It’s that time of year where we set out to interview as many of the Sophie, New Blood, and Jager bands as we can in the lead-up to one of the most anticipated festivals of the year, Bloodstock. Answering our questions here are Agrona who play the Sophie Stage on Friday.
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We hail from Cardiff, South Wales – although our vocalist Tereza is originally from the Czech Republic and is now based in North Wales! Makes full practices something more of a challenge but we’re adapting.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
Agrona started back in 2014 with our first live shows happening in 2015. From that line-up Alyn (Aeron), Tim (Kreulon) and Sam (Ankou) are the only three members remaining. Stuart (Arawn) and Tereza (Adara) both joined in 2017. We’re still pretty young as far as a band goes and this particular iteration as a 5-piece feels very fresh, but it feels like forever since we first stepped into a practice room that was a converted garage 7 years ago.
Where does the name of the band come from?
The name “Agrona” is originally taken from the proto-Celtic Goddess of war and death. Specifically, the name is derived from “carnage and slaughter”. In many ways this encompasses both our sound and thematic that we choose to portray when we perform, and it’s got the added bonus of having that bit of Celtic heritage included in it which is something we’re looking to pull from in future.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We play an eclectic mix of extreme metal styles without but primarily drawing from second wave Black Metal – our goal isn’t to be pigeon-holed by putting limits on what we’re willing to try out in order to achieve something uncompromisingly brutal yet equally digestible. Expect furious melodic riffs akin to Dark Funeral mixed with the raucous symphonic bombast of Dimmu/SepticFlesh, then smatterings of all sort of other individual influences. We’re not necessarily inventing a new wheel, but we’re adding a whole bunch of gnarly stuff to the existing one.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
If we’re going to use a cliché, it’s intense. We don’t often take our foot off the gas and when we do it’s to build atmosphere, but ultimately our goal is to have you step back and take in something that feels both epic and furious at the same time. We perform replete with stage armour and where permitted additional props to try and add something visual. Ultimately though it all comes down to us just trying to blow the audiences collective ears out.
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Have you played Bloodstock before? If so, when?
We have had the privilege of playing Bloodstock before back in 2016 through the Metal to the Masses initiative, granted in the time that has passed we have changed a fair bit in terms of line-up and with some of the new material that we will be performing – sound too. It was an unforgettable experience and we’re exceptionally honoured to having been invited back, something that those members who didn’t get perform in the first run will no doubt cherish forever.
How/when did you find out that you’d be playing the SOPHIE stage?
We remember it vividly! We got a phone call from Simon on Pancake day last year of all days and his words were something to the effect of “there’s an opening for a black metal act on the Friday”. We had sent EPK’s and care-packages in the past to demonstrate our interest in returning so to get the nod for this is huge for us, and hopefully shows that using the New Blood experience as a spring-board rather than a one-off is something well worth investing the time into. It definitely felt surreal for a long while as due to the whole COVID scenario we didn’t get announced for a number of months and it was an awful lot of tongue biting while we patiently waited for the official announcement. It’s really given us something amazing to look forward to during a particularly grim time though.
What sort of setlist can we expect?
We’ve curated a set-list that will hopefully excite longer term fans and create a new following, having spent the bulk of 2020 writing new material for our second album we have every intention of working at least a couple of those new tracks into the new set. They’re a little more… grandiose in some ways but still retain our signature extremity. Add in some familiar favourites from our first album and we’re hoping it’ll go down well, particularly given the line-up isn’t necessarily leaning as much towards the “extreme metal” side this year so we’re quietly hoping that people will come and see us to get their fix.
Which other band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?
The ones we’re looking at on other stages that look to be billed around the same sort of time as us are Svalbard, Acid Reign & our local M2TM winners Pearler. Not to mention directly after us are the incredible Dog Tired who are a real class act. Sadly with the way loading in and unloading works the likely-hood is that we’ll miss out on these stunning acts and we envy the crowd that’ll be able to dip and dash between the stages to see them. We are definitely looking forward to seeing our friends in Necronautical play on the Sunday and Deitus on the New Blood stage seem like they’ll be right up our street.
What are you working on at the moment?
The big one that’s no secret is album two. It’s pretty much entirely written and we’re just at the point of honing in on the practices before finally hitting up the studio. We’ve had a ton of delays with that due to constant changes in direction with regards to the lockdown in Wales that have pushed back the producer’s availability and schedule since we initially announced it so we’re really looking forward to getting it out there. It should showcase something of a slightly more refined and cohesive identity for us, but will definitely not fall short on the heaviness.
Beyond that we’ve got a couple of shows that are announced that we’re really looking forward to playing at after Bloodstock, and some shows lined up that haven’t been announced yet that should turn a few heads too. The return of live music in 2021 and 2022 look to be exciting years for us!
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What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
The Vital Remains vocalist jumping off a balcony at The Globe in Cardiff was pretty mental back when they played there with Gorgoroth, security definitely looked like they were about to lose the plot. Crowd-surfing wheelchairs during Suicidal Tendancies at Bloodstock in the past is also up there, certainly beats Gutalax’s propensity for crowd-surfing portaloos…
Can’t say we do anything quite as radical as a lot of our contemporaries, and Bloodstock will probably be quite pleased to know we don’t use any real blood (here’s looking at you Watain).
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
As a band, we’re quite partial to some rum – normally Bumbu, but following our performance at Bloodstock this year we’ve got a particularly tasty bottle of mead to crack open to celebrate that we’re really looking forward to polishing off!
