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Wigan’s premiere death-grind band Heaven
Bleeds are currently one of the fastest growing bands in the UK extreme
metal scene. No surprise, as Matt (Vocals), Dan (Guitar) and Keith
(drums) are also one of the hardest-working bands in the country,
showing an unparalleled amount of dedication to their craft that puts
many bands to shame. After an appearance in UK extreme magazine
Terrorizer, the boys could only move on upwards, and so took a quick
five minutes out of their non-stop campaign for musical supremacy to
make sure they got the chance to appear in the one and only ‘LINC.
How did you all meet?
Dan: We originally met in February this year, we all came together from
different bands. The line up as it is now is from March, but the original
line-up that recorded “Angels Cry” is from February.
Matt: That was our first track. It wasn’t too good but we thought it was
at the time. After that we lost our original drummer. Matt knew another
drummer which was this guy (Points to Keith)
Dan: We’re basically a culmination of different bands that’ve come
together over the last three years. I found was in a band, found a
different band, found Matt, he found Keith, and that’s it.
Keith: Me and Matt were in a band together before. Well, we tried to, we
never actually did anything, but since then we’ve always kept in
contact.
Dan: I think that’s the main point with us though. We’ve all been in
bands that have just kind of fallen apart…
Matt: Well, not in Keith’s case. In his case we just stole him.
Keith, why did you decide to leave your old band and join Heaven Bleeds?
Keith: It’s more my style of music basically.
So what sort of stuff where you playing before?
Matt: ahem-emo-ahem.
Keith: It was actually kind of hardcore stuff, but the sort of stuff we
play as Heaven Bleeds is definitely more to my style of drumming.
What inspires you to play this sort of music and form a band like Heaven
Bleeds?
Dan: I just listen to a lot of extreme music and that just makes me want
to pick up a guitar and play the sort of music that I like. Once I could
play it, then I just wanted to make my own version of it, and push it as
extreme as it could go.
Matt: I just wanted to be in an extreme band like this because I’m an
angry little man!
Dan: Yeah, Matt’s got ‘Little Man Syndrome’! I’ve got ‘Can’t Stop
Shredding Syndrome’ and Keith’s got ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Emo Syndrome’, so
we all came together through our syndromes and… No, seriously, everybody
got into Slipknot first, you know, ‘cos they’re heavy. Then I got into
bands like Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, and all that. I started learning
all their songs, then that made me want to push it further and do my own
thing. Then it was just a case of finding somebody who could sing to it
and somebody who could drum to it.
Matt: So I came along, and then we poached Keith. Well, we didn’t poach
him, we stood on his doorstep at half ten just like ‘join us! Join us!’
Dan: Yeah (To Keith) you had the measles at the time didn’t you?
Keith: The mumps.
Matt: Yeah, so he was quarantined and we turned up at his house when he
had the mumps with a CD of my guitar riffs and just said ‘Drum to this.’
Dan: Yeah, his mum said he couldn’t come down, so we just thought if he
couldn’t come to us, we’d go to him. This was after we’d just split with
our last drummer and the band had fallen apart. We picked it up, dusted
it off and said to Keith ‘Look, you’re drumming for us.’
Matt: The original thing Keith said to us was: ‘look, I’ll come down, do
some drumming for you, maybe record until you find a proper drummer.’ We
were just like ‘yeah, whatever.’
Dan: At that point though, our original drummer knew he was out. We were
trying to write the next song on from ‘Angel’s Cry’, but we’d been
kicked out of our rehearsal space by the old men at the labour club
where we practised. Matt knew Keith’s band.
Keith: We did a joint practice one night, these guys paid half, my old
band paid half and we had half a session each. Dan was playing the same
song over and over again trying to get his drummer to play it, but it
wasn’t working. We had the two kits set up, so I just started playing
along, and Dan turned to me and said ‘Have you got any ideas’, and we
started playing together. Our old drummer just threw a hissy fit and
stormed off.
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So have you had any teething problems since you got together then?
Matt: Well, there’s lovers tiffs between these two, but that’s it.
Keith: Us two? You two!
Dan: Yeah, Matt, it’s definitely between us two. If you talk about
Heaven Bleeds now, I don’t think there’s been any teething problems
really.
Matt: Other than finding a place to practice AND THAT.
Dan: Musically, we’re all on the same page. Like Sunday, we went into
the studio and came out with a whole new song straight off the bat and
finished.
Matt: I think the main problem we’ve got now is getting gigs and finding
the right audience for what we do.
Dan: That’s it. I mean, there’s loads of good scenes around the country
for what we do, and we’ve had good gigs in Liverpool and that, but we
really just wanna play Wigan! We’ve had one Wigan gig so far and that
was a Battle Of The Bands.
How come you can’t get more gigs in your hometown?
Dan: Well I mean Club Nirvana’s become like a really premiere site now
hasn’t it? There’s a good chance we’re getting on there in December,
fingers crossed. It’s just really hard work getting a gig in Wigan.
Matt: Unless you’re in with the ‘Collective, then it’s really hard to
get a gig because they book them just with kind of Wigan bands who are
normally indie bands and not like us.
Dan: I actually can’t think of one Wigan band, bar Narcosis who I
actually enjoy listening to. Strain have got it, but it’s just not as
extreme as I really like.
Matt: At the end of the day we’re just fast, loud and aggressive and
those are the sort of bands we should be getting booked with. We just
wanna make noise really.
What happened at Top Spot?
Keith: We were totally mis-billed.
Matt: Definitely mis-billed.
Dan: We destroyed it, really destroyed it. The microphone ended up in
the crowd at one point.
Matt: We thought it was gonna be a good gig though because there were
barriers up, so we just thought ‘right, we’re gonna go for it’, and we
did, but there was nobody there!
Dan: Well, there was about 30, 40 people.
Keith: They couldn’t mic my kit up because there wasn’t enough mics.
Dan: You do have a mammoth kit. Keith’s like the Tommy Lee of death
metal; we just need the revolving cage and stuff now. But anyway, what
was the question again?
Topspot…
Dan: Oh yeah. We got put on with a band called Throttle, who were really
good for what they were, but it just wasn’t the kind of band we
should’ve been on with.
Matt: What we’d love to do is get a gig in Wigan and bring some bands
with us, show Wigan that death metal does have somewhere to go.
Dan: We’re death-grind actually. We haven’t given ourselves that slogan,
somebody else did, but we’ll go for it.
Matt: I think we’ve actually invented a new genre!
Dan: Yeah, anyway. I don’t think we were what they were expecting.
Especially with the stage show as well. We really do put on a show and
just go mental. People just watch us and go “What the hell is that?”
Matt: We’d love to play there again, but only if we get on the right
bill.
Do you find that a lot then? Is it hard playing the sort of music you
play to get gigs?
Dan: Yeah, definitely. People are used to the same old same old. I’m not
saying that what we do is brand new, but we put a new spin on it.
Matt: There’s a bar in Manchester where we play, and we’ve played there
four times now, so you’d think they’d get used to us and what we sound
like. Instead though we keep getting put on with indie bands, emo bands,
hardcore bands. We’ve never been on with bands who are like us that that
would make for a better gig.
Dan: I just don’t think people know what to expect when they see us
live, we’re loud and fast and we just throw ourselves all over the
place.
Matt: That was best, we played a gig somewhere and the owners told us
‘stay behind the speakers, don’t come forward’. And we were just like
‘yeah? Watch this!’ and went all over the place, straight into the
crowd.
Dan: They’ve asked us back though.
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You all seem like really calm, ‘nice’ lads, but yet you play this really
aggressive, angry sort of music. When you get on stage as Heaven Bleeds
is that like some sort of release?
Matt: I think so. I mean, I go from being ‘normal’ to this angry
little…thing!
Dan: He’s like the missing dwarf from Snow White. There was angry dwarf,
and grumpy dwarf, and then there was ‘Black Metal Dwarf’!
Matt: It kind of hurts after a gig because you’re throwing yourself
about the place and getting so worked up in your performance.
Dan: You feel almost cleansed afterwards though, you just feel far more
relaxed. It’s like, we’ll play a gig, and then apart from Keith, who’s
just so cheery afterwards, we stay away from each other for about half
an hour.
Why is that?
Dan: I think it’s because we work ourselves up so much when we’re up
there, we just need to be on our own and ease off. It’s like coming
down. I mean, we love being on stage, we are so in our element.
Matt: One of the best moments for all of us was when we played Chicago
Rock (At the aforementioned Battle Of The Bands). We just stopped in the
middle of the set and all we could hear was people shouting ‘Heaven
Bleeds! Heaven Bleeds!’ That was such a buzz!
So if you have to ‘come down’ from a gig, do you have to work yourself
up into that state to go and perform?
Dan: No, no. As soon as I hit that guitar at the start of the first
song, that’s it I’m off. As soon as the music starts we all just go
mental.
Matt: That’s it. I mean, I’ve turned up for practice in a bad mood and
just said ‘Not today, I’m not singing. I’m not doing it.’ And then as
soon as I hear it, I’m off.
Dan: I think that’s why we play so well, because we’re just so switched
on to what we’re doing. I mean, I don’t sleep the night before a gig, I
can’t, I’m just too excited.
Keith: You wake up in the middle of the night don’t you like, ‘I’ll pick
up my guitar and practice that, just one more time’.
Dan: Yeah yeah, that’s definitely it. I end up knocking something over
when my sleep and it wakes me up, then I’m like “Oh no,” ‘cos I can hear
a riff in that. So I try and go back to sleep and convince myself I’ll
remember it in the morning. Instead though I end up sat up till like,
four in the morning writing a new song.
Matt: We never ever switch this off. We’d never consider this to be a
‘garage band’; we’re totally serious about what we’re doing. It’ll be
like, we’ll see somebody stood on a street corner who looks even
remotely like they’re into metal, and we rush up to them with a flyer
for our next gig.
Dan: We’ve had our problems, but we just keep pushing it and pushing it
and pushing it. We’ll never stop working for this band and trying to get
as far on as we can.
Keith: It’s the same with the music though. We’ll push each other in
practice to go faster and faster.
Dan: It’s good though because there’s a fine line between it being too
fast so that you can’t tell what’s going on and it being fast but you
can still appreciate it.
Matt: It is really intense though, sometimes we get so angry with what
we’re doing because it’s not coming out right that sometimes we wonder
if the band will even stay together?
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Is that personal animosity, or just the nature of the beast?
Matt: It’s nothing personal no, it’s just because of how into what we’re
doing we all are.
You get to the end of a song and then ten minutes later you’re all
chilled out again.
Dan: We’ve got a song called ‘Fury’ that is perfectly titled because
from the second it opens its just full on.
Keith: We just all go for it, start a song, and then race each other to
get to the end.
Dan: We must be doing something right though to look at how far we’ve
come in the last eight months. We can’t be rubbish if we’ve come this
far. To get into Terrorizer, and to have US labels looking at us and
stuff.
Matt: We were all just so, so happy to be in that magazine, for them to
contact us first and everything.
Matt: Dan nearly had a guitar endorsement.
Dan: Yeah, I was contacted by Halo guitars, but it’s not really what I
wanted because I’m not really a fan of their guitars. But Metal Blade
Records are looking at us; they’ve asked us for a CD.
So what’s the highest point you want to get to?
Dan: There isn’t one. Contentment is the death of dreams. We thought our
early stuff was good, but then looking at it, we’re just like ‘that
could be better, that could be faster.
We want to reach high in the sense that we want to be signed to a good
label, with somebody who can look after us, but we’ll always push it and
move on.
Do you think it is possible for bands like yourselves to achieve the
same success as more ‘mainstream’ metal bands like Trivium, Slipknot et
all?
DAN: Maybe not to the extent of those bands no, I mean, you look at
Trivium, it’s just stupid how big they’ve got to, not many bands can do
that. Extreme and death metal bands can make it big though. Earache
Records, they had Napalm Death originally, and now they’ve got The
Haunted. You can’t consider those bands ‘mainstream’ but they do have a
large following. You look at bands like Cannibal Corpse who are on Metal
Blade, yet they have a huge following. I think what you’ve gotta do
though, is just put in the ground work [to get people to support you]
which is what we’re doing.
KEITH: At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who we’re signed to or
how many fans we have as long as we keep pushing the music, getting
heavier and heavier, faster and faster.
DAN: We’ve been to the lowest point we can get, but we’ve also been to
the highest point so far, and we don’t mind going in between those two
points because it keeps our feet on the ground. I don’t think we’ll ever
take our feet off the ground or get our heads in the clouds because we
all genuinely want to work hard, and it’s starting to pay off.
MATT: You’ve seen how many fans we’ve got on Myspace.
DAN: Yeah, something like 1000 and something. That’s through hours of
coffee and late nights staying up and getting people to listen to our
music.
How does it feel to be in Terrorizer?
DAN: It’s amazing. That magazine is out in Canada, America, all of
Europe, Australia and some other places. Smiths in Wigan have sold out!
KEITH: I bought at least three copies!
MATT: Just think all those magazines though, that’s a lot, a lot of
people who’ll hear our music.
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We were speaking about Trivium before…
DAN: Yeah, we nearly had the chance to play with them.
Really?
DAN: Yeah, what it was, I was down in Newport and had some CDs on me and
went to a club called TJs. Trivium were supposed to be playing there,
and I set up a meeting with one of the promoters. I gave him the CD and
he liked it and was trying to put us on. It turned out though that sadly
RoadRunner [Records] had a policy that barred smaller bands from
playing.
We almost got a gig with Cradle Of Filth at the Academy, but that fell
through as well.
KEITH: Johnny Truant like us.
DAN: Yeah, Johnny Truant know us. I went watching Raging Speedhorn, and
I talk to Jay [Thompson, Raging Speedhorn guitarist] on the Internet. He
quite likes us, and he’s buying a Terrorizer because of us. But yeah,
anyway, Johnny Truant were supporting Raging Speedhorn, and I was
speaking to one of them later and I was like ‘Yeah, I’m in Heaven
Bleeds’ and he’d heard our stuff and was quite into it. We’re definitely
starting to get somewhere.
So what’s the ideal gig for Heaven Bleeds?
MATT: One with lots of people. Napalm Death, Circle Of Dead Children
[Also playing], in Donnington.
DAN: Right, let’s do this: Donnington Festival is pure death metal, and
it’s got Circle Of Dead Children, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Napalm Death,
Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse…
KEITH: Heaven Bleeds…
DAN: Obviously, erm..The Haunted…
KEITH: Green Day.
[Laughter]
DAN: Yeah, they’d be the piñata. Then we’d have Johnny Truant, Raging
Speedhorn, Dillinger Escape Plan… To be honest though, I think a great
gig would just be one where there’s a fantastic turn out.
MATT: With people who are into it. Even a tiny place like this [The
Tudor] would be great if it was packed out with people who loved it and
more bands like us.
DAN: We’re playing a Zombiefest on The 4th November in Bolton and that’s
gonna be packed out.
What kind of themes do you write your songs about?
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MATT: Most of the time I don’t even know myself! Generally though, the
first song we wrote, I have no idea where that came from. I stayed awake
for three days coming up with something and it just came out. Then we
did ‘Edge Of Reason’, which was because we were getting to that point in
the band where I just didn’t have a clue what was going on any more it
was going that fast.
‘Last hour’ is a joke name because that’s only a 12-second song.
DAN: A lot of what Matt writes matches the music perfectly. It’s just
all weird and with a twist. That’s why I would’ve loved to have played
the John Peel events, because he was the one who really pushed Napalm
Death. John Peel supported the underground scene so much. It annoys me
that all the John Peel events were made up of indie bands. I really
don’t remember Peel pushing indie bands too much because it was already
out there. I know he had a hand in the dance scenes because he was
always at Creamfields, but if John Peel hadn’t lived Napalm Death
wouldn’t be where they’re at today. If John Peel hadn’t pushed Napalm
Death, Napalm Death wouldn’t have influenced me, and we wouldn’t be at
the stage we’re at.
MATT: That’s what we want really, just a chance to see what we can do.
DAN: Not to see what we can do, we know what we can do. We want to show
you what we can do. We just want people to give us the time of day,
which is going to happen. But anyway, just thought I’d get that off my
chest, the John Peel thing annoyed me.
Just speaking a bit about influences. On your website, Keith has Travis
Barker [The Transplants, ex- Blink 182] and Matt has Dexter Holland [The
Offspring]. Both are a million miles away from the Heaven Bleeds sound.
Do those influences fit into what you do at all?
MATT: They don’t really. Maybe a bit of Slipknot but… I think mainly
it’s not influences in what I do with Heaven Bleeds, but influences as
far as what got me into these types of music. I started with soft bands
like The Offspring, and I really liked the way they did their lyrics.
Then I got into heavier bands because I wanted things that were a bit
more distorted and faster. Then with Corey Taylor [Slipknot] he’s a bit
more tapped so I kind of related to that.
Then I met Dan and he’s like ‘Here’s Beserker, here’s Circle Of Dead
Children, and now I’m into really deep and hard music.
DAN: I think what stops Heaven Bleeds from being boring is that we don’t
have a collected influence, but more individual influences that help
bring it all together. Like you mentioned Matt’s influences, then
there’s me who’s just into the all-out ‘smash-grind’, then there’s Keith
who’s a bit more ‘old skool’.
MATT: I think with Keith it’s good because he’s got the old school. Lars
[Ulrich, Metallica] is a big hero of yours, isn’t he?
KEITH: Him and Dave Lombardo [Slayer] but then he’s really good at
playing the death-grind stuff too.
What do you make of the current trends in music in general?
MATT: Death metal’s definitely on its way back.
DAN: I don’t think it ever went it kind of just became a sleeping dog..
MATT: It went underground. Very underground.
DAN: The thing is though with Napalm [Death], the way they’ve been put
on a mainstream label like Century Media, and The Haunted have followed.
MATT: I mean, you had Slipknot, who were the first mainstream band of
their type, but now you hear a bit more of things like The Haunted.
DAN: The Haunted were around before Slipknot.
MATT: No, but you see them more now thanks to what Slipknot have done.
We’ve always stayed with the stuff that’s more underground though, and
that’s where we get our sound from.
DAN: We’ve got a lot really harsh grind, but we’ve got a clean mix on it
so that you can hear the click drums and stuff. You listen to ‘Scum’ by
Napalm Death and that’s a really flat recording, but you listen to our
stuff and it’s definitely influenced by them, but with more modern
recording.
You mention Napalm Death quite a bit, would you say they’re the key
influence on what you do?
DAN: Definitely. I mean, I write the stuff. I write all the guitar and
then pass it on to these two to finish. SO the whole song is based upon
what I’ve done. So they key influence always starts with me.
MATT: For me, there’s a lot of the stuff from Slipknot that influences
me, but the grind comes from Circle Of Dead Children with some really
beasty vocals and stuff. But Napalm are definitely the gods.
DAN: They are. That’s what they’re dubbed – ‘The godfathers of grind.’
Have you picked up a good following then since you’ve been going?
DAN: Yeah, we must have. I mean, 1121 [On Myspace] last time I looked.
MATT: We do have some personal fans who we know, but they always bring
more people who they know, so it keeps on spreading.
DAN: I know our name’s getting about though because my mate’s dad works
at Preston Uni. and somebody mentioned us to him.
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So if all those 1000 and odd Myspace friends read The LINC, what would
you want to say to them?
MATT: Thanks for taking the time to listen to us.
DAN: And we hope you didn’t just add us to make your friends-list
bigger! Seriously though, thanks for taking interest, come down and see
us.
MATT: It’s not as if we just do our gig and disappear, we’ll be hanging
about afterwards, come over and chat, we’d love to know what you
thought.
DAN: Look out for a new recording around December time.
And to the people who haven’t already heard you?
MATT: Get listening!
DAN: If you see a flyer, come down and see us.
MATT: We’ll put on a good show for you, so just come down and check us
out!
For more on Heaven Bleeds, check out
www.heavenbleeds.com or
www.myspace.com/heavenbleeds. Read a review of the Wigan noisemakers in
the winter edition of The LINC.
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