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 is Tarquin from Basement Torture Killings who play the Sophie stage on the Thursday.
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are from the across the UK and spread across the South West and London.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
The band originated in 2007 and was really started as a joke more than anything else. I was visiting a friend who was living in Sweden at the time and we decided to write and record a song after being inspired by a Grave show that we went to the night before. I remember that we wrote and recorded the whole track in a morning and I then created a Myspace page for the band that evening whilst at the airport. One thing lead to another and here we are today. The line up has changed a bit over the years but the core members of this current incarnation have been playing together since 2013 I think.
Where does the name of the band come from?
BTK was taken from the killer of the same name (Dennis Rader) who was based in Wichita in Kansas. We didn’t want to just take the initials though as a few bands had used that, as such we came up with Basement Torture Killings which fits to the initials.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
I guess that we fit in the Gore Grind scene and we are heavily influenced by bands such as Carcass, Exhumed, Haemorrhage, Impaled etc. However we have also started introducing more a thrash metal element to our sand in recent years which I don’t think is as prevalent in other bands of our style. We also play a lot of importance on our image and visual presentation of the band
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
I think our live show is one of our strongest assets and this is something that has been commented on time and time again. We always strive to be as tight as possible and the show is always intense with a lot of energy. But at the same time we try to ensure that the show incorporates a lot of visual elements as well, our singer tends to dissects teddies on stage and chuck bloody body parts all over the place. As for why people will watch us than no one else I guess the obvious answer is we are on first and the only band playing, but if the question is why they should bother checking us out then the answer is that it will be one of the most intense shows of the weekend and the perfect way to gig of the festival, their will also be a lot of bloody mayhem and a very special surprise for our older fans.
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Have you played Bloodstock before? If so, when?
No this is our first time and we are super excited to be playing
How/when did you find out that you’d be playing the SOPHIE stage?
I was actually at work in the middle of a meeting when the email popped up on my phone, it was a bit of a surprise and the rest of the meeting was a bit of a blur as I was more bothered about contacting the rest of the band
What sort of setlist can we expect?
We will be playing stuff from all of our albums. It’s a short set and we also have something planned that is unlikely to be repeated which will see us playing some very old songs as well. Some of which we haven’t played for more than a decade.
Which other band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?
As I said we aren’t clashing with but there are a few bands across the weekend that I really don’t want to miss such as Exodus, Vio-lence, Mercyful Fate, Behemoth and a few other bands on the main stage. I also really want to check out scene mates in Party Cannon and Crepitation. It’s amazing that we are all getting to play this together
What are you working on at the moment?
At the moment we are still very much in the process of supporting our last album Lessons in Murder with a bunch of live shows, Bloodstock is the first of 7 dates that we have planned across August. After we have finished up with those I think we will be looking to do a video and then maybe starting to write the next album or EP.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Wow that’s a question and a half. We did have a blood soaked communion on stage once where we gave someone some blood to drink (it was wine or was it?) and eat the communion wafer before drenching them in blood. It was before our song “Kill For Satan”. There have been a few other things here and there that have been quite mad. I used to play in a black metal band and saw quite a lot of crazy things in the 90s at various BM shows, but the less said the better I think about some of those!
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
The blood of fresh victims! Either that or a beer and some water…
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Basement Torture Killings: official | facebook | bandcamp | youtube
