#RoadToBOA2019 – The Hope Burden

It’s that time of year again, when in the run-up to Bloodstock we endeavour to interview every band gracing the Sophie Lancaster, New Blood and Jägermeister stages from 8th – 11th August 2019. This means you’ve got a chance to read up on all your favourite bands set to play over the weekend and decide which new ones you’ll want to check out.

As ever, we’re predicting some horrible clashes because, true to form, there are some great bands across all three stages so you should start planning who you want to see.

Our thanks to all the bands for taking the time out to answer our questions!

The Hope Burden – New Blood Stage, Friday

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

We’re from various towns around Oxfordshire, but we rehearse just outside Bicester, north of Oxford itself.

How long have you been playing together as a band?

We got together in 2015, starting out as an instrumental band. We played a few shows over the next year or so before adding Josh on vocals.

Where does the name of the band come from?

We had another name before we had played any gigs, but we can’t fully remember how we settled on The Hope Burden. It seemed to encapsulate the melancholic feel of our songs.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

Drawing on influences from post-rock through to black metal, our intention was always to create atmospheric music with interesting structures. We mix up harsh vocals with melodic guitars, but with lots of heaviness thrown in.

What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?

Honestly, we think we sound better live than recorded. We have very light sections and also extremely heavy sections and so the live setting really brings out the dynamics in our sound. We were really surprised to win our local M2tM because we thought that perhaps we aren’t traditionally metal enough to be considered for Bloodstock. If anyone is looking for anything a little bit ‘different’ we might be the band for them.

Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?

This will be the first Bloodstock for all of us, but we’re really looking forward to the great mix of bands.

Which M2tM region did you win, or did you come through other channels?

We won the Oxford final….in Northampton (a long story, but a power cut at the Oxford final meant that we were tagged onto the Northampton show instead).

Can you put into 10 words or fewer how it felt when you realised you were heading to Bloodstock?

It was surprising!

What sort of setlist can we expect?

Our songs are fairly long so we will just play a few tracks. We’re really looking forward to bringing our sound to a bigger stage than we are used to.

Which other bands do you most hope you’re not squished up next to so you can see them play?

We’re really looking forward to catching our friends in Grief Ritual who won the Cheltenham final. Cradle of Filth are definitely on our list along with Thy Art is Murder.

What are you working on at the moment?

We are working on new material at the moment and hope to put a new single out before the end of the year. Other than that, we have a few shows booked in around the country, so looking forward to branching out a little further afield

What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?

We’re not particularly wild, so the wild things we’ve seen would be from other bands. Seeing Greg from The Dillinger Escape Plan jump from the balcony at KOKO was pretty insane, and our guitarist Neil also had his head split open by a guitar at one of their shows.

What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?

Most of us normally end up driving to our gigs so it is usually soft drinks for us. Not very rock and roll.

The Hope Burden: facebooktwitterinstagram | youtube

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