Our regular run-down of as many of the Bloodstock bands as we can get to talk to us! Burner play the Sophie Lancaster stage on the Friday…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We’re a South London band mostly, although I’m the only one originally from here. Our vocalist Harry is a West Yorkshire boy, bassist Finn is from the west coast of Ireland, and drummer Jack is from Wokingham, but we’re all in or around London these days.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
Our original drummer Harry and I first started rehearsing in early 2019 after meeting through Facebook on one of those “ my band” sort of FB groups. Finn then ed around a year later after auditioning a few bassists. Covid hit around then so we took the opportunity to write and record as much as we could, then Jack ed us late 2022. We played our first show at the start of 2022 so only really a couple of years performing together.
Where does the name of the band come from?
It comes from the Dillinger Escape Plan song, “Crossburner”. Dillinger were quite a big initial influence on us so we figured it made sense as our little way of paying homage.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
This is a tricky one! Without wanting to sound too pretentious, we’ve never really tried to sound like anything, fit into a specific genre or alongside any other bands, we’ve just written music that we love and that makes sense to us all as musicians and music fans, first and foremost. We’re often told we do a good job of fitting lots of different sub-genres and styles into one cohesive sound, from death and black metal to hardcore, mathcore, doom, grindcore to name a few. We like to think we’ve merged those influences and styles in a way that doesn’t really sound too similar to any other band out there, but I’d say a big reason for that is because we try not to force anything when writing, we just do what sounds and feels good to us, try to be as authentic as possible, and thankfully fans have connected with our music in an incredibly positive and rewarding way for both parties.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
Energetic, chaotic and no nonsense. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into being a very tight unit as a live band and sounding as ‘big’ as possible but not at the expense of natural musicality and that live energy so many metal fans crave. We always do our best to squeeze as many songs into our set as possible with little time for breaks, so you get your money’s worth from us! Playing back into our way of fitting lots of styles into our music, we try to mirror that in our live set, so we do believe there’s a bit of something for any heavy music fan in there.
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Have you played Bloodstock before? If so, when?
Nope, this is our first time and we couldn’t be more stoked for it!
How/when did you find out that you’d be playing the SOPHIE stage?
When we first got the offer through, maybe around November last year, we couldn’t believe it. Bloodstock was of course a big goal for us but we weren’t expecting the offer so soon in our career, and to play on such an iconic stage for metal music is truly an honour that we’re extremely grateful for. I chatting with a friend who was playing the Ronnie James Dio stage last year and he said he could see us playing the Sophie stage in a year or two. I thought maybe he was just being nice but I guess he was right!
What sort of setlist can we expect?
A good bit of everything we offer, songs from our debut album, It All Returns to Nothing and a fewfrom our previous EP, A Vision of The End. It’s heavy and it’s fast but we like to throw a few atmospheric and melancholy moments in there to help cleanse the riff palate.
Stage times haven’t been announced yet, so which other band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?
Let’s just say we’re all very excited for the Hatebreed, Clutch and Opeth triple bill on the Friday…
What are you working on at the moment?
We’ve got a couple of exciting things in the works. Nothing we can reveal just yet, but after a good year or so of not writing any new music, we’re back in the swing of things and may have something new to show sooner than you might think.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
I’m the sort of stand at the back and nod along kind of old man so nothing too wild from me, but we did have a pretty wild time playing Boom in Leeds a couple of years ago. Kids were back-flipping off the raised up sound desk into the pit, in what was maybe the hottest room I’ve ever been in, so that was pretty fun!
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
A lovely ice cold bottle of still mineral water. We’re not really the type of band to get too messed up at our shows. Harry is straight-edge and there’s always one or two of us driving so we tend to stick with the alcohol-free beers. Clear Head from Bristol Beer Factory is a particularly tasty low alcohol IPA if you can find it.
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[…] Burner played the SOPHIE stage at Bloodstock last year and prowled the smaller stage at The Catty as if they were back in Derbyshire. No holds […]