Bloodstock Bound: Imbrium
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 IMBRIUM
Please introduce yourselves.
Hello there! Speaking to you during this interview is going to be myself [Alex – Keys] and I’ll have the pleasure of introducing the rest of the guys:
* On main vocals we have the great-and-powerful: Luke Jackson
* On guitars, the man with the pepsi max cans: Ben Scott
* On bass, we have our good friend Anthony Quinn who abandoned the ‘north’ for London, we still haven’t forgiven him!
* And finally, James Smith on drums, who when not drumming could be in full medieval armour or panning for gold in rivers, who could say!
How would you describe your sound?
Well, to keep things simple we could say ‘Heavy Progressive Metal’ even though for now we’re not pushing the boat out ‘prog’ wise too hard. We’re definitely working on that for the next record but for now the title ‘progressive’ leaves the door open for us to write without too many boundaries on ourselves creatively.
How did you land your spot on the Bloodstock bill?
We were lucky enough to come in through alternative means [other than the M2TM competition] to get our slot at this year’s Bloodstock Open Air, something we’re all extremely proud and grateful for!
What does playing at Bloodstock mean to you?
When we started IMBRIUM it was always our first goal. Think of it like our initial marker of success. We said to ourselves ‘if we can accomplish all the things that we’ve planned out, and time them right, we’re in with a good chance of getting a slot on the Bloodstock New Blood Stage, and if we do, we must be doing something right’. That seemed to have happened so we guess we’re doing something right!
Alongside this, BOA has been a part of all our personal histories, a lot of us were at the 2nd ever Bloodstock Open Air. The fest has always championed grassroots and underground metal so we’re honoured to be a part of that.
For people who’ve never seen you live, what can they expect at Bloodstock?
For those of you and your readers who know of our debut EP ‘Singularity’, the setlist is a special front-to-back live run through of the EP as you would hear it playing the record. We’re all quite proud of the flow of the record and we’re excited to bring that into a live context!
What day are you performing?
That’s going to be Saturday the 8th on the New Blood Stage!
What other bands are you looking forward to watching at Bloodstock this year?
First of all, we’re stoked that there’s several of our good friends playing the festival as well, and we’re looking forward seeing and supporting them. To name a few; our previous-gig-mates and cinematic djent masters Vanitas. Then a good personal friend of ours plays bass in Imperial Age so it’s going be great to see Dan hit the BOA mainstage, plus with a few of us being northerners we’re going to be stoked to see Manchester lads Technologist who just won M2TM Manchester.
Plus, generally sticking around the New Blood and EMP stages to catch all the other great upcoming rising metal bands!
Then when it comes to the bigger bands there’s a lot of varied music taste between our members but we’re definitely going to be sticking around for Leprous, Nevermore, Orbit Culture, Trivax and of course how could we not pay our respects to Rob Halford and Judas Priest to wrap the whole thing up!
Playing the New Blood Stage is just the first steppingstone in a bands journey. What’s next in your plans for world domination?
Right now we’re gearing up for the Bloodstock show to give it everything we’ve got, but alongside all this we’re currently setting our goals and targets for this ‘next-phase’ of IMBRIUM. Getting to play BOA was always the first goal / marker of success when starting this band and now we’re there, its all about deciding what the next marker is going to be! And of course, we’re in the continuous process of writing material for the next IMBRIUM record
Are you camping with the fans? Which campsite are you heading for?
Well, whilst we can neither confirm nor deny that tents will be involved in our time at Bloodstock this year, when we first started coming there was only Midgard so its very interesting to look at Midgard now and visualise how it looked back in 2006! In more recent years Ironwood was the camp of choice, however as mentioned before, tents are dubious for us on this occasion!
You’ve gotta keep hydrated at Bloodstock, what is your drink of choice for the weekend?
Hydration is key! Similar to music taste, there’s a wide variety of alcohol preference in IMBRIUM but without speaking to everyone, we can still make a pretty good guess that the immediate-post-set pourings of drink will look like the below:
* Anthony [Bass] and James [Drums] will immediately be on the cask ale, think whatever medieval knights and squires would be drinking, likely in the Hobgoblin tent!
* Myself [Alex -Keys] and Luke [Vocals] will be cracking open a bottle of dark spiced rum, Kraken or the classic Captain Morgans
* Ben [Guitars] – Continuing into his 24-pack-crate of Pepsi Max
See you at Bloodstock in a few weeks!
See you guys there! Horns up!
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