Our regular run-down of as many of the upcoming Bloodstock bands as we can get to talk to us! Rogue Limb play the New Blood stage on the Friday…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We’re from Nottingham! Well, Greg’s from Alfreton and Thew’s from Tamworth, but Nottingham is our home.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
The two of us have played together in a bunch of bands since about 2008, on and off. We decided to make a go as a duo in 2021 while drinking in the Midgard campsite – Rogue Limb was born that day at BOA!
Where does the name of the band come from?
Well, we called ourselves Gorgon Ramsay at first because we thought it was funny, but before long we started to feel like it wasn’t a good fit. I think the name Rogue Limb describes us pretty well – we don’t really feel like we have a snug place in the scene where we truly belong; we’re kinda just this other entity that’s also there, not really slotting cosily into any one label, unpredictable and indefinable. Also we love awkward words with silent letters – the amount of gig posters where we’ve been “Rouge Limb” is absurd!
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Our sound is very riff-led and has its roots in a lot of places on the heavy spectrum – we mostly aim for a fast metalcore vibe like Converge and ETID, but we draw from a ton of other spots like noise rock, post-hardcore, prog, mathcore, death metal, straight up punk rock and a smidge of nu-metal. We stick our influences together like a huge juicy kebab skewered through with a sense of intensity and urgency that makes it uniquely Rogue Limb. I think folks from a lot of crowds will get a kick out of it.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
First of all we’re loud as shit. Because we’re pretty much glued to our gear – Thew behind the drums and Greg manning his massive pedalboard – we bring the energy by playing super hard and bellowing with our whole chests. We like to craft our setlists to take the audience on a journey and blow their minds in a different way with each song.
Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?
Oh hell yeah! This will be Thew’s second and Greg has been a regular since 2010 – he even met his partner at BOA 2013. It’s always a great time with excellent vibes and killer bands. We’re hoping this will be our first of many appearances on the hallowed stage.
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Which M2tM region did you win, or did you come through other channels?
We won the Nottingham region, which was as much of a surprise to us as it was to everyone else! We didn’t even win our heat – we got a spot in the final in the wild card slot. The other bands seemed to love us and we made some great buds on the journey, but it’s still wild that we won. The judges said we were a breath of fresh air, which is very flattering!
Can you put into 10 words or fewer how it felt when you realised you were heading to Bloodstock?
“Pure disbelief, absolutely buzzing, such a huge honour, you motherfucker.” That’s ten.
What sort of setlist can we expect?
We’re gonna bust out the metal and play our Bloodstockiest numbers! You gotta bring the riffs and the twin kicks for Bloodstock and we fully intend to do that. We’ve got a song that’s got a “hey hey hey” moment in it, so hopefully the crowd will oblige us. We might even do the big emotional nine-minuter if you’re lucky.
Stage times haven’t been announced yet, so which other band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?
We’re playing on the Friday and we’re desperate not to clash with Hatebreed or Clutch! They’re long-time idols of ours and we’re pumped to see them light up the main stage. We’re also huge Burner fans so we’d love to catch them. Gonna be a hell of a day!
What are you working on at the moment?
Since we self-released our first album “Actus Reus” last October, we’ve been working on a handful of new tracks which build on our sound and take it to ever wilder places. Our tunes are quite complex so they take a hot minute to finish off, but we’ll be looking to debut some new stuff pretty soon!
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
We’ve seen some wild shit go off at ArcTanGent, like Matt from Heck playing guitar perfectly while crowd-surfing on a rug! We were both at Better Lovers in Notts recently too – the mosh was insane all night and the singer hopped off the balcony into the audience. Never seen a crowd of mostly over-35s go so apeshit. As for us, we’re too preoccupied with playing to do anything too nuts on stage. There’s only two of us, y’know!
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
We keep it pretty clean with a nice ale or a pilsner to loosen up beforehand. We can’t go too hard before we play – our songs are hard as fuck and we’re 40!
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