Pre-Bloodstock interview: Scarred

Scarred 192Due to the huge number of bands playing at Bloodstock this year, and the fact that our two roving reporters will actually want to watch some of them, we’re doing a little round of pre-festival interviews this year. We’re focussing on the bands playing the Jagermeister and Hobgoblin New Blood Stages so they get a chance to convince you to go and watch them. Remember, these guys and gals are the future of our musical world!

Bassist Jeff Jonas rattled off the answers for Scarred…

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

We are from the tiny country Luxembourg.

How did you meet?

Our drummer Laurent and myself met in high school about 16 years ago. We were taking our lunch breaks at the same place and battling each other on an old game machine playing Mortal Kombat, the jump to death Metal from that was not that far off. We’re the only founding members left of the band. We’ve met our guitar player Yogy during a Festival in Luxembourg, our singer Sacha was recommended to us by friends in the local metal scene and we found our guitar player Bertrand in an online Guitar forum. Once Yogy joined Satyricon as a live guitarist, we used Facebook to find Vincent as a live replacement when Yogy is busy touring with Satyricon.

How long have you been playing together as a band?

We’ve started the band initially called Requiem in 2000, changed our name to Scarred in 2003 and have fixed our current line-up in 2007 right before the release of our very first album. We’re glad the line-up has stayed stable for so long and we’re all pulling in the same direction.

Where does the name of the band come from?

We changed our name to Scarred cause we thought that Requiem didn’t fit the style of the band anymore. As a scar, whether a physical or emotional one, always tells a story of a struggle, we kinda liked the idea of that name. And it’s simple to remember!

What are your influences – individually or as a band?

The band in general is influenced by a lot of different styles and we all listen to different stuff, but I guess we can agree on some key bands that moulded our sound in song writing like Pantera, Morbid Angel, Meshuggah, Gojira, Strapping Young Lad, Machine Head, Down, and many more.

I personally am a big Prog Metal fan and Dream Theater has been one of my favourite bands for years. Recently I really dig the new Leprous album.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

Our music is very dynamic. We don’t like staying on one tempo for too long. So you’ll have neck breaking high speed thrash stuff and then a big groovy riff coming in. We’re all about groove and the mix of melodies and dissonant notes. Just keep the music interesting but stay as efficient as possible. The best way to answer this is to stop reading and start listening!

What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?

I think we’ve played around 150 – 200 shows in the existence of our band all throughout Europe. Bloodstock will actually be our first ever UK gig so this is going to be exciting. Our live shows are energetic and dynamic and we want people to groove and break their necks with us!

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

This is a longer story. We’re part of a collective of Metal bands in Luxembourg called Nöize Collective (together with our brothers from COSMOGON, RETRACE MY FRAGMENTS, BLACK OUT BEAUTY and AN APPLE A DAY). Last year we had a first collaboration with the Sonic Visions Festival in Luxembourg that is a Showcase Festival mainly focused on Pop and Electronic Music. This first collaboration had 2 of our bands playing on the event and we ended up inviting some professionals, different festivals and bookers, to come check out our bands. Simon Hall from Bloodstock was one of them. After our show, Simon just walked up to me and said “See you on Bloodstock”, two days after the event we got a confirmation email of Simon officially inviting us to Bloodstock to play the Newblood Stage. So a lesson to all bands out there, help out your scene, work with people from outside of the scene and if you do stuff right, good things will happen!

What sort of setlist can we expect?

You can expect a hard hitting but still dynamic setup. Only having 30 minutes set, we’re forced to get things going much quicker so we packed the set full of neck breakers and pit worthy songs. There’s also enough material for the Tech Metal lovers in that set. We’re definetly looking forward to it!

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

Black Label Society, Cannibal Corpse and Sepultura. Hopefully we’ll get around checking out our Klonosphere mates from Trepalium too.

What are you working on at the moment?

We are currently working on our next album. We have 5 songs almost finished and have a few ideas still going for more songs. So you can expect a new album for late 2016! We’re also finalizing some tour plans in October which will get us back to the UK! More on that matter will come very soon!

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

Went to a strip clip club the last day of our Romanian tour in 2010. I can’t tell you much more as I don’t remember much. Vodka was taking a hold of me, I remember briefly waking up with two girls on my lap sitting across from our singer. Next memory I have is our Tour manager waking me up in the hotel room to go get our flight back home. Crazy night, crazy tour. Loads of fun!

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

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse! Hone your craft. A lot of bands are preoccupied with Facebook and videos and Design stuff. While it is important in the times we live in to be active on social medias and to have good designs and all that stuff but a lot of those bands actually forget about rehearsing and becoming a tight band. In the end the music has to be good, if you’re good enough things will eventually happen and start working out. Perseverance is key too.

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!

Oh man that’s a tough one. For the party I would say Pantera with a resurrected Dimebag and our brother from Cosmogon from Luxembourg. Our livers would never be the same again.

For the music I would say Meshuggah and our brothers from Ferium from Israel. That’d be one sick package!

Scarred play the Hobgoblin New Blood Stage on the Sunday.

Scarred: official | facebook | twitter | youtube

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August 2, 2015 10:18 AM

[…] Scarred […]