It’s that time of year again, when in the run-up to Bloodstock we endeavour to interview every band gracing the SOPHIE, New Blood and Jägermeister stages from 8th – 11th August 2019. This means you’ve got a chance to read up on all your favourite bands set to play over the weekend and decide which new ones you’ll want to check out.
As ever, we’re predicting some horrible clashes because, true to form, there are some great bands across all three stages so you should start planning who you want to see.
Our thanks to all the bands / artists for taking the time out to answer our questions!
Saurr – New Blood Stage, Friday
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We’re all from the North West. Our singer is from Bolton, our guitarist and drummer are from Wigan and our bassist is from St Helens.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
We’ve all been playing as Saurr since 2016 but our guitarist, drummer and bassist have been playing together for years as they’ve been in bands throughout college and university, sticking together as a unit and just moving from band to band. After meeting Rob and playing together for his solo project for a few years they all decided to start something new, and so Saurr was born.
Where does the name of the band come from?
We were in the process of writing music and came across a Scandinavian legend which told the story of a dog (called Saurr) which was named king and was eventually torn apart by wolves after trying to defend a herd of royal cattle. There’s more to the story but we don’t want to bore you! We just thought it was really interesting and that name just resonated with us so we thought it would be a perfect band name!
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Our music consists of hard-hitting guitar parts, aggressive bass and drums and powerful vocals all backed by atmospheric synths. We combine influences from bands such as Gojira, Periphery, Machine Head, Slipknot, and many more. It is these influences and our finely crafted blend of progressive and groove metal that make our sound unique and unlike anything else that will be heard at Bloodstock.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
Anyone who is looking for an energetic, engaging and atmospheric performance, with musicianship to match, should certainly come and check out our set. We put everything into our performance and just have a blast on stage. We always make sure the crowd has just as much fun as we do. Can’t wait to see you all in the pit!
Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?
Yes, it was amazing! Our singer watched Gojira in 2016 and our bassist and drummer watched them when they headlined last year. They all said it was one of the best gigs they had been to and were blown away by the experience. The sound was incredible, the crowd were absolutely mental and we can’t wait to do it again this year!
Which M2tM region did you win, or did you come through other channels?
We won the Manchester M2tM region at Rebellion.
Can you put into 10 words or fewer how it felt when you realised you were heading to Bloodstock?
We were in complete shock, we just couldn’t believe it!
What sort of setlist can we expect?
We’ll be playing a mixture of songs from our debut EP and our EP which is due to release later this year. Musically it’s quite a varied set as there’s a mixture of massive riffs and melodic clean sections so there’s something for everyone!
Which other bands do you most hope you’re not squished up next to so you can see them play?
Since we’re playing on the Friday, we’re hoping we don’t clash with Tesseract and fortunately we’ll get to see Footprints in the Custard and Barbarian Hermit who are both bands we’ve played with regularly at Rebellion in Manchester. Once our set is done, we’ll probably check out a lot of the other bands who made it to the New Blood stage over the course of the weekend.
What are you working on at the moment?
We’re currently working on new merchandise for the festival as well as working on our next EP Twisted which should be out later this year.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
The Metal 2 the Masses final at Rebellion was pretty mental to be honest! The crowd was full of so much energy, we’d never seen anything like it! It can get pretty crazy on stage as well as we tend to have a good bounce around which can lead to a headstock to the face occasionally!
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
It’s usually some form of ale…maybe a Newkie Brown, something from Brewdog or, of course, a cheeky Hobgoblin!
Saurr: facebook
