Our regular run-down of as many of the Bloodstock bands as we can get to talk to us! LOKUST play the New Blood stage on the Friday…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
If only it was that simple! We’re based primarily in London but our singer Alex is Northern Irish / Portuguese, guitarist Alexy is Lebanese, bassist Patryk is Polish, drummer Euler is Portuguese / Brazilian and guitarist Jeremy is English.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
Jeremy and Alexy formed the band in 2017, although the lineup was only completed in 2021. We’ve had quite an unorthodox process of getting to where we are currently as a band, and we’ve spent a lot of time getting certain pieces in place before wanting to release any completed music. Bloodstock will only be our 2nd show as a full band but through the intense recording process and all the rehearsing we’ve been doing, we feel more than ready for it.
Where does the name of the band come from?
LOKUST was the working title of a demo song that Alexy had written years ago – without really knowing what it referred to or what a locust was – and in amongst the maddening process of searching for the right band name, we ended up liking the aggressive phonetics and decided it was best to go with something organic that sonically and visually fit the music, and not getting too caught up in overthinking the meaning.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Our music is very kinetic – almost all of our songwriting focus is based around momentum and impact, tension and release. We’re happy to make things quite uncomfortably tense before offering any resolution, where we feel a lot of bands try to “trim the fat” a lot and make their music as digestible as possible, we don’t mind making you work for it, haha.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
As mentioned previously, it’s still very early days for LOKUST as far as gigs go – we have our first show coming up on the 3 August in London to celebrate the release of our new album INFIDEL, and then Bloodstock a week later. I think the allure of seeing us live will draw from exactly that kind of raw realness. Our set at Bloodstock won’t be as polished as many of the other bands but I think there will be a very human sense of catharsis as a result.
Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?
Most of us have been before, playing in different bands and as fans, and we love the atmosphere and the feeling of it being a very fundamentally metal festival. We know we’ll always run into friends and people with a similar mentality.
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Which M2tM region did you win, or did you come through other channels?
LOKUST didn’t take part in M2tM but some of our have been involved in it (judging a few of the heats etc) and the Bloodstock team have been very ive of our band for the last few years and believed in us enough to put us on the lineup in of our new album INFIDEL.
Can you put into 10 words or fewer how it felt when you realised you were heading to Bloodstock?
Time to put the last few years to the test.
What sort of setlist can we expect?
We have a couple of songs on INFIDEL that have a bit more dynamics or melodic aspects and we’ve decided to leave all that out of our Bloodstock set and instead pack as much carnage into 30 mins as we can. We can’t wait.
Which other bands do you most hope you’re not squished up next to so you can see them play?
We’re all massive fans of Meshuggah and Decapitated, who are luckily on different days to us so we’ll be front and centre for them. On Friday, we’re hoping we don’t clash with Fit for an Autopsy, we’re definitely keen to watch their set.
What are you working on at the moment?
We’ve been working pretty flat out on preparing to release our debut album INFIDEL and everything that goes with that. Now that it’s nearly out we’ve been focusing on the live aspects, doing a lot of rehearsing and refining the gear / technical side of the live show. We’ve got about half of the next album written too, but that’s taken a backseat for the time being but we’ll probably continue writing once we’re back from Bloodstock!
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
A show in a biker bar in Sheffield comes to mind, where the final entertainment for the night after all the bands played was a male stripper. Unfortunately I guess it was quite tight for time, so we had to literally pack down our drums and amps around this dude doing the helicopter into a silk sheet…
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
In all honesty, we prefer to get the drinks down after we play – there’s something satisfying about interfacing so directly with not only the audience and each other onstage, but the music as well. After the gig you’ll probably catch us with some cheap whiskey not too far out of reach however.
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