The Black Procession Tour - Bleeding Through
We caught up with the metal gang on their current UK tour.
Portrait image for Rocklouder © Simon Keitch Photography
A siege of metal fans from the length and breadth of Devon and Cornwall have taken hold of the sleepy southwest city of Plymouth as the megalith of Machine Head’s 'The Black Procession Tour' rolls its mighty wheels into town. Bringing the excellent Bleeding Through and Hatebreed along for the ride, we thought the noisy package tour would be too good an opportunity to miss, so we sent Rocklouder's David Neal to have a chat with each of the bands in turn. First up: Bleeding Through!
Previously — Machine Head / Hatebreed
Marta Peterson (Keyboards) – Bleeding Through
You’ve toured the UK a number of times now; would you say there’s a major difference between your European and American fans?
Well, I’d say our UK fans are more similar to our US fans than maybe mainland Europe. The fans here are fabulous and gung-ho about whatever band they like and seem to be very devoted for sure.
Is there a difference between the UK and European fans then?
Absolutely, I think we have more fans in the UK than mainland Europe so in numbers alone there’s that difference and the press have been really good to us over here also which has some influence on how we’re received. Just on this tour France has started to be a decent crowd for us where other places have taken longer with the language barrier being a big thing to overcome for some bands. The UK is more on a par with the US as far as Bleeding Through’s popularity goes where as Europe is maybe behind the times, it’s a different world.
With the continued progression from album to album, do you feel a little frustrated that Bleeding Through hasn’t become bigger, quicker?
Yes and no. I think we’ve always been pleased that we’ve just been able to continue to tour, I think that’s a blessing. It would be nice to continue to grow but I don’t think any of us would ever wish for overnight success. Brandon (schieppati, vocals) has said this before and it’s a good way to put it, ‘When you’re t the top all you can do is go down.’
Is the new album almost finished?
Yes, it’s done. The artwork is still being worked on but the music is done.
So what's been the hardest album to write so far?
Well, for me it was the first one I was on, ‘The Truth’, because it was my first experience with writing and recording with the band. The new one and ‘Declaration’ both came together easily. With both of those albums the band were ready to write, ready to put all of ourselves into it so I think that given enough time away from writing an album, Bleeding Through has always been ready to write, and it’s not a difficult process for us.
Bleeding Through has yet to have a Machine Head-esque explosion yet, maybe due to the fact that with the innovation and originality of each new album you continue to be slightly ahead of the scene. What do you think?
Well, thank you, but with us it’s not that we’ve ever found our niche but that we’ve never pigeonholed ourselves into one kind of band and with every album we’ve taken on new sounds and combined these to figure out what Bleeding Through is. With our earlier years we would try this and try that, but now we have a solid grip of what our sound is. We like thrash, we like black metal and a lot of bands like to stick to one category and while we respect that, we enjoy combining it all.
‘The Truth’ was a slightly more accessible album than previous efforts and it paid dividends with Bleeding Through gaining air time and access to a wider fan base. However, the hardcore fan cried foul with this new direction. ‘Declaration’, a brutal monster of an album seemed a reaction to this. Is the new album a continuation of this sound?
It’s more along the lines of ‘Declaration’ than ‘Truth’ but we’ve always written for ourselves more than for the wider scope of a fan base. We don’t really sacrifice our sound by wanting to get more fans or appeal to a wider audience. We will write what we want to write. We listen to ourselves and maybe fellow musicians and will trust that over someone who maybe doesn’t even fucking play music.
Is there great expectation within the band for the new album?
I think we’re just impressed and pleased with how it turned out. It’s good to be on Rise records in the US and it’s good to be back on Roadrunner over here.
Last question. What's the track ‘The Loving Memory of England’ on ‘Declaration’ about?
Well, Brandon writes the lyrics but from what I know we came over here for the ‘This is Love, This is Murderous’ tour with Sick of it All for six weeks and our first tour in England, and it was really tough. We toured in a van, had nowhere to stay overnight, it was winter and we weren’t being received very well... it was kind of a painful tour and disheartening. Every day was playing in front of people who weren’t interested and we had no idea where we were sleeping or when we were going to eat. It was grey, cold, we were sick, tired and hungry and it was a struggle, and it was just sort of crushing, so that song is a reflection of that.
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