, it’s a tool to be used and something to be respected in a way.
What’s in your cd player right now?
CD player, dear?
How frightfully archaic!
haha
I think it’s sitting in my pile of audio junk in the corner of my home studio at the moment! Haha
But thanks to the wonders of online music packages like Spotify, Grooveshark and such, I’ve been digging the last Efterklang record as I’m a fan, as well as various music from across the last 100 years, ranging from Alice In Chains to The Algorithm to Cookie Monster…Pachelbel to Michael Nyman…Infected Mushroom to LTJ Bukem…Axis Of Perdition to…ermm…Tesseract…
Whatever generally comes on to the playlists I’ve put together.
Sometimes people share some good stuff with me, but most of it hurts my ears if I’m honest!
Ok you have a few lines to tell us why people should listen to your band. GO.
Do a few lines and listen to our music…
Oh…sorry!
I just re-read the question…haha
As I said before, I’m not good at this sort of thing but I’ve found through the various responses to our music that most people have found something they’ve enjoyed about it.
I believe one of the funnier things I’ve come across was a whole message board of cliquey teenage guys who’d taken to disliking us immensely for whatever puerile reason they’d created and were doing their best discredit our music to other people.
Those other people invariably checked us out to see why we were SOOOOO bad and came away going thinking “Actually, I liked that…what are those guys on about?”
☺
Have a listen…you may like it.
For press opportunities, tour press, interviews or muffins contactJames@HoldTight!PR
