As ever, we’re going to try and cover every single Jäger, New Blood and SOPHIE stage band before Bloodstock kicks off on August 9th. Your chance to check them out and start planning which bands to get there early for!
Trust us when we tell you that this is bound to result in some frustrating clashes because, as ever, there are some great bands on these three stages.
Our thanks to all the bands for taking the time out to answer our questions!
Cadence Noir – Hobgoblin New Blood Stage, Saturday
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
The band formed in Nottingham, but only one of our members was born & raised there – the rest of are from Derby, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Wrexham. Prizes for guessing who is from where!
How long have you been playing together as a band?
We did our first gig as a full band in 2011 and it’s been an interesting 7½ years.
Where does the name of the band come from?
When the band first formed, we had two vocalists, one who called himself Mr Cadence, who departed for greener pastures in 2015, and Mr Noir, who remains. The names partly came from the contrast between their musical tastes, and the fact that Ade wouldn’t look out of place on The Mighty Boosh.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
To quote Paul “Squatter” McMonnies from Bloodstock Radio, we are “a YMCA of folk metal” – we think he meant it as a compliment! While to most people violin=folk, we have such diverse tastes and influences that no genre is truly safe (except possibly Casiogrind, and that’s only because we don’t have a keyboard).
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
Our live set involves gratuitous shrieks and senseless violins, our eye-catching combination of instruments, and eclectic songwriting, making us a genuinely novel prospect. We hope you’ll come along because you’re curious as we don’t really sound like anybody else, but we like to think there’s enough in our songs and in our stage antics to keep you hooked until we all finish, sweaty and gratified.
Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?
We are Bloodstock veterans and had the pleasure of playing the Jagermeister stage in 2014. It’s been great to see the festival grow from its indoor roots to the mighty beast it is today. There just isn’t anything else in the UK like it. It’s also been awesome to see BOA’s deepening commitment to supporting the grassroots metal scene through Metal to the Masses, getting the opportunity to step it up a notch on the New Blood Stage in front of friends we’ve made over the years is a real honour.
Did you enter M2TM thinking you could win it? Which region did you win, or did you come through other channels?
This is the second year we’ve entered M2TM – we joined the heats in Liverpool last year and won Wrexham this year. Our original intention was to work our way round band members’ home towns each year, happy to get the opportunity to share a stage with some of the UK’s finest rising talent. We were shocked and incredibly pleased to be put through, and we tried to take it one gig at a time, from Atomic through to the final in Central, where we were blown away by the reception we received.
What sort of setlist can we expect?
We find it as hard to stick to a setlist as we do to a single genre, but you can expect seven years of this reckless endeavour compressed into 30 minutes. You will certainly hear our current single “#FFBB” and the heavier (or at least faster) tracks from our EPs, such as “Your Lady Called War” from The Path (2015) and “The Traveller” from #FFBB (2018). You might even hear some new material which at least 48% of you might like…
Which other bands do you most hope you’re not squished up next to so you can see them play?
We have such different tastes in music that there’s going to be at least one band member disappointed whenever we play on Saturday! Ones that stand out are A Forest Of Stars, Forgotten Remains, Septicflesh, and Combichrist on the bigger stages, we’re really looking forward to seeing friends we’ve made in Valafar, Aonia, and Luna’s Call on the New Blood stage, and we’d also like to see Cranial Separation and Luke Appleton on the Jagermeister stage.
What are you working on at the moment?
As a band our main priority is always the live domain. We are currently trying to capitalize on our upcoming performance at BOA 2018 by networking and booking in as many shows as we can for the remainder of the year and onward into 2019. Not quite Witchtripper levels of touring, but you can definitely expect to see us around! We’ll also be training our penguin tech crew.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Supporting the Soap Girls last year was quite an eye-opener! At Bloodstock, there was the Charleston pit for Trepalium, and seeing a guy in a wheelchair crowdsurfing is always going to take some topping. Regarding our own onstage activities, we had a young lady faceplant a monitor trying to steal Ade’s mic (she left quite an impression… literally), and supporting Old Corpse Road one Halloween, a combination of latex outfit and hot lights meant we had to mop the stage clean after we finished our set.
Jager, Hobgoblin Ale, Red Bull, Kingstone Press Cider, Kaltenberg Beer or Bulleit Bourbon? And, yes, we’ll be counting all the votes!
All of it in a bucket would do.