Bloodstock Bound: Thrashist Regime
As Bloodstock gets closer, we delve deep into the line up to find out more about some of the bands playing the New Blood and EMP stages at this years event.
Today we chat with Thrashist Regime
The Razor's Edge: Please introduce yourself and your band mates.
Thrashist Regime: I’m Joe, the singer of Thrashist Regime. On guitars we have Rich and Kyle, on drums we have Dan and on bass we have Gary. We’re from Aberdeen in Scotland and have so far released two albums, which everyone should definitely check out, especially the second one Carnival of Monsters. This whole thrash band debacle was an idea of mine and Kyle’s nearly 18 years ago and somehow we’ve been mostly getting away with it ever since.
The Razor's Edge: How would you describe your sound?
Thrashist Regime: I mean, the clue’s in the name right? It’s thrash, metal’s funnest, fastest genre. I sometimes tell people not into metal that I’m in a thrash band and reactions range from confused to mildly horrified. I think people outside the metal world have no idea that everything isn’t just death metal. I have to explain that thrash isn’t the scary one, it’s the one where people wear shorts and have fun. I mean, I know that even within thrash there are various angles that bands can take, from poker-faced Satan-obsessed brutal shouters to melodic mad tech stuff. We cover various bits of the spectrum. We’re not very Satany. We quite like taking mundane or slightly ridiculous concepts and then having fun with them. Our subject matter includes The A-Team, a conceptual trilogy of songs about a Spider-Man comic book, Universal Soldier, ants attacking Antarctica, Shadow of the Colossus, zombie apocalypse, and of course the time my local rural pub in the village I’m from blew up in a gigantic gas explosion that razed it from the face of the Earth. I’ve also just written some lyrics for a song nominally about Time team.
The Razor's Edge: How did you land your spot on the Bloodstock bill?
Thrashist Regime: I saw one of the bookers post on Facebook that they were taking applications for the EMP and New Blood stages. I actually cut and pasted exactly the same email I sent him the year previously which got no response but this year I guess he actually read it and checked us out and liked what he heard. It was a massive surprise and very exciting to be offered a slot.
The Razor's Edge: What does playing at Bloodstock mean to you?
Thrashist Regime: It’s fantastic. I love Bloodstock. To actually be playing it having attended multiple times to see bands I love, well, it’s a dream come true, honestly! We’ve played with some great bands over the years – we’ve been lucky enough to open for Death Angel, and Exodus, and been on a bill with Evile and some other personal heroes, but this tops everything!
The Razor's Edge: For people who’ve never seen you live, what can they expect at Bloodstock?
Thrashist Regime: Fast fun upbeat thrash, hopefully some furious headbanging from the people down the front, a terrible joke or two, loud guitars and an even louder pair of shorts.
The Razor's Edge: What day are you performing?
Thrashist Regime: We’re on Saturday, I believe at some point in the afternoon.
The Razor's Edge: What other bands are you looking forward to watching at Bloodstock this year?
Thrashist Regime: There’s some great stuff on the bill. Obviously all the thrash - Flotsam and Jetsam, Warbringer, Desolator… Nailbomb. I mean that will be awesome. Also Machine Head (even though Rob Flynn wrote his best songs when he was in Forbidden) and One Machine. Ministry. Plenty of other stuff too.
The Razor's Edge: Playing the EMP Stage is just the first steppingstone in a bands journey. What’s next in your plans for world domination?
Thrashist Regime: We’re balls deep in preparations for our third full-length album. It’s all written and demoed, we’ve started tracking the guitars, so we’re just learning to play all the material altogether in a room. It takes a long time for us to write and record – most of us have families and kids and life has an exceedingly irritating habit of getting in the way. We had hoped it would be out this year, but obviously that’s probably not very likely now. But it’s going to be brilliant. It’s a great clutch of songs. In our first ever line-up change we brought Gary into the band on bass a couple of years ago and it really gave us a huge kick up the arse. So once it’s recorded and out we’ll hopefully get out on the road and do a bit of gigging.
The Razor's Edge: Are you camping with the fans? Which campsite are you heading for?
Thrashist Regime: Everything sold out in about two seconds, way before we even applied to play, so we’ll be camping in the artists’ site because it was the only one available! Hopefully we’ll get to see Fear Factory bin-jousting with Emperor or something equally fun.
The Razor's Edge: You’ve gotta keep hydrated at Bloodstock, what is your drink of choice for the weekend?
Thrashist Regime: My wife is Greek and I’ll be flying in for the festival direct from Athens so my tipple will be a big bottle of the finest ouzo! As a band our fuel tends to be cider. Let’s give a mention to Thistly Cross, which is a pretty devastating brew.
The Razor's Edge: See you at Bloodstock in a few weeks!
Thrashist Regime: See you there! Can’t wait. Cheers guys!
