#ROADTOBOA Interview: Bearfist

Bloodstock 2016 logoHere we go again… Last year we covered every band on the Hobgoblin New Blood and Jagermeister stages in the run-up to Bloodstock 2015. This year, we’re going one better and aim to have interviews from all the bands on those two stages as well as all of those on the SOPHIE stage prior to the event kicking off on August 11th. That’s almost 100 interviews to get online for you lucky people over the course of the next couple of weeks. I bloody love this job, but you lot owe me a beer at Catton Hall, right?

Thanks to all the bands who’ve taken the time to respond!

Bearfist – Hobgoblin New Blood Stage, Saturday

Guitarist Dan Moss rattled off the following for us…

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

We all live in the Chelmsford area of Essex.

How did you meet?

We’ve all known each other a few years just from being in other bands in and around the local scene, but I guess Bearfist came about like all the best stories in life, after a few beers in the pub!

Jon and myself got to slurring at each other about the possibility of me playing guitar in a new band him and Al were looking to put together, and I somehow convinced them it would be a good idea. (Thank you Jäger!). From there we jammed a few ideas in a practise room and went and recorded an instrumental demo with the idea of sending it out to potential vocalists. That plan quickly dissolved when we bumped into Rob at a local festival and he came in and absolutely killed it from the first rehearsal.

How long have you been playing together as a band?

We formed late in 2014 – but only started gigging in the Spring of 2015

Where does the name of the band come from?

We scrambled around for ages with ideas and Bearfist came out on top. It has no real meaning if we are totally honest – we just thought it summed up our sound!

What are your influences – individually or as a band?

We all bring our own influences into the band rather than having a main collective influence – I think that’s sometimes the best way to work as you end up with different ideas and sounds that end up producing something new.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

We’re loud, we’re shouty,  and we’re a bit heavy.

Whilst that might not sound that original – as mentioned above – the fact that we all bring our own influences into the band rather than having a combined ‘ideal’ for our sound; we’ve ended up with a groove driven wall of noise that we all dig.
What’s your live show like – why should the baying hordes troop over to the stage you’re playing on to watch you?

We’re loud, we’re shouty, we’re a bit heavy – what more do they want!?? Ha!

I like to think the intensity of our music comes across in our live performances – if even a small section of the crowd leave with neck ache as bad as I end up with – then we’ve done our job!

When/how did you find out you’d been selected to play at Bloodstock?

We found out back in May when we were crowned winners of the M2TM London Finals! So after a great few shows – and sharing the stage with some awesomely talented bands we were lucky enough to be chosen as the winners by Simon Hall!

What sort of setlist can we expect?

We’ve got a good mix of songs from both our debut EP – The Fifteenth Day (which is out now) – as well as some yet unreleased tracks which will be appearing on our second EP  later in the year.

Which main stage band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?

This is where our initial ‘we don’t all have the same influences’ statement either shines through where we all mention different bands… or we look like idiots when we all say ‘Gojira’ – their latest release is fucking stellar!

What are you working on at the moment?

We’re booked into a recording studio early September to begin tracking our second EP (as yet untitled) – so have been hard at work writing and rehearsing that. We’re planning to shoot a video shortly after in support of the new release.

What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done on tour?

We’ve only been gigging since last year so haven’t toured as yet – and as such mature gentlemen I assume nothing untoward would ever happen. Ha! Maybe check back after Bloodstock and we’ll fill you in on what we can remember from the weekend!

What advice would you give to a young band just starting out today?

Seems a bit weird for us to be giving advice considering as a band we’re only relatively new. But I guess just the possibly somewhat clichéd ‘make sure you enjoy it’. Being in a band is supposed to be fun right?!

If you could be part of any 3-band line-up who else would you have on the bill? One band above you and one below – a chance to plug a smaller, unsigned act!

Bit of a left-field answer maybe.. but we’d love to be on a bill with our good buds in Wychhound and Jackknife Seizure… mainly because we’ve been trying to get them both up to Chelmsford to play on one of our local shows with us – but we’ve only managed one at a time so far as our calendars just never seem to match up! We met them both through M2TM in London, they’re both wickedly talented bands and a great bunch of people – both are definitely worth checking out!

What stage / time are you playing at Bloodstock (if you have your slot yet!)

We’re on at Hobgoblin New Blood Stage @ 11:15am on Saturday! [times to be confirmed – Mosh]

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