Our regular run-down of as many of the upcoming Bloodstock bands as we can get to talk to us! Devil’s Henchmen play the Jager stage on the Sunday…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
Yo yo yo, we all live in South London. Reubs (singer and bass) is born and bred here, he grew up in Croydon and is still there now. Lyle and Rich are both from outside of London, Lyle from Coventry then Rich from near Chester up North, but moved down in 2018/9 after meeting as students up in Leeds, now living in Brixton.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
We unofficially formed in 2019. It’s a bit of a weird story, but Rich our drummer managed to convince the Foo Fighters that it would be a good idea to let him play on stage in front of 10,000 people in Croatia. Nuts, right? When he got back to Brixton, he turned straight to Lyle, the pair were living together in Brixton, and basically said “If that can fucking happen, then anything can… Want to start a band?” and its all kind of snowballed from there.
In the beginning it was pretty slow going as we immediately ran into two problems. Firstly, neither of us could sing and COVID was making the chances of finding a singer nigh on impossible. Then one day, Lyle was in his local record shop in Streatham, when he got a tap on the shoulder. Both the finger and the record shop belonged to Reuben, who noticed Lyle in his signature Show Me The Body T shirt and basically attempted to flog him all the crap records no one was buying!
Fortunately, the two of them got on like a house on fire, instantly hitting it off and weirdly discovering that they were both looking for band mates. It turned out that Reubs was going through some pretty terrible family stuff, his own dad had attempted to kill him, and he was looking for somewhere to hide out and get away from it all. Lyle invited him down to the next practice and for Reubs this turned out to be making music with us idiots and by some crazy divine intervention, Dead Air was born.
Where does the name of the band come from?
Rich actually came up with it, but it took us ages to decide when we were starting out. Too many terrible suggestions to choose from. I think Dead Air just kind of happened, no Real memory of us really deciding on it. We all just thought it was cool and kind of ironic for a musician as it means an unintended period of silence, something we could all do with!
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We started as a band in pretty weird circumstances, kind of polar opposite life events that brought us together and is symptomatic of the music we make. Musically, we all love heavy, riff-driven rock, but when we write our own tracks, we mainly focus on where we actually differ taste wise rather than what we love. We want to make something that is unique, rather than just rehashing what we’ve grown up listening to. It’s the same with our lyrics, we like to really tackle our demons head on and talk about actual issues we have, it’s like therapy. We have written about Reuben’s relationship with his dad for example, addiction, anger and also the mental strain that comes from living in a big city. What makes us different we think is that we always try to repurpose these emotions into a positive force, which taken together, creates the uniquely Dead Air sound, both aggressive and vulnerable in equal measure.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
Playing live is the best thing ever. We fucking love it, it’s like crack. The fact that that people even buy tickets to come and see us still blows our minds, so we put a huge effort in to make sure that when you come to a Dead Air gig, you get a proper fucking rock show. All our tunes were written live, jamming as a group, so our music is meant to be listened to in that context, it just sounds better, everything is better live so if you’re reading this, get your ass down to the Jager stage and see it!!!
We actually just filmed a full set from our last headline show in London if you wanted to take a look… [Scroll down to the bottom – Mosh]
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Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?
Nah we haven’t unfortunately but a few of our mates have been and are going this year. It looks mental, we cannot wait.
When/how did you find out you’d been selected to play at Bloodstock?
We found out a few months ago from the legend that is Simon H, who has been organising all the bands for this year. Been a long wait to announce it to our fans but also just for us, August 13th can’t come soon enough!
What sort of setlist can we expect?
Oh its gonna be a big one. We’ve spent the last few months in the studio so have a ton of new music to get out. Think we’ve got 30 mins so its gonna be a high-speed run through, will definitely have the old favourites teeth Grinder, Answer and IDTF and maybe a few surprises up our sleeve… We’ve been known to pull out a cover of Bill Wither’s Use Me after the set so anything could happen!
Which other band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?
Meshuggah 100%. Rich will die when he gets to watch Thomas Haake drum. Knocked Loose too of course and then Megadeth. Pretty mad to be sharing a lineup with these bands its crazy.
What are you working on at the moment?
We’ve been up at Konk Studios actually working on our next four tracks which will start to be released after Bloodstock. We are also setting up our first European and potentially US tour which is nuts. Rich has traded in his car for a van and once the tunes are out, we are going to convert it into a rolling studio/house on wheels which we can use to take us out on the road.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Christ, not sure about this one, been a few weird encounters but usually it’s just us being fucking stupid. There have been a few times, usually near the end of a gig, when Rich has had to stop himself being sick or dying from dehydration. The man likes to go in on those drums. We’ve seen some mad stuff at a night we’ve played in Camden a few times too, there was this one artist who came on stage dressed as a pregnant alien which live wires coming off them, that was pretty different, but they smashed it. Aliens ey?
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
Every show we do begins with a group shot of whisky or whatever is cheapest, we aren’t picky, it’s like a band prayer or some shit like that and just takes the edge off before going in for an hour of musical exercise.
