It’s that time of year again, when in the run-up to Bloodstock we endeavour to interview every band gracing the SOPHIE, New Blood and Jägermeister stages from 8th – 11th August 2019. This means you’ve got a chance to read up on all your favourite bands set to play over the weekend and decide which new ones you’ll want to check out.
As ever, we’re predicting some horrible clashes because, true to form, there are some great bands across all three stages so you should start planning who you want to see.
Our thanks to all the bands / artists for taking the time out to answer our questions!
Stormcast – New Blood Stage, Saturday
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are from all over the place – literally! Although we rehearse in Brighton, Dinko (drums) lives in Eastbourne and Diogo (guitar) in Horley. Originally, myself and Panos (bass) are from Cyprus, Dinko is from Bosnia and Diogo is Portuguese.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
With the current line-up, about a year now, but the band has existed since 2007 when I started it with a different line-up in Cyprus. The band officially ‘migrated’ to the UK about 3-4 years ago.
Where does the name of the band come from?
The band name represents something violent and impactful yet majestic and beautiful at the same time, like a storm, and that’s what we aim to bring to you with our music!
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
I think the fact that I’ve always been inspired by a variety of different kinds of metal, and other music in general, has always helped me write music that gives it a sort of “Stormcast sound” – when I try to put a label on it, I can’t, and I like that! There’s a lot of influence from bands like Rotting Christ, Gojira, a bit of Opeth, Hypocrisy, Dark Tranquility… even a bit of Porcupine Tree at times!
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
I feel that currently our live show is the best it’s ever been. Our live performance was always a strong point for us but now I feel it’s at its best. We can’t force people to come and watch us, especially early on a Saturday morning, but for those who are in the New Blood Stage tent we promise to give them a hell of a show!
Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?
Our drummer, Dinko, has been to Bloodstock a number of times before, as he had also performed with his other band Vehement 3 years ago. The rest of us haven’t been before, but from what we’ve heard and seen from pictures and videos online, we can’t wait!
Which M2tM region did you win, or did you come through other channels?
M2tM Brighton.
Can you put into 10 words or fewer how it felt when you realised you were heading to Bloodstock?
Total and utter exhilaration with a good dose of panic!
What sort of setlist can we expect?
We’re only playing 4 tracks, all from our recent album The Ghost Eater, but a couple of our songs are a bit long, so we’ll make the most of our half hour slot!
Which other bands do you most hope you’re not squished up next to so you can see them play?
Hypocrisy most of all, also Tesseract, Grand Magus and Wheel are the ones of the top of my head that I’m looking forward to seeing. We really wanted to catch Rotting Christ on the Thursday, but we aren’t able to make it to the festival until the Friday unfortunately.
What are you working on at the moment?
Right now, rehearsing our tracks so we are tight as possible live, as well as looking to book more shows in the UK!
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
I wouldn’t say this was particularly ‘wild’, but definitely the most extraordinary time we played a gig was at an open-air festival in Cyprus that was held in a square next to a port…which happened to have a church literally 20 meters from the stage. I still don’t understand how the organizer got a permit to do the gig there, but anyway, it was funny because Rotting Christ were also headlining and the priest from the church decided to kick up a fuss about the whole thing. It was quite funny!
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
We don’t really drink before shows because we want to avoid making a tit out of ourselves on stage – but after the show we do spend quite a lot of time at the bar!
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