#ROADTOBOA Interview: Conjurer

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!

Conjurer – Hobgoblin New Blood stage, Saturday

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

We’re based in the Midlands, UK – specifically, Rugby, Daventry and Coventry.

How did you meet?

We’ve known each other through the local scene for a while and it just started naturally – I started jamming some riffs with Dan. Jan was the only drummer we knew that would be able to play the stuff that we we’d written and he happened to be free at the time, and Dan recommended Andy who, after seeing him perform with his old band, I knew we had to have on board.

How long have you been playing together as a band?

Our first show was February 1st 2015 so nearly a year and a half… but we’d been writing and rehearsing for at least a year before that.

Where does the name of the band come from?

Honestly? It started off as a placeholder and just stuck! Dan drew the logo which we really liked at the time and I guess we grew into the name – I feel it’s pretty apt for what we’re doing at the moment.

What are your influences – individually or as a band?

As a band, we have a massively diverse range of influences and listening tastes – I couldn’t really give you three or four bands we directly sound like, but some of our main musical influences would be Mastodon, Gojira, Converge, Armed For Apocalypse and Neurosis. We’re usually more interested to ask this question to people that have checked us out, we almost always get a different answer! Personally, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar, Solleme and Iron Witch this week – I think we’re all pretty varied in our tastes and it shines through in the noise we make.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

As I mentioned before, I like the fact that people tend to struggle to pigeonhole us – we love that moment of pause when people are trying to come up with instant comparisons. To us, that’s a sign that we’re doing something interesting and fresh. Musically, we don’t stick to a certain genre – it’s all heavy, but that’s about it. We try to tie in bits of black metal, post metal, hardcore, doom and everything else in between and make it feel as natural as possible. But again, it’s not a conscious thing – we write songs and however they end up is how we play them.

What’s your live show like – why should the baying hordes troop over to the stage you’re playing on to watch you?

Well, we only just released our debut EP so everything we’ve done over the last year or so has been based purely on our live reputation. I’d like to think we bring everything we have, every single night – I think it’s hard to answer that without coming across as an asshole.

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

We were a part of the Metal 2 The Masses competition in Leicester culminating in the final as a part of Uprising, a one-day festival at De Montford Hall featuring Hell, Conan and Phil Campbell’s All-Starr Band. We were announced as winners after all the bands had played and it was totally surreal – we absolutely did not expect to win and it’s still not really sunk in yet. Massive shout to our friends in Garganjua who got through too, definitely check them out at Bloodstock.

What sort of setlist can we expect?

We’ll be playing at least a couple of tracks from our EP I and then some newer material we’ve been playing live… it’s going to be nasty.

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

Obviously Gojira. that would be the worst time.

What are you working on at the moment?

With the EP out, we’re currently booking up and playing tons of shows and looking at getting some international touring on the go next year. We’re also close to finishing the writing process for our debut album so we’ll be looking at studio time soon.

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

We are the least wild people you will ever meet, I honestly can’t think of a single thing – how tragic is that?

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

Don’t settle for second best. When it comes to songwriting, the quality of your merch, design work, gear – people take real note of quality in every respect.

Be open and honest with promoters and other bands, go above and beyond even if it doesn’t feel like it’s ‘worth’ it – the industry is all about who you know and everyone talks. Word of mouth has done so much for this band I can’t stress it enough.

Just don’t be a dick, and leave any form of ego at the door – it’s not welcome.

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!

Converge / Conjurer / Ba’al – Converge because Converge. Ba’al are an incredible band we played with a few weeks ago in Sheffield, fetid doom meets post-metal, reminiscent of Bossk and Yob. That would be a great night.

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

We don’t have a time yet but we’ll be on the New Blood Stage on the Saturday!

 

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