As ever, we’re going to try and cover every single Jäger, New Blood and SOPHIE stage band before Bloodstock kicks off on August 10th. Your chance to check them out and start planning which bands to get there early for!
Trust us when we tell you that this is bound to result in some frustrating clashes because, as ever, there are some great bands on these three stages.
Our thanks to all the bands for taking the time out to answer our questions!
Ramage Inc. – Sophie Lancaster Stage, Thursday
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
Edinburgh, Scotland.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
Four and a half years as this lineup.
Where does the name of the band come from?
The surname of our frontman, Bryan Ramage. The “Inc.” part, to us, is just a more formal way of saying “and pals”.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We aren’t a typical heavy band and don’t really fit entirely into one specific genre. We tell people it’s a prog metal band for simplicity but there are elements of loads of different genres in our sound ranging from classical orchestral parts to proper world music vocal sections. We keep melody throughout but the main core of our sound is modern metal, though, with a slab of EPIC.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
We have fun playing live and we don’t hide it but our primary focus is production. We want each show to sound and look the best it possibly can and we go to great efforts to make that so. We often have to argue with people to get to bring one of our sound engineers with us to a show. For us, the guy behind the console knowing the music and how it should sound is equally as important as the guitars being in tune. We hope people leave our gig saying “Holy crap, why doesn’t every band sound that good?”
Have you played Bloodstock before? If so, when?
We have, we played the New Blood Stage as winners of Metal 2 The Masses Glasgow in 2016, which was awesome! It’s a huge honour to be invited back to play again on an even more prestigious stage.
How/when did you find out that you’d be playing the SOPHIE stage?
We found out we were playing on Tuesday the 23rd of May at 09:53am. Our manager sent us a message asking if we were all free the 10th of August and that could mean only one thing…
What sort of setlist can we expect?
We like to give everyone a mix of old stuff and new stuff in our set. For people who have never heard us before they get a good idea of the range of sounds we make and our existing fans get a bit of both albums to enjoy, loud.
Which main stage band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?
We’re actually really lucky in that respect as we are playing on the Thursday night to open the festival, so there are no bands we will clash with so nobody has an excuse not to come bang their heads with us! Over the weekend though, we are looking forward to checking out Soilwork, Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Megadeth, Skindred and our pals in Torqued, Courtesans and Scottish buddies BloodThread.
What are you working on at the moment? Can we look forward to a follow-up to Earth Shaker soon?
We’ve got a lot of summer shows and have just come back from playing a couple of shows in Poland. We also have a new album in the works right just now. It’s well on the way to completion and should be ready to decimate your chosen speaker system before the end of the year. We wouldn’t call it a follow up to Earth Shaker, though, as it is a very different beast with a wide variety of heaviness – keeping it diverse, you could say.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done on tour?
After a festival gig in the Netherlands, some fans challenged Hammy and Hef to a drinking competition. Neither backed down and there were no winners.
Finally: Jager, Hobgoblin Ale, Kraken, Kingstone Press Cider, Kaltenberg Beer or Bulleit Bourbon? And, yes, we’ll be counting all the votes!
Hobgoblin Ale.
Ramage Inc.: facebook | twitter | youtube
