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!
Damaged Reich – Jägermeister Stage, Friday
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We’re from Oxford.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
We have been together just shy of a year. In fact, we will be celebrating our first year as a band at Bloodstock.
Where does the name of the band come from?
It’s a bit of a play on words for the fall of an empire; as in the broken politics and the state it’s left in. A bit like what the UK will be like after Brexit.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We are a thrash band taking inspiration from the likes of Exodus, Testament, early Sepultura, and Slayer. We think it’s probably the fact we don’t do djent beatdowns that makes us unique. We just have straight forward hard-hitting thrash you can have a good mosh too.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
Our stage show consists of balls to the wall high energy thrash that doesn’t let up. People should come see us as we will give them a damn good thrashing!
Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?
Joe is only member to have gone before, for the rest of us this is our first Bloodstock and we can’t wait. Joe has told us nothing but great things about the festival.
Did you enter M2TM thinking you could win it? Which region did you win, or did you come through other
channels?
We have been put through from the Oxford rounds. We entered M2TM as Joe had just come back from Bloodstock and had said to us “We’ll be at Bloodstock next year”. We had just got together and didn’t quite believe him. Unfortunately, it has meant that we have had to admit that Joe’s right.
What sort of setlist can we expect?
A very thrash filled set which starts hard and ends harder.
Which other bands do you most hope you’re not squished up next to so you can see them play?
We’re really hoping we’re not squished in next to Memoriam, Suicidal Tendencies, Wednesday Thirteen, Onslaught, or our friends Democatrus. Thankfully we’re not on the same day as Drudge or Negative Thought Process so we don’t have to worry about missing those guys.
What are you working on at the moment?
We have started recording our album which we hope to release in early 2019. We have 7 out of the 9 songs already written and have 3 of them already recorded.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Back before we were Damaged Reich and were performing together as Dedlok, Joe went to crowd surf and managed to catch his foot on the barrier, then go face first into the crowd. There is a clip of it on YouTube somewhere.
Jäger, Hobgoblin Ale, Red Bull, Kingstone Press Cider, Kaltenberg Beer or Bulleit Bourbon? And, yes, we’ll be counting all the votes!
We are great fans of both Hobgoblin Ale (it’s brewed just down the road from us), and Jäger as it’s led to some really funny stories for us.
