Here 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!
This is Turin – SOPHIE stage, Saturday
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We’re all Cheshire lads and live pretty close together.
How did you meet?
We’ve all been mates for years and through various line up changes we came together through our mutual appreciate of metal and playing our own music live.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
All in all roughly about 14 years in total, we’ve had a few line up changes but the current set up has been going strong for 4 years.
Where does the name of the band come from?
Bit of a strange one… About 6 or 7 years ago the band decided to change its name and we were watching an advert on the bravo channel for a Most Haunted live episode in the city of Turin. The city had just had a new Mayor appointed and the first thing he did was employ 2 exorcists to cleanse the city of all evil. There was a slogan at the end of the episode saying ‘This is Hell, This is Turin’ and so that’s where the name came from! Thanks Derek Acorah!
What are your influences – individually or as a band?
To be honest we all bring something different to the band, our influences are very eclectic ranging from epic tech metal bands like the Faceless, Sikth and Animals as Leaders but then we have members that like some seriously brutal slam and death metal bands including Disfiguring the Goddess, Cancerous Womb and Nasum. However we can’t miss out the fact that Enya has played massive part in shaping our sound!
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
The one thing that we personally think makes us unique is that we don’t fit into any one genre, some of our songs go from tech metal to death metal to prog which gives us this distinctive sound. There is something for everyone in our music.
What’s your live show like – why should the baying hordes troop over to the stage you’re playing on to watch you?
We literally leave nothing on the stage, we’re not synchronized dancers, we love seeing people head banging to our music which gives us motivation to go even harder, we enjoy getting the crowd involved and we just love what we do! If you like brutal metal then we definitely having something for you!
When/how did you find out you’d been selected to play at Bloodstock?
We played the New Blood Stage in 2014 through winning the Manchester M2TTM competition ever since then we’ve kept a close relationship with Bloodstock and it was earlier this year we had the call offering us a slot on the SOPHIE stage which we jumped on straight away! We’re all die hard Bloodstock fans and class this festival as by far the best in the UK so having these opportunities to do what love at the places that we ritually go to every year is just a huge blessing.
What sort of setlist can we expect?
It will definitely keep you guessing as to what’s next, we like to mix things up and give the crowd a false sense of security before bombarding them with full blown metal.
Which main stage band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?
Gojira without a doubt. We idolise them and apart from the fact that we all want to be centre field to watch them play, anyone watching us whilst they are on main stage would be swiftly told to go get a beer and walk towards the epic French death metal that is Gojira.
What are you working on at the moment?
We’ve just released a 2 track EP called Thrones and after Bloodstock we are hitting the studio to write our second album, so for the next few months we’ll be shredding riffs in a cold dark room.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done on tour?
We went on a UK tour last year and we played Wolverhampton. After the show we went out for some drinks, which turned into many drinks and next thing we knew we were waking up in the van! We went out to get some breakfast in the morning saw what looked like a decent rock pub (for “Hair of the Dog” purposes!). As we walked through the door saying to each other ‘why didn’t we come here last night?’, the bouncer stopped us, looked us up and down and said ‘how the hell are you boys still standing? You were all a mess a few hours ago’. Turns out we ended the party there until closing and had a collective black out that we had even been there.
This is our “go to” story because obviously what goes on tour stays on tour!
What advice would you give to a young band just starting out today?
Three main things to really keep on top of are
- Social Media – Keep it current, keep it consistent, look to see what your peers and influential bands are doing and see if you can do something similar to keep up with trends and keep in touch with fans. Even if you only have a handful of mates that follow you, it’s all worth it.
- Music – It’s so easy to pass over the fact that the music you write and play live is what keeps your band going. Spend time writing songs – don’t just go for the templated style riffs and structures. Experiment and create your own sound.
- Gigs – At the beginning we played every show thrown at us and we played them, no matter who was on the bill, where the show was or if any promotion had been done. We do and always have done a lot of self promotion for gigs just because we’ve been burnt by promoters – so get on it and get your name out there before a show. When it comes to the gig itself get there early, meet the other bands, chat with the promoter, set up your merch and enjoy it.
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!
If anything was possible, supporting Pantera would be the single most greatest thing we could ever do and coming along with us would be our good mates in From her Ashes. We’ve gigged with them a fair bit and they bring it to every show and have an amazing sound, well worth checking out!
What stage / time are you playing at Bloodstock (if you have your slot yet!)
We haven’t had our slot yet but we are on the SOPHIE stage on the Saturday but will be at the festival all weekend enjoying good times with this fucking awesome community!
This is Turin: facebook | youtube | spotify
