After watching Demoraliser destroy people during their set on the main stage, Sam Axup and Alex McGougan decided to interview them and find out how they felt their set went and to see what they have planned for the future!
How do you think your set went?
Sam Jarvis (guitar): The crowd enjoyed it but some of us felt that we were a bit off and it wasn’t the best we could do.
Mat Ombler (drums): We had a few technical difficulties from the start because we didn’t use our own gear. It’s not the best excuse but things like Jarv’s (Sam Jarvis) guitar cut out and it took us ages to get Nath’s (Nathan Smith) guitar working at the start and then something else went tits up. The first half was riddled with technical difficulties but I think the second half was decent. The crowd reaction was fucking ace.
Are you looking forward to seeing any other bands tonight?
Sam: I’m looking forward to seeing Defeater, I haven’t seen them yet. I’ve listened to them for ages and I’m glad I’ve got the chance to see them here. Emmure, purely because they’re heavy as fuck.
Mat: All Shall Perish, and maybe a bit of Emmure.
What can you tell us about the new album?
Sam: It’s heavy. Full of riffs. It’s different to our old stuff that was more two step parts but now we’re more melodic.
Mat: Compared to Conveyance and Reform Repent Revenge, it’s got a hell of a lot more melody and harmonizing compared to just two step bits and beatdowns. It’s probably the best thing we’ve written so far. We can’t wait for everyone else to hear it.
What are your plans for the rest of the year?
Sam: We’re touring with Deez Nuts in August, that should be good. We’re hopefully going to tour Europe as well in August as well after the Deez Nuts tour. And then we might have something panned in September involving UK and Europe.
Mat: We’ve got a couple of one-offs just scattered around as well.
What made you want to start a band?
Sam: We were all in bands ages a go and it was all the same band apart from Mat. Then Nathan went off to Uni and started writing loads of stuff and we thought ‘lets do this as a summer band’. Then we did a few gigs over the summer and it picked up really well from there so we wanted to carry on doing it. Then Ombler joined half way through the year after our old drummer left. He puts on gigs so we played gigs for him, barely getting money for the bridge toll.
Mat: I found out about these guys and put them on a show and we got talking through that and when their drummer left, they rang me up and asked me if wanted to fill in for the Post Mortem Promises tour. Then after that I stayed on for full.
What advice would you give to other upcoming bands?
Sam: Just give your stuff away for free. If you record a small EP, make loads of copies and hand them out for free at gigs or put them up for free download.
Mat: Have as much stuff up as you can for free. There’s no point starting a band page with nothing on it. The first and most important thing you need to prioritise is getting tracks up there for free.
Sam: Yeah, the worst thing to do is make a band page and be like ‘hey guys, check us out, we’re in this band. We haven’t got any tracks up’. Don’t do that. Get tracks up and dish them out.
Mat: At the end of the day, if someone checks out your band page and you’ve got no tracks on it, they’re not going to check it out again. What you want them to do is check out your page, they hear a track: ‘cool, this is fucking ace’. Then they’ll check it out again. Just give everything out for free, people don’t pay for things. They either can’t afford to or they don’t want to so give everything out for free and give away free CDs and downloads and try and get your name out as much as possible.
Did you party last night?
Sam: Erm, yeah, a bit, a bit too much. I had to go to bed quite early because I was pretty fucked.
Mat: There were a lot of miscellaneous pharmaceuticals going around so we were in a pretty reasonable state by about one in the morning. Then it got to the point where we thought ‘right, kinda needed to chill out a bit’. Dex (James Dexter, vocals) stayed up till six and woke up at about eleven so it was a pretty fucking rough night last night, it was a laugh.
Are there any other upcoming bands you want people to look out for?
Sam: The Departed, they’re from Grimsby too and they’re really good.
Mat: Malevolence, they’re heavy as fuck. Never Cry Wolf likewise. Desolated, The Colour Line, all our mates really. People really do need to check our more bands from the UK just come down to more shows. If you see that there’s a show on in your town, go to it instead of just sitting at home on Facebook. At the end of the day, the more people that come, it’s better for everyone. People have more fun if there’s a load of other people there and the bands have more fun and it gives. It also gives confidence in local promoters if theres a big turnout. I’ve seen people bitch on Facebook saying ‘oh, no big bands come to my city’ blah blah blah. If they want big bands to come to their cities, they need to support the smaller bands because that in return gives confidence to local promoters who become willing to put their balls on the line for bigger bands. I could rant on for ages but I won’t!
Valkyrian Music 